New Turntables - AT-LP8X, DP3000NE, SL-1300GK, and others

[dualazmak]

Thanks for the links. If I understood correctly, the issue was inability to lower the base enough with some cartridges without using a cartridge spacer or thicker mat. It seems the SL-1300G solved a similar issue the lower models had by adding the 2.5 mm brass top to the platter.

I assume your points are wright right.
since I myself do not have AT-LP8X, I cannot confirm the points by myself, though...

Just for your reference, I still use old but still excellent DENON DP-57L (ref. here and here).

 

[dlaloum]

The difference in tracking ability and high frequency detail is massive between elliptical and a microline stylus ... and you can have tapered/not rounded aluminum cantilevers with great results.

I have had boron cantilevers ... and for me, stylus cut is more important.

No It's not - tracking ability relates to effective mass (also to compliance and arm matching!) - back in the day, AT made some superb very fine 0.2mil eliptical styli.... which tracked superbly - they were on a beryllium cantilever from memory (AT22)

The width of the horizontal contact patch, is one variable that impacts on tracking ability - it needs to be narrow enough to fit into the higher frequency "wiggles" - the 0.2mil elipticals, have a narrower horizontal patch, than the coarser (cheaper) line contact types!

On the other hand, for a worn record (most!) - the contact patch area gets worn, degrading what can be extracted from the record, an extended vertical contact patch, distributes the pressure over a larger area, reducing the wear.

Also an extended vertical contact patch (ie: line contact needle design) - will often read past the wear zone inflicted by elipticals and conical styli - thereby tracing "fresh" / "virgin" vinyl - making it sound superior to an eliptical or conical reading the same record.

On a virgin brand new record, the horizontal width of the contact patch, determines its ability to extract higher frequency detail.... and the best elipticals are a match for the best line contact - they have the same horizontal contact patch width.

Yes I would always recommend a line contact over an eliptical.... (even a high quality one as described) - but it isn't because of absolute tracking ability!!

With a few exceptions (such as the AT22), exotic, low effective tip mass cantilevers, have always had line contact needles on them.... and until recently, most basic cantilevers (aluminium) were not fitted with the line contact needles... which then tends to obfuscate the seperation between cantilever and needle performance.

The best Aluminium cantilever I have seen (and measured) was the flagship Stanton/Pickering, which managed to keep effective mass low enough to achieve a resonance at circa 19kHz... the AT440MLa which also has a tapered aluminium cantilever, with line contact needle - tends to have resonance around the 14kHz to 16kHz area... which is a performance limiter.

The Shure V15V with the Beryllium tube cantilevers pushed the resonant frequency out beyond the audible range to 32kHz - allowing a very flat frequency response... The Dynavector Karat with its stubby 2mm ruby cantilever, pushed resonance out to 50Khz, and the Technics EPC100mk4 managed to use a Boron Tube cantilever of extremely low mass to decrease the tip mass further and push resonance out to 100kHz (!!!)

The otherwise excellent Jico SAS styli, although Boron (or saphire/ruby) rods, have due to their construction, relatively high effective tip mass - with my measurements on different samples showing the resonance at 14Khz to 16kHz - about the same as a decent tapered aluminium design like the AT440.

And yes this stuff is measurable, objective, not subjective...

 

[dlaloum]

I assume your points are wright.
since I myself do not have AT-LP8X, I cannot confirm the points by myself, though...

Just for your reference, I still use old but still excellent DENON DP-57L (ref. here and here).

With the arm on that TT, and its electro damping capabilities, I would definitely NOT be looking at these as an upgrade

 

[EJ3]

Semi-auto. Nice!

How 'bout full auto, linier tracking: TECHNICS SL-M3 (check out their operation on YouTube).
I bought mine at an Estate sale in Germany. They gave a 2 year warranty on it despite the fact that I had them ship it to James Island, SC, USA.
It's pretty durable.

 

[dualazmak]

With the arm on that TT, and its electro damping capabilities, I would definitely NOT be looking at these as an upgrade

Just for sure, what/which do you mean by "the arm on that TT" and "looking at these"?
You mean AT-LP8X's, right?

 

[mike70]

No It's not - tracking ability relates to effective mass (also to compliance and arm matching!) - back in the day, AT made some superb very fine 0.2mil eliptical styli.... which tracked superbly - they were on a beryllium cantilever from memory (AT22)

The width of the horizontal contact patch, is one variable that impacts on tracking ability - it needs to be narrow enough to fit into the higher frequency "wiggles" - the 0.2mil elipticals, have a narrower horizontal patch, than the coarser (cheaper) line contact types!

