Grand Prix Audio Monaco Turntable

I'm not sure why you have an issue with Japan Inc. direct drives from the 70's. Sure there were numerous low end models but Japan Inc. darn near perfected the direct drive table by the late 70's and each of the top named makers had shining examples of direct drives that would give many a higher priced, highly hyped and coveted tables made today a solid run for the money.

The very fact is not many of us vinyl spinners and audiophiles will want to nor can afford the money spent on a beautiful Monaco or Certus. But we also are tired of the low brow attacks on all too many audio forums on direct drives especially when all too many of the so called wonder tables made today from many of the cottage industry makers are overpriced and often over-hyped. I'm not saying name brand table today, belt drive or otherwise are not worthy, many are to be coveted but many of the more affordable ones would be hopelessly outperformed by many of those darn Japan Inc. DD's from the 70's. Japanese engineers were/are not stupid and they had the financial resources of large companies to help R&D these tables. Go to Vinyl Engine and the library, look up the brochure and manuals loaded on site of see some of the excellent better quality late 70's- early 80's direct drives from the numerous Japan Inc. makers.

If I had the money I'd love to hear a Certus or a Monaco to possibly buy. But I'm damn right impressed with my KAB modified SL-1200MKII (err. basically unchanged since 1979 model) and I enjoy from time to time looking on eBay at some of those beautiful Japan Inc. better quality DD's of the 70's and 80's.

If it works and works well it should not matter if its vintage or brand spanking new I say. After all its not like designing Moon rockets. :-)

Cmon Mtkhl567. " The full benefits of a Monaco might not show up in your current setup anyway."

No need to disrespect anyone's system here man!!

WE could all be listening to MP3's, so spinning vinyl no matter what TT is a joy.

BTW, How could you get to listen to a GP Monaco TT for 6 mnths before deciding to buy one?? I want the same deal you got.

Mtkhl567,

I'm not taking issue with the wonders of the Monaco. I'm simply making the basic point that there are no perfect components, only different trade offs, even between VERY good designs; not to negate ANY hierarchy of quality. Neither am I trying to make undue comparisons between the SP10 and the Monaco, although the Albert's SP10 is VERY good. I have heard the Monaco although not in controlled circumstances. And, I wouldn't assume so much about my system's resolving capabilities, or my preferences. I can appreciate pretty much all well executed approaches for what they offer. No offense taken though.

Raul,

your point is a given. Mine was more general. See above.

Dear Mtkh1567: It is no doubt that the Monaco is a today top TT like the Walker or many other out there ( including those " old " Japanese designs that I think you don't have the opportunity to heard/hear/try/test yet. )

What are the targets on a TT design?. well IMHO it has to be a design first where the TT can spin with accuracy and stabiity ( short and long run/time ) at 33.33, 45 and 78 rpm, second: it has to spin with out any internal or external distortion ( vibration, resonances, fast disipation, sound/bass feedback, platter resonances, etc, etc ) that means absolutely internal/external isolation, third: choose a material platter/mat that is/will be inert or that kill LP/platter-mat resonances, fourth: same that second target in reference to the arm board and fifth: precise/well made/high quality design execution.

All these targets are more easy to say that to achieve. Different TT designers have different approach to achieve those TT design targets ( and other ones ) and all of them share at least one TT subject: no one is free of " colorations ", there is no perfection here at least not yet and the Monaco is no exeption as good as certainly is.

IMHO and at this top level of quality TT performance and other than TT isolation the tonearm/cartridge " figure " is what could make the difference.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

"those speed accuracy figures they publish are probably not measured at the platter level."

On a direct drive where else could the measurement be taken? Besides measurements would be pretty meaningless anyway. Yes the Japanese DD tables from the 80's perfected the art to the point of having superb measurements. The sound is also respectable given the price point, but they are not even in the same ballpark as the current start of the art. I think that the DD topology is inherently superior, but as with all high end audio equipment the magic is in the implementation.

Speed accuracy is an overloaded term that often is misunderstood. The meaning is often quite different depending on the time reference. Average rotational speed is the accuracy of the speed over a relatively long period of time. It's basically how close to 33.333 rpm does the platter turn. In my opinions this is a relatively unimportant measure. Small errors in pitch are quite inaudible but this number tends to be focused on. Far more important is speed accuracy within a very short time frame. In other words how constant is the speed as measured within a 1 millisecond window. Short term speed variations are easily heard and are detrimental to good sound. Yet there is no measurement available for this type of speed accuracy. Wow and flutter measurements are low bandwidth and completely miss these more important, higher frequency artifacts.

Every turntable in the world has speed inaccuracies. In my opinion nobody has reduced these into complete inaudibility. For most of these inaccuracies there is no measurement method available. Further I doubt that most could be measured.