It's surpising that common 70's mid-level decks like the Sansui SR-2050c or Pioneer PL-12d didn't come to mind as a possible suggestion for the budget minded of today. There are some nice vintage decks out there, hopfully with low miles and you'd better test drive it before buying. Then again, it could create a wonderful DIY opportunity to do a complete restoration. If it has a noisy, worn-out platter bearing.. and then our potential budget TT buyer can hope to find a replacement or machine a new one if CEC (common 70s/80s Japanese decks) or whoever made it is out of business or the part is NLA. Or if the deck has circuit boards to control a DD motor, does it need a recap? How long with those PLL ICs hold up? Or any other proprietary control ICs? Another DIY opportunity.. replicate those functions with an Arduino, Raspberry Pi or fab up a custom made circuit board that plugs into an IC socket.. but maybe that's treading into upgrade territory. I wasn't aware vintage never needed upgrades, either. So all those AR turntables never needed upgrades? Linn never made any upgrades for thier decks? Upgrades are a bad thing now? Isn't this a diy forum where these sorts of projects are discussed all the time? And those vintage decks can be upgraded with better belts, platter mats, tonearm wiring & resonance dampening.
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Hi thermionic,
I'm a very busy guy, and I am not going to spend hours digging through archives to drag up data that will verify what I have learned over 40 years of direct experience. At any one point in my career I could have delivered measurements and facts about the current models of the day, and those bits of information have drifted out of mind as they should. They are basically mind garbage and really the only things that remain are the impressions and summation of that data you are asking for. However, I don't mind at all if you back up your statements. I just will not do your work for you.
What I will say is that if someone wanted to do a DIY project, it wouldn't matter these days whether they went direct drive of belt drive as long as the platter and bearing system was the same (if you are going to compare) and heavy. Both drive methods are not the question at all anyway. Trying to advance one over the other in an open question is pointless as I think you could achieve the same results in specs.
Direct drive tables were used for applications where, with light platters, time to speed was the overriding concern. DJs in particular lover the 1200 as they could turn the motor off and back cue, or scrub. Try that will a belt drive! But the belt drive was easier and less expensive to achieve good playback performance than was a direct drive. Then there was a cache for "direct drive" in HiFi advertising, and the better tables were belt drive. The pinnacle of performance was commonly achieved with belt drive tables. Having been in the business and having direct exposure to all brands over many years - including up to today, I chose a few tables for myself. My second being a direct drive table, but everything else has been Thorens. I bought a TD-125 MKII which was substantially better than my previous belt drives, and miles ahead of any direct drive I encountered for repair or in passing. Later I bought a TD-126 MKII, and even better table. Of all I have seen since, I still own and use the 125 MKII and 126 MKII. I wouldn't mind a Linn, but I won't pay that kind of money for a product with defective motor drive designs. They are a copy of an early Thorens originally after all. But money aside, an upgraded (fixed) Linn is a very good table as long as you use a decent mat with it.
I am sorry, but the suspension and bearings in an SL-1200 mark anything were never as good as the top tables like Thorens and Linn - and that is what will determine your rumble spec. I have used and repaired both Technics products, and Thorns and a few other belt drives. The Technics are not as quiet - sorry. You can easily hear the difference, measurements are not necessary because it isn't a close contest.
Having said that, the Panasonic / Matsuhita / Technics makes excellent products and I will never accuse them of being unreliable. They just never made a top end turntable.
AES. Sigh, a very political organization. I stopped going, especially when SMPTE joined the meetings. Their articles can be excellent, good reading. I would love to have a collection of them. However, what is there to write about smooth bearings and high rotating mass. It's all simple stuff, nothing cutting edge at all. If you make any possible (under normal circumstances) speed variation a much longer time constant than the servo correcting the speed, you will achieve extreme stability. That is where classic DD and light platters run into trouble and you need cool solutions to circumvent your own problems created by using a light platter. This is a CAV system, allow physics to do the work for you. CD / DVD players need light rotating mass because they are a CLV system, so direct drive with fancy servos are required. Don't confuse the two as many continue to do (CEC with their belt drive, or other "stable patter" systems as examples on the market). These are also excellent examples of how marketing will advance one non-optimal solution onto the market while trying to differentiate their product, or hook onto an attractive idea to the uninformed.
