I would like to dedicate this thread to collection of the ideas and thoughts what might/should manifest an “Ultimate Turntable”. I know many of so-called “good” turntables and I REALLY appreciate none of them. Why an “ultimate turntable never was built and never made available commercially? I have no time now to write but I‘ll contribute to this thread and will share some ides that I have on the subject. Should you have any views then feel free to divulge.

Here are some my ideas for an “Unlimited Turntable”. Feel free to share some of your ideas…

An “Unlimited Turntable” should allow multiple arms. It should be a good quality arm with a good stereo cartridge…. Also, it should be a good quality arm with a good mono cartridge or at least the “older” conical profile. Also, it is nice to have a “not perfectly cartridge” permanently installed that would prolog a life of the “reference” (and presumably expensive) cartridges. There are many record that not necessary should be played by the “reference needle”….

An “Unlimited Turntable” should accommodate any arms, any mass and any length. If you decided to put 1.5kg Dynavector arm or 16” Micro arm then you should not have a problem to do so. Also, an “Unlimited Turntable” should allow you to use a liner tracing if you wish.

Un “Unlimited Turntable” should have a very long vertical bearing. The longer the better.

An “Unlimited Turntable” should have a suspension that would allow a mechanical single point contact with a mechanical ground. None of the air, liquid, magnetic or any other type suspensions sound “unlimitedly good”. The only suspension that I have seen and that had a “perfect pitch” at LF were the mechanical single point bearing. Those, the mechanical single point TTs are not very friendly to live with they do requite a frequent (I would say bi-annually flipping over and changing the bearing oil (with a prospective needs of reinstallation of the arms). Also, they have some limitations of the total platter mass, as there are only a certain amount of pounds to as sq. mm that, even best material, could handle. No mater what, you will still need to change from time to time the bearing plate… So, what might be an “Unlimited Turntable” solution if you need to implement an “Unlimited Turntable” reliably, maintenance-friendly (or free) and with a very heavy platter, for instance 200-250 pounds? I would propose to add mass in the platter and to unload it at the bearing level. Let me to explain… Pretend we have a 200 pounds that none of an existing single point bearings will be able to handle for along time. So, we introduce an air or a magnetic bearing but the air suspension should be design to hold just 170 pounds. The rest 30 pound is handled by a “normal” single point bearing. This design would also to have a large platter moment (and many other benefit that flow out of a huge platter mass) but still would allow to have a single mechanical ground to the mechanical Earth and it will sound the very “ultimately”. Unfortunately there is no TT that I know that has implemented in this way. One of the reasons is because it is quite complex and there are many “issues” to do it properly. (It is quite difficult to make it smooch “automated” translation from a default stand-by position to a default spinning position). Anyhow no one said that the “Unlimited Turntable” should be inexpensive.

An “Unlimited Turntable” should be belt driven (in context of a large platter mass) and the belt should “hang” (in context of am extra long vertical bearing). In both of those “contexts” the “beating” while the belt slips will not take place.

Un Unlimited Turntable’s motor, electrical, and electronic assembly should not radiate any magnetic fields. You should be able to turn 10 times around your TT the raw weirs from a MC cartridge and the weirs should not pick up any noise differences between the TT being “on” and “off”.  Also, the power supply should not be just regulated (it just suppress the voltage but not pulls the voltage) but regenerated. Anyhow it should worn with a wild voltages range and fluctuations.

Un Unlimited Turntable should have a certain mass/material balance between its platter and the platter’s base. I do not know what the balance should be. I feel that a mass/balance between patter and patter’s base acts as a second order high-path filter. There are an ultimate number of LC combinations in such a filter and all of them have own transient and other characteristics that do affect Sound highly but not necessary the language of Sound. Talking about the mass/balance between patter and patter’s base there is also an ultimate amount of the possible “correct” ratios and all of then deliver the “same” result but… there is something else in there… I am not even talking about the regular resonances (that should be taken care) but about the Super Resonances, sort of “Schuman Cavity” of a turntable’s universe.  It is possible that the Super Resonances  (I would estimate that is lives somewhere below the resonant frequency of arm) has relativity to the mass of the stand and the resonances frequency of the room, however it does affect (modulate) pretty everything the TT does.  I really do not know how it may be implemented intentionally, I just know if it there or not. Very few people know how to use the electrical filter in the speakers properly and beneficially. However, there are even less, practically no people who know how to design the mechanical property of a TT practically, intentionally with a predictable result.

