A Copernican View of the Turntable System

Halcro,

In your opinion, are the SME 30 or 30/12 poorly understood sprung belt-drives". Are the rediscovered great DD's that much better than the SME 30? What about the TW Acustics AC3? It has no suspension, but it is a belt drive.

I'm just curious if anyone thinks progress has been made since the 70s and 80s or are we only now at a point where we can make advances in turntable designs?

Dear Peterayer, neither in concept nor in technical execution have we seen any progress in turntable design in the last 3 decades.
Microprocessor controlling is really cheap today and that is about all that has changed.
The top-notch turntables of 1982 ( Micro Seiki RX/SX-3/5/8000 all w/dampened platter, Melco, Epic, original Platine Verdier with full magnetic bearing, Cotter (dd !! I prefer the Denon here ...) et al) do easily stand their ground against anything that came in the interim and was available through audio dealers.
Turntable design was about understanding the pretty simple task of spinning a record undisturbed and the guts and money to manufacture the resulting product following the requests.
The task was the same in 1980 as it is today.
We had some pretty serious companies going into turntable design with a squad of able engineers and serious budget in research and development.
Then we had some intelligent and gifted persons ( Jean-Constant Verdier, Mitchell Cotter et al ) who came up with superb and smart designs which stood the test of time for 30 years + to come.
The advance in turntable design was and is always possible.
It is a matter of seriousness, insight, consequence and the will to build a turntable without looking for market acceptance or economic reason.
We will see .... this winter.
Cheers,
D.

Dertonarm,
Have you seen photos of and read about the Wave Kenetics NVS Direct Drive table? It is a new, expensive DD table which promises some performance gains.

Peterayer,
I have never heard an SME table of any kind in a known/controlled environment so cannot answer your specific question.
In principle, I am against any turntable which sits on 'springs' as this almost certainly invites the turntable to 'move'.....possibly laterally as well as vertically?
All belt drives which have a solid foundation at least have a chance of extracting some reasonable information from the grooves. This includes the Raven AC-3.

Deartonearm,

in general you are right. Maybe we should add to your list of gifted innovators during the last decade Mark Doehmann et alt. from Continuum (software, vaccuum system, bearing, built quality, motor, steering system, tonearm)

best @ fun only