OMA K3 $360K TURNTABLE

[JP]

Chumming for sharks is more difficult.

 

[Sal1950]

Chumming for sharks is more difficult.

But not near as much fun. LOL

 

[JP]

Equally predictable.

 

[Platypus20]

I once tried to buy a Rega P9 turntable, just I ordered it they came out with the P10, which to me is a hideous looking open framed bad art project. I wanted a well built traditional looking TT with a functional dust cover. Because this, I’m still using Technics SL1200 Mk II. There are some incredibly ugly turntable, true their function is the most important aspect of the design, they say beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.

 

[Sal1950]

apart, perhaps for a 0-60 traffic light drag which requires zero skill if the launch control is easy to initiate.

Very true Frank, but it is still so much fun and bragging rights in the street racer crowd.

 

[Todd68]

For some of us that grew up when vinyl was the highest quality playback medium available, we still enjoy the experience of playing records. I still have some of my records I purchased when I was a teenager I can still enjoy today. A decent quality turntable and cartridge setup can sound quite good, though obviously the noise floor is much higher than digital. A plain old Technics 1200 and decent cartridge is good enough for good quality playback. I listen to digital, either disc or streaming way more often than spinning records, mostly because of the huge convenience factor.

I can’t believe there’s a market for these high priced over engineered, fancy or whatever vinyl rigs but apparently there is. People waste money on all kinds of unnecessary or overkill stuff, if they’re happy with the purchase who am I to judge?

 

[Frank Dernie]

Very true Frank, but it is still so much fun and bragging rights in the street racer crowd.

I think that is mainly true in the US Sal due to straight grid of roads with traffic lights at each intersection. I remember when I did an exchange summer and spent 8 weeks in Milwaukee in 1970 seeing this culture for the first time. Weekends on the "main drag" was teenagers cruising and racing from the traffic lights.

Round here drag racing has never been a thing, there aren't any straight routes with traffic lights anywhere near where I live and despite having launch control in my newest car I have only been in front at the lights once since I bought it. I did try it then though

 

[Killingbeans]

For some of us that grew up when vinyl was the highest quality playback medium available, we still enjoy the experience of playing records.

Better than reel-to-reel?

 

[Frank Dernie]

The OP post on a forum like ASR is like chumming for sharks ;-)

As you know I have been involved with turntables most of my adult life including design and concept of them as a vibration transducer - which is fundamentally what they are.

I have 4 still but don't play LPs often, just the ones I already bought over the last 60 years or so.

There are some excellent turntables available so I do think it is fine to critique something containing any bollox pseudo engineering BS like this one.

If it just addresses some of the the constraints better than previous designs, like the AR in 1961 and Goldmund Reference did in 1982 or so that would be fine and interesting but it does not.

This thing doesn't offer anything new, apart perhaps a new level of unjustifyable price.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Better than reel-to-reel?

As always the SQ is more dependant on the recording you are playing than the medium it is coming from.
If you are a knowledgeable tape recorder user with good microphones and technique making your own recordings on a first class machine with levels set optimally reel-to-reel is pretty good IME but hard work to do well.
Pre-recorded tapes done on high speed duplicators were probably never as good as LPs for listening to other people's recordings though.

 

[Todd68]

Better than reel-to-reel?

No, but feel-to-reel recordings were not something you’d find at the local record store. Mostly cassette or vinyl. I never owned or listened to reel-to-reel but its what was used for the recording masters, so I assume top quality performance.

 

[benanders]

Better than reel-to-reel?

Listening to reel-to-reel production masters from 1950s-80s on a big ol’ Stüder production deck = why I think the importance high-end TT designers put on mass as justification for costliness is nonsensical. Why not just go for the more original medium when entertaining that kind of expense?

Can you imagine the expression from record plant QC personnel back in the ‘60s upon hearing “Careful now, careful - someday that record might be playing on a rig worth $360 thousand bucks. No no, not the mansion, just the turntable inside it…”

 

[Sal1950]

think that is mainly true in the US Sal due to straight grid of roads with traffic lights at each intersection. I remember when I did an exchange summer and spent 8 weeks in Milwaukee in 1970 seeing this culture for the first time. Weekends on the "main drag" was teenagers cruising and racing from the traffic lights.