The Chow-san the Micro’s owner told me that the art of designing the TT is the art of recognizing of the frustration in Metal. How many people are able to do it today? The structural engineers who know the things build bridges and airplanes. The Morons who built today the TT are the former “C”-students who were fired as they do not qualified to work as the engineers or they just a bunch of armatures who are completely clueless what they do. So, the opportunity that the Unlimited Turntable would be ever built is quite minor….

To be continue when I have more time.

Rgs,
The Cat

The Ultimate turntable only needs to provide for one arm. The ultimate arm. Why compromise its performance with various inferior arm designs.

I'm not sure that high mass is necessarily a good thing.  Yes it stores a large amount of kinetic energy when rotating but that has to be delivered across the full range of frequencies. Imagine a turntable with a light inert platter with many suspended masses hanging from it. The overall mass would be high. When it rotates the suspended masses woulkd also rotate yet when the braking effect of the stylus is applied the platter would slow and the suspended masses would continue at their normal speed. The only way to prevent this is to have those masses rigidly coupled to the platter. Unfortunately at audio frequencies this is a 2 way street. Energy can travel to and from the rotating mass only to be released in a smeared form slightly later. Most high mass turntables suffer from overblown bass performance as the mass that is there to provide speed stability stores and releases energy after the event. There is also the issue of trying to match the acoustic impedance of the record with that of the platter material. This allows the energy imparted in the vinyl by the action of driving the stylus to be dissipated away in a harmless fashion.

There are other ways of achieving the effect of high mass without the downsides of bearing wear and platter resonance (just as there are ways of of making stable amplifier power supplies without using excessive capacitance which also sounds bad)

The answers lie in developing better drive systems. It is hard to find a more stable sounding turntable than an SP10 mk2 or 3. You have to get rid of the horrible rubber mat and use something which dissipates energy away from the record more effectively. Polycarbonate or Carbon fibre both work. You also have to mount it in a plinth which provides sufficient isolation from the outside world.

This approach does give an aesthetically more pleasing and sonically more accurate presentation of what is on the record than the clumsy and imprecise high mass approach and yet still allows you to fit the arm of your choice be it a good linear tracking arm like the Kuzma or good pivoted arm like the SMEV (not using the horrible VdH wire)

You then don't have to worry about air pumps (at least for your turntable) or bearing lubrication or the threat of divorce from your beloved partner. You have something easy to use, that's well built and that doesn't cost the earth. You can get on with listening to your records.

Direct Drive. Done properly it's the only way to fly!

guy sergeant wrote:

The Ultimate turntable only needs to provide for one arm. The ultimate arm. Why compromise its performance with various inferior arm designs.

Well, certainly a single ultimate arm would be a good thing but I still would love to have a number of the cartridges available for the different records, type of the recordings or for the different style of listening: mono cartridge, different shapes of the needle cartridge, an ultimate cartridge, “everyday records” or “CD cartridge” and so in. All of them, in order to get the best from each cartridge, might require the different arms, at least the different affective mass, dumping, VTA, rigidity and so on. I do not even mention that different cartridges might require the different loading that might lead to the different after cartridges hardware…. So in the real world, all cartridges that you might select might not be used with one arm. I would like to have juts one arm but I do not see any impediments why an Ultimate Turntable should not have more then one arm. There is no compromise to enable a TT to have 2 arms for instance.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Romy,

I don't know if you have seen this effort by a gentleman in Greece. As I said, I'm not really a fan of the high mass approach. (I've listened to a few but generally find them tonally unbalanced) This design seems to take that approach quite a long way.

http://aca.gr/paper37.htm

Having seen the pictures of your Micro I now understand your desire for multiple tonearms. My experiences with arms like the SME 3012, SAEC and the big Dynavector arm have been less than satisfactory. They have all been guilty of introducing all sorts of spurious mid and high frequency nonsense. Many people criticise the SMEV for being dead sounding but I find it refreshingly free of the usual hash that plagues the more fancied arms (Triplanar, Graham etc) As I said yesterday, it has to have better wire in it than the awful stuff fitted by the factory though.

