Can someone explain the physics of a belt design compared to direct drive and idler design

[aussievintage]

7 hours ago, frankn said:

If w&f and rumble were that high and feeding into the amplifier > loudspeakers many, many people would hear it and comment on it. Once these metrics get above 1% it would be very noticeable. Like listening to a 1900s playback. 

 

He is NOT saying it measures above 10%.   He is saying it is above 10% in the importance of things

[Addicted to music]

On 15/05/2022 at 4:22 PM, aussievintage said:

 

Maybe because a lot of audiofiles keep banging on, saying we should ignore measurements?   So, now, people can market average stuff as audiphile and just not publish the reality  

 

(ducking for cover now  )

back in the 80s, Australian HiFi magazine use to show all the measurements when any equipment was reviewed, that included TT of any description, usually showed the Wow and flutter measurements.  When the CD was out,  the equipment used wasn’t high resolution enough to measure, it was so low it was beyond the measurement instruments capability,  now we have the “audiophile talk of jitter” in digital music,  claiming high accurate clocks and the way it’s implemented having an effect.  

[aussievintage]

10 minutes ago, Addicted to music said:

back in the 80s, Australian HiFi magazine use to show all the measurements when any equipment was reviewed, that included TT of any description, usually showed the Wow and flutter measurements.  When the CD was out,  the equipment used wasn’t high resolution enough to measure, it was so low it was beyond the measurement instruments capability,  now we have the “audiophile talk of jitter” in digital music,  claiming high accurate clocks and the way it’s implemented having an effect.  

 

 

The problem is, partly,  measurements show that so much of today's hifi gear is so good that it is no longer a point of real  competition for the marketing people.   What a 1950s or '60s hifi nut would not have given for something like we can buy for peanuts in this century.  Smart people started to realise that. 

 

Something new was needed, and amazingly the pundits helped the sales people come up with new stuff that could be used to differentiate gear.  All the better if the artifact couldn't actually be measured.   We wanted it so that we could continue one-up-man-ship amongst themselves.  In fact, price itself became more important than ever.  Pay more, look cooler. 

 

There's also a new game in town.  I mention this to balance the above,  but it is also cool to like something that doesn't even measure well.  I play this game myself when I skite about loving my 2 watt SET amp.    I have even made interconnects (cheaper than buying them) with over the top shielding, thick  cable, with fancy copper, and fancy sheaths -    because they LOOK SO COOL.    

 

Back to turntables,  if I had to summarise some above comments that I agree with,  I'd say that any modern well-engineered turntable technology (belt, direct or idler)  can be the basis of a excellent turntable.  I prefer idler drive, but I have had belt drive tables that certainly do not hurt my ears.     I wonder how much my preference for idler is a retro-cool seeking attempt by my subconscience?   

[audiofeline]

3 hours ago, aussievintage said:

...Back to turntables,  if I had to summarise some above comments that I agree with,  I'd say that any modern well-engineered turntable technology (belt, direct or idler)  can be the basis of a excellent turntable.  I prefer idler drive, but I have had belt drive tables that certainly do not hurt my ears.     I wonder how much my preference for idler is a retro-cool seeking attempt by my subconscience?   

I agree and disagree - I'd say that any modern and vintage well-engineered turntable technology (belt, direct or idler)  can be the basis of a excellent turntable!

 

I also can identify with your preference for vintage.  I look at so many modern turntables that have a similar and sterile design that never gets me anywhere nearly excited as when I'm looking at a vintage transcription turntable with character in it's design and a hammertone finish!

 

[aussievintage]

25 minutes ago, audiofeline said:

I agree and disagree - I'd say that any modern and vintage well-engineered turntable technology (belt, direct or idler)  can be the basis of a excellent turntable!

 

Agree.  Good point.  Wasn't thinking straight when I wrote that apparently 

 

26 minutes ago, audiofeline said:

I also can identify with your preference for vintage.  I look at so many modern turntables that have a similar and sterile design that never gets me anywhere nearly excited as when I'm looking at a vintage transcription turntable with character in it's design and a hammertone finish!

 

Hammertone, and crinkle fish - yeah just shouts vintage.  Sometimes just military gray does it for me too.   

 

 

 

[frankn]

One magazine does nowadays undertake excellent measurements of turntables, tonearms and cartridges. 
HiFi News and Record Review. 
It gives the Technics SL1000R a superb review.
It also gives superb reviews to SME, TechDas and competing Turntable/Arm combinations in this price range.  

