[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Black Stuart /img/forum/go_quote.gif With any decent DDs there simply is no wow and flutter, that belongs to belt drive technology.

OK, NOW someone is trying to feed me erroneous information!

I could buy very low, but "simply no" is not something that should be bandied about in such a caviler manner. NO wow and flutter (as in zero) is still a goal to be achieved, not something that can be taken for granted no matter what the basic design of the TT.

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The biggest problem for newbie or returning vinyl heads is - buying s/hand vinyl. Apart from some specialist labels, most new vinyl is not as good as vinyl's heyday of the late 60's/70s' and early 80s'.

You and I can agree on this. I have so far concentrated on the boutique labels and exceptional buys.

When vinyl is good I believe it trumps all. ALL!

But I won't be selling my CD's any time soon.

 

[dknightd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif Back in the day most direct drive turntables had far superior specs than belt drives. Figures of -88 db were pretty common place even for quite humble dd's whereas only top of the range belt drives like the Linn LP12 would reach this level. However statistics as ever only tell part of the story. A record player is basically a seismographic instrument. It is is designed, remember, to pick up small vibrations on a records surface and ignore all other vibrations which might come from itself and more importantly it's immediate environment. Practically all Direct drives are designed around the concept of a high mass plinth being the best isolation from acoustic feedback. In other words the bigger and heavier the deck the more likely it is to be immune to vibrations. This works fine with the more expensive decks like the Technics SP10 which could be ordered with a volcanic glass plinth or the Trio L0-7D which used layers of marble and stone composite or the Marantz TT-1000 which used a huge chunk of glass and steel. However once you get down to the lower end of the ranges you find mostly plastic with a lot of rubber or composite which is far less effective and unless carfully sited on it's own wall shelf, or solid inert surface, will not give of it's best. The better quality Technics like the SL1100 /1200 / 1210 / 1500 / 1800 are actually very well designed in this regard and quite inert so long as you place them on a solid surface. Many high quality belt drives like the Michell, Thorens, Linn LP12 or AR decks are suspended subchassis which goes a long way towards isolating them even if placed on a light coffee table, and this is a major factor in accounting for their perceived superior performance. Today most cheaper belt drives copy the Rega formula which forgoes an expensive suspended subchassis design in favour of a simple MDF plinth. Therefore these kind of decks are just as susceptible to feedback and vibration as the Technics SL1200 if not more so, and require careful siting. The Music Hall decks are basically rebadged Pro-Ject machines and these do make some effort towards a suspension, certainly more so than the Regas but at the expense of the tonearm which is not upto the standards of Rega. Another factor to bear in mind with vintage Direct drives is that they contain a lot more electronics than the average belt drive and these do wear out which can result in higher noise levels. Vintage belt drives which employ electronic power supplies, like Linn's Valhalla are even more susceptible to these kind of problems as their circuit's are often more 'minimalist' to put it kindly. They don't meet modern EU CE directives, being more likely to blow up than cause a bit of hum. In short the performance of any turntable is highly dependent on being properly set up on a good isolated surface and not just plonked on top of your equipment stack. There are plently of expenisve wall shelves on the market put any solid piece of MDF as used in a kitchen counter and some decent quality Ikea brackets affixed to a proper solid wall as opposed to a fibreboard partition will have a massive influence on performance. Having a concrete or solid stone floor is of course even better.

This all seems like good advice. My personal experience has been that DD turntables start quiet, then get noisier with time. I always assumed
this was due to the bearings wearing. It seems to me the platter bearings
wold take more load in a DD table, but I could be wrong.
I never even thought about the electronics wearing out.
I've been using the same H-K T-60 turntable for years. A new
belt and cartridge as needed has kept it working well as near as I can tell.

If I was buying a new table today, in the $500 range, I'd probably go with the music fidelity mmf-5 (or similar), then look to upgrading the cartridge
(I like the sumiko blue point) at some point in the future - or maybe I'd look for a package deal. . .

In my current home, with suspended wood floors, wall mounting is critical. Use a load bearing wall. I think that a solid plinth with good feet is important.
I also prefer a belt drive table where the the motor is isolated from the platter/arm.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif LOL! So Caliburn, Sota, SME, VPI, the reason you believe they don't use direct drive is because they lack experience in building motors? Is that your contention?