My record player only has to play LP's so I don't really need the facility to replay 78's There is enough music recorded after 1955 to keep me interested and as you pointed out, some of the earlier recordings have been put onto CD.

best regards,
Guy

**** I don't know if you have seen this effort by a gentleman in Greece.

Yes, I am familiar with that writing. I have a problem with that guy, not with him personal but with the way in witch he thinks and consequentially with his objectives and his means.

*** As I said, I'm not really a fan of the high mass approach. (I've listened to a few but generally find them tonally unbalanced)

Guy, you see, I’m not necessary a “fan” of the high mass I rather forced to stay with high mass. I perfectly comfortable with a vision that a low mass TT can perform satisfactory. I just do not know the properties and ingredients that should be taken care and considered when a “light TT” built or designed. What I have seen that the logical engineering conclusions and common sense did not always lead to better sound. Considering that evaluation of TT’s is very complex, very costly and frequently placebo-driven topic, I personally would (and am) stay with high mass TT. The only reason “why” is because it is more secure and predictable from a standpoint of effort/result ratio. Obviously if people know how to get the predictable sound our of the specific engineering constructions then it would be great but unfortunately I am not one of them and I do not know the people who can do it. I know the people who say that they can do it but I always find that it is wishful thinking in their parts. So, my desire for a high mass TT is just an easy solution to stay ignorant and in the same time to have an easy-forecastable and secured positive result.

 *** Having seen the pictures of your Micro I now understand your desire for multiple tonearms.

Actually, as anyone who lived with multiple arms. I do wish to have a TT with only one arm…. :-)

Rgs,
The Cat

I was involved many years ago (1985), in the design and manufacture of a 'low mass' turntable called the Voyd. This suspended design used 3 papst external rotor synchronous motors to drive a very light acrylic (and later polycarbonate) platter. The idea was to have something under the disc which would conduct away and dissipate energy from the vinyl to where it was less harmful. Applying the power of the motors from 3 points also allowed the benefits of a proper low resonance suspension to be heard without the drag caused by the stylus forcing the platter to try to move towards and away from a single driving motor in time with the music. (a problem with almost all other suspended s/chassis decks.) The chassis and arm mounting were also light but very rigid. The effective mass of the platter was very high. The bass performance possible from this deck (particularly in its most extreme iteration) was as good as anything I've heard. It was not supplemented by the usual boom and colouration I associate with typical high mass designs. There is definitely merit in this approach if implemented accurately. The main downsides were that it would have had to be modified to accomodate arms weighing much more than 1.5 Kg although there weren't many around at the time and the moving mass of a linear tracking arm would not have been helpful without significant modification to the suspension design. This multiple drive design pre-dated efforts by VPI and Clear audio by several years. It's an alternative approach to your original proposition though. Did you ever encounter one?

best regards,
Guy

Guy,

I do not know about the multi-drive TTs. Personally I have suspicion but this suspicion based mostly on my prejudice and my wishful thinking then on the facts. Whatever TT’s with multi-drive I have seen did not impress me, and, what was the more important, the way in which the system’s owners were approaching or were thinking about analog generally did not thrill me as well.

The low tension belt drive although it has own issues, but all those issues are resolved when you go for a very large platter mass. With a larger mass it is not necessary to create any fantasies, theories or logic and the tremendous mass along with a natural inertia make all “issues” negligible. This approach is just more convincing for me…

Also, and it is kind of ironic, but it is difficult to make bad performing heavy TT. I am not saying the a light TT can’t not be good but with a light TT there is always an opportunity that the particular TT was not made properly (let pretend that someone knows how to build Sound instead of implementation of a non-necessary relevant engineering logic). With a have TT, if one resolved a problem with suspension and bearing the even morn can build them and the will sound quite appropriate.

BTW, may I ask you about the “booms and colorations” you associate with the “typical high mass designs” or why you presume that the “booms and colorations” were the properly of the high mass platters but not the thousands of other more prosaic reasons? Usually the “boom” is something that first go away with a larger mass…

Rgs,
The Cat

Nope, I never neard it. Well, I did, as well I heard some this small TTs but it was at the conditions where it was virtually imposable to say anything defiantly. The most weak element of most of the better analog installations are dead phonostages and people just forced to make their TTs to artificially squash some more or less rational-like sound. I more incline to a vision that to make any assessment in context of somebody’s else analog installation is totally imposable as there are huge amount of masking effects and the human foolishness that are capable to overwrite the result. Anyhow, I like WHAT Kuzma did with this new $9K arm. I have no idea how it sounds and I have no linear tracking arm experience to make any further judgment.

Rgs, Romy

I disagree with many concussions and methods that those guys use but still I appreciate that people took the task and tied to attach is as good as they know of:

“After carefully reviewing the marketplace and the technology currently being used we believed it was time for a new approach. The technology did not, in our opinion, properly address several key performance elements. It was apparent that considerable advances were easily possible.”

http://www.grandprixaudio.com/prod_monaco_turntable.php

http://www.grandprixaudio.com/Monaco-Turntable-Whitepaper.pdf

Although many comments they make in their White Paper document (I recommend to read) are absurd:

“The single most critical element of any turntable’s performance is the platter speed control. The more accurate the platter speed control the more accurate the frequency reproduction of the turntable.”

…still it is worth to familiarize with the thinking about the 21st Century turntable. Ironically, despite of my disagreement with the literature that this company use to promote their TT’ idea I kind of like what they end up with. I never seen/heard this TT. There was a review by David W. Robinson:

(the same guy who wrote about Lamm M1.2: http://www.romythecat.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=6113)

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue25/monaco.htm

but I did not read it as soon I saw Dynavector DV 507 tonearm I did not read any further.

Anyhow, here is the GrandPrix take on the subject of “Ultimate Turntable”.

mats wrote:

Fremer reviewed the Monaco :  http://stereophile.com/turntables/1107gp/

Hm, I did not know it as I buy Stereophile very sporadically. I scanned at the Fremer’s thoughts about Monaco. I do not know…. I do not feel that Fremer mentally equipped to review anything, particularly turntables. Not to mention that his constant stressing of hierarchical nature of audio performance makes me very feel very revolting about his audio writings…

mats wrote:

FWIW I have greatly enjoyed the abilities of my direct drive turntable to negotiate complex passages of symphonic music.  I assume it is because it is less sensitive to the drag on platter speed that grooves impart.  Many records that I thought were at fault now are well resolved.  Battery power also has helped.

Yes, it is everlasting topic: belt vs. direct drive vs. idle roll. There were tones of discussions and literature about it. I do not think that direct drive has any ability to “negotiate complex passages of symphonic music” it rather a specific implementation and a zillions of other reasons…

Reviewing turntables performances – who is a healthy mind would take upon this task and would develop stupid confidence to compel own hightly-conditioned judgment as an expression of references verdict? Well, unless it is made at the Fremer’s level:

Richard,

I have no experience on the subject. I heard many contradictory theories from various people about “how the plinth should be done” and “how the platter should be done”, including the materials, the mass ratio, that mass allocation and so on and on. I do not know if they right or wrong - I never made any TTs and have no my own judgment on the constriction techniques. My entire idea of an “ultimate turntable” was to flood the problem with mass. As soon all economic issues go away and a TT introduces very large mass then all “little rules” that are “in play” in light turntables become to be out of influence. If you have properly suspended >150 pounds platter then all know to TT’ platters  problems juts become not applicable, similar that all “wisdom” with belt, roles, slipping, stability and so o on just become not applicable. I certainly do not say that it is imposable to make a light TT to sound right but … it require knowledge, paying attention to what you do and to fiddle with “little things”. Where do you see it is possible?  The TT companies manufacture not “TT for sound” but “products for sale”. In this environment I feel to go for TT enormous mass and enormous mass inertia are the good, and secure directions to go in order do not worry about anything else.

el`Ol,

in your proposal of “arbitrary speed deviations” what would be a criterion for the “arbitration”. I wonder what algorithm your DSP would execute in order to detect that the “speed irregularities of tape recorders and cutting machines” took place?  It is not that I feel that it is ever necessary but I wonder what your ideas were all about, If it was not a joke of course….

