From: "Carl Valle"
Date: 8/24/2004 4:30 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

"Robert Trosper" wrote in message
...
To echo the recent Saturn car ads in the U.S. "When you say money is not
an issue ..." do you really mean money is not an issue? If so, there are
several folks looking to separate you from 40 or 50K for a turntable,
not to mention the arm and cartridge. Try this one
http://www.stereophile.com/analogsourcereviews/258/ A mere 75K or so.

-- Bob T.

Andy Payor hurls a briefcase full of engineering and scientific
mumbo-jumbo at in an attempt to justify the $73,750 price of the latest
and greatest edition of his Rockport Technologies turntable, but
really€”isn't this all-air-driven design a case of analog overkill? After
all, defining a turntable's job seems rather easy: rotate the record at
an exact and constant speed, and, for a linear tracker, put the stylus
in play across the record surface so that it maintains precise tangency
to a radius described across the groove surface. By definition, a
pivoted arm can't do that, so the goal there is to minimize the
deviation. That's basically it. Right?

We love those LPs, and we know they can sound good€”certainly better than
CDs€”but can a stone dragged through a vinyl drainage ditch ever sound
$73,750 worth of good?

With its air-suspension isolation stand, air-bearing platter (both the
axial and radial loads are supported by air), captured air-bearing arm,
and direct-drive brushless motor, the System III Sirius's only
mechanical contact is that of stylus and record. No belt, no springs, no
thrust plate and ball bearing, no bushings€”and, unfortunately, no way
most of us will ever be able to afford the thing.

Isn't the +185-lb, epoxy-composite plinth€”fiber-reinforced,
resin-shelled, lead-ballasted, and mineral-filled€”another example,
however sleek and shiny, of the design's overkill? Payor describes the
plinth's "monocoque" construction as resulting in "an immensely stiff
beam section with the high-tensile members at the outermost region of
the composite, separated by a virtually inert core with extremely high
compressive strength." (Fans of the Jaguar Type E remember "monocoque,"
which means a design in which the skin absorbs all or most of the
stresses to which the body is subjected. And an immensely stiff beam is
what I got just from looking at the Sirius III.) But isn't that just
descriptive overkill? A verbally expensive way of saying "this thing's
heavy and it's gonna cost you big bucks"?

How about an exquisitely constructed, 62-lb, constrained-layer-damped
five-piece platter machined from solid 303 stainless-steel bar stock and
including a recessed top section in which is embedded a
"high-hysteresis, mineral-filled PVC alloy coated with a proprietary
material with a unique combination of properties essential for the
elimination of unwanted vibration at the record surface"? Isn't that a
gobbledegook way of saying the platter's coated with energy-sucking goop?

Yes, it is...but in the engineering-centric world of designer Andy
Payor, such correct and technically elegant descriptions of the
turntable's guts are essential for understanding how the System III
works, why it sounds the way it does, the meticulous care that went into
its design and construction, why Payor thinks it mechanically and
sonically superior to every other turntable out there, why it costs so
much, why he thinks it worth every penny, and why he insists it's a
better turntable value than any other€”even at $73,750.

TR



Quagga R.T.M. wrote:

I'm selling my DJ equipment, but keeping most of my records.

So, I want to spend the money I get (= more if needed) on a new
phonograph
for my home.

I want the ULTIMATE! ........... but don't know what that is?

I'm in the UK. Money is not an issue. Quality is

Quagga




I love that review

I liked it too even though my experiences with that table are not as positive
as Mr. Fremer's.


basically a direct drive linear tracking turntable no?

Heck basically it's record player once you slap a cartridge on it.


Yeah it has air bearings, and 200 lbs worth of isolation,

200lbs worth of isolation?

but really can't
do much better than 60db S/N because of the medium anyway. I bet it doesn't
sound much different than a denon quartz and a V15 when it's all said an'
done...

You would lose that bet.


I thought everybody wanted belt drives now?

It is not a typical direct drive. But I do prefer a couple other tables that
are belt drive.