These are rather specific claims.
Which one? (Nothing to do with this topic - just not aware of a Thorens with a clutch that does that.)
People can abuse their equipment in all sorts of wonderful ways. Is it really reasonable to expect a manufacturer to anticipate these scenarios and engineer to accommodate them? And no, I don't think sensing speed is a good way to control torque.
Because it's not an actual problem?
Asking for examples of a claim is playing a game? Outside of a couple of people (I guess) putting 10lb platters on SL-QD33 I don't see any issue, general or otherwise. You have direct experience with just about every 'table made but you refuse to provide a single example so we can understand where this notion comes from? Is it because I don't own a hat rack?
BTW, it was debunked ages ago including this very forum that high platter mass is a requirement for speed stability. Many ways to skin a cat.
I have.
A few years back, my neighbor brought me a 701 in flawless cosmetic condition, including its base and dust cover.
It has a Stanton "top line" cartridge with the stereohedron stylus.
However, it needed the usual servicing, which I lovingly performed.
He's still got it, hardly used since, just looking pretty on his equipment rack.
Lovely machine it is.
Back in 1974 I couldn't afford it, so back then I got the 1229 w/Shure V15 Type 2 Improved, but I was happy.
Hi JP,
I'm a working person who is trying to give the benefit of many years of practice. I don't have time to debate things I have actually seen and experienced more than once.
Try the Thorens TD-160, 125 MKII and many others. That white thingy on the motor shaft is a clutch. I guess now you know what it is!
A heavy platter naturally stabilizes speed. Debunk that try. It is physics. It also is less likely to be disturbed by vibrations and airborne noise. Bond the album to that and you have a great system that tends to be quiet. Of course we will assume it is true and balanced like the tables I am referencing. Put that on a good bearing and you have astable, vibration free rotating mass. I don't care how you add energy to that to maintain speed, just do it with enough decoupling so as not to disturb it too much.
Many ways to skin a cat, but why not take the least failure-prone route that always works? Sure you can get fancy if you want, but the cuter the engineering gets the more opportunities there are for something to go wrong. Like this has not been shown time again in every product as we make them cheaper but engineer more complicated ways to circumvent costs. Just build it properly from the start. It works and tends not to fail.
I'm a working person who is trying to give the benefit of many years of practice. I don't have time to debate things I have actually seen and experienced more than once.
Try the Thorens TD-160, 125 MKII and many others. That white thingy on the motor shaft is a clutch. I guess now you know what it is!
A heavy platter naturally stabilizes speed. Debunk that try. It is physics. It also is less likely to be disturbed by vibrations and airborne noise. Bond the album to that and you have a great system that tends to be quiet. Of course we will assume it is true and balanced like the tables I am referencing. Put that on a good bearing and you have astable, vibration free rotating mass. I don't care how you add energy to that to maintain speed, just do it with enough decoupling so as not to disturb it too much.
Many ways to skin a cat, but why not take the least failure-prone route that always works? Sure you can get fancy if you want, but the cuter the engineering gets the more opportunities there are for something to go wrong. Like this has not been shown time again in every product as we make them cheaper but engineer more complicated ways to circumvent costs. Just build it properly from the start. It works and tends not to fail.
Yes. Not their best effort but then the Duals were lowish end tables with their own market.
dave
Isnt this like saying a large capacitor naturally stabilizes voltage?
In either case, the bigger the better sure looks impressive, because one would think "BIB". Then someone develops a refined through engineering system that has better stability using "lighter" components - not accomplished via simply laying it on thick. Like they said, debunked in another thread; I dont even have to find and read it to know it's likely so.
I wasn't asking for a debate - simply asked for a real example to back up the claim. It does strike me as odd that you don't have time to type out a single model number but do have time to respond with paragraphs of diversion on top of a rather crass response to a fellow member. 'Because I said so' only worked for my dad, several decades ago.
The only Thorens I've direct experience with are the 124 and 224. I'm sure the 125, etc. are fine machines, but they aren't in the ballpark of my preferences.
Never said platter mass didn't help with speed stability, only said it wasn't the only way. For DD unless the motor has substantial torque a high mass platter can defeat the benefits of the motor control. Triple the platter mass of an SP-10MKII and you'll end up with a bit less flutter and increased wow, and that is a rather high-torque motor. Can't say I've ever seen airborne noise disturb platter speed stability.
