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I believe I experienced great PRAT for the first time

Pace, Rhythm and Timing - I've often heard about it, mainly in the context of certain turntables, but I don't think I've really experienced it in a highly satisfactory way until today when I mounted my new Soundsmith Hyperion, an upgrade from my Sussorro. Halfway through side two of Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium, it suddenly dawned on me that there was more going on than improvements in clarity, detail, neutrality, bass punch and other rather specific traits that I've until this point used to refer to what I'm hearing. For the first time in the 30 years I've had this album, I was struck by a sense of flow, ease, relaxation, and my feet were tapping! Yes, this must be it. I connected with the music at a higher level just now, something new to me. Get all the details correct, and the PRAT appears in front of you. So, this was nothing to do with the fact that my turntable runs at the correct speed with low W/F, as it was performing well at that before. I had assumed that's what PRAT meant. Perhaps it means that too, in a speed stability sense.

earthtones
lewm
13,107 posts
 

And the turntable. It’s telling that Phoenix is driving the motor.

dayglow
1,912 posts
 

Marketing term or not it’s a viable adjective to describe the sound of a high end system. One reason why the Rega P9/RB1000(2012) is the oldest component in my system.

lewm
13,107 posts
 

It’s certainly viable, just like any other adjective we care to use to describe our subjective impression of how a system or a component may sound to us. Such adjectives are most meaningful when the other guy was in the same room with you at the same time listening to the same music.

earthtones OP
110 posts
 

Measured wow/flutter, according to multiple trials with Analog Magic, is around .06%. This is a decent figure for sure, but to improve it I suspect I’d need to overhaul the bearing, which I’m not willing to do at this point. The next upgrade will be a new table. 

williewonka
3,075 posts
 

From @lewm ’s post above

Excuse me, but wasn’t it Tiefenbrun’s (Linn’s) point that turntables create PRAT, not cartridges or anything else in the signal path.

So does this mean digital music does not have any PRAT?

Mine does!

  • bags of it, but it was all due to my cables.
  • Granted a good cartridge/TT combo will "contribute",
  • but for me, cables were the turning point

Now my digital rig is equally as good as my analogue rig - or vice versa :-)

And for me - it was the cables that did it !

But please let's not turn this thread into a Analogue vs Digital debate

I like analogue as much as the next guy

But for me - PRAT is the manner in which the system delivers the music 

  • it can be dependent on any component or cable
  • for me PRAT is the sum of the following
    • dynamic performance of the system
    • the clarity, which can contribute to the sense of space of the image
    • the artist placement within the image due to "time-aligned" left and right channels being "right"
    • and those those tiny details that make the venue come alive alive - what I call venue acoustics

 

Just an observation

Enjoy the music - Steve

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