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3 New UBER Decks - Is this Turntable's SwanSong? 🦢

Michael Fremer has recently reviewed three new turntables designed to be the 'Last Word', 'Cost no Object' STATEMENTS!!!!........Do I recall hearing this claim before??
I love Mikey and have followed (and trusted) him for decades.
He has been the longest and foremost published 'champion' of the superiority of vinyl (uber alles) in the world.
I am thus ecstatic that he has been able to listen and compare these decks in his own room, with his own equipment virtually side-by-side
It's almost a 'given' that he will be the ONLY person on earth given that privilege....

So what Mikey HEARS.....is indisputable

Given his 'character' and desire for accuracy and honesty.....years ago, Mikey started including some 'objective' measurements in his turntable reviews.
These measurements were done utilising the Dr Feikert PlatterSpeed App which has since been discontinued.
As the App only worked with the Mac iOS of many variations ago.....Mikey has kept an old iPhone which can still operate the App.
The PlatterSpeed App had a few technical limitations.....
Foremost amongst these, was its dependence on a 7" record with an embedded 3150 Hz Frequency track to produce a test-tone which the App could process through its algorithm to produce the graphs and all the corresponding numbers.
To stamp hundreds of 7" discs with perfectly 'centred' HOLES is a nigh impossibility.
It's almost impossible to do it with a 12" disc!!!

This means that ALL the figures produced in their Chart Info are dubious and mostly UNREPEATABLE!!!!
I have Chart Infos for the same turntable/arm combination but with the 7" disc moved slightly producing different figures.
I even have Chart Infos produced with the same turntable but different arms ALL with different figures (the arms are in different positions surrounding my TURNTABLE).

So what is my point......?
The GRAPH produced with the PlatterSpeed App is accurate and USEABLE when looking at the 'Green' Lowpass-Filtered Frequency.
If the hole was PERFECTLY centred.....this 'Green' line would be perfectly STRAIGHT......but only if the turntable was maintaining its speed PERFECTLY.
The wobbles in the 'Green' line are due to the hole's eccentricity as well as any speed aberrations.
So the best performing turntables are those with the most constant and even wobbles approaching as closely as possible a STRAIGHT LINE.

Now the SAT Direct Drive Motor is actually the same as Technics developed for their latest SL-1000R except with some bespoke modifications.
It appears that SAT have corrupted what is a very good DD Motor unit....🥴

Mikey says that the OMA-K3 produced the best PlatterApp figures of any turntable he has tested 👏
Does this mean that the OMA-K3 is the most accurate turntable of these three decks.....or maybe of ALL turntables?

Mikey can't (and won't) test and review products from the past which are no longer produced because that's not his job!
But wouldn't it be great if someone WOULD review products from the past against the modern equivalent?
Classic turntables with reputations....gravitas...like the legendary EMT 927 and Micro Seiki SX-5000 and SX-8000.
And what about the NOW lauded Japanese DD Turntables from the '80s...the 'Golden Age' of Analogue?
  • Technics SP-10Mk3
  • Kenwood L-07D
  • Pioneer P3
  • Victor TT-101
  • Yamaha GT-2000
Because we know that Direct Drive is now 'Flavour of the Month' for the new Uber Decks due to their superior speed accuracy....a 'Flavour' that started with the legendary Rockport Sirius III.
But what about Belt-Drive units like my 20 year-old Raven?
So much for science and technology.......

We can do things today that were only dreamt of even 10 years ago
Except learn from history, harvest experience, expertise and craftsmanship......

Here endeth the Sermon for today 🤗


128x128halcro
arcticdeth's avatar
arcticdeth
1,572 posts
 
Technics SL-1200 MK7

   Will last 40 years with minimal maintenance,....yes please. 
   The asking prices for those TTs’ is just astronomical, and overpriced.  Search most expensive audio gear, some of this stuff is mind blowing. 
 
Ag insider logo xs@2x
rauliruegas
13,103 posts
 
Dear @mijostyn : Then probably have to return all your  LPs:

""  One thing to note is that there is nothing to prevent the eccentricity to be different on the two sides of the record. For example, the record may be perfectly centered on one side but off on the other, or it may be off on both sides but in different directions. ""

What do you think on that?. I found it somewhere.

Btw,:

https://blog.fluance.com/off-center-pressings-on-vinyl-lps-what-is-it-and-how-can-you-correct-it/

Now, in the past I bougth an item to " fix " manually the LP off-center and it works fine. I still have it somewhere and I remember that fix it but you need time/patience to do it and in those times I was more or less ignorant of the developed distortions by the off-center LP hole and a little lazy to fix it. The seller disappeared in short time.

R.
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
@lewm, I know this is anecdotal but here in Salem, NH we have a great media store, Bullmoose Records. They stock new records and I have never had a problem returning defective records. I buy many records on line. Elusive disc is always very accommodating and as a matter of fact replaced a copy of Weather Report's Mysterious Travelers because it was drilled off center. They also pack their records really well unlike Amazon who just throws them in a box and many get damaged. I try not to buy records from Amazon for this reason. Bandcamp is another interesting site to buy music from. I have had no problems with Acoustic Sounds. I do not buy used LPs and have no interest in it.

halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
A far more accurate and useful metric of the speed accuracy of a TT is to simply look at the raw yellow trace, ignoring the numbers. How close is it to the ideal symmetrical, clean, constant amplitude, sine wave?
You mean like THIS???? 
richardkrebs
422 posts
 
Yes.;
The Yellow trace is a a long way away from the ideal sine wave, its pretty messy. This TT is not micro speed stable. 
As I implied before, on average it takes 1.8 seconds to complete a single revolution ( 33.333 rpm) so the filtered Green trace is nice, but not a robust measure of what is going on inside each revolution.   

BTW the TT-101 is one of the TT's that has the subsonic resonance. It takes heavy duty real-time computing power to eliminate this. Maybe it was available back then but probably not in a device that was economically viable. 

Cheers.  

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