Belt stretch

Rccc,

What makes your limits (or mine) the ultimate arbiter of the possible? There may be one being who could claim that, but you're not Him/Her.

Let's test your hypotheses with a few questions, taken straight from the musical casebooks:

Do you have perfect pitch? If I hit a random key on a piano can you tell me which note it was? If your answer is no, do you therefore argue that no one else has perfect pitch either? Tell it to my mother, she'll laugh in your face. Test her, she'll prove you wrong.

If I play any two consecutive bars from one of 600 long, complex pieces of music that you've heard, can you infallibly tell me:
a) which one of those 600 pieces the two bars came from?
b) what movement they came from?
c) which instruments carry the melody and harmony?
d) what happened in the bars immediately preceding, and what comes next?
You can't do that? Well, neither can I. But Toscanini could. Fritz Reiner could. Vladimir Ashkenazy can.

Can you go to a concert, hear a Mozart symphony for the very first time, then go home and write it out - note for note? You can't do that? Tchaikovsky could and did, when he was 12 years old.

Could you travel to another city to jam with a famous string quartet, and after 10 seconds announce to the first violinist that his instrument was tuned 1/4 tone higher than your piano back home (though you hadn't been home in a week)? Max Reger did that. He was 10 years old.

Can you tune your piano for any chosen key so it's correct out to five harmonics above the fundamental? Debussy could. Did it nearly every day of his life.

I prefer to expand my horizons by being amazed at what is possible, not limit them by deciding what isn't. To each his own of course.

I dont doubt the theoretical possibility or even likelihood of differential belt tension what Im saying is that it isnt audible. I dont tune pianos but I do have perfect pitch and have spent much of my life in concert halls and enjoying Hi Fi. Its possible Mozart would have been able to hear those anomalies in a belt drive table, how many Mozarts are there on this forum? So let me rephrase what I stated. Aside from the esteemed genius's mentioned above no mortal can hear the effects of belt tension as has been reported in the audio forums and press. Why I started this thread is that knowledgeable people in the audio business have made reference to belt stretch,stylus drag etc but never quantifying it in any way but theoretical. I have both belt and direct drive and have never heard any speed related differences. Since this comes up from time to time I have asked freinds and associates in the music industry if they have and no one has been able to actually demonstrate the audibility of this variance. Im simply trying to debunk this myth or hear from someone whom can demonstrate that it is in fact audible to someone besides Mozart. I appreciate the thoughtful reponses but we have only addressed the possibility of some pitch shift not that it in fact exists and is audible.

Rccc, Assuming you own high quality examples of belt-drive and direct-drive turntables, have you done the experiment of listening to each one with the same tonearm and cartridge? If so, do you hear any differences that could therefore be ascribed to one or the other turntable? What are the differences if any? If you have not done that experiment, then maybe you are premature in declaring that the inherent mechanical differences between belt-drive, dd, and idler-drive are irrelevant or inaudible.

Hi again,

If you are trying to gather a result from two samples of different drive types, that may be your first error because the simple fact that they are different drive types cannot possibly be used as a standard for any sort of test to measure the effectiveness of the drive type. Are all other parameters the same? Of course, not. The platters, spindles, plinths, etc. are not the same. So, how do you separate sonic differences? Are you saying that you never hear speed differences, regardless of the nature of them? Is the difference merely one of pitch, or could a lack of openness or a smearing of various tones be due to a speed difference? Could there be some other cause? Or, do you never hear such differences?

If you are saying that the precision of a given turntable, or the lack thereof, when it comes to speed control makes no difference, I'm not sure what Doug or I can possibly say to change your opinion. In fact, I'm not really sure what else can be said. What I do know is that I most definitely hear it, and so do many others. Why you wouldn't is something I do not know.

The technology necessary to measure the effects of stylus drag and belt stretch exists today, but the people that have access to such equipment don't give a damn about it. They're probably too busy smashing atoms together and sending things to space.

The technology that was around when most records were cut was primitive at best and probably exhibited major speed fluctuations. Achieving super accurate speed precision today probably just enables one to better hear the inaccuracies of yesterdays equipment, but what do I know. I own a stupid belt driven turntable :)

Stylus drag and belt stretch is an idea (something, such as a thought or conception, that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity).

I have an idea. Perfect speed precision will guarantee slow transients.

I think we might be better off if we tried to figure out the inaccuracies of yesterday's equipment (such as how it reacted to cutter drag) and compensated for it. If a lathe slows down while the cutting head cuts a big transient on a lacquer, our TTs need to speed up the disc for the same transient. If you disagree that a lathe slows down when cutting a big transient on a lacquer, you might be indirectly saying that a cutting lathe has perfect speed precision while cutting a lacquer. Buy one and mount a tonearm to it and you should hear more accurate speed precision than any TT can provide. I don't know, but I bet that a cutting head on lacquer produces more friction than our styli do on vinyl.