Is the Teres a

Complex, full blast orchestral passages are the toughest in the stylus drag department, for sure. That's what I use to check improvement in *instantaneous* power delivery in my modded 1200. In the case of a bidirectional, quartz locked DD motor that's the singlemost important criterium. Nightdoggy taught me that, as his approach to modding his 1200's was specifically targeting the quartz lock circuitry & instant power delivery *within* the unit. He does not use an external power supply, claiming it will adversely affect instant power response. All I know is that I replaced the stock 24 ga external power supply DC wiring for 18 ga and the improvement was phenomenal! The same went for the stock AC power cord being replaced for an 11ga, cryo'ed Tice PC3. Everything I do to improve instantaneous power delivery is audible by no small measure.

It's hard for me to visuallize something like a belt drive with a massive platter dealing with this stylus drag issue successfully--no offense meant to anyone.

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Thanks, Psychic, and thanks Doug: I may try Mylar tape on my Ariston RD11S, which like the Linn majors on PRaT while sacrifing information. But with excellent PRaT and a gorgeous sound (Grado-esque midrange), and let's face it, quite good detail retrieval when not compared directly to the rising stars, I could easily live with it as my sole choice. I keep it because when it plays, I forget about audio (blessed relief!). I may even retire to it when I tire of the astonishing information-retrieval and dynamics and bass of my Lencos ;-) Then, I will try that mylar...

Again, sweet music to my ears to read so much about the importance of PRaT, which is what drew me into this discussion. Long life to Art Dudley to keep focussing our attention on it, sloppy set-up or no!

Happy listening!

Hi Doug,

I mounted the Triplanar this evening, but it was getting too late to fit a cartridge. Tomorrow night, I wear my shipping department hat, but may well fit a cartridge and take her for a spin.

I need to comment about the much overused (and overrated) PRaT. I think one needs to consider it in the same manner as one does soundstaging. By this I mean as an incidental result and not as a goal. If you do everything correctly, you'll get PRaT and soundstaging. There's nothing wrong with this. If you design for it, you're headed down a path of ruin. Similarly, if you buy with either of these sonic attributes at the top of your checklist, you'll soon grow dissatisfied and become a regular seller in the 'gon.

Go for tone, go for low noise floor, go for dynamics, but please ... for your own psychological well being, let the PRaT and soundstaging just "happen"

PRaT is one of those characteristics that can be faked by having a hot upper midrange (can you spell Linn?) which emphasizes the leading edge or instrumental attacks. Certainly, you can kill PRaT with excessive resonance, and I'm not suggesting that all components with a "hot" tonal balance will have PRaT. You can certainly can enhance it with frequency response anomalies however.

Soundstaging is similar in this respect - a big bass and boosted upper frequencies can give you an exaggerated impression of space. True soundstaging comes from components with a low noise floor which are phase correct - to the extent this is possible.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

And ... we can rest our backs after the heavy lifting and let Frank Schroeder do the setup. I'm sure we can con him into it.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

PRaT follow-up ...

Of course I was presuming tables with speed stability and immunity to varying stylus drag modulating their speed.

My focus was on 'tables which cannot have the kind of speed stability that a Teres, Galibier, Redpoint and Verdier have ... suspended decks with rubber belts.

From this perspective, their PRaT is a lie. If you can live with it, then be my guest.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier