GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Analog Playback
In the Thread: Ultimate Turntable

Post Subject: What makes a turntable worth "the price"?Posted by rowuk on: 5/6/2014

Don't we always go through this same discussion regardless if it is an amplifier, speaker, turntable, DAC (wine, cigars, frying pans)? Don't the arguments keep repeating themselves? Don't we all agree that IF a turntable NEEDS to cost 125K that something else is seriously wrong (unless your goal is to brag that yours is bigger, heavier and thus out of sonic context - even better)? Yes those that can hear the grass grow are truly cursed!

Turntables bother me a lot as computer harddrive technology has brought "chatter free" ball bearings as well as motor technology down to ridiculously low prices. That alone should bring wow and flutter down to "jitter" proportions. Modern machining has brought piece to piece consistency up to extremely high standards - at very interesting prices. There are almost infinite low cost ways to get essentially perfectly smooth motor rotation at any desired RPM. Hell we can even use tube regulators to improve the flavor of the electrons going to the motor.

I also am not ready to give up on "lower mass" TTs. Most of the time the speaker setup is so abominable that the TT is several orders of magnitude "less" problematic anyway.

This entire discussion with the AF1 has not brought one bit of "reason" why it should do better SONICALLY than many others in a less than EXTREMELY optimised playback situation - of which there are VERY few. None of the discussion puts those advantages into a playback SYSTEM context either. I seem to remember in the good old days when there were 50 fine turntables to choose from, that there actually were very convincing arguments for low and high mass TTs.

So, at the end of the day, let those that need to spend $125K do so. Let them exactly like every reviewer, publish the "arguments" that have no defined connection to Sound in Context. Basically we have exactly the SAME problem arguing against "overkill". Let's also not forget that that 125K TT needs a 50K stand, an 80K tonearm, at least a 10K cartridge - to play what? Records with a magnitude greater problem with centricity, wow/flutter from the cutting lathe, non documented EQ, non standard thickness and great diversity in the vinyl mix. We haven't even begun to talk about airborne vibrations that "attack" the resonant cartridge.

I get great enjoyment reading about all of the wonderful stuff these TTs allegedly perform. Actually, that is not quite right, I laugh my ass off. I would love to play two different trumpets for these special people - one for 600€ and one for $13.000. I own them both (and many more in between) and use them for different situations. Those golden ears seem to fail in the concert hall every time. The difference is that the trumpet is SUPPOSED to be resonant. The beauty of TTs is that they too as a system have resonant issues that the "audiophile" can individually address - thus raising their personal Tweakrating. As long as there is no "measure" of Tweaquality, Tweakability is primarily in the lucrative subjective, suggestive zone for those "paying for a service that they have no chance of comparing". I am not saying that there is no difference, but how do we determine what "gets more out of the groove" really means? How can we, without having a vast "earned" knowledge of what the recording engineer did, what equipment he use - QUANTIFY what we hear in respect to the entire audio system? At what point do our TTtweaks actually compensate for problems elsewhere? Do we "solidify" the bass with mass in the TT and arm? Do we need additional help from the phono corrector to get the "proper" balance from a particular record? At what point does one mans air and sparkle become anothers earache?

I really wish that high enders would really look at Romy documentation and think about that before posting here. I would much prefer to learn something rather than getting repeated confirmation about activity in the stratosphere. Context and content would be WONDERFUL especially when one does get to play with a state of the financial art piece of equipment.

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