Utterly useless thread. Soulless.
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Showing 12 responses by hiho
As an atheist, this soul topic is rather pointless to me but I understand the poetic attraction of it. A turntable or any hardware is just a product, a thing, made by people and its design and mechanism reflect the mind of its maker. But very often, I believe, the designers themselves are clueless. Sometimes, it's just a happy accident. Sometimes not. I think most sonic traits or inherent qualities are quantifiable if we look close enough... To me, the degree of "soul" or soulfulness in a turntable depends on the motor and the compliance of the interface, be it a belt, an idler wheel, or magnetic force. So the degree of three major components, Torque, Compliance, and Cogging play into the overall sound or tonal character of a turntable. Hypothetically, if we have several turntables using the same material and parts, how a designer dial up or down these three things will determine the majority of the sound in each table. Material, mass, isolation, vibration control, machining tolerance, execution, etc... fill up the rest of the recipe. I think the motor is the heart of a turntable. Your mileage or soul-meter may vary. _____ |
In a recent interview, Frank Kuzma had a Q&A exchange in the following: Q: "Is there a place for mystics in audio or simply good and great engineering?" Maybe all this talk about turntable with "soul" is just good and/or bad engineering that people forgot to talk about. Ok, I'm done. _______ |
In_shore: "Mass loaded designs were not in favour and none of the Micro Seiki's were ever reviewed as far as I can remember."The Micro-Seiki RX-1500 was reviewed by Steve Watkinson in the November 1987 issue of Stereophile, page 108-110. It was a negative review and MS never recovered from the market place and lost distribution in the west since then. In fact the mass loaded genre never got attention until Dick Olsher gave a rave review to the Aura turntable from New Zealand. Of course, decades of Linn dominance and hardcore Linnies from the likes of Art Dudley didn't help either. The RX-1500 review was probably the worst review from the magazine by a no name reviewer, whose reference turntable is a Sota Star Sapphire. It was rather biased from the get-go by saying... "Turntables seem to be a frequently targeted item for Japanese manufacturers attempting to break out of the mid-fi mold and expand into the high end. Both Nakamichi and Denon have offered several supposedly audiophile turntable models in recent years which, despite a number of fancy gimmicks, failed to generate much enthusiasm in the audiophile community." And the writer concludes with this: "The RX-1500 is the type of product that distinguishes between the true audiophile and the yuppie technofreak. In a sense, it provides a valuable service: the yuppie can at least enjoy audiophile-quality sound. This is more than the high-tech direct-drive turntable wonders from the large Japanese manufacturers allow."Wow, what drivel! The manufacturer's retort was also a hoot to read. I can't find an online copy of the review but perhaps when I have time I might transcribe the whole thing for all to read. If you look around in the high end turntable marketplace today, mass loaded designs influenced by Micro-Seiki is everywhere. What does that prove? All the yuppies turned audiophiles? ;-) _______ |
Lewm: "What's a "Melco"?"Here's some Melco history and info: http://www.soundfountain.com/beltdrive/belt-drive-turntable.html http://www.melcoinc.com/english/business/history.html http://www.soundfountain.com/beltdrive/melco_500.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v681/cids/MelcoTT.jpg http://www.topclassaudio.com/web/eng/used_product_details.jsp?gid=5699 http://www.topclassaudio.com/web/eng/used_product_details.jsp?gid=5618 ______ |
Lewm: " I do think he (Art Dudley) is a fine writer, in contrast to many."Yes, I agree and he's a delight to read. It's just a shame that such usually open-minded writer has such blindness towards one genre of products without even looking into their inner workings before dismissing them. Sometimes you just have to look for the "soul" of a turntable. _______ |
Q: I know you strive for complete solutions, but have you ever thought about direct drive?I, too, like and respect Simon Yorke but rather disappointed about the above. Another bewildering thing is his answer to the below: Q: XLR vs RCA? Is balanced phono output a better one? _______ |
Czapp: "The German table did everything right; it just had no soul."How do you know it did EVERYTHING right? Is it because it is "extremely well reviewed"? Obviously, something is not right. If you can't quantify it, then it's rather hard to correct it... Well, you switched to a different turntable so, I guess, that solved the problem. _______ |
Czapp, thanks for providing the details of the sound. I do not know what element of the sound is "captivating" to you. While the things you listed are important in sound quality and certainly can enhance listening experience but for me I have noticed harmonic richness and natural texture provides great sonic pleasure. If a turntable does not have the "bloom" and natural harmonic decay--as if a Monet painted by a cubist--I lose interest. The Garrard 301 you mentioned is a harmonically pleasing machine and not to mention its juicy tone so I don't blame you for liking it. It is this reason I part ways with certain popular and highly touted direct-drive turntable, even if their specs and speed accuracy are in top shape. When another direct-drive table is heard with no cogging or whatever soul sucking element is gone, the sound is much more relaxed and "captivating." I like to listen to as much variety of music as possible, from Bach to Slayer, to determine if I like the sound of a turntable or not but I also developed a personal quickie test by playing music with double bass for checking "bloom" or harmonic decay and violin for texture, smoothness, and lack of cogging. After hearing the replay of those two instruments I already have a good idea if I like the table or not. Even better if there's piano in there... There was a day one of my dd tables had speed issue and before I check it with the strobe light the sound I heard was just cold and uninvolving as if all the warmth has sucked out of the room and yet all the other sonic elements were still there and then I saw a tiny slight jitters visibly on the strobe. So after some tinkering, the table is back to running normal and the sound or "soul" is restored. It was this experience that I started to believe, at least in dd tables, the importance of eliminating cogging, however microscopic it may be, is a worth cause. Of course, I am sure there are other things that can affect the sound of tables of different genres. We just have to find out what they are so we can regain the soul. Anyway, thanks for the reply. ______ |