Measure My Turntable Speed

Use a stopwatch. Place a piece of masking tape on the platter at 6 oclock, and another piece at 6 oclock on the plinth, and yet another piece of tape at 1 oclock on the plinth. Put a record on, start the turntable, put the stylus in the groove. Start the stopwatch when the two pieces of tape line up at 6 oclock. At exactly 1 min and 40 sec the tape on the platter should line up with the tape at 1 oclock on the plinth. If it does not, you know what to do.

Thanks for jarring my memory, now I remember why I bought a VPI speed controller and a KAB. Stop watches ?? To each there own ... All the best.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I could never get my speed set on my Bix with the KAB unit.

I sold my KAB strobe and bought the Digistrobo which claims my system is locked in perfectly and stays locked in rather tightly over time.

I wonder if the KAB strobe is much more sensitive/accurate or if it is too accurate; I could never dial in a stable speed with it...it was like trying to balance an egg on a razor when setting the speed.

???

DC

Forgot to mention, with the KAB, the needle was not in the groove, but with the Digistrobo it is (as you know).

Maybe that was the ticket. I got the Digistrobo on sale for a little over $100 and being able to check speed during playback has proven useful, and fruitful apparently.

DC

The 'Digistrobo' looks alarmingly similar to laser tachs available on the ebay for a lot less than 150.00, such as this one http://cgi.ebay.com/Non-Contact-Digital-Photo-Laser-Tachometer-RPM-Rotation_W0QQitemZ160352588438QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMeters_Testers_Probes?hash=item2555c25296&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 and many, many more.

After seeing the audiophile version in a catalog, I bought one of the ebay iterations to try-and it does seem to work as advertised-at least, it's accurate compared to my strobe disc. In fact, I made a little stand for it and it has a permanent spot on my tt plinth, ready at a moments notice to check stylus-in-place speed.

I've got a feeling-okay, I know- that this is just another case of audiophile product re-labeling, with the commensurate 6x price bump. Just like most electronic VTF scales.