New Turntable Advice

Very Very Subjective about the MkII and MkIII, the individual based in the UK who is renowned for their work on the Technics TT's and who has designed the improved speed control for the MkII, is not convinced the MkIII is offering much as a betterment.

I stand by their evaluation, one can spend $5K to $7K on a MkIII in todays money and for $1K +/- $300 have a MkII that will be quite a attractive TT. 

Add to the MkII the bespoke design speed control and the MkIII is not too different, if any different.   

As for the Mk III, I have never encountered one in use in a System I am familiar with. The SP 10R is different, where during certain periods of a year, the SP10 R is experienced in use with a Valve Phon' sharing close design to my own, along with Valve Amp's and ESL's on more occasions in this system than my own MkII used with Valve Amp's and ESL's in the home system. 

I know the SP10 R very very well as a TT, and can only say good thing about it. 

I suggest if a properly attended to MkII with bespoke designed speed control and mounted in a Densified Wood Plinth and a SP10 R were side by side in comparison. Using a same TA and Cart', It would be a lot of swapping out of the TT's, to discover where there is a valuable difference to be discovered. I don't see that occurring with any easy outcome as a subjective evaluation.

I do know the Kaneta design that is loaned and is regularly used in another system where it used with a Tonearm Identical to my own, but has replaced a MkII finished to the same Spec' as my own, inclusive of a P'holz Plinth. The Kaneta used in the system, now has the system owner making it known the Kaneta design has won their preference, when they use their MkII, there seems something is amiss. 

I need to make my TT and Tonearm available, so that both the Kaneta and MkII, can be heard with identical TA's and the Two Kontrapunkt B's that are owned within the audio group and kept with low hours usage for such occasions. This is the session yet to be done, that will help discern the differences from the variation of the designs for the TT's. 

The Kaneta lends itself to both Platter redesign and Bearing redesign, the whole shebang will still be considerably less of a cost to create than the cost of a Mk III which may have had a very very hard and uncared for usage life prior to being purchased.

Note: A used sale item that is a Vintage Era TT, typically comes with no service history or knowledge of how may rotations have been carried out. How used a TT is remains a mystery? How abused a TT has had to endure remains a mystery?  

Using the assessment of a Technics TT Specialist renowned in the UK for the work undertaken and for knowing the additional adaptations that are able to be done to the Mk II, the Mk III is not a TT that creates any real interest.

The Mk III, in the current market is for my usual budgeting, too expensive to purchase and then donate it to be toyed with and too expensive to acquire duplicates to compare design changes. 

VFM is to be found with the Mk II, as I would id searching prudently, be able to acquire approx' 7 - 10 Models imported and duties paid for the cost of 1 x Mk III     

@cundare2

In Mikey’s extensive Stereophile piece (or was it Analog Planet), he was amazed by the speed accuracy, which George states has a tolerance of about 3 ppm!

Be careful about measurements.  3 ppm seems to be the digital resolution of the motor control system but a lot of mechanism cuts in after the motor itself.

George's website quotes Wow .04% Flutter .04% which is closer to 400 ppm unless my arithmetic is faulty!

Over 100 times less good than the headline impression, it would seem

It’s a shame @albertporter doesn’t post much here anymore--he had a wealth of good tables, including the Walker in its heyday. Albert told me he got into a Lenco with the various mods and liked it, but that eventually led him to SP-10 mk ii and iii. I know he did a lot of work on the plinth, a support for the bearing and other details that escape me. If it were me, and I wanted a top tier table without issues, I’d probably just buy whatever that top Technics is, have a plinth that can accommodate a couple arms and call it a day. FWIW, my main table is the Kuzma XL with Airline, so I’m not trying to sell you on what I own. 

I will say that I bought the very first series SP-10 in 1973, brand new, and with a go over by the late Bill Thalmann, including the Krebs mod, a plinth that accommodates multiple arms, this table has been in and out of service (it always worked but the on/off switch got funked up at some point and Thalmann took care of it)- figure I’ve owned and enjoyed that table for more than 50 years. 

I think it is very hard to compare turntables, almost impossible, in today’s retail environment with the necessary controls over variables. I suspect a lot is based on ergonomics and appearance. Before I bought the XL, I did have the Kuzma Reference with a Triplanar, and using the same cartridge, switched over to the XL/Airline set up. Big difference. But I had the components in my home, in my system to hear them. 

Not sure what your budget is, but I’m a little wary of used electro- mechanical devices. And set up is key- huge differences between ok and "nailed it." I used Mike Trei when I lived in NY. He made it look easy.

@lewm 

back when I was choosing between Lenco and Garrard, there seemed to be a strong consensus among 301 owners that an external motor controller worked wonders

I suspect the external motor controller concept for the Garrard 301 has died a natural death - like so many audiophile tweaks!  At the very least, I have never seen one offered in the stuff I read these days.

What I have learnt in the last few days is that the eddy current drag from the manual speed control might explain the so-called 'slam' of the table.  Once set, it applies a constant drag, against which additional drag from highly modulated passages is pretty insignificant.  Hence the music does not seem to slow down!

If the background drag was just bearing friction plus stylus friction, highly modulated passages would have a much bigger effect in proportion to the overall drag.

The use of an external motor control seems to require the eddy current mechanism to be disabled, so swings and roundabouts ...

An analogy might be a big V8 idling against the drag of a slush-box automatic. Switching the air-con on or off does not change the idle speed much.  But slip the box into neutral and then toggle the air-con and you can watch the revs change.

(In the good old days, US auto-makers like GM and Ford had Aussie production lines that stuffed big V8s into European-inspired sedans - mine would get up to city speed limits at idle)

I am not promoting the Garrard 301, just trying to understand why it is so highly regarded in some circles.  Now I have a plausible explanation of 'slam'

@richardbrand.

"Once set, it applies a constant drag, against which additional drag from highly modulated passages is pretty insignificant.  Hence the music does not seem to slow down!"

Precisely!. It will be slowing down but much less that if there was no predrag .

You described, much better than I, the efficacy of predrag. Of course the motor must be of good quality such that it doesn't become noisy when loaded thus. This is where torque ripple can be a problem as it is a function of current draw , torque output. 

In the Garrard's case the mechanism which sets the correct speed has the lovely positive side benefit of making the drive stiffer. The result, more startling transients, greater apparent dynamics. some may even call this "slam" My guess is that the technicians designing it knew about this