3 New UBER Decks - Is this Turntable's SwanSong? 🦢

@dover 

It’s all smoke and mirrors and fanciful postulation from the uneducated.

👍
I've heard nothing but positive reports about Bruce Thigpen and especially his ET 2.5 Airbearing Tonearm.
For years I've dreamt about installing his ingenious TRW-17 attic-mounted subwoofer 🤔

Thanks for posting that interesting article from him.
Maybe that's the reason each different tonearm produces a different result on the same turntable....?

@halcro

Maybe that’s the reason each different tonearm produces a different result on the same turntable....?

Very much so. I have had a lot of arms, including the ET2 on my Final Audio VTT1 TT over the years, with the same group of cartridges.

Here is a gem from JCarr on coherency -

jcarr358 posts
09-15-2021 5:23am


While cartridges are important, their tracking ability, tonal balance, naturalness, dynamics, pitch definition etc. all can be hugely affected by the choice of tonearm (and phono stage, and setup).

Musical timing in my view is not only affected by TT speed stability, but also arm/cartridge/phono considerations. From my own ears, Bruce’s assertions with regard to his linear tracker and wow and flutter are on the money.

Halcro. 
I echo Raul in that I'm happy that you are enjoying your TT's. After all, this is what this hobby is all about. 

Dover.
Thank you for your sage input. Yes the arm/cartridge are part of the loop so they do impact the figures, Halcro has just demonstrated that. That said, within its limitations, the platter speed app does give a reasonable snap shot of what the platter is doing and is thus useful in differentiating between TT's, as I have been trying to demonstrate. But we abandoned it during the development phase, partially for the reasons you mentioned and due to its lack of consistency. Primarily though, it simply doesn't have the granularity we were looking for. We are measuring well in excess of 1 million directly read samples per revolution. 

I did not know Bruce T was responsible for the SOTA vac hold down system….

Thx for sharing that.

@richardkrebs

That said, within its limitations, the platter speed app does give a reasonable snap shot of what the platter is doing and is thus useful in differentiating between TT’s, as I have been trying to demonstrate.

I dont agree - too many variables.
My nephew has a double PHD in Maths and Physics, specialises in predictive modelling, and even with the firepower at his disposal ( heads up a team for one the worlds largest banks ) I doubt that any conclusions could be drawn even if you had a database of 1000’s of tests - by conclusions I mean anything statistically and scientifically relevant.

We are measuring well in excess of 1 million directly read samples per revolution.

GP Monaco made similar claims, and then they came out with a Mark 1.5, then a Mark 2 and so on. Of course there are now electrical components capable of switching at a trillionth of a second, so a million every 1.8 seconds might impress the pundits, but what does it mean really - your TT almost as good as digital ??