Just on a point of information, as I am currently seeking a compatible motor for one of my vintage belt drives, most European turntable manufacturers including Linn and Rega don't build their own motors they use motors made by a Dutch company http://www.premotec.com/

Premotec, was formerly part of Philips but has since become the dominant player in this market buying out companies like Airpax. As you can see from their website turntables are not a major part of their business because they are not even mentioned which gives you some idea of the value of the market today!

Moreover they are not exactly what you would called expensive

http://rswww.com/cgi-bin/bv/rswww/se...ukie&Nr=avl:uk

so most of the money you are spending on a deck these days is going towards paying our inflated European salaries!

Japanese companies like Matsu****a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsu****a. who own the Technics brand and have been into everything from Banking to Semiconductors to owning Hollywood studios are simply on a different scale and have a turntover that many small countries would envy.

Compare this to a company like Linn who probably employ a few hundred people tops, who built their own CD mechanism for the CD12 and the retail price came to 12000UKP and you get a better idea of the Audio industry

 

[Davesrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Black Stuart /img/forum/go_quote.gif nelamvr6, the reason that belt drive turntables are being produced today is quite simple they are easier, cheaper to produce than DDs -it means more profit, it really is that simple. Have you seen the price of the new Thorens, outrageous.

Then why are all the <$200 TTs direct drive? IMO, a direct drive is cheaper/ easier to build. It's just a motor connected to the platter. Now a good, quiet direct drive is more expensive (making sure the electronics are right so that the revolutions stay consistant, and that there are no vibrations going to the platter). Just as I'm sure there is some serious engineering that goes into trying to make a belt drive perform well. So I really don't see what the arguement is. As with every peice of audio gear, it's much cheaper to produce a product then what the manufacturer sells it at. If you think that Sony, Panasonic, or Technics is spending more money on their TT motors then that's just silly. If you're a big audio company like Sony, you can pick up parts dirt cheap because of the size of the order. Smaller audio companies have to buy parts at higher prices. I'm not saying that all expensive audio gear is worth the price, but one of the reasons why it's more expensive is because it's more specialized.

BTW, to get back to this being my thread

.....my Music Hall has been backordered

I'm going out on business next week, so I hope it gets shipped then. Would love to come home to a TT to setup!

 

[Davesrose]

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Originally Posted by ralphp@optonline /img/forum/go_quote.gif Fact of the matter is that when the compact disc arrived and just about killed the LP format the state of the art in vinyl play back was and still is to this day a belt drive turntable. The direct drive turntable has only survived because of its use by DJs. Period.

Actually, this Michael Fremer DVD on vinyl brought up a very good point. During the intro, he said it wasn't the CD that killed LP as the popular format: it was the audio cassette. Which growing up in the 80s, I aggree with that assessment. My dad had been collecting vinyl then, but he did all of his music listening with cassette. He embraced CD when it came out, since he could transfer CDs to tape and listen in the car or at work. There was no contest that cassette didn't sound better then LP, it was just more convenient. Then CD replaced the audio cassette when you could play a CD in your car or at work, at least improving audio quality. In an ideal audiophile world, SACD would be taking over CD.....but the masses prefer the convenience of mp3. At least there's enough of us so that collecting vinyl or SACD is still pretty easy

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif Then why are all the <$200 TTs direct drive? IMO, a direct drive is cheaper/ easier to build. It's just a motor connected to the platter. Now a good, quiet direct drive is more expensive (making sure the electronics are right so that the revolutions stay consistant, and that there are no vibrations going to the platter). Just as I'm sure there is some serious engineering that goes into trying to make a belt drive perform well. So I really don't see what the arguement is. As with every peice of audio gear, it's much cheaper to produce a product then what the manufacturer sells it at. If you think that Sony, Panasonic, or Technics is spending more money on their TT motors then that's just silly. If you're a big audio company like Sony, you can pick up parts dirt cheap because of the size of the order. Smaller audio companies have to buy parts at higher prices.

