Brinkman Balance Comparisons

Rick,

It was great listening to you system the other day. I was impressed with the detail, soundstage and separation of instruments.

As we discussed, I think the Raven AC is a very good bet. The high torque motor will be the closest thing to a direct drive which are supposed to be a very good design. Plus tthe bearing design and weight of the platter are optimum and produce some necessary drag. Latly, the materials are exotic enough. Many different substances are used to create enough impedance mistmatches to produce very effective isolation. Whta impressed me was Fremer's account of the "tap test".

Anyway, the Raven Ac is the table I would like to have.

andrew

Andrew, it was my pleasure having you over this past Monday. Please feel free to stop by again (and anyone else in the tri-satte area) for some music, good chat and some fine espresso!!! Let's try to get a group together for the May stereophile show???

RWD (Rick)

Cjfrbw says: "With this in mind, all of those turntables would be more or less equivalent in sound quality with minor qualitative or subjective differences."

Dgad says: "...my suggestion is that cartridges are too often judged out of context as the phono stage is part of the synergy."

I find myself agreeing with these statements. At the level of play of these very best of turntables--where all the resonance, noise and speed stability problems are pretty much resolved--the character of the sound is largely determined by the arms, cartridges, loadings, and rolling tubes in the preamp.

I disagree. It seems as though tables keep improving in precisely these areas: speed stability, pitch definition, and resonance control. Consider the new Continuum turntable or the new Walker arm, etc.

Gladstone,

Is the Continuum that good a turntable? Is the Walker? Have there been no turntables that approach what they do?? Are they so far ahead of other turntables to make a great former design sound broken? I would suggest Albert Porter chime in here about the sound of his Tape vs. LP. I think LP as a medium is limited. We can spend more money to move up the chain but at a certain level the jumps get smaller. It then makes more sense to place our money elsewhere in the chain where the audible ROI is maximized. If you sacrifice a great phono stage for a world class turntable you are not even getting close to hearing what your turntable can do.