[frankn]

6 hours ago, cafe latte said:

The issue with arm damping is well known and understood, it is why resonance re arms is tested by some reviewers when testing arms, it is also why the SME V has constrained damping material inside the arm to name just one and why inserting a rubber tube inside a Technics arm is one of the best mods you can do. Also Technics do provide information on Technics bearings, they quote 7mg friction and clearance of a micron, few other companies give this information.

Chris

I look forward to the testing & review of the new SME-VA tonearm.  According to SME the new polymer based material used is so inert it doesn’t require internal damping. 

[cafe latte]

3 minutes ago, frankn said:

I look forward to the testing & review of the new SME-VA tonearm.  According to SME the new polymer based material used is so inert it doesn’t require internal damping. 

Some materials like magnesium (used in the sl1200G) have good damping properties, the new SMEV must be made of something which has good intrinsic damping properties. Constrained damping though works unbelievably well. If rubber is fitted for example to the outside of a Technics arm tube and it is dropped onto a table it still bounces and vibrates but of course an improvement. If you insert the rubber tube inside the tube and repeat the test the arm tube stops dead and does not bounce or vibrate, the transformation is huge. The specialist constrained damping layers in the SME V will perform even better, but of course I have not tested the SME in this way myself.

Chris

[Chill3]

“. If rubber is fitted for example to the outside of a Technics arm tube and it is dropped onto a table it still bounces and vibrates but of course an improvement. If you insert the rubber tube inside the tube and repeat the test the arm tube stops dead and does not bounce or vibrate, the transformation is huge.” 

 

that comment shows a complete confusion between tome arm resonance, typically 150hz or hinder and usually hi Q and cart / time arm resonance typically 6 to 12 hz and hi Q

 

In simple terms camping the tonearm tube will have no effect on a “ bouncing “ tonearm / cart that is “ dropped” 

 

wow 

[Southerly]

frankn - you didn't read my post or you misread it, so I will repeat it here - it really should be easy to measure at each stage  corruption of the signal in any reasonably equipped technical or uni dept, why hasn't this been done AFAIK.

 

There is so much in audio that musn't be questioned and anyone that does is attacked, think Galileo and the utter nonsense spouted by Rome that the sun revolved around the earth. 

 

Chris mentions using rubber tubing inside an arm. Because a near neighbour here where I live wanted someone to help his grand daughter learn English I've got to know a retired engineer whose son took up his father's profession, I may well be able to get work done on one of my Kenwood arms  so that I can try what I have wanted to do for some time, namely to use solid core silver or copper wire (30+ AWG)  inside slightly oversized FEP tubing. Kenwood was way ahead here in using solid core silver wire but it is encased in probably polypropylene or other material. and the arm exit point is too small. It will need precision drilling of this brass fitting to enable my experiment.

 

From my experiments with analogue i/connects years ago I know that air is the best dielectric which is why I use over sized FEP tubing, not Teflon. 

 

Chris - the Kenwood arms come with sealed bearings, what the tolerances are I don't know but as the bearing assembly tolerances are so tight, they must be good. Wow and flutter - 0.02%. If you put your ear right up beside the platter when in operation there is zero sound.

 

Looking forward to removing the plinth, just need to think of a good way to suspend the tx which is suspended from the plinth by two flanges with rubber interfaces.

 

The tonearm wire is soldered to  piece of tagboard with silver/silver plated solder points and the phono outs are soldered there as well, quite a neat solution but much better to have the wiring going from cartridge tags to phono connectors. Even better would be to have  a phono design that allowed the wiring to be soldered/clamped inside the phono stage.

 

The less interruptions between cartridge tags and phono stage the better, same goes for any signal wiring.

 

 

[cafe latte]

41 minutes ago, Chill3 said:

“. If rubber is fitted for example to the outside of a Technics arm tube and it is dropped onto a table it still bounces and vibrates but of course an improvement. If you insert the rubber tube inside the tube and repeat the test the arm tube stops dead and does not bounce or vibrate, the transformation is huge.” 

