longevity, convenience(cartridge mounting, general maintenance or lack there of) and my fave..autolift.
What makes for a "great" turntable?
I know that the cartridge, tonearm, phono pre-amp and other upstream components make records clearly sound different, but what is it about different turntables themselves (cartridge and tonearm excluded) that affects the sound? I would guess isolation from external vibrations and rotational accuracy. After this, what else is there that makes a great $30000 turntable sound better than say a much lower priced "good" table?
Also, how significant is the table itself to the resulting sound compared to the other things, ie tonearm, cartridge, phono pre-amp, etc?
Also, how significant is the table itself to the resulting sound compared to the other things, ie tonearm, cartridge, phono pre-amp, etc?
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- 27 posts total
I would guess isolation from external vibrations and rotational accuracy I think you've pretty much said it as far as clearly identifiable design characteristics that affect the sound are concerned, except that I would add "rotational stability" if that is not implicit in "accuracy." Although I have no experience with $30K+ turntables I would imagine that, as with most audio components, beyond a certain price point there is either diminishing return or overkill. As you may be aware, around 25 or 30 years ago Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn began to promulgate the self-serving philosophy that the turntable is the most critical contributor to the overall sonic performance of a system. This by virtue of the fact that it is first in the chain, and so any inaccuracy or distortion that it produces is amplified by everything else that follows. I suspect that he didn't do too well if he ever took an academic course in Logic, his philosophy totally ignoring the possibility that the inaccuracies introduced by the turntable may be orders of magnitude smaller than those introduced by other components. Here is a quote from a site that talks about his classic LP12 turntable, http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/linn_lp12_e.html: The character of the LP12: at first, it has a lovely midrange, which makes you smile, when you listen to a singer's voice, kind of tube preamp like. Then it gives some kind of forward movement of the music playing, which Linn fans call PRAT (=Pace, Rhythm And Timing). This forward movement gives a lot of joy when listening, but records which do not develop such a forward movement on the LP12 do sound definitely boring. Some records are such that you are hunting for "interesting parts" giving you the goosebumps. Perhaps, perhaps not, but my point in mentioning this is that for owners of super-expensive turntables (which the Linn was not, of course), there are likely to be subjectively perceived sonic values that transcend what is attributable to specific design characteristics. Regards, -- Al |
- 27 posts total