Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

And now for a tale of synergies and Deccas. Waaayyy back, in the days of the original thread, I had accidentally found that the JMW tonearm was a perfect match for the notorious Decca cartridges. For the first time in my experience, the Decca behaved perfectly with no mistracking or jumping out of grooves, at least almost perfectly, with possibly one album in my collection giving it problems.

Back then I had my vintage Sony TAE-5450 preamp (stellar, recently handily outperforming and displacing a heavily-modified Superphon Revelation Basic Dual Mono, itself a legendary '80s phono preamp), evidently an excellent match for the Decca. The POWER, and transient SPEED I heard then was awesome to beholdd, and I declared this the Best Combination in the world (Giant Lenco/JMW/Decca), being at the same time my discovery of the effects of increased mass, the first Giant Lenco I built at the request of Dave Pogue, to whom I owe TWO discoveries (Giant/Mass is Class and the JMW/Decca combination).

Now the Decca cartridges are Direct Scanning designs, meaning there is no suspension, the diamond being attached at one end of a bent piece of metal, the other end going directly to the magnets. This means direct communication of energy/information to the electrical generator (the moving magnets), which in turn means, in engineering terms, that it should (like the idler-wheel drive principle) be superior to the alternatives (standard suspension cartridges, which is everything else). But, the resulting tremendous energy of the Direct Scanning principle means Deccas will only perform up to spec on the appropriate tonearms (otherwise buzzing and mistracking and jumping about), which means fluid damping (I also got great results on a Maplenoll tonearm with damping trough in the Fab '80s). Recently, a Canadian audio magazine declared the "lower" Deccas (including the Super Gold) severely flawed and gave them a thumbs-down because they insisted on disregarding decades of collective Decca experience and using them in standard undamped captive-bearing tonearms.

Anyway, eventually I got an ARC SP8 preamp, which was fabulous, and then an Orotfon Jubilee to replace my extinct Kiseki Purpleheart Sapphire MC, and for the first time, in my system, I heard something which could beat the Decca, the JMW 10.5/Ortofon Jubilee combo. But now, I am back to a Sony preamp, the 2000F with swithcable MC and MM loading and two phono stages. On trying the JMW Decca Super Gold combo once again, I now hear the Decca far outstripping the JMW/Jubilee combo. Yet in another system the same week (Quad ESL 63s driven by tube electronics, and a Graham 2.2 Ceramic on a Giant Lenco) the story was precisely the reverse. Now that Graham/Decca combo sounded absolutely perfect in audio terms, but in my system it is Lighting and Thunder to a far greater degree, along with truly astonishing transparency and detail. Everything sounds so REAL, so palpable, so 3D!

I believe this is due not only to electronics which the Decca loves (vintage Sony), but also to the acoustic suspension Yamaha NS-690s (which I remind everyone belongs to the famed NS-1000 monitor line, haivng in fact deeper bass than the 1000s). I had also written way back in the Kundalini Effect days, that acoustic suspension speakers retrieve more of the Palbability Factor and Timing (PRaT) which is yet another aspect of the superiority of idler-wheel drives over the competition, due to their tighter and more responsive bass (also deeper bass for a given size, but with the penalty of reduced sensitivity).

Anyway, given a good acoustic suspension speaker and sympathetic electronics, the Lenco/JMW/Decca combination is once again at the Top of the Sonic Heap, providing truly unbelievable results, borderline vaporizing the Yamaha drivers!! This is not to say that the results are not stellar in other systems (the Decca handily outperformed a $3K MC in the Giant Lenco/Graham 2.2/tube/Quad '63 system), just that to hear what an idler/Decca can do an acoustic suspension design is way recommended!! This means too push-pull tube electronics, not single-ended (excepting certain particularly muscular single endeds as the Wyetech electronics) to drive these more difficult speakers.

I'll next try out the underrated AR2ax's, now that I have this fabulous Lenco/JMW/Decca combo singing once again!! WHAT fun!! Have fun out there all you idler users as well!! One discovery as well of all these tonearm/cartridge combos, was just how incredible the humble/budget Denon DL-103"E" (roughly $300 all told)sounded on the JMW, both super-smooth and slamming, and transparent as well! All you silent readers out there owe it to your Audio Happiness to get ye out and hear a properly set-up idler-wheel drive, but be prepared, as First Contact is often a severe psychological shock (can vinyl sound like THIS?!?!)! There's a reason the Idler-Wheel Movement is steadily gaining steam and adherents :-).

Please Johnnantais, do try the slatedeck diy tweak! and let me know what you personally think of it.... Giant killing on the cheap, in true Lenco Lovers tradition and spirit!! I posted a thread and pic on Lenco Lovers under 'slatedeck'

Hxt1, Which slatedeck are you using, the one made in the UK or the one made in Pennsylvania, USA? Neither is "cheap", as far as I know.

