How important is low W & F performance anyway?

My concern with Bruce Thigpen's approach is that he ignores the obvious fact that what we really need to know is what records on our turntables sound like.  So, a measurement that isolates everything except the turntable itself, although, perhaps intellectually interesting is essentially useless if we want to correlate and measure what the arm + cartridge + turntable sounds like on music.  It is the combination that we are listening to after all.  I do agree from years of observation that a surprising number of self proclaimed audiophiles don't seem to hear very well.  It has been my recent experience using AnalogMagik, which for the record measures arm + cartridge + turntable, that just as Raul said very low numbers for wow & flutter, which I will define as approximately less than or equal to 0.2%, are essentially inaudible.  At least to me.  But when I measure 0.8% or higher, that level of W & F is audible.  Again to me.  I try to verify these tests listening to sustain on piano notes, which must not waver.  It has also been my experience, reflecting what Bill has observed, that the cost of a given TT and measured performance do not always correlate.  I have set up a couple that surprised me both better than expected and worse.

@billstevenson 

I think Bruces comments above are informative in highlighting some issues where we can make big gains.

I do agree, I've always used solo piano as the hardest test for speed stability, wow etc - I grew up with a piano in the house played daily - issues to my ears on playback are obvious. It also highlighted to me in my early days that sprung suspensions were often detrimental to pitch stability, wow and flutter.

As a matter of interest my old Garrard 301 measures wow 0.04 & flutter 0.02, using the Shakenspin2, so I don't understand why any TT would measure 0.8.

My reference TT ( high mass thread drive, motor driven off sine & cosine generators plus stereo power amplifier ) is well below this level, and the improvement over the Garrard in pitch stability with the same arm/cartridge is very audible.

@billstevenson 

@phoenixengr 

"@faustuss There is no question concerning Bill’s credibility.  It makes no difference whether you find his information useful or not.  It certainly comports well with my experience and with what I have been learning since acquiring AnalogMagic.  Take it for what it is worth."

It did state early on that W & F is only going to be as good as what's on the master tape and what's introduced by the cutting lathe. So, this whole topic is rather mute.

If the OP wants to be disingenuous and insult the other posters in this thread's intelligence including yours it's his prerogative.

Am I supposed to be impressed that you spent good money on a software package called "AnalogMagik" when using tried and true methods of calibrating your equipment is more than adequate, I'm not!

"As I said, the choice is yours.  It hard to imagine how I could possibly care less either way."

Truthfully, I won't waste anymore of my time!

I agree with what's been said about listening to the LP/arm/cart as in the end, that is what we are doing.  But as an engineer working on a motor controller, my job was to make that contribution as small as possible.

Also agree that measuring it using an LP (and retail products) can give misleading results as Thigpen posited;  that's why I also chose to look at the encoders on these tables as it eliminated most of those issues.

This is the polar plot of DD1 with a 40Hz BW;  W&F is 0.16%, still much worse than their spec of 0.008%:

This is the same .wav file but with a 100Hz BW:

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If you count the peaks there are exactly 20 from 0-45° or 225mS;  that yields a modulating signal at 88.88Hz or 160 pulses in 1.8S (360° or 1 rev).  This correlates with the 160 poles of the magnetic encoder they use.