S888Wheel wrote:
From: "Arny Krueger"
Date: 5/7/2004 1:54 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:
Am I overlooking something from the early seventies that competes
with these more modern tables?
I see no unbiased evidence that in practice any modern turntable
outperforms the better turntables of the late 60s, say a Thorens
TD-125.
That would make for an interesting test. If I had access to such a
table I would happily make a CD-R with it and my with my Forsell for
comparisons. I think the improvement would prove to be quite dramatic.
The most important thing would be to get the two turntables running at the
same speed. You can fix even speed in the digital domain, but it's far and
away the iffiest of the available adjustments. Other than that time matching
and level matching are easy enough to get a tight comparison.
The
only technological advance in turntables I am aware of since the
TD-125's introduction in the late 60s, relates to clamping warped
records to try to flatten them out. And that feature lacks anything
like broad application. The soft but well-damped suspension, belt
drive, electronic speed control, low rumble, low flutter and wow,
were all there in the late 60s.
I think air bearings are a substantial technological advance.
They sound like a great idea, but like straight line tonearms, they
introduce their own quirks to the system. The air is not perfectly silent as
it flows. Air bearings generally have to have large areas which drives up
the mass of tone arms.
I think
suspension systems have advanced substantially as well. That is easily
measured. I think the use of materials to reduce internal resonance's
is also a substantial advancement. The improvement in motor/platter
isolation is also pretty big.
But the proof is in the listening.
Agreed.
The proof can be refined and analyzed by means of measuring. I've measured
effects related to turntables and other components and then gone back to the
listening test, and asked myself if I can hear that thing that I'm measuring
but didn't notice yet. If the listening test is a DBT any imaginary
artifacts wash out in the statistics. Therefore, the listener can imagine
his heart away, without fear of false positives.
As far as arms go, the geometry problem was solved decades ago.
Appropriate miniature low-friction bearings were and are
off-the-shelf items.
Low friction compared to an air bearing?
Low enough. When the arm moves around there are also changes in stylus
pressure due to the mass, not just friction.
The
big-tube designs look cool, but which vendor has published
before-and-after frequency response curves showing that there were
resonance's in the best earlier designs that the big-tube design
eliminated?
How about compared to the modern arms?
That's what I mean - there seems to be a trend for modern arms to use large
tubes and tapered tubes for the main part of the arm. Looks cool, satisfies
intuitive engineering, but what does it do in the real world?