 

that comment shows a complete confusion between tome arm resonance, typically 150hz or hinder and usually hi Q and cart / time arm resonance typically 6 to 12 hz and hi Q

 

In simple terms camping the tonearm tube will have no effect on a “ bouncing “ tonearm / cart that is “ dropped” 

 

wow 

No I am talking about a simple test showing damping that anyone can do. Arms get excited by music and the cart, this vibration travels up and down the arm exciting the cart so smearing the sound. Constrained damping will control all vibrations in the arm, it is not possible to over damp a arm. No misunderstanding at all.

Chris

[cafe latte]

Tonearms are damped with all sorts of things, Eminent use a soft foam, some use what look like earbuds, SME and others use various constrained damping. Testing arms for resonant peaks the benefits are obvious of constrained damping on the plots, but dropping an arm tube on a table will show a big difference too.

Chris

[Southerly]

As I've got 2 of the Kenwood arms and the first t/t cost me only €120 for deck and tonearm , I'd like to go even further, drilling out the fitting inside the end of arm so that the push-fit tags could of course be soldered first (or risk buggering the cartridge itself) thereby eliminating the extra contact point in the arm. At the moment I've used the OCC copper tags which I don't like because it bunches up this wire. So - no soldering with the push fit fittings onto the cartridge tags, straight through to the soldered phono plugs. BTW I don't use shielding on these phono cables and I can't say I've noticed any kind of interference but then I always use shielding on all power cables.

[Batty]

My RB250 is foam filled to damp the arm tube and has Cardas 33 wire.

[cafe latte]

23 minutes ago, Batty said:

My RB250 is foam filled to damp the arm tube and has Cardas 33 wire.

Foam seems quite a common damping material in arms, but there seem to be lots of different types of foam used, some is like memory foam some is more springy, the memory stuff seems to work the best.

read reviewers tapping arm tubes to see if there is a thunk or a ring when they dont have possibility to measure this does give a guide to how well damped the arm is, the drop test is a bit harder when arm is installed

Chris

[Batty]

I just trusted J7 from Audio Origami.

[cafe latte]

1 hour ago, Batty said:

I just trusted J7 from Audio Origami.

It measures well so they clearly got it right

Chris

[Linndesk]

16 hours ago, Southerly said:

frankn - you didn't read my post or you misread it, so I will repeat it here - it really should be easy to measure at each stage  corruption of the signal in any reasonably equipped technical or uni dept, why hasn't this been done AFAIK.

 

There is so much in audio that musn't be questioned and anyone that does is attacked, think Galileo and the utter nonsense spouted by Rome that the sun revolved around the earth. 

 

Chris mentions using rubber tubing inside an arm. Because a near neighbour here where I live wanted someone to help his grand daughter learn English I've got to know a retired engineer whose son took up his father's profession, I may well be able to get work done on one of my Kenwood arms  so that I can try what I have wanted to do for some time, namely to use solid core silver or copper wire (30+ AWG)  inside slightly oversized FEP tubing. Kenwood was way ahead here in using solid core silver wire but it is encased in probably polypropylene or other material. and the arm exit point is too small. It will need precision drilling of this brass fitting to enable my experiment.

 

From my experiments with analogue i/connects years ago I know that air is the best dielectric which is why I use over sized FEP tubing, not Teflon. 

 

Chris - the Kenwood arms come with sealed bearings, what the tolerances are I don't know but as the bearing assembly tolerances are so tight, they must be good. Wow and flutter - 0.02%. If you put your ear right up beside the platter when in operation there is zero sound.

 

Looking forward to removing the plinth, just need to think of a good way to suspend the tx which is suspended from the plinth by two flanges with rubber interfaces.

 

The tonearm wire is soldered to  piece of tagboard with silver/silver plated solder points and the phono outs are soldered there as well, quite a neat solution but much better to have the wiring going from cartridge tags to phono connectors. Even better would be to have  a phono design that allowed the wiring to be soldered/clamped inside the phono stage.

 

The less interruptions between cartridge tags and phono stage the better, same goes for any signal wiring.

 

 

Can u provide a list of measurement equipment?

It will be a great way to look at measurement vs sound correlation

[frankn]

@Southerly yes you are correct I didn’t read all of your reply.  I did read the bit about testing. 

Arm resonance, bearing noise with and without a stylus tracking a silent groove are being investigated. 
w & f are investigated but once they get to very low levels AFAIU the inaccuracies of vinyl pressings becomes an issue. Average hearing of adults mean that most reasonably good - best turntables exhibit a magnitude less w&f than what is noticeable.  A few percent of the population have very acute hearing. 

