Hi Raul, from a quick Google: "scully lathes where made by larry scully. most of them where made in the 40ies and there are still lot of them working. nicely made. optical much more exciting than a neumann the quality was never comparable. althought most of todays "audiophile" records where cut on these lathes.
nice feature of the 1940ies scullys is the inside out leadscrew. you have 2 leadscews. one for cut normal and one for inside out cuts...
the first lathes where all fixed pitch with a gear box. lather models ha a very complicated "vary-groove" mechanism where tube electronics controlled a strange mechanism to varie the pitch.
the biggest disadvantage on scully lathes was the belt driven turntable. with a asynchrounous motor, 2 belts and a heavy clutch the turntable was never that strong and stable.."
Emphasis on "although most of todays "audiophile" records were cut on these lathes." Evidently the cutting lathe technology is no way to tell which is the superior system.
Direct drive is a recent development, early cutting lathes (used to produce records we still listen to and value) used motor-driven gears as well, and its use today in making master discs does not enlighten as to which is the superior system overall, given the presence of assumptions, and the need for the ability to minutely variate the speed of the cutting motor/platter: "Between 1953 and 1955, Neumann developed a method of varying the groove pitch depending on the recorded amplitude. To this end, an additional playback head was mounted on the tape deck. This additional playback head determined the groove amplitude to be recorded approximately one half-rotation of the turntable in advance and fed this value to the cutting lathe as a control signal via a corresponding drive amplifier. Of course, this also required a separately variable pitch drive. For the first time, this made it possible to extend the playing time of an LP phonograph record to approx. thirty minutes."
In playback speed stability in practice, not the ability to vary the speed to accomodate the creation of groove modulations in cutting grooves, is the key. The problem of distortion-inducing vibration/noise is a given and it is the responsibility of the purchaser to correctly set-up any turntable, belt-drive, DD or Idler, suspended or unsuspended, there is no magic bullet. Apparently Van den Hul has his turntable set-up on a concrete pillar sunk deep into the ground! The best way to determine speed stability given the problem of which measurements are meaningful, is the human ear. Back to comparisons in front of witnesses, i.e. demonstrations! Theories must be tested to be verified - or discarded - and the human ear is the final arbiter.
Once again for the Gipper!:
"If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad;
if it measures bad and sounds good, you have measured the wrong thing."
- Daniel R. von Recklinghausen,
former Chief Research Engineer, H.H. Scott
nice feature of the 1940ies scullys is the inside out leadscrew. you have 2 leadscews. one for cut normal and one for inside out cuts...
the first lathes where all fixed pitch with a gear box. lather models ha a very complicated "vary-groove" mechanism where tube electronics controlled a strange mechanism to varie the pitch.
the biggest disadvantage on scully lathes was the belt driven turntable. with a asynchrounous motor, 2 belts and a heavy clutch the turntable was never that strong and stable.."
Emphasis on "although most of todays "audiophile" records were cut on these lathes." Evidently the cutting lathe technology is no way to tell which is the superior system.
Direct drive is a recent development, early cutting lathes (used to produce records we still listen to and value) used motor-driven gears as well, and its use today in making master discs does not enlighten as to which is the superior system overall, given the presence of assumptions, and the need for the ability to minutely variate the speed of the cutting motor/platter: "Between 1953 and 1955, Neumann developed a method of varying the groove pitch depending on the recorded amplitude. To this end, an additional playback head was mounted on the tape deck. This additional playback head determined the groove amplitude to be recorded approximately one half-rotation of the turntable in advance and fed this value to the cutting lathe as a control signal via a corresponding drive amplifier. Of course, this also required a separately variable pitch drive. For the first time, this made it possible to extend the playing time of an LP phonograph record to approx. thirty minutes."
In playback speed stability in practice, not the ability to vary the speed to accomodate the creation of groove modulations in cutting grooves, is the key. The problem of distortion-inducing vibration/noise is a given and it is the responsibility of the purchaser to correctly set-up any turntable, belt-drive, DD or Idler, suspended or unsuspended, there is no magic bullet. Apparently Van den Hul has his turntable set-up on a concrete pillar sunk deep into the ground! The best way to determine speed stability given the problem of which measurements are meaningful, is the human ear. Back to comparisons in front of witnesses, i.e. demonstrations! Theories must be tested to be verified - or discarded - and the human ear is the final arbiter.
Once again for the Gipper!:
"If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad;
if it measures bad and sounds good, you have measured the wrong thing."
- Daniel R. von Recklinghausen,
former Chief Research Engineer, H.H. Scott
