Do expensive turntables sound better?

[amirm]

Here is the most scientific test of that which I have seen!

 

[Keith_W]

I fast forwarded through the video. Did they come to a conclusion? I could certainly hear a difference even through my computer speakers.

 

[amirm]

No but there was some food fight in the comments about him calling a "disco" turntable a high-end one.

 

[RayDunzl]

Amazing synchronization, considering that the turntable on the right is not even spinning when the edge of it comes into view while the player on the left is playing.

 

[amirm]

I was very impressed too by that.

 

[RayDunzl]

But wait!

There's more...

 

[amirm]

Wow, buck 72 for a cartridge??? How can they make it so cheap?

 

[RayDunzl]

Wow, buck 72 for a cartridge??? How can they make it so cheap?

No Health Insurance.

 

[RayDunzl]

If two ounces of postage from HongKong to the US is $1.50 ($11.60HKD), then the cartridge is 22 cents.

We need to find the diminishing returns chart for phono cartridges and re-plot.

 

[amirm]

I suspect shipping out of China is subsidized to enable more export. I can't imagine any other way for them to do business this way.

 

[watchnerd]

Is this supposed to be comedy?

They have different cartridges -- which is like evaluating amps using different speakers. Of course the AT cart is going to sound different than the ceramic groove chewer.

That being said, I'm not a fan of the sound of that AT cartridge and actually prefer the vinyl-eating cart.

Not that it proves anything...

 

[amirm]

Is this supposed to be comedy?

That's a good bet on a lot of what we post here .

 

[watchnerd]

That's a good bet on a lot of what we post here .

 

[TitaniumTroy]

I would love to see a shoot out between a Technics SL-GAE1200 at US $4k vs a TAC DAS AirForce One at 75k in British Pounds.
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/05/technics-sl-1200gae-is-for-audiophiles-not-djs/
http://www.hifinews.co.uk/news/article/techdas-air-force-one-pound;75000/19654

 

[watchnerd]

I would love to see a shoot out between a Technics SL-GAE1200 at US $4k vs a TAC DAS AirForce One at 75k in British Pounds.
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/05/technics-sl-1200gae-is-for-audiophiles-not-djs/
http://www.hifinews.co.uk/news/article/techdas-air-force-one-pound;75000/19654

Since they can both hold an accurate speed, I think it would come down to the tonearm.

 

[tomelex]

I would guess, that in a blind test, same cartridge, half the folks would like either one, with no clear winner in the audibility department, although it reminds me of the French doing blind tasting tests with California wines, and losing, they never did that again. Tech Das would never sponsor such a shootout. Their specs are hardly any better than my $700 1982 Yamaha PX-3. That is, what specs you can find.

 

[watchnerd]

Their specs are hardly any better than my $700 1982 Yamaha PX-3. That is, what specs you can find.

Yeah, from what I've seen, the specs for wow & flutter, SNR, and speed stability only improve a little bit between $300-500 turntables and $2k-ish turntables, and then really don't improve at all above that price.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Tell you what would be really neat, pointless, and likely have no market at all. Have a TT that takes in the signal from the cartridge via a good ADC. Have embedded in the platter points to be picked up by sensors. This gives nice read out on real time speed. Have software to vary the speed of playback digitally based upon this real-time speed sensing of the platter. You could end up quite a way towards speed stability of playing a CD. At least it should get much closer than PLL's or massive platters have managed. I suppose the old strobe setup with a light sensor for real time speed measurements might do well enough.

 

[amirm]

That's a clever idea but I think it will be hard to back out the speed modulations. Here is the measurements of the Linn turntable:

The broadening of the center peak indicates random speed variations. The peaks are at constant rate. Correcting absolute speed error would be easy but the rest of these hard.

 

[watchnerd]

Tell you what would be really neat, pointless, and likely have no market at all. Have a TT that takes in the signal from the cartridge via a good ADC. Have embedded in the platter points to be picked up by sensors. This gives nice read out on real time speed. Have software to vary the speed of playback digitally based upon this real-time speed sensing of the platter. You could end up quite a way towards speed stability of playing a CD. At least it should get much closer than PLL's or massive platters have managed. I suppose the old strobe setup with a light sensor for real time speed measurements might do well enough.

You don't need all those extra steps -- Phoenix Engineering already makes a PSU + Hall sensor to vary the motor speed, accurate out to several digits.