Romy the Cat wrote:

el`Ol, in your proposal of “arbitrary speed deviations” what would be a criterion for the “arbitration”. I wonder what algorithm your DSP would execute in order to detect that the “speed irregularities of tape recorders and cutting machines” took place?  It is not that I feel that it is ever necessary but I wonder what your ideas were all about, If it was not a joke of course…. Rgs, Romy the Cat

el`Ol wrote:

Romy the Cat wrote: el`Ol, in your proposal of “arbitrary speed deviations” what would be a criterion for the “arbitration”. I wonder what algorithm your DSP would execute in order to detect that the “speed irregularities of tape recorders and cutting machines” took place?  It is not that I feel that it is ever necessary but I wonder what your ideas were all about, If it was not a joke of course…. Rgs, Romy the Cat If one covers regular speed deviations with random speed deviations they no longer interfer with perception of timing. But my main intention was shocking people with the idea of a light platter, so "joke" is not exactly the right word, but not so far away from the truth.

enjoy_the_music,

I against all of it as it just does not make sense to me. There is a hypothetical problem and there is a cost-benefit to resolve the problem. There is also a cost of damage that the solution costs if to look at the result from a divert perspective.

Yes, some records are mis-centred. So what? How devastating is the solution to move arm or to move platter in a real time to correct this error? It is not liner move and the movement has own inertia that is dumped by needle suspension.  So, we cure one problem and crew another. Sure, the LF recording is very far from perfect. The anti-scatting for instance could be set properly only for one single point on the record but not for the entire record surface. We can go crazy to implement the anti-scatting that act on trapedolck principles but all this will be applied to a tonearms that has enough own functions… I do not see a lot of tonearms that sound good. So can you imagine adding to a tonearm a function to catching the proximity from the center and dynamically reset the anti-scatting? How about automated tonearm’s vertical excursion to compensate the records thickness and self tuning of VTA? What would be next? The room temperature analyzer that would automatically adjust the viscosity of tonearms damping ligules in case of the hater in your room went off and the temperature change for 5 degree. It does changes sound, so why not… Oh, one more… even more funny: the mis-centrering will affect the correct anti-scatting at mix and max mis-centrering position, so should we do…. whatever.  BTW, there was a TT in Russia where metal platter is flooding in a bath of mercury… it is good for any-vibration but the users die too frequently…  Anyhow, I have a friend who had Nakamichi TX-1000 and his comment was that it was…very interning to play with but it sounded very poor. Go figure why!

I think that the brutal force heavy TT is less susceptive to anything and I found it is very comporting though. The el`Ol’s idea of super light TT and super light platter might be interesting for graduate lab experiments but I do not think that is it useful in applied turns. I have seen TT where platter had virtually no mass and the record itself was suspended on a 3 narrow supporting point. So, the records itself become a platter and the fat 180g LP and the thin RCA Red Seal LP sounded so different then it was not funny.

Well, I think the larger then rational mass of “silent” TT platter eliminates all other moments. If you have a 150 lead-like platter then would it be direct drive, belt drive, or pinch roller would be absolutely irrelevant. The moment of inertia of this thing would be mammoth and you can apply torque by impulses once a second – the platter will not have reflected it on sound. The ultimate tonearm for the “ultimate turntable” is a whole another subject…

Still, if I go for ultimate turntable concept then in my book where less is more it would be a large mass TT with air or magnetic (perhaps electromagnetic) suspension. It is interesting that in the subject of “big turntables” the turntables have some kind of mysterious high values; this it is very little in analog come from a TT. There are expensive turntables out there with price tag of $30K, $50K, $80K…. What an idiocy! A function of TT is to spinning a disc – nothing else! Why should it be so expensive of complex of even simple and cheap $100 turntables already produce speed stability that is order of magnitude more stable that it is imaginable to hear. In fact the most horrible problem with speed stability I ever experiences in my live was from $100K Continuums Turnable… so where is the common sense?