So don't allow a great AES article to fog over the basic concept and confuse you. Neither should the lack of an AES article be read as a company that doesn't know their engineering and science. Focus on the physics of what is happening. Then, look at the bearings. Lastly, the method used to apply energy to that rotating system isn't nearly as important as the isolation between it and that rotating mass. That means compliance, which in a DD drive is the magnetic field. A belt drive uses both a magnetic field and a belt as the total compliance between the motor and platter. In both, the more poles the motor has, the smoother the rotation will be. Important up to a certain point until it doesn't matter practically anymore. Looking at pure numbers without understanding the mission and the end results will lead you down the wrong path for sure.
So it doesn't matter between belt drive and direct drive conceptually or in a DIY project. When it comes to comparing actual commercial products ... well. The entire completed unit is compared against another. The classic TD-160, 125 MKII, 126 MKII and others are pretty difficult to beat. The SL-1200 doesn't come close - sorry. But then, it was never designed to compete in that market, the target audience for that was well served by this table, so it was well engineered. But don't try to make it into something it never was or designed to do. Just like the really good belt drives would have failed in the market served by the SL-1200. They were not designed for that purpose.
It doesn't take a genius to compare them and come to the same conclusions many of us have over the years. You want to compare specs, drag up the SL-1200 and compare to anything I have listed. Go for it. But, compare the arms, chassis isolation, speed stability and most importantly - rumble specs. They are all pretty good for speed stability, I used to test that with a 3K test record and W&F meter. I do have hands on experience here. I just never recorded all my measurements, I only needed to prove the equipment was better than spec. Anyway thermonic, go ahead and compare all the specs and prove the SL-1200 was better. I happen to know it wasn't, but it did have good measured speed stability. That's all it had though. The arm wasn't very good for sure. Rumble also didn't cut it, and degraded quickly as the bearings were not as robust as the better tables. BTW, the first upgrade for a Technics table is a good set of bearings.
-Chris
I'm a very busy guy, and I am not going to spend hours digging through archives to drag up data that will verify what I have learned over 40 years of direct experience. At any one point in my career I could have delivered measurements and facts about the current models of the day, and those bits of information have drifted out of mind as they should. They are basically mind garbage and really the only things that remain are the impressions and summation of that data you are asking for. However, I don't mind at all if you back up your statements. I just will not do your work for you.
What I will say is that if someone wanted to do a DIY project, it wouldn't matter these days whether they went direct drive of belt drive as long as the platter and bearing system was the same (if you are going to compare) and heavy. Both drive methods are not the question at all anyway. Trying to advance one over the other in an open question is pointless as I think you could achieve the same results in specs.
Direct drive tables were used for applications where, with light platters, time to speed was the overriding concern. DJs in particular lover the 1200 as they could turn the motor off and back cue, or scrub. Try that will a belt drive! But the belt drive was easier and less expensive to achieve good playback performance than was a direct drive. Then there was a cache for "direct drive" in HiFi advertising, and the better tables were belt drive. The pinnacle of performance was commonly achieved with belt drive tables. Having been in the business and having direct exposure to all brands over many years - including up to today, I chose a few tables for myself. My second being a direct drive table, but everything else has been Thorens. I bought a TD-125 MKII which was substantially better than my previous belt drives, and miles ahead of any direct drive I encountered for repair or in passing. Later I bought a TD-126 MKII, and even better table. Of all I have seen since, I still own and use the 125 MKII and 126 MKII. I wouldn't mind a Linn, but I won't pay that kind of money for a product with defective motor drive designs. They are a copy of an early Thorens originally after all. But money aside, an upgraded (fixed) Linn is a very good table as long as you use a decent mat with it.