Exactly, I'm so very happy to have been born here and lived thru those heydays of the 1960&70s!
We have it all, the straight line roads to drag on and the curvy roads to play road racer on. Plus everywhere you turn there are off-road dragstrips, roadrace courses, and circle tracks of dirt and pavement to compete on legally. I've been semi active in a lot of it, on both 2 wheels, 4, and J34 jet powered. The US is a motorsports paradise.

Round here drag racing has never been a thing,

I think you downplay that a lot. There are bunch pro dragstrips around the UK, The Santa Pod dragstip was opened in 1966 on a abandoned airfield is still going strong today. If all that's happening I'm sure there's a strong streetracing scene hiding from the cops somewhere.
I see plenty of UK & Euro straight line cars interest being covered on the Motortrend channel near every day. You folks just didn't have the US style bigblock V8s that bring the biggest excitement to dragracing

despite having launch control in my newest car I have only been in front at the lights once since I bought it. I did try it then though

Launch control, you let a computer drive it too? Frank my old friend you disappointed me.

 

[Sal1950]

No, but feel-to-reel recordings were not something you’d find at the local record store. Mostly cassette or vinyl. I never owned or listened to reel-to-reel but its what was used for the recording masters, so I assume top quality performance.

RTR was the SOTA in recording for somewhere around 6 decades and those machines do offer greater playback fidelity than available on vinyl, but mass distributed media was never available. I owned a Pioneer 707 for a number of years but the best in pre-recorded rock I could get was 3 3/4 ips, high speed duplicated tape that had about every negative sonic issue you could name. Vinyl remained the SOTA for home music reproduction till the 1980s coming of CD.

 

[mhardy6647]

Better than reel-to-reel?

Practically speaking, for most folks of normal means, yes, it was. The biggest limitation were the media. Many of the massmarket prerecorded reel to reel tapes were of poor to mediocre quality. I wouldn't be surprised that most of the prerecorded tapes, then and now, were "record club" sourced.

Low generation copies of master tapes, or meticulously reproduced tapes such as those from "The Tape Project" today, played on top-quality, properly adjusted tape decks (including the preamp electronics) can be astounding to listen to. That experience doesn't come cheap. In fact, tape for listening to music (as opposed to recording music) is sort of like a swimming pool or a (large-ish) boat: it is far better to know someone who has the capability than try to maintain it oneself.
Mind you, I love tape -- but for listening, I really don't see it as practical (which mostly means affordable, from my perspective).


^^^ arguably the best tape deck that I own, but it's a prosumer/radio studio grade workhorse deck, of no particular repute along the spectrum of fine tape playback platforms.

 

[anmpr1]

The bonkers bit is that, usually, by the time you can afford a supercar you may well struggle to get in and out ...

You don't need an expensive super car for that experience. I remember getting in my MG--> using the door. Really had to bend, twist and turn. Then one day, it hit me. I realized I didn't have to use the door at all. With the top down (which it always was) I could just hop in over the door and slide down into the seat. Much easier.

And I'll tell you for sure, Midge was a lot more fun than any record player I ever owned. But mechanically, she could be as frustrating as attempting to balance my Formula 4 unipivot. And like the old AR belt driven 'table, you sometimes had to give it a push to get it started. On the other hand, I never had a turntable overheat on me.

 

[Golf]

Uhm, I’m not quite sure ... Will that tone arm stand rotate slightly while playing a record – in order to minimize (nullify?) the tracking error?

 

[mhardy6647]

Uhm, I’m not quite sure ... Will that tone arm stand rotate slightly while playing a record – in order to minimize (nullify?) the tracking error?

... shades of the justly infamous Garrard "zero tracking error" pantograph parallelogram tonearm!

source: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Consumer/Burstein-Applebee-1973.pdf

 

[Golf]

Well, that was my first thought when spotting that big fat cylinder carrying the tone arm: That it might be used to alter the tone arm’s rotation centre while a record is played.

Would be some sort of challenging approach then. Because it would also make a very special speed correction necessary, for the platter’s rotation, in order to compensate for a »moving« tone arm centre

 

[Morpheus]

A Technics motor? That was my first guess, but had a moment I thought...a Tesla? Not really SOTA, they cheaped out