There are good and bad examples of both drives types. I find a good DD to be far less finicky than other drive types, and I've not had a lick of reliability issues. Give it a once-over after 40 years and they'll likely go for 40 more. I don't have to deal with belts, cleaning running surfaces, warm-up time, etc. Less than one revolution from go I've perfectly accurate and stable running speed every single time. But I'm not talking about a QD33.
While I prefer the vintage machines, particularly for their build quality and reliability, I was surprised after I restored my naighbor's Thorens 124.
Once that massive hunk of iron got spinning, it gave an impressive result of its vintage quality.
Even the DD Dual 701 that I overhauled with its weighty platter did justice to the music.
But just the same, my lowly Kenwood DD with it's light platter satisfies my picky tastes.
But as I mentioned, it needs that light platter in order for the electronic sensing/servo to quickly react and correct itself.
It's all about the design.
I started with a Dual 1210 with ceramic cartridge, then an Ariston RD11 with SME 3009.
I can name a hierarchy of tables i li\oved with and those that we sampled when i was at the hifi shoppe.
In order of cost. PL112D, Connoisseur BD1 with a decent Jelco we bought a big batch of. Rega 2 or 3 with Grace 707, LP12 with Grace 707. To fill in the gaps we searched for good deals on decent tables. ERA, Unity Rotary Platform, the KD500 mentioned above (more). We upgraded the arms on a lot of ARs and Thorens. Near the end more higher end tables started coming. We sold 10% (100 units) or the first gen Oracle. As a take away when i retired Oracle #996 with Lurne tonearm and a higher end Grado. We sold a zillion 707s, quite a few Formula 4, a smattering of Hadcocks, Grace 704/714, Fidelity Research FR12. 50% of the cartirges we sold were Grado. Grace, Ortophon, Nagaoka, things like the Supex 201 just started coming to market. That was a very luscious sounding thing.We tried a lot of stuff that didn't make the grade. Before Rega & Linn started doing full-meal-deal tables.
We had a line up of the best DDs of the day, Technics, Denon, another i cannot recall, then a Linn, Regas, whatever else we had scared up, and room to set up anything else for the sake of comparison. What price can you afford? Here listen to these. We were so successful that in our city there was a derth of direct drive sales during the rise of the Japanese DD.
For every table we sold some 2 or 3 would come in for alignment or a new cartridge. We also tried a lot of mods and the good ones got repeated often.
We got to hear a lot of different TTs. ALOT.
I can’t speak for newer tables, but those days set a bias. And some understanding of the huge number of compromises in any table, costs, physics, and execution. So there can be an awful lot of varied sonics, and just like there are so many loudspeakers to satisfy so many different needs (sets of compromises). If the listner is connecting with the misic and is happy, then that TT is good (for them).
I currently have a modified Rega 2 with a Linn Basic and a Garrott P77 (they modify a Nagaoka). Cost $100. Hasn’t been used for some time. CDs ripped to the macMini are so much more convient.
The LP12 is a good beater TT. I’ve owned a dozen, Same with the SME 3009/3012 (i am not a fan but boy can they fetch a lot of coin). And lots of 1-offs.
dave
Hey Patrick,
I'm really not trying to be contentious, but what is the everything that is better? If a TT runs at an accurate speed, doesn't transmit spurious mechanical or electrical noise, and has an arm capable of tracking a quality cartridge, where can the improvements lie?
The Pioneer is my second deck, the main one is a TD160 with an SME 3009/2, and to me they both sound of a similar quality.
Last edited:
My conclusions are basically the same.
A silent spinning platter and a needle allowed to properly and freely track the grooves.
However, the 'noise floor' and esoteric thinking has a way of complicating something fundamentally simple.
Add in some superficial/visual tokens to spice up the soup.
It's a broad spectrum. TT-101 has one of the lightest platters I've seen on a serious 'table, and the SP-10MK3 one of the heaviest. Both have remarkable speed stability. Torque on the 101 is appreciable for a coreless design, but the MK3 has far, far better control of its platter.