Measure My Turntable Speed

It seems the old mentality of must spend lots of money in order to get good results has overcome logic again. Get real here. The powergrid line frequency is very tightly controlled to 60 Hz. Just google it and you can learn how accurate it is kept- to within 0.15 Hz. That is an error of just 0.25%. Probably less than the wow and flutter of many turntables.

Now go out and buy a cheap $100, give or take strobe light and tell me that it is accurate to within 0.25%? No way!

I laugh even more when I see someone looking at a digital readout and believe it to be accurate to the display's 2 decimal places.

"it worked great and cost $20, with an accuracy of +/- 0.05%. Plus you want you can play an LP for stylus drag while you measure. This is the only way to go!"

+/-0.05%? Unless it has a calibration sticker traceable back to the Bureau of Standards- no way. +/- 0.05% is the domain of very expensive laboratory grade equipment. A stobe-disc and fluorescent light is the most effective method. It leverages the Power Company's technology and accuracy- and it is dirt cheap. Plus, you can check the speed while playing a record.