Stylus Drag

I personally can't imagine a platter that only weights even 5-10 pounds being slowed down enough by a short complex passage, to be bothersome. These turntables weight over 150 pounds, so, a good portion of that must be platter weight.

If a record has a passage with that much drag, what happens to the soft cantilever suspension? The stylus, cantilever, suspension, and coils with pole pieces, might be moving in and out enough to possibly cause some poor sounding results too. Possibly more bad results, than a heavy platter slowing down from this intermittently.

If you drilled a hole in the record, let it play until the stylus hits the hole, I wonder how much a heavy platter would slow down when the whole stylus, cantilever, coils (magnets if MM), plus who knows what else would get ripped out?

I don't worry about a heavy platter slowing from a short complex passage myself. A cheap light platter is a different story. That's one of the reasons why better turntables have a heavier platter. I do hear variations on budget tables, but very rarely upper-end ones. Don't forget about Newton's Law about something staying in motion.

06-04-12: Halcro
Newton's First Law of Motion:-

The velocity of a body remains constant unless the body is acted upon by an external force.
'Friction' is an 'external force'. Why do you think a motor is required to keep a platter spinning?

Step into the path of a person on a bicycle, and see how much measurable speed is lost. Then try stepping in front of a freight train, and see how much the train slows. Big difference. More mass. That short heavy passage is more like the bicycle IMO.

Also, if the groove has that much information, there is probably a lot more tracking distortion problems, stylus suspension distortion, and other problems going on that would be more noticeable IMO.

If your listening to something recorded on a an analog master, there is a lot more speed variation. Their flywheel has just a tiny bit of mass. You could hear this on a $99 record changer.

You may be seeing more record slippage with the Timeline, than the actual platter speed error.

How much error does the Timeline clock and circuit have?

The hole in the records are off-center quite often. More constant speed error here too. I hear a lot more of errors on the records, in comparison to a good turntable.

You could get a custom made multimillion dollar table, but you still have the same records, with their problems.