Why will no other turntable beat the EMT 927?

@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.

Pani, Which version of "Nantais Lenco" do you own?  I used to own one, too, and I used to follow Jean's meanderings on various websites.  He was or is constantly upgrading his ideas on how to improve the base table, so his work has a temporal quality to its quality. Mine was in a massive plywood plinth (I'd guess 50 to 75 lbs total weight) with the OEM Lenco metal chassis bolted directly into the plywood to dampen it.  Then I entered my "slate phase", in the early 2000s, and this led to my selling the Nantais Lenco.  I found an NOS Lenco and harvested only its motor, idler wheel, and platter.  I had a slate plinth cut for me and I mounted the motor on a PTP top plate, made by Peter Reinders, who is also a boon to Lenco-lovers.  The PTP is bolted firmly to the slate surface. I purchased a huge bearing from a guy in England, and I had the platter spray painted with a dampening paint, plus I took a cue from Win Tinnon and further dampened the platter with O-rings straddling the circumference,.  My slate slab weighs about 65 lbs. I did not try to devise a removable tonearm mount, so I use only surface mounted tonearms on the Lenco, specifically a Dynavector DV505.  The piece de la resistance was the addition of a Phoenix Engineering motor controller and Roadrunner.  I am not one to make definitive statements about one TT being better than another of my TTs, but this Lenco competes in every way with anything else I own.

I apologize for the question, because it is an obvious one, but in your comparisons among the tables you mention, were you using the same tonearm and cartridge in all cases, or even in some cases?  Thanks.