I am sorry, but the suspension and bearings in an SL-1200 mark anything were never as good as the top tables like Thorens and Linn - and that is what will determine your rumble spec. I have used and repaired both Technics products, and Thorns and a few other belt drives. The Technics are not as quiet - sorry. You can easily hear the difference, measurements are not necessary because it isn't a close contest.
Having said that, the Panasonic / Matsuhita / Technics makes excellent products and I will never accuse them of being unreliable. They just never made a top end turntable.
AES. Sigh, a very political organization. I stopped going, especially when SMPTE joined the meetings. Their articles can be excellent, good reading. I would love to have a collection of them. However, what is there to write about smooth bearings and high rotating mass. It's all simple stuff, nothing cutting edge at all. If you make any possible (under normal circumstances) speed variation a much longer time constant than the servo correcting the speed, you will achieve extreme stability. That is where classic DD and light platters run into trouble and you need cool solutions to circumvent your own problems created by using a light platter. This is a CAV system, allow physics to do the work for you. CD / DVD players need light rotating mass because they are a CLV system, so direct drive with fancy servos are required. Don't confuse the two as many continue to do (CEC with their belt drive, or other "stable patter" systems as examples on the market). These are also excellent examples of how marketing will advance one non-optimal solution onto the market while trying to differentiate their product, or hook onto an attractive idea to the uninformed.
So don't allow a great AES article to fog over the basic concept and confuse you. Neither should the lack of an AES article be read as a company that doesn't know their engineering and science. Focus on the physics of what is happening. Then, look at the bearings. Lastly, the method used to apply energy to that rotating system isn't nearly as important as the isolation between it and that rotating mass. That means compliance, which in a DD drive is the magnetic field. A belt drive uses both a magnetic field and a belt as the total compliance between the motor and platter. In both, the more poles the motor has, the smoother the rotation will be. Important up to a certain point until it doesn't matter practically anymore. Looking at pure numbers without understanding the mission and the end results will lead you down the wrong path for sure.
So it doesn't matter between belt drive and direct drive conceptually or in a DIY project. When it comes to comparing actual commercial products ... well. The entire completed unit is compared against another. The classic TD-160, 125 MKII, 126 MKII and others are pretty difficult to beat. The SL-1200 doesn't come close - sorry. But then, it was never designed to compete in that market, the target audience for that was well served by this table, so it was well engineered. But don't try to make it into something it never was or designed to do. Just like the really good belt drives would have failed in the market served by the SL-1200. They were not designed for that purpose.
It doesn't take a genius to compare them and come to the same conclusions many of us have over the years. You want to compare specs, drag up the SL-1200 and compare to anything I have listed. Go for it. But, compare the arms, chassis isolation, speed stability and most importantly - rumble specs. They are all pretty good for speed stability, I used to test that with a 3K test record and W&F meter. I do have hands on experience here. I just never recorded all my measurements, I only needed to prove the equipment was better than spec. Anyway thermonic, go ahead and compare all the specs and prove the SL-1200 was better. I happen to know it wasn't, but it did have good measured speed stability. That's all it had though. The arm wasn't very good for sure. Rumble also didn't cut it, and degraded quickly as the bearings were not as robust as the better tables. BTW, the first upgrade for a Technics table is a good set of bearings.
-Chris
I can't help thinking that Eric Laithwaite could come up with a novel solution ( I have no idea if he's still with us ), probably some mag levitation thing with a " linear " ( but in an ark ) motor acting on a copper flange around the plater. If I was in the market for a turntable, I'd go for a cheap ( £300 ish ) Lenco direct drive, but I found a Gerard 401 at a junk shop for £10 - when I realized it's value I snapped it up and carried it home with a fractured arm, it rumbles though, so I'm guessing the idler rollers gone. I see the problem with most belt drives is that it's just a stretchy bit of rubber, I can't help thinking that cotton or Kevlar cords in the belt would improve speed stability.