Lewm, I am using a DIY slatedeck, I had a 1" thick slab milled and polished as a top layer for my CLD plinth, and I am VERY happy with the results, to say the least!!! The guy from Wales jumped on the thread at Lenco Lovers to tell me why only Welsh slate sounds good, and he has to charge the prices he does to run a business, and put food on the table, and any other slate sounds like crap, because it is 'too soft' ( I guess wood plinths sound right horriffic if one applies THAT logic) and on and on he went, I said HOGWASH! And still do!
For (well) under $100, I had a beautiful slate slab custom made for my Lenco, and it sounds FANTASTIC!!!
http://www.lenco-lovers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2388&start=40

Hi Hxt1, thanks for the tip, there's nothing like trying something to see what it does, like the ceramic ball. Btw, how do you pronounce Hxt1 ;-)?

There are reasons I've steered clear of stone in the plinth, i.e. the "Hardness Factor", which means it is more reflective than absorptive (and so creates the illusion of detail rather than its natural and glorious reality), and it cannot in itself be Direct Couple-able, meaning screws cannot be sunk into the "meat" of the stone to drain noise away (and anyway, being so hard it would not absorb but instead tend to reflect noise back), as it can with wood products. However, bonded CLD-style to a plinth, screws can still be passed through the stone to the wood to reach the wood of the remains of the plinth. Perhaps you can organize having a slab sent my way via Canada Post so I can try it out and report on it.

In the meantime, before everyone rushes to slate (as some may have done with the ceramic ball bearings), be cautioned that hard materials (and this includes especially hard woods) may be doing the old audiophile "drain some of the bass frequencies away to unnaturally expose the mid and high frequencies Trick" to create the illusion of detail rather than the reality. I fell for this very recently with the ceramic ball bearing, first installing it in various systems, then being forced to return and remove them all once I realized what what really going on (i.e. de-testicularization of the Mighty Lenco). Your description on Lenco Lovers that surface noise is emphasized is a flagpost that this may, that's MAY (don't let me discourage you), be happening, as the larger the traditional CLD plinth ("traditional" being the now-common birch-ply/MDF recipe), the more effective the Direct Coupling and the less apparent the surface noise is, while the detail, transients, bass and high frequencies all continue to improve. Anyway, contact me, we'll organize shipping of a suitably-cut slab my way, and we'll subject it to the Jean Nantais Audio Laboratory (i.e., my hairy bat-like ears) and I'll report further.

Good news to all the Lenco Lovers out there, I've had occasion to listen to two Garrards (301 grease-bearing and 401 oil-bearing) Direct Coupled to Giant CLD plinths and compare them to similarly set-up Lencos, and both in excellent systems, one of them being way WAY beyond my means. Now as background, remember that Direct Coupling ANY idler-wheel drive works very well (and DDs too, as the slaughter of the Technics SP10 MKII by the Sony 2250 attests), in fact creating what may well be the best Garrard rebuilds currently available. So, I once again post the impressions of a complex low-mass Cain & Cain Garrard owner to set the stage/context: "Well, got the stock i/c on the Dyna, and not all tweaked yet, and nothing sitting on stand, without isolation, and it betters the Verdier/Koetu Urishi on a special Isolation stand...I am candidly surprised. I did not expect this. I had the the Cain and Cain plinth and it did not sound good. This is way above. The 301 is incredible in your plinth. It has only the inexpensive Denon 103 R and that is not redone yet...and only a stock cable and it is better by a long ways than the Verdier on a special isolation table. Next I will try the Koetsu in the arm....and in my best phono stage and see. Damn...don’t let this get out, or it will ruin the high end."

In more related news, before we get back to the subject, a former Shindo Garrard owner visited a friend of mine with a Giant Air-Bearing Lenco and was struck, while there, by the utter silence of both it and the Giant Direct Coupled Garrard which was also there. He said the Shindo was noisy. Now we know just how effective Direct Coupling to a Giant plinth really is in eliminating noise and excavating music, and also see an example of Price is the Product (which, being Unobtainium to most, engenders its own mythology, promoted by the owners in most cases, excepting this one) and Audio Bullshit. I reiterate: Russian birch-ply and MDF may not be exotic, but they are EXTREMELY effective, and tonally balanced and dynamically perfect, so much so in all audiophile areas that it is simply impossible to point to any flaws (which cannot be addressed by footers and platforms). Here's a VERY picky Russian birch-ply/MDF CLD Lenco owner with a truly high-end system looking for flaws: "The Lenco is sounding simply fabulous !! Absolutely the best LP reproduction I have owned. I spent quite a while getting everything dialed in and now think I'm realizing the full potential of the Giant Lenco. Bravo, Bravo !!" And later: "The Lenco continues to impress. I'm unable to identify any area where the performance is lacking, i.e.- no shortcomings have reared their ugly head(s) to disrupt my enjoyment of the Giant Plinth Lenco."

