2008 RMAF – – – all things analog.

Doug, can you give a quick detailed description of the types of music where you hear speed inaccuracies on rubber belt tables? And do you not notice this on some kinds of music e.g. rock.

Thanks Terry

Wow, lots of stuff here. Thanks all for your ideas.

Ralph,
I'm 100% in agreement that a well matched and set up TriPlanar will outperform a well matched and set up Schroeder, including the Reference and certainly a Model Two. A TP on Win's table would provide arm stability and adjustability to match the table's speed stability and apparently silent noise floor. That'd be quite a treat, and was the whole point of my comment that his table deserved a top flight arm (and cartridge). I didn't name names to avoid diverting the discussion into a tonearm war, let's hope we don't go there.

Stringreen,
No argument about warps and their sonic effects, depending on the arm, but the speed variations I'm talking about are in time with the music (stylus drag induced), not in time with platter rotation (warp induced, possibly). No reason one couldn't use a ring clamp on a Saskia. I had one on my Teres and it was a big benefit.

Terry,

Rock (or any artificially amplified and mixed music) is much less transparent than top quality recordings of acoustic instruments. The kinds of time errors I'm referring to would be inaudible on most rock recordings, in even the best systems. (They're much too fine to be measured by any strobe either, so don't ask me to measure them.)

The most revealing LP's of all (to our ears) are original/authentic instrument recordings, such as those recorded by Christopher Hogwood and his Academy of Ancient Music for L'oiseau Lyre (Decca recordings, pressed by Philips in the Netherlands).

It takes a system with exceptional clarity, low distortion and low time domain errors to play these LP's without making them sound like fingernails on blackboards. Many people hear that and assume the fault lies with the instruments or the records. They're wrong. The fault invariably lies with the reproducing system. In a really good system, this kind of music is simply amazing to hear, but it's not easy. It took us 3-4 years to work our setup to the point where such LP's were even listenable.

Most people don't listen to this I know. But there's no tougher test for a system that I'm aware of.

Ralph

You have repeated the Furphy about belt drive motors being "weaker" than idler motors. To use examples from this thread, each of the motors from the HRX has about 3 times the output power of the motor in the Saskia.

Doug

interesting how an interest in early music and an interest in speed stability appear to coincide. I (used to) sing as a countertenor and became fascinated by the music of the period of the great castrati.

Unfortunately the only L'Oiseau Lyre recordings I have are unlistenably noisy. They're as rare as hen's teeth over here, despite the label having been established by an Australian.

Trivia: the name means Lyre Bird in reference to the local bird (Menura Novaehollandiae). There are several musical references wrapped in that name - the lyre the British thought the birds tail formed, its famous ability to mimic any sound it has heard and the fact that one habitat near Melbourne is bisected by the Melba highway, named after the soprano.

Quiddity, take another look at my post. I merely pointed out that a lot of belt drive machines get away with using weaker motors, not that **all** of them do.

The motor I use in my machine has a lot of torque and behaves very much like a second flywheel in the table. It is the Pabst motor from 40 years ago- one of the better motors to be installed in a turntable. FWIW the l'oiseau lyre LPs sound great on it- despite being belt drive.

Doug, if you really want to get the inside story of what sounds right on an LP, I strongly recommend that you take a recording from the mics right to the finished LP. Do it with a 2-mic recording of natural instruments, like you mentioned. This is very handy for developing a reference because being at the session itself, you will know exactly what the recording is supposed to sound like.

BTW although we have sold a number of our 'model 208' turntables (http://www.atma-sphere.com/products/208.html), its not a regular production thing for us by any means nor have we any intention of making it so. It just seemed an obvious update path for the original machine.

Doug...just a comment on the elasticity of the belt...I guess thats why the rim drive makes the VPI's sound so much better.