Where are the 200USD direct drives? If you are thinking of Technics clones for DJ's from the likes of Numark then a closer look will confirm that the cheaper of these are mostly belt drives made to look like direct drives

It may be hard to imagine but there was a time when Japanese electronics were regarded with the same kind of slight disdain that you find for Chinese electronics today in certain quarters.

Japan, like China is a country which cut itself off from the West for hundreds of years and when the industrial revolution came it had to hire "Western Experts" to try and catch up. So the common conception of Japan in the USA and Europe was that it was a good place to outsource manufacturing to take advantage of a cheap skilled labour force but was incapable of any real technological inovation of it's own and was really only good for cheap imitations of American and European goods.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif Actually, this Michael Fremer DVD on vinyl brought up a very good point. During the intro, he said it wasn't the CD that killed LP as the popular format: it was the audio cassette. Which growing up in the 80s, I aggree with that assessment.

Absolutely right. It was cassettes in the shape of the Sony Walkman which changed the public consciousness towards Japan and started a whole new dominant Hi-Fi medium in the same way Apple has done today with the Ipod.

Of course there were still many sniffy audiophiles back then who said cassettes were just a dictation format and that proper hi-fidelity could only be acheived with open reel...sound familiar?

The fact is that it was a point of honour for Japanese companies like Sony and Technics that they prove themselves both to each other and to the world at large and in the 1970's before video games, personal computers and home cinema, if you wanted to make a statement in electronics then you made a high end Reel to Reel or Turntable.

Decks like the Technics SP10 really shook up the status quo as all the major broadcasters around the world started buying these instead of EMT because they were cheaper and just as good and the same thing happened with Reel to Reel with Akai and Tascam vs Revox. Many then dominant high end European companies like Garrard, Revox, Uher, EMT, Grundig, Lenco, Ferrograph and American companies like Marantz / Superscope, Harmon Kardon, Ampex, Accuphase and Sherwood struggled to keep up and either left the market, were sold off, tried to compete with their own versions of the technology or simply gave up and started rebadging japanese derived oem assemblies.

Then along came Nakamichi and built a cassette deck which sounded almost as good and the market was suddenly flooded with Japanese cassette decks from the likes of Aiwa, Akai, Pioneer etc. Sony made it smaller and more user friendly and suddenly the writing was on the wall for vinyl as a mass market format.

The Technics SL1200 you see today is just a relic of a very successful 70's production line which is why it's so cheap and why it's outmoded in many respects most obviously the tonearm. But as has alreay been mentioned by ssportsclay, it's easily tweaked up and shouldn't be discarded as it's one of the best decks you can get for the price.

 

[Davesrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif Where are the 200USD direct drives? If you are thinking of Technics clones for DJ's from the likes of Numark then a closer look will confirm that the cheaper of these are mostly belt drives made to look like direct drives

OK....I'll eat my crow

I checked out the Sony turntables I see at Best Buy, and they are indeed belt drive. I assume one of the reasons why there are so many belt drives is that TTs are now a niche market. Convenience, tradition, costs may be a reason why a manufacturer decides on direct drive or belt. We can argue what's the most expensive or best, because good engineering will probably make the SQ indistinguishable from a well made belt vs DD. One point you raise about the Technics TT is that it was so successful in the hay day of TTs, so Technics is keeping with it. Now that they aren't getting as much ROI, I wonder if they have cut corners with the new TTs vs the old SL1200. Standards probably aren't up to what it was when they were selling many more units.

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif It may be hard to imagine but there was a time when Japanese electronics were regarded with the same kind of slight disdain that you find for Chinese electronics today in certain quarters. Japan, like China is a country which cut itself off from the West for hundreds of years and when the industrial revolution came it had to hire "Western Experts" to try and catch up. So the common conception of Japan in the USA and Europe was that it was a good place to outsource manufacturing to take advantage of a cheap skilled labour force but was incapable of any real technological inovation of it's own and was really only good for cheap imitations of American and European goods.

Oh, I know. My grandmother keeps bringing this fact up whenever I shop for electronics with her. When we see "Made in China", she says she doesn't want such a product....it took her awhile to accept "Made in Japan". Since everything is now made in China, she's reluctantly accepted.

