Dung Beetle is back, proving my point, it'd be nice if my opponents were of higher quality. There a bug zapper available in this forum?
I got around to hooking up a Giant Direct Coupled Lenco into the ultra-slammin' Leak/Electro-Voice garage system and I was astounded to discover the system had TOO MUCH dynamics!! And I don't mean distortion, hardening or brightness, the usual hallmarks of overloading. The sound is smooth, with no hardening, no brightness, but still, the sound emerges with SUCH slam and speed it's just too much! I've never heard anything like it. The actual model of the E-Vs is still a mystery, but they share the same type of cabinet-work as is visible on the fabled - and MUCH larger - Patricians (with 30" woofers!!!!). The Lenco was set up with a re-wired Rega RB-300 and a plain vanilla Denon DL-103, and that running into the ultra-quiet Pioneer C-91, which has state of the art detail via the Leak/E-V system. So, I do believe this system will be an MM-only system, as MCs simply have too much speed. That was the vintage balance, which were used with either MMs or rich-sounding MCs (i.e. Ortofon SPUs) and rich-sounding tonearms. Or, alternatively, I may source a tubed preamp, or try out something more vintage, or perhaps SETs!! Anyway, next project: try to tone down those ear-slammin' dynamics.
So, this definitely demonstrates the effectiveness of the "humble" (but ultra-effective) Russian birch-ply/MDF recipe, as well as those older idler-wheel drive machines, which even in this VERY high-efficiency system, with their tendency to amplify noise such as tube roar, and with awesome deep bass (12" HEAVY woofer in a large box) has NO 'table related noise, as if it wasn't already well established literally around the world. The ultra-revealing Leak/E-V system is indeed a mighty testing tool, especially as concerns the relative dynamics of 'tables (the Technics had nowhere near the Lenco's SLAM and speed) and materials. The Lenco, in turn, when mounted with modern tonearms and cartridges, serves to beef up modern sound systems with their relatively limited dynamics and speed. Again, this vintage system shows just how modern-sounding vintage equipment (like idler-wheel drives) is, in the new digital-inspired paradigm shift towards speed and clarity. What goes around comes around!
Ah, and MORE developments in the Idler-Wheel Revolution, or the Continuing Adventures of the Myth of Progress: the latest recipient of the old "create a neurosis/unfair picture of the older technology/machine so as to promote your new product" award (I'll REALLY have to start up the assembly line!!), which lately went to Teres with their claim that idler-wheel drives had speed instabilities which their solution addressed, goes to Harry Weisfeld of VPI for promoting his new external rim-drive (same as the Teres in this sense): "With the rim drive, the Scoutmaster acquires a kind of "digital" (in the best sense of the term) clarity and control at the bottom of the frequency spectrum. Rim drives were, once, common in turntable designs at the beginning of the stereo era, and they were both noisy and not all that reliable - and they were, to boot, on the underside of the platter, not, as in this case, an external drive. The Rim Drive is, for the Scoutmaster series, a major advance."
A victory for the Idler War nevertheless, as all such news is!! But, I wish they didn't feel the need to revive and promote the old Dogmas I worked so hard to slay in the original thread in order to, ironically and in the first place, promote the idler-wheel drives they are now promoting due to my slaying of the Dogma!!! Oh the HUMANITY!!
So, to be clear, I have made HUGE claims for the rebuilt Lencos (which, being cheaper, served as the needed Ambassador to my claims for the superiority of the idler-wheel drive system, which was then dismissed as "not serious" and passé by the modern press/consumers) Garrards, and other vintage idler-wheel drives, and having done such, have put my name on the line with each one I sent out to make my point and each one which is built by readers/partcipants themselves. And the result?? A "sudden" return of the idler-wheel drive by current manufacturers, a multiplication of reviews of vintage idler-wheel drives (and quasi idler-wheel drives, as Art Dudley's report on his now-darling Thorens TD-124 attests in the latest Stereophile: he's finally turned his back on his dear Linn LP12!!!!), the increasing domination of idler-wheel drives of vinyl forums, and the rise of dedicated Lenco forums. It doesn't take a genius to see that these old machines are POTENT, can be integrated into modern full-range system with NO noise penalties and with a minimum of tweaking (apart from replinthing and restoration with better lubricants), with the astonishing revelation that these old machines have state of the art detail, imaging, dynamics and BASS.
Not that the return of the idler-wheel drive to the market isn't good news, it is, after all, what I was after all along: for the benefit of audiophiles around the world, a BIG increase in the more fundamental musical aspects of PRaT, gestalt, and excitement (with, however, a coomnsurate increase in detail, organization and imaging). It would be nice, however, if due respect and, yes, gratitude, were paid to the older machines. Let us bow our heads and acknowledge the miracle of the development of the idler, which was developed specifically to deal with the issue of Stylus Force Drag, which was SERIOUS back then with cartridges tracking at 10 grams!! But, this, it turns out, was the right approach to the biggest problem in vinyl playback all along, the braking action of the stylus in the modulated grooves, the greater the modulations (big dynamic swings, bass, complexity of large ensembles), the greater the braking action, and the effects on speed stability (belt-drives losing power exactly when the biggest modulations occur).
Anyway, Vive la Lenco (An Instrument in the Return of the Idler), Vive la Idler-Wheel!!!