On the other hand, for a worn record (most!) - the contact patch area gets worn, degrading what can be extracted from the record, an extended vertical contact patch, distributes the pressure over a larger area, reducing the wear.

Also an extended vertical contact patch (ie: line contact needle design) - will often read past the wear zone inflicted by elipticals and conical styli - thereby tracing "fresh" / "virgin" vinyl - making it sound superior to an eliptical or conical reading the same record.

On a virgin brand new record, the horizontal width of the contact patch, determines its ability to extract higher frequency detail.... and the best elipticals are a match for the best line contact - they have the same horizontal contact patch width.

Yes I would always recommend a line contact over an eliptical.... (even a high quality one as described) - but it isn't because of absolute tracking ability!!

With a few exceptions (such as the AT22), exotic, low effective tip mass cantilevers, have always had line contact needles on them.... and until recently, most basic cantilevers (aluminium) were not fitted with the line contact needles... which then tends to obfuscate the seperation between cantilever and needle performance.

The best Aluminium cantilever I have seen (and measured) was the flagship Stanton/Pickering, which managed to keep effective mass low enough to achieve a resonance at circa 19kHz... the AT440MLa which also has a tapered aluminium cantilever, with line contact needle - tends to have resonance around the 14kHz to 16kHz area... which is a performance limiter.

The Shure V15V with the Beryllium tube cantilevers pushed the resonant frequency out beyond the audible range to 32kHz - allowing a very flat frequency response... The Dynavector Karat with its stubby 2mm ruby cantilever, pushed resonance out to 50Khz, and the Technics EPC100mk4 managed to use a Boron Tube cantilever of extremely low mass to decrease the tip mass further and push resonance out to 100kHz (!!!)

The otherwise excellent Jico SAS styli, although Boron (or saphire/ruby) rods, have due to their construction, relatively high effective tip mass - with my measurements on different samples showing the resonance at 14Khz to 16kHz - about the same as a decent tapered aluminium design like the AT440.

And yes this stuff is measurable, objective, not subjective...

A 0.2 mil elliptical is like a white fly today .... and with a boron or beryllium cantilevers very expensive. You're talking about the limits of the state of art with an elliptical stylus.
That's not the general case,, at all.
For someone who wants to spend thousand on a cartridge, I agree,.

But, in the standard case (O.3 mil elliptical at best), you can do whatever you want in the cantilever, objectively measurements will show you this:

the radius in the microline es 0.1 mil (SAS stylus is mircroline / microridge) and also have the greatest contact surface.
i'm talking about the general case, the "standard" implementations .... i know with a turbo charger and high octanes fuel you can make a 1.0 engine works as a 2.0, but that no means the 1.0 is as powerful.

 

[Bob from Florida]

For you Technics fans. A really cool video comparing the 1300G with the 1200GR2. Including a complete teardown of both tables. I recognize the quality of their motors. Enjoy.

So, after watching the deep dive video on the 1300G, I decided I would test drive it. Turns out Music Direct has stock of both colors and at least as of a few minutes ago are honoring a coupon code of "WELCOME15" for 15 percent off. With a 60 day return period, I will be able to determine if it is a good choice for a "final" turntable. New turntable on the way!

 

[JP]

With a few exceptions (such as the AT22), exotic, low effective tip mass cantilevers, have always had line contact needles on them....

That doesn't seem to be accurate, unless you've an ETM database that I've never seen. In the <0.2g range I'm seeing a lot of ellipticals with minor radii of ~8μm, with some "supers" around 5μm, but few actual line contact types.

 

[dlaloum]

Lovely turntable - just sad that it is hard to get the TOTL cartridges in p-mount format

 

[dlaloum]

Just for sure, what/which do you mean by "the arm on that TT" and "looking at these"?
You mean AT-LP8X's, right?

The Denon DP-57L has an electro-magnetically damped arm, which was their flagship back when vinyl was king and real R&D $ were thrown at it....

And yes, I don't believe the AT-LP8x is on a par with the Denon DP57L arm... (nor should you expect it to be! - if you translate out what the cost was for the Denon at the time and translate it into 2025 $)

 

[dlaloum]

That doesn't seem to be accurate, unless you've an ETM database that I've never seen. In the <0.2g range I'm seeing a lot of ellipticals with minor radii of ~8μm, with some "supers" around 5μm, but few actual line contact types.

I was being a little hyperbolic - today we are seing a dearth of high end elipticals, and a preponderance of line contact designs even on basic aluminium cantilevers.... I believe your ETM table is dominated by designs of the mid 1980's?

