What is turntable “liveliness”.

The only sound turntables make that I am aware of are distortion in the form of wow and flutter and noise in the form of rumble and hum .

Otherwise anything you hear off the source material at hand comes from the cartridge and how it interacts with the tonearm. That is a combo of signal noise and distortion that can vary as well.

Put that all together and some setups may be more resolving and dynamic which I suppose could result in what could be called “liveliness” if one chooses, But otherwise it is merely a subjective adjective applied to what one hears and could mean anything to anyone.  A good setup would tend to be more lively sounding I would say.  

It's impossible to "prove" either side of this debate, because there is a subjective element that cannot be removed from the equation, although I don't know that intrinsic SQ differences among turntables (excluding the obvious differences among tonearm/cartridge pairings) that I and others hear could not be measured, if one knew what to measure.  As things stand, we can agree to disagree.

@mapman

Thank you. Yes, “may be more resolving and dynamic”. That sounds like the gist of the term. And something a little different than what I heard. Thank you for your thoughts on the subject, that is what I was eliciting.

Dear @ghdprentice @lewm and friends: @ossicle2brain posted:

" Turntables have no sound. " in theory I agree because if the main target in any TT is to spin with accurate speeds it’s true too that that sensitive microphone name it cartridge pick up any TT self developed resonance/vibration/noise ( no matters where coming. ) and all those TT developments not only affect to the cartridge it self but in other way too the tonearm and in between these 3 items combination send by the IC cable the " whole " signal to the phono stage.

The relationship between those rig links is full of feedback in between and we have not forget the close relationship between the TT platter/mat with with the LP and the stylus tip tracking where exist a feedback from that platter/mat that the disturb the the cantilever/stylus movements and that feedback change inside each track due that the groove modulations during play back are different for the stylus tip.

Nothing is perfect in the Audio world and certainly way imperfect in the analog audio.

Your " liveliness " is only what happens in your room/system and you can be sure that can’t be duplicated/mimic in other room/system with the same TT.

Too many parameters down there for we can aisle not the TT alone but any of those whole TT self vibrations/noise/resonances.

It’s almost useless a debate about.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

“Turntables have no sound” is the theoretical goal. But real world turntables don’t get there.