Anyway, the result of the visit of the former Shindo owner? The fellow bought that Lenco on the spot (don't despair Lenco Lovers, the friend is also replacing the air-bearing Lenco with a more traditional pivotted tonearm Lenco, "latest spec") with which he was enamoured to the point of Shindo and Giant Garrard invisibility. Now this is not to say that a properly-restored Garrard cannot beat the cr*p out of a multi-kilobuck belt-drive with one footer tied behind its back, just that, after all, there is an idler hierarchy, and that it appears - following as well the defeat of a mighty EMT 930 on Cyprus, fresh from full Restoration by three of Europe's leading analogue experts - that the Lenco occupies the Top of the Heap.

Why? I have repeatedly compared Lencos and Garrards, and in various systems, and have rebuilt and disassembled many Garrards, Thorenses and Lencos, and can now point to the issue of [true] torque vs inertia. Now everyone may know (or many anyway) that I detest the application of the philosophy of Political Correctness to engineering/science, i.e. that it has no place here. So, influenced by PC and tring to win popularity contest (be all things to all people, offer no judgments, offend no one), many constantly reiterate that all drive systems are equal (in the absence of actual experience or evidence), and that it is merely a matter of implementation. Baloney, Oops, I mean fine, I say, let's bring back the steam engine. It weighs about a 100 tons, takes forever to speed up to combustion engine speds, and to slow down due to its massiveness, and costs several millions of dollars to manufacture. A bit like a 150-pound belt-drive which sells for $50K-$100K. Engineering is about engineering to a PRICE, and if it takes a 100 grand belt-drive to equal a 10 grand idler machine (let's say the true cost of manufacturing a new true idler-wheel drive turntable and selling it), then the 10-grand idler is simply the superior technology (and despite the antiquated rubber wheel, it IS technology).

So, getting to the reasons why: inertia of a massive platter is NOT the same as torque, which is applied actively to achieve its ends, in this case to spin the platter. So, say, take a dinky little motor spinning at 300 RPM (low-torque) and use it to revolve an 80-pound platter on its axis (main bearing) via a flimsy belt or thread with its problematic grip, and compare it with a Monster motor spinning at 1800 rpm, and use IT to revolve an 8-pound platter, with half its mass concentrated on its rim for flywheel effect, using a grippy rubber wheel. What will happen? The little - and so cheaper to manufacture - idler, will kick the ass of the Mighty Uber-Heavy belt-drive, as more and more are discovering, and as the previously posted posting also attests: "Well, got the stock i/c on the Dyna, and not all tweaked yet, and nothing sitting on stand, without isolation, and it betters the Verdier/Koetu Urishi on a special Isolation stand...I am candidly surprised. I did not expect this. I had the the Cain and Cain plinth and it did not sound good. This is way above. The 301 is incredible in your plinth. It has only the inexpensive Denon 103 R and that is not redone yet...and only a stock cable and it is better by a long ways than the Verdier on a special isolation table. Next I will try the Koetsu in the arm....and in my best phono stage and see. Damn...don’t let this get out, or it will ruin the high end." Have a look under my "system" to see the photo of the massively-plattered HUGE Platine Verdier sitting next to the not-so-Giant-looking Giant Direct Coupled Garrard 301.

So now we get to the reason why the Mighty Lenco should outperform the Garrards and EMTs (belt-drives are a forgone conclusion), which are better-built (but NOT better designed as I often write). Btw, the Lenco just has more of everything than the Garrards: more natural-sounding, more detail, more refinement, a larger dynamic pallette/window, it retrieves more of the air and resonance, more bass (!!!), a BIGGER presentation, more of a sense of limitless power, and so on. So, what's going on? The Garrard even has the more powerful/torquey motor! Ah, there's the rub. There must exist a perfect balance of torque-to-inertia. The more powerful the motor, the more that motor's sound/imperfections are heard, as it begins to audibly imprint itself over the flywheel/stabilizing effect of the platter. The Lenco's motor has less torque, but the platter is the better flywheel, with more mass concentrated on the rim, and at a further distance too (the platter is slightly oversized), making it an even more efective flywheel/purveyor of inertia an thus Smoother/Eliminator of speed imperfections (i.e. the motor). This superior flywheel ensures the motor - via the very clever it is now apparent means of using a rubber wheel with all its grip - spins more smoothly, and in the Lenco's case - likely entirely by accident (though perhaps Dr. Lenco actually calculated all this) - creates a perfect balance of torque (VERY important) to inertia (also VERY important) to create the Mighty Lenco, which sonically is akin to the Amazon in Full Flood, a sense of limitless but fluid power which underpins everything played through it, so that the most delicate bits of information emerge unscathed in all their elegance, while backed by the full force of sudden dynamic explosions, the classic Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove.

Well, anyway, that's enough of these ruminations for now, don't depair Garrard and other Mighty Idler users, these easily outclass megabuck belt-drives and provide that incredible idler excitement and POWER, and after all, Lencos can still be had cheap!! Vive la Idler, Vive la Lenco!!