Tables That Feature Bearing Friction

Dear T_bone, I totally agree with Syntax and you. For the love of music - we do not need high end gear at all to appreciate music.
Beethoven string quartet op 132 will have its impact via an MP3 player or the car stereo as well as via a million dollar high-end set-up.
High-end is a nice playground to satisfy the longing of man for something absolute and gives us a microcosmos where each and everyone can produce his/(seldom...) her own dogma of something "best" in every subjective way possible. Today high-end is sold not only via sound - it is sold much more via the price tag (ask any high-end dealer in HongKong or some of the manufacturers of rather elusive components that they do not sell less when the lift up the price, but more) and the image related to it.
This is a very strange part of the luxury market.
Its not about quality - its about image, "face" and "show off".

All we need to simplify high-end is adapting some of the standards from the professional audio segment or PA. Matching impedance (600 Ohms for instance..) would make most super high-end cables and their effect null and void. But honestly - none of you would like to listen to a speaker with flat frequency response curve ..........

Flat impedance curve and easy load would eliminate in one moment 85% of all high-end speakers. Expect low power consumption and the next 10% will be gone for good.

We should accept High-end audio the way it is - a childrens playground.

The difference between the boys and the men??
The price tag on the toys.
Nothing else.

It is a nicer challenge to build a wonderful sounding system with a minimal budjet than buying the most expensive items. I learned alot with the Lenco threads, the MM/ MC thread , Quad 57 thread to apreciate the "downgrading" pathway , maybe I find my "kid" pleasure again !

This is the sign of a BAD design Bearing Friction a good table should have very very little.

To fix standards on the audio industry can help to the " new " people in our high-end world while they achieve experience with.

That " standards " does not have to be " extremes " one but only at " minimum ", so the toy-play will be " respected ". The record perfect-center hole can't go against almost no one but persons that can say: " hey I want to fix it ( toy-play ) please leave in that way... ".
The whole idea on the standards subject is for more positive, serious and open mind in favor of our hobby.

Other desirable subject on the high-end industry could be " quality standards " where an audio item/device must pass some test steps where it show that meets ( or not ) those " quality standards " and when achieve it then that audio item will show a official certification about, something like the ISO standards. This could help that we can buy better products with better quality and stop to find out that " three " days from the day we buy and audio item it has some failure: this happen every day even products that goes to a reviewer comes with defects in its operation.

IMHO if we want to be better ( overall ) we have to ask for be better, don't you think?

Oh yes we can enjoy music through a walkman either, but this is not the issue.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Ebm, it depends - bearing friction doesn't necessarily means increased noise. In some of the smarter designs bearing friction is introduced by oil bath, eddy current and the like to increase speed stability and damping of platter. But some of the other semi-pro's here on Audiogon will (and have already during this thread) tell you more about this. If bearing friction goes with increased noise (= low quality bearing) however I do agree with you - thats a bad design.