Why will no other turntable beat the EMT 927?

For all you posters discussing turntable speed accuracy It is not possible to measure wow & flutter using a test record.

If you use a rotary function generator to measure the turntable performance directly off the platter, the results will be more accurate than any test record.

For an explanation from someone who actually has a degree in physics and acoustical engineering - Bruce Thigpen of Eminent Technology.

Here is Bruces explanation from his Eminent Technology website.

Bruce has many patents and inventions including his unique air bearing tonearm, rotary subwoofer, vacuum platter as implenmented by SOTA, and many others.

Bruce Thigpen -

Reviewers have incorrectly attributed wow and flutter to the turntable. Since the advent of the belt drive turntable, wow and flutter has been purely a function of tonearm geometry, the phono cartridge compliance with the elastomeric damping, and surface irregularities in the LP. In our own lab we have measured many high quality turntables using a rotary function generator directly connected to the platters of the turntables.

The measured results are usually an order of magnitude better than the results using a tonearm and test record (conventional wow and flutter method). Further proof exists if you take two tonearms, one straight line and one pivoted and mount them both on the same turntable. The straight line tonearm will give a wow and flutter reading with the same cartridge/test record of about 2/3 to 1⁄2that of the pivoted arm (.03% < .07% to .05%). This is because the straight line tonearm has a geometry advantage and lateral motion does not result in stylus longitudinal motion along the groove of the record.

Another proof is to take two different cartridges, one high compliance and one low compliance, and take measurements with both using the same turntable and tonearm. The reading of wow and flutter will be different. All wow and flutter readings are higher than the rotational consistency of the turntable.

@lewm couple of things to clarify first.

1. The 927 is owned by my cousin and there we also compared it to Nantais Reference Lenco and Dr.Feickert Firebird. There was no DD in that room.

2. I had in my room, Technics SP10Mk2, Mk3, Nantais Reference Lenco & Loricraft Garrard 301 side by side for some time. Recently I had a EMT 938 (DD) in my room for a month.

3. I don’t like DDs. I am neutral towards EMT brand (unlilke fanboys). But in this hobby I always keep an open and honest mind to accept what is good about even things I hate.

So, a quick recap of what I said earlier. The Sp10 Mk2 is not in the same league as any of the other TTs in this discussion, simply because it doesnt have the macro dynamic range of others. It sounds small. The SP10 Mk3 approaches the idlers in dynamics and overall grandeur, has more resolution than Lenco and Garrard but sounds drier. I chose Nantais Lenco as the best of the lot. Quieter and more resolved than Garrard, More fluid, and approaches resolution of good DDs. The 938 which I heard recently is at SP10 Mk3 level, but less dry. If I have to choose a DD among all these, it will be 938.

Coming back to 927. In my cousin's room, it made the Lenco and Feickert sound ordinary, basic, nice but portable players. It had much more resolution than the $10k Feickert, much better micro dynamics than any TT under 30k I have till this date. Macro dynamics is final level, you cannot expect anything more. It live size, full range sound, like the best horn speakers give you. Tone is perfect, no coloration, PRAT is exact, no distortion, soundstage width and depth is panoromic. These things are not easy to explain. One may think many TTs do it. But when you hear it all put together with the most natural high resolution balance, you know it is the END.

BTW, I am using Nantais Lenco as my primary TT.

@dover I had heard about Final Audio TT but didnt know Kondo Ginga is a copy. Cheap copy? I can’t say. There was nothing cheap about it. It was the only other TT apart from 927 for which I felt I should earn more. Unfortunately Kondo made only 30 of them because the cost of production was too high and its $120k price tag, they didnt have the sales team to move it. And what Karmeli said about Sp10Mk3 compared to this other TTs is very similar to what I am trying to say indirectly.

@pani

I pretty much agree with your descriptions of the sound of the TT’s.

As far as the Final goes, the original, which I have, was made using a super expensive material called superplastic zinc alloy ( SPZ ). This material was developed in Japan in the 1970’s for earthquake proofing buildings - it is a metal like material that has superplasticity at room temperature and any vibration between 10hz and 100hz is absorbed and dissipated by grain sliding within the material molecular structure - in other words vibrations at these frequencies disappear. The material is no longer available, it was too expensive to produce.You can hear the benefit - this turntable has the least smearing of notes of any TT that I have heard.

Here’s the family history I posted on youtube

The second generation ( silver chassis ) has a lesser bearing and aluminium chassis instead of the SPZ. The Kondo is better than the second generation but not as good as the original. On my VTT1 ( 2nd TT in the video with the FR64S attached ) the motor is driven off of a separate power amplifier that is driven off the sine/cosine wave generator sitting next to the motor.

Very very interesting @dover , a video with the TT playing would be lovely :-)

@pani 

Yes I plan to later this year - I'm in the process of moving.