Honestly, I don't think we can look down on a product for where it was made. With globalization, a device might be assembled in China, but it's probably getting parts from all over the world. Sony and Panasonic have large LCD panel plants in Korea....electronics could be made in the USA, Japan, Tiawan, Korea, etc, while a device is assembled in China. Now we associate more with a particular brand....hoping that if it's a big one, we might get better support. Especially with TVs, I've noticed that some big brands have a seperate Chinese manufacturer make the whole unit for them, and then that brand will sell the TV in the US for more money. The manufacturer, seeing an oportunity, sells the same product for less. The only problem is that their support might be non existant since they don't have much presence in the US.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif I assume one of the reasons why there are so many belt drives is that TTs are now a niche market. Convenience, tradition, costs may be a reason why a manufacturer decides on direct drive or belt. We can argue what's the most expensive or best, because good engineering will probably make the SQ indistinguishable from a well made belt vs DD. One point you raise about the Technics TT is that it was so successful in the hay day of TTs, so Technics is keeping with it. Now that they aren't getting as much ROI, I wonder if they have cut corners with the new TTs vs the old SL1200. Standards probably aren't up to what it was when they were selling many more units.

I would have also supsected that Technics would've cut corners on later models but it's not the case. These decks sell consistently well to the professional market and that is based on them not having changed but stil being as reliable as ever.

These kinds of product are few and far between as Japanese manufacturers tend to "upgrade" things constantly, usually making them worse in the the process but they do exist. The Sony Pro Walkman WM-D6C was another primes example being in production for 20 years.

As I said the corollary is that the design of elements like the tonearm havn't been improved and perversly have set the standard for even audiophile Japanese direct drives like the Denon, as well as all the Technics competitors in the DJ market like Vestax.

 

[Toka]

Ah, so much misinformation, so little time...


The new Teres TT (Certus) is DD...and is the best one they ever made.

BD's are cheaper to design/produce, period (especially in small quantities). In the end, a good design is a good design, and many BD's out there are great. But making a good DD from the ground up is insanely expensive...this, and no other reason (save for audiophool 'wisdom') is why they are rarely seen today (see Teres, above).

Here is a lengthy review/comparison of a '1200 with partial KAB mods vs. a Music Hall MMF-9...there was a clear winner. I'll let you read it.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/te...l1200_2_e.html


Conclusion: trust your ears (and the facts)...not message board experts.


Back on topic, a used '1200 is perfect for the budget outlined in the first post...you will have plenty of money left for a good cart (AT-440MLa being the best under $100), and can apply KAB mods down the line. Other used models (JVC, Denon, Yamaha) would be a great choice as well.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toka /img/forum/go_quote.gif http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/te...l1200_2_e.html Conclusion: trust your ears (and the facts)...not message board experts. Back on topic, a used '1200 is perfect for the budget outlined in the first post...you will have plenty of money left for a good cart (AT-440MLa being the best under $100), and can apply KAB mods down the line. Other used models (JVC, Denon, Yamaha) would be a great choice as well.

Interesting I havn't read that one. Funny that he claims the tonearm is low-medium mass though as the editor of TNT elsewhere (see earlier in the thread) calls it medium-high mass and I am pretty sure he is correct.
In which case the AT cart wouldn't be a good match. Better to go for a Denon or Stanton.

 

[Toka]

The '1200 arm is 12g, which is on the low-end of the 'medium' scale (generally, a medium mass arm is considered to fall between 11g-25g). The AT cart juuust works in that case...others are better on paper, to be sure...the Denon DL-160 is another 'must try'. However, using the KAB tonearm damper mod all but eliminates this concern.

 

[lini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif (...)The Sony Pro Walkman WM-D6C was another primes example being in production for 20 years.(...)

Yup, that's another classic - but an overrated one, if you ask me (still got one - sold the other one ages ago...). 2x 40mW on the headphone out are nice, though...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[nelamvr6]

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Originally Posted by Toka /img/forum/go_quote.gif In the end, a good design is a good design,

From now on, this is going to be my philosophy.

I still personally prefer BD's.

 

[Toka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif From now on, this is going to be my philosophy. I still personally prefer BD's.

No reason not to...lots of good'uns out there.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lini /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yup, that's another classic - but an overrated one, if you ask me

overated how? just curious