JSmith
Master Contributor
JSmith
But there's no 'arm in talking about it ...... sorry
I'm anti skating over the subtlety of that oneOne thing’s for sure, measured performance has no bearing on my enjoyment of turntables
I don't understand these jokes. My head must need realigning.
I think it’s just your bias against analogue audioI don't understand these jokes. My head must need realigning.
Cartridge measurements was the original motivation for me to start thinking about this project.Cartridges alone could be quite the rabbit-hole, and simply testing all variations of Audio Techica's VM95 series or Ortofon's 2M lineup could make for hours of entertainment(?)
HI-Fi News is the only place I've seen posting cartridge measurements as of late. Not a pretty sight:Cartridge measurements was the original motivation for me to start thinking about this project.
A friend of mine is dying to ask whether during your time with Garrard any discoveries were made on the hugely important issue of which plinth design/material most effectively mitigated rumble in 301/401s. It’s not me you understand, definitely a friendOne of the first jobs I was given when I joined Garrard as an engineer with 5 years noise and vibration research experience was to measure the rumble on a turntable using the Bruel and Kjaer analyser I was familiar with.
I really struggled and couldn't get a consistent result but that was what they wanted me to learn.
The TT was on a solid workbench on the 4th floor of the office building which had a carpark between it and the main road yet, as they pointed out, the inconsistent result was because the TT was picking up traffic vibration from that road.
When put on a heavy concrete block suspended from a big frame by an isolation system I got consistent results.
The point they, and now I, was making is that the cartridge output contains a lot of signal from environmental vibration as well as the groove so what a record player actually sounds like depends strongly on where in the listening room it is sited and what sort of support, plus the effectiveness of any built in isolation - a lot of turntables don't have any.
I experimented at home siting my own TT in different places, including in a different room and confirmed both that it makes a difference to the sound and that I preferred the sound with a bit of pickup over total isolation, probably because of the extra reverb it is effectively adding.
What I am getting around to is that the setup and environment the TT will be in make such a big difference - and effective isolation may not be preferred - that any measurements will only eliminate TTs with problems but in no way tell you which will sound to one's liking in use at home.
The only benefit of TTs IME is the ability to tune the sound to taste by choice of cartridge FR and location and isolation to alter the added reverb. I am not sure how universal any test could be for this.
My advice to @amirm would be not to bother since it will raise more questions than it will answer.
Much as I enjoy my record player I consider it a hobby I have decades of experience fiddling with rather than a hifi source.
I have hundreds of LPs but I don't play one often.