Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Hello all;

I agree with Mgreen, Lewm & Jean on a number of points.
Firstly, the current audio dogma that quality is proportional to price is incorrect. This point has been propagated by the Audio press. The are many examples of where a DIY audiophiles creating pieces of audio equipment for low cost that supersedes production pieces costing multiple fold. So, why is it so hard to believe that this could happen with turntables. Also the 30k SME costs more like 15-18K wholesale, and 7-8K to produce from the manufacturer. So the difference in prices between a 2K Lenco & a 7-8K SME are not are large as they look on paper.

As Lewm mentioned, the only way to determine the effect of the table on the sound characteristic is to keep all other variables constant and just change the Table.

I do not agree that absolute neutrality makes a turntable great. But again this is person dependant. Obviously Rick deems neutrality to be his priority, in which case the SME maybe his ultimate turntable. But, one can not say that because a piece of equipment is "colored" is not top class. Who generates the rules that neutral is the pinnacle & colored is not? Who is to say that something is colored? The answer is each of us does!! I for instance do not assess a piece of equipment as neutral or not neutral, but I look for the equipment to be musical. As close to the live music as possible. If this means colored then so be it.

Further, if one follows the magazines there top classes of audio equipment are filled with varying flavors ( warm, neutral, cold/dark) sounding equipment. So how can 2 pieces of equipment that are on polar opposites of a spectrum both be on a Class A list? Easily, because different reviewers have varying tastes.

I am not sure Why Rick became upset with this discussion. Audio like so many other topics are always full of debate & opinion. That’s what makes each of us different. It is our ability to process information and come up with varied answers. This does not make one person right or wrong, it is all a matter of perspective.

Regards;
Opus

The subjective loggerheads of neutrality versus musicality I suspect lies mostly, but not entirely, outside of the domain of turntable as appliance – that part starting from the stylus on back. In this, I’m pretty much in agreement with Lewm. But even the turntable as appliance – the drive train that sets the speed and support of the vinyl spinning under the diamond, can play a great part in presentation. Without belaboring all that we’ve come to know, the Lenco as appliance, brings all to the table that anyone would want of a drive train – a heavy platter acting as stable flywheel, cranked by a powerful, but quiet motor. You only have to think of the Technics SP-10 with it phase servo dc motor cranking a near 7 lb. platter, the Garrard 301, and the Teres heavyweights to know this is a given and very desirable aspect of what a turntable should be as an appliance. And the Lenco comes to play in this same league. What we do in terms of coupling and isolation only improves the Lenco platform.
Now what we mount as the retriever combo over this superb spinning base, that is the black arts & craft end of the deal. That tiny microphone on a boom comes in many more flavors than Baskin & Robbins, all trying to cant for every angle in the approximation game.
After reading this head-to-head between the Jean’s Lenco and Richard’s SME, I wondered where this whole Musical/Neutral issue would have landed had Jean brought his RS Labs RS-A1 to the meet. I had the good fortune of listening to this tonearm on Jean’s system about 18 months ago. (By the way, it’s currently getting some good play over at Lenco Lovers with Ian’s acquisition of one).
This rickety, physics-defying contraption was outfitted with a Denon 103(E) – or was it the Decca? At any rate, the speed of the transients in play, coupled with a forward front sound, and utter black background had me wondering where Jean’s SACD player was hiding for this simulcast – it was that unvinyl-like. Was this neutrality over musicality or colouration? I’m not sure. I suspect it was a potpourri of a lot of subjective elements that culminated in a rendition that can only be expressed in a greater subjectivism - “stunning”.
A bit later, Jean popped in his beloved Grado Platinum Woody into a Moerch and we we’re back into obvious phono staging – lush and warm with slamming bass.
This is not all to maximize the importance of the retriever at the expense of the turntable as appliance, but to state that the Lenco, “dressed up to the nines”, can come close to being all things to all people packing various armaments.

- Mario

Mario, wouldn't using the RS-A1 limit you to those carts that can be mounted from underneath (i.e., not the one with already-threaded mounting holes)? I guess you could always ream out the holes on the RS-A1, but ...

Dave

HI Lewm, I missed the last sentance of your post. Sorry to take off on your point.

After re-reading Ricks post, I see that he didnt really leave in a huff, he just declined to continue and in a fairly gentlemanly way too. Maybe he mistook Jean's unflagging enthusiam for the Lenco as using his turntable as a whipping boy.

All in all, it is great fun and almost laughable that a Lenco sitting on a big hunk of wood can even be spoken of in the same breath as a highly engineered $30K audio product.

Mike

Hi Dave,
"To ream, or not to ream" the RS-A1 headshell, is the quadry facing Ian's over at LL, even as you write.
- Mario