A belt is ground rubber, so it has some give. I wouldn't call it "stretchy" at all.
Mind experiment for you. Is a magnetic field stretchy? It has more give than a belt. An idler has very low give, or compliance. Therefore an idler drive table, to be any good, needs a massive platter by comparison.
-Chris
Mind experiment for you. Is a magnetic field stretchy? It has more give than a belt. An idler has very low give, or compliance. Therefore an idler drive table, to be any good, needs a massive platter by comparison.
-Chris
My M3D doesn't seem to have a rumble problem. It's not totally silent, but it's not bad.
You mean belt drive.
jeff
Hi Jeff,
Really, all turntables need a heavy platter. DDs included.
You should have nearly silent rotation. If you can hear rumble, there is a problem - or the turntable simply wasn't designed to perform that well. The amount of rumble a turntable design has is not a surprise to the designers. It comes down to how much is acceptable - and quality control. In other words, how much will it cost to make. No escaping that I'm afraid.
-Chris
Really, all turntables need a heavy platter. DDs included.
You should have nearly silent rotation. If you can hear rumble, there is a problem - or the turntable simply wasn't designed to perform that well. The amount of rumble a turntable design has is not a surprise to the designers. It comes down to how much is acceptable - and quality control. In other words, how much will it cost to make. No escaping that I'm afraid.
-Chris
Hi Dave,
Measured them too. Try looking at the physics. Inexpensive tables go light on the platter, which also saves a lot in shipping.
There are many reasons to go for a light platter, and on a belt drive they are all monetary reasons. Their performance would be improved with a heavier platter and better bearings.
-Chris
Measured them too. Try looking at the physics. Inexpensive tables go light on the platter, which also saves a lot in shipping.
There are many reasons to go for a light platter, and on a belt drive they are all monetary reasons. Their performance would be improved with a heavier platter and better bearings.
-Chris
>BTW, the first upgrade for a Technics table is a good set of bearings.
A firm in Australia used to make a replacement bearing for the 1200 at £400 GBP. It certainly looked the part, and was heavier and generally chunkier than the standard Technics one. However, when Noel Keywood took measurements, he found that it increased flutter over the standard bearing...
I'm not aware of any other firm that's made an aftermarket 1200 bearing. But I do know that, without taking measurements, were you to see the Australian bearing, you'd think it to be a significant improvement. I can easily get the Keywood article, but it's possibly best to let sleeping dogs lie, as its inventor will likely find the thread and use subjective claims to defend it.
So, there has been an impressive-looking bearing made for the 1200, but it failed to improve over the original... Without measurements who knows if the bearings on any of the BD decks were better?
The fault of the 1200 is that it's built to a price, so there are numerous areas that can be improved, including the arm. Auditory memory is notoriously short. Unless measurements are shown, then any advantage that a BD deck of a similar weight might have over the 1200 are moot. Of course, a 50KG monster, assuming the designers knew what they were doing, will have better rumble performance than the 1200. That's not my point. My point is that the majority of BD decks are justified subjectively, and if you dig, you will find similar observations as to Mr Keywood with the £400 bearing that added flutter.
NB - When Don Grossinger previewed his master of Brian Wilson's 'Smile' to Sony execs, he used a Technics. They could've chosen any deck they wanted... There are better decks than a 1200, sure. But you will have to spend a lot of money and navigate an audiophool minefield to find them.
A firm in Australia used to make a replacement bearing for the 1200 at £400 GBP. It certainly looked the part, and was heavier and generally chunkier than the standard Technics one. However, when Noel Keywood took measurements, he found that it increased flutter over the standard bearing...
I'm not aware of any other firm that's made an aftermarket 1200 bearing. But I do know that, without taking measurements, were you to see the Australian bearing, you'd think it to be a significant improvement. I can easily get the Keywood article, but it's possibly best to let sleeping dogs lie, as its inventor will likely find the thread and use subjective claims to defend it.
