A Copernican View of the Turntable System

Hi Henry,
I've mentioned the issue of incongruity between platter and armboard a number of times, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Your experience matches mine when I had the shop. Since most folk level their platter and assume everyone else is level, I suspect a significant portion of tonearms do not have their vertical bearings in line with the platter - probably losing about 40% fidelity in real terms. Imagine owning a Linn with a wooden armboard moving around as the temperature varies.
This is one big advantage of unipivots with self centering bearings..
The other incongruity I see a lot is the motor pulley out of level relative to the platter. When running a rubber belt I've heard big improvements from ensuring the motor pulley is dead level and aligned to the platter.

I do however maintain, that absolute level of platter and tonearms is pretty important.

Analog reproduction (or better, superior analog reproduction) is based on precision. And knowledge what-is-responsible-for-what. Our times are modern, "something" is offered and when there is a good review about it, that's the absolution, no matter how mediocre it is in reality.
Marketing replaced brain and Analog is unfortunately THE example par excellence for it.
The real problem today - imo - is, that a customer has to rethink the design, to control some parameters... it isn't his task. He pays some money and relies that he gets something serious. Level Armboards, round platters... do not need NASA science, but it is the profit that counts today. Not for every manufacturer, some try to do a real good job (and they do) but would you accept a car which drifts always a little bit to the left side, and the manufacturer/dealer will tell you "Hey. come one, thousands of happy customers and you are the only one who is so picky...lower tire pressure on the right side"

I do however maintain, that absolute level of platter and tonearms is pretty important.

Done right ?

You see, right side ----> Timeline Strobe.... :-)

Syntax, I presume that digital level also reads 0.0, 0.0 while it rests on the platter.

I would like to know a way to measure how truly vertical the arm shaft is. Any variation in this would be pretty bad for the stylus as it moves along an LP. A uni pivot bearing would not be as problematic as a gimbal arm.

Thanks for that photo of the Micro armboard Syntax.
For many years I have been sceptical of the Micro Seiki method of attaching their cantilevered armboards like this as it relies purely on a friction fixing which structurally is not the best method for a cantilever.
Now however I understand that by doing it this way.......one is able to adjust the absolute 'level' of each armboard which is not possible with a fixing method like that used for the Ravens

This once again reinforces how much expertise and knowledge has been lost since the golden days of dedicated analogue companies?