 

[dlaloum]

A 0.2 mil elliptical is like a white fly today .... and with a boron or beryllium cantilevers very expensive. You're talking about the limits of the state of art with an elliptical stylus.
That's not the general case,, at all.
For someone who wants to spend thousand on a cartridge, I agree,.

But, in the standard case (O.3 mil elliptical at best), you can do whatever you want in the cantilever, objectively measurements will show you this:


View attachment 452624

the radius in the microline es 0.1 mil (SAS stylus is mircroline / microridge) and also have the greatest contact surface.
i'm talking about the general case, the "standard" implementations .... i know with a turbo charger and high octanes fuel you can make a 1.0 engine works as a 2.0, but that no means the 1.0 is as powerful.

Yes - the high end 2mil elipticals are a rare breed - they also have the downside of theoretically high wear, as their contact patch tends to be very small - but excellent performance!

(and I have shared this image quite a number of times over the years - an excellent reference!)

 

[mike70]

So, after watching the deep dive video on the 1300G, I decided I would test drive it. Turns out Music Direct has stock of both colors and at least as of a few minutes ago are honoring a coupon code of "WELCOME15" for 15 percent off. With a 60 day return period, I will be able to determine if it is a good choice for a "final" turntable. New turntable on the way!

Wow! Congratulations

Waiting for your opinion ... and I bet for Technics

 

[thewas]

The Denon DP-57L has an electro-magnetically damped arm, which was their flagship back when vinyl was king and real R&D $ were thrown at it....

There existed also the 59, 67, 72 80 and 100 above but the 57 is also great of course.

https://www.hifi-archiv.info/Denon/1985%20Denon%20DP-Series.pdf

Source of above photo: http://www.thevintageknob.org/denon-DP-100M.html

Sony had also similar tonearms which even were partially linear tracking called Biotracer.

Sony PS-X800 Turntable

When it came to Lilliputian LP players Sony was late to the party, but is this early '80s deck with two motors and a tangential arm now an overlooked gem? We find out... The 'small and square' turntables that appeared in the early 1980s were arguably the last important development in vinyl...

www.hifinews.com

 

[dlaloum]

There existed also the 59, 67, 72 80 and 100 above but the 57 is also great of course.

https://www.hifi-archiv.info/Denon/1985%20Denon%20DP-Series.pdf

View attachment 452817

Source of above photo: http://www.thevintageknob.org/denon-DP-100M.html

Sony had also similar tonearms which even were partially linear tracking called Biotracer.

Sony PS-X800 Turntable

When it came to Lilliputian LP players Sony was late to the party, but is this early '80s deck with two motors and a tangential arm now an overlooked gem? We find out... The 'small and square' turntables that appeared in the early 1980s were arguably the last important development in vinyl...

www.hifinews.com

Also JVC with the QL-Y series...

 

[JP]

I was being a little hyperbolic - today we are seing a dearth of high end elipticals, and a preponderance of line contact designs even on basic aluminium cantilevers.... I believe your ETM table is dominated by designs of the mid 1980's?

Are we moving the goal posts? When you reference the AT22 as the "rare exception", and say "have always had", etc., you're not limiting the scope to cartridges available today. According to the data I've seen, which is in the ETM list, line contacts were the rare exception.

 

[dlaloum]

Are we moving the goal posts? When you reference the AT22 as the "rare exception", and say "have always had", etc., you're not limiting the scope to cartridges available today. According to the data I've seen, which is in the ETM list, line contacts were the rare exception.

Mea culpa - yes at the time the ellipticals were far more common - but once the Shure V15 line contact needles started into the mass market things changed fairly quickly... and the finer ellipticals mostly disappeared in favour of the line contact designs... in cartridge terms there was a conical era, an elliptical era then a line contact era.... and there were grey zones between them (with the era description being based on what common higher end needle profiles were...)

 

[Platypus20]

I’d want a cueing lever, no push button cueing

 

[Bob from Florida]

Wow! Congratulations

Waiting for your opinion ... and I bet for Technics

Technics arrived today - surprised Chicago to Florida so quickly! Setup went uneventfully. I did not use the overhang gage, but used the Clearaudio tool set for the IEC standard. Pivot to spindle distance is 215 mm. AT VM95SH on HS6 currently playing some Gene Ammons Boss Tenor. Sounds real nice at first play. The arm is not as nice as my Sorane SA-1.2 in some ways but nicer in other ways. The package is well integrated and the motor drive is a shining star. At the moment it seems to be a keeper, but I have 60 days to be sure.

 

[Bob from Florida]

Speed test courtesy of the Waxwing.