So, there has been an impressive-looking bearing made for the 1200, but it failed to improve over the original... Without measurements who knows if the bearings on any of the BD decks were better?
The fault of the 1200 is that it's built to a price, so there are numerous areas that can be improved, including the arm. Auditory memory is notoriously short. Unless measurements are shown, then any advantage that a BD deck of a similar weight might have over the 1200 are moot. Of course, a 50KG monster, assuming the designers knew what they were doing, will have better rumble performance than the 1200. That's not my point. My point is that the majority of BD decks are justified subjectively, and if you dig, you will find similar observations as to Mr Keywood with the £400 bearing that added flutter.
NB - When Don Grossinger previewed his master of Brian Wilson's 'Smile' to Sony execs, he used a Technics. They could've chosen any deck they wanted... There are better decks than a 1200, sure. But you will have to spend a lot of money and navigate an audiophool minefield to find them.
Chris,
That is a false statement about the reasons for low mass.
And i would say this TT is far from cheap (both price-wise and performance-wise).
Rega | Planar 10 Turntable
Chris, we have had many TT discussions, and i know your reverence for the Thorens BD TTs that i would class as competent but hardly first rate. I am not going to get into it with you. With almost anything audio there are many "this and only this way” generalizations that are just not true.
With a TT, as with anything, execution is important.
dave
That is a false statement about the reasons for low mass.
And i would say this TT is far from cheap (both price-wise and performance-wise).
Rega | Planar 10 Turntable
Chris, we have had many TT discussions, and i know your reverence for the Thorens BD TTs that i would class as competent but hardly first rate. I am not going to get into it with you. With almost anything audio there are many "this and only this way” generalizations that are just not true.
With a TT, as with anything, execution is important.
dave
If I was going to make a decent deck, I'd use a 3mt to a jacobs taper arbor or the spindle , they're cheap and precision made and should be available for many years to come should a replacement be required. I'd use the 3 morse taper for the bearing surface ( with a center for the thrust and to adjust clearance ) and the Jacobs taper to locate the sub plater. I don't like the thought of the flywheel effect of a motor coupled to the flywheel effect of the platter by a rubber belt, I'll agree that I think of a magnetic field as springy, but clever people can do clever things with motors.
Master class example of how elegantly differences of opinion can be expressed
Well put, Dave
Have Rega yet managed to make a TT that actually turns at the right speed? Every test I have seen had them running fast, which seems to be to write them off as failing at the first hurdle. I remember the Planar 3 coming out and, whilst the arm was amazing value the actual TT did nothing for me in looks, pride of ownership or sound. But it was half the price of the Gyrodeks, Xerxes etc that ended up on my shortlist when I sold my CJ55.
I admit to bias, but Rega to me just continue the linn tradition of marketing over engineering that was (to me) part of the downfall of the british audio industry.
I admit to bias, but Rega to me just continue the linn tradition of marketing over engineering that was (to me) part of the downfall of the british audio industry.
Sadly, I think you're right. Mind you, I don't think Linn or Rega could ever have done more to engender cynicism than that other British (French-owned) OEM one could name. I mean, what's with the plethora of power supply options? The PSRR in their amps is so bad that you have to keep upgrading the PSU? And the lower-end PSUs have a really dirty output? It's a case of looking to see where you can make money and exploiting it. If people fall for this c**p, is it any surprise that Brits elect such charlatans?
This happens here in the USA as well.
In the 1970's, you could buy a Dual, and needed nothing else done to it.
Today, just about anything you buy needs "more". $$$
Pretty sure that wasn't the cure. And I'm pretty sure all the older models (and current p3 and lower) that are still running the cheap plastic drive pulley and plastic sub-platter still run fast. My old Planar 2 ran fast. Buy a new P6 and up, you get a machined drive pulley and machined sub-platter.
jeff