Why no turntables?

[Robin L]

"the Spartan 15 Mk 2 is said to deliver a digital-audio level dynamic range of over 110dB"

Spartan 15 Mk 2 Phono Preamp by Michael Fidler and Classic Audio

Michael Fidler is a bonafide classic audio maestro, and he knows how to build phono preamps about as good as anybody can. To that end, the latest phono preamp offering from Michael Fidler and Classic Audio, the Spartan 15 Mk 2, is said to have evolved the standards set with company’s prior...

www.analogplanet.com

Amir measured the Spartan 20, it has a SINAD of -81 db. And Mike Mettler review has no measurements, as per usual for Analog Planet:

Michael Fidler Spartan 20 Phono Stage Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Michael Fidler Spartan 20 Moving Coil and Magnet phono preamp. It was sent to me by the company and costs £500/€600/$670. Is it me or is the On/Off upside down? I am used to On being up, not down. That nit aside, there are LP noise mitigation...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[DSJR]

My advice would be not to bother since there are too many other variables affecting the output which you won't be able to consistently or universally measure. The speed apps on phones are probably accurate enough and the influence and magnitude of resonance in different parts not transferrable.

Back in the mid-1970s it was one of my jobs as a noise and vibration research engineer to measure turntables at Garrard, both our own prototypes and competitors models.
To get accurate rumble measurements we needed to put any TT on a 50ish kg concrete block suspended from a steel frame on carefully angled steel springs about 600 mm long which isolated the TT from the environment - if not many would be picking up the vibration of traffic passing the 4th floor lab at the other side of the car park.
Some decks were OK on their own, most weren't.
Nobody is going to have an installation like that at home...

Things I found make a difference to the cartridge output are legion, rarely if ever mentioned in this second wave of interest in LPs.
There is a tendency to use static reasoning to try to understand how a turntable assembly works as a transducer which is simply wrong and leads to ridiculous (IMO) conclusions.

I still have LPs but only play one if the next piece of music I wish to listen to is on an LP, which is not often
I still have 4 turntables:-
A Goldmund Reference with T3f arm and Ortofon A90 cartridge, which is probably the most accurate from the POV of isolation and even frequency response.
An EMT 938 with either a Stanton or Decca gold cartridge.
A B&O 8002
A Roksan Xerxes with Rega arm and Ortofon Jubilee cartridge.

I have no idea how good cheap turntables are today but my experience 50 years ago was considerable variability from sample to sample.

For the benefit of @WisEd I can reveal the original DD turntables we tested were excellent and after stripping to cost them my boss bought the Sony from the "scrap man" and I the Technics SP10 which was almost as good. I reassembled it and used it for some years.

Which Sony, TTS8000?

Your Garrard team did darned good work generally after Plessey cost-cut the designs to the bone and my large format early 70s Garrards continually surprise, despite my old Linn-based conditioning screaming at me that they cannot possibly sound good (a Lab 80mk2 which I adore, SL75B which was sadly a Friday afternoon job, later AP76 which I love despite the flimsiness, an original Zero 100 *conversation piece* and a tatty but beloved 86SB which beats the lot of 'em in noise terms and sounds great with carefully matched cartridge, despite the flimsy tonearm... Garrard could do so much with very little back then (sincere apologies, this post should (and has been in various ways) be on VE site in the Garrard 'room' but fit any of them with an Ortofon OM model, I'd say they're good to go even today once the mechanisms have been properly cleaned, degreased and carefully reassembled with lubricants applied sparingly, as 1.5g tracking is fine (my SL75B has an issue with the tracking force dial below 1.75g however, but the arm will happily track at 1.5g with external balance used to set it..

The plinth is absolutely huge, but one day, I need to resurrect the 401/SME plinth, this pair maybe unusable these days due to drive noise (the 301 and 401 seems to need a multi layered marine-ply plinth a la the Uk sourced Bastin one I think).

As you were chaps, as you were...

 

[Frank Dernie]

I have no idea how good cheap turntables are today but my experience 50 years ago was considerable variability from sample to sample.

We measured two popular competitors turntables, bought from a shop, which were not as good by any means as the ones supplied by their makers for review.
Nobody noticed AFAIK, or certainly it was never mentioned in correspondence to magazines.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Which Sony, TTS8000?

I have forgotten I'm afraid, but probably. We were interested by these first direct drive motors which even then were pretty quiet.

 

[DSJR]

I have forgotten I'm afraid, but probably. We were interested by these first direct drive motors which even then were pretty quiet.

The 3000 was a belt drive with superior performance as tested in Hi Fi Sound in 1969 (compared with the 401, TD124, G99 and another I've not heard of since). The 8000 looks like this -

Sony TTS-8000 (Vintage)

The Sony TTS-8000 direct-drive offers an authoritative and dynamic, yet fluid and musical, sound Direct drive was viewed with suspicion here by many in the 1970s. Elsewhere, high-end direct-drive units from the Land of the Rising Sun were snapped up. The TTS-8000 is now widely regarded as the...

www.hifinews.com

('Magic Man' by Heart a 'grungy' track? Bloomin' 'eck, we used 'Dreamboat Annie' and 'Dog and Butterfly' as dem albums...)

 

[Frank Dernie]

The 3000 was a belt drive with superior performance as tested in Hi Fi Sound in 1969 (compared with the 401, TD124, G99 and another I've not heard of since). The 8000 looks like this -

Sony TTS-8000 (Vintage)

The Sony TTS-8000 direct-drive offers an authoritative and dynamic, yet fluid and musical, sound Direct drive was viewed with suspicion here by many in the 1970s. Elsewhere, high-end direct-drive units from the Land of the Rising Sun were snapped up. The TTS-8000 is now widely regarded as the...

www.hifinews.com

('Magic Man' by Heart a 'grungy' track? Bloomin' 'eck, we used 'Dreamboat Annie' and 'Dog and Butterfly' as dem albums...)

Maybe - it is 50 years ago!
I remember the SP10 because I reassembled it and used it with a SME 3009 Improved for some years.
I paid £12 for the box of bits iirc It had been bought in Japan before available anywhere else so it was a 100V model.

 

[JeffS7444]

To get accurate rumble measurements we needed to put any TT on a 50ish kg concrete block suspended from a steel frame on carefully angled steel springs about 600 mm long which isolated the TT from the environment [stuff omitted]
Nobody is going to have an installation like that at home...

Never challenge audiophiles when it comes to ridiculous extremes

 

[Frank Dernie]

Never challenge audiophiles when it comes to ridiculous extremes

This is OK for measuring rumble but doesn't give any data on susceptibility for acoustic pickup which, in any case, varies with location so a repeatable useful bit of real data is hard to come by

 

[Michael Fidler]

"the Spartan 15 Mk 2 is said to deliver a digital-audio level dynamic range of over 110dB"

Spartan 15 Mk 2 Phono Preamp by Michael Fidler and Classic Audio

Michael Fidler is a bonafide classic audio maestro, and he knows how to build phono preamps about as good as anybody can. To that end, the latest phono preamp offering from Michael Fidler and Classic Audio, the Spartan 15 Mk 2, is said to have evolved the standards set with company’s prior...

www.analogplanet.com

To get a quite honest figure for dynamic range (of the phono preamp), you just add the overload margin onto the SNR with the inputs connected to a low-impedance source.

Many manufacturers do this, the idea being to find the highest number possible for a press release.