What else is required?  How do you measure what is supposed to be in the record groove vs what is output from the cartridge? 

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by frankn
Accuracy

[Southerly]

4 hours ago, Linndesk said:

Can u provide a list of measurement equipment?

It will be a great way to look at measurement vs sound correlation

No I can't, that's why I made the statement I did. A physics lab has equipment that can measure in the world of micro physics. I totally agree that so many people have no idea how good or bad their hearing is and yet make pronouncements. There is one old boy, a Yorkshireman  on my old forum who always makes very strong statements, he made one such pronouncement and then blithely stated that his speakers were bright - so what value was his comment worth - nothing.

 

We always have the blind test mantra thrown about but without knowing just how good (or bad) the hearing is of those doing the listening, the whole thing is just a waste of time. On the superbestaudiofriends site there were howls of protests when I asked a forum 'biggie' if he had ever had his hearing tested there were howls of protest from him and his followers. The reason being that his opinion of a set of h/phones was completely different from any other view and lots of them on this particular set of h/phones - I don't visit that site anymore. 

 

If someone has tinnitus and badly how can they possibly make comments sonically about anything. Good luck to them that they still listen to music and I feel for them. I have low level hash in my left ear from a stupid student on a film set in 1966 squeezing the trigger on a Lee Enfield Mk3 rifle loaded with blanks not far form my left side. He seemed very surprised when I fixed the bayonet on my rifle with every intent on using it. luckily or unluckily 3 other extras stopped me from using it. But for this moron I would have zero hearing issues. For some weird DNA reasons I havn't lost the upper registers and really enjoy listening to bird song first thing in the morning. Even in sleep if I hear  very minor sounds I wake up. I lost my friend Fox, the golden boy who was nearly 15 years old last year who was steadily losing his hearing for a good 2 years before I had to put him down, I administered the lethal injection, he was my friend. He relied on me for hearing info. Dogs hear on two levels physically and mentally - they can hear mood changes in a human's mind. Our ability to hear has diminished over thousands of years, especially those who live their lives in noisy cities or who stupidly went to gigs and concerts where the 'music' is grossly over amplified. I've walked out of 2 gigs for this reason. Once a long time ago I sat behind the group, Hawkwind  and their equipment and I couldn't hear virtually anything for 2 days - never again.

 

There is a totality of sound, most of which we can with good hearing be aware of and some which is just part of the whole. I know of men of the SAS and ASAS who swear that without this awareness of the 'whole sound' would never have been alert to imminent danger and would have been killed by the enemy.

[Warren Jones]

20 hours ago, Linndesk said:

Can u provide a list of measurement equipment?

It will be a great way to look at measurement vs sound correlation

 

Poul Ladegaard of B&K did lot of testing of TT rigs back in the 1970-80's, I can't attach PDF's look up Audible Effects of Mechanical Resonance in Turntables.

 

The issue is not necessarily the test equipment it's knowing how to measure very small signals and separate/minimise the noise from the signal. If the person performing the test is not experienced in Metrology the noise in the measurement can influence their results.

 

If the tester knows how but more importantly WHAT to measure then there is a definite correlation between the measured and perceived sound.

 

We audiophiles get hung up on one function of a system ie BD, DD or ID and neglect the system as a whole. An extreme example would be to compare a Continuum TT with a cheap USB TT through a portable Boom Box, would you hear a difference, the answer is most likely NO, not because the Continuum is a poor performer but because the rest of the system is not capable of reproducing what it's capable of.

[Linndesk]

4 hours ago, Warren Jones said:

 

Poul Ladegaard of B&K did lot of testing of TT rigs back in the 1970-80's, I can't attach PDF's look up Audible Effects of Mechanical Resonance in Turntables.

 

The issue is not necessarily the test equipment it's knowing how to measure very small signals and separate/minimise the noise from the signal. If the person performing the test is not experienced in Metrology the noise in the measurement can influence their results.

 

If the tester knows how but more importantly WHAT to measure then there is a definite correlation between the measured and perceived sound.

 

We audiophiles get hung up on one function of a system ie BD, DD or ID and neglect the system as a whole. An extreme example would be to compare a Continuum TT with a cheap USB TT through a portable Boom Box, would you hear a difference, the answer is most likely NO, not because the Continuum is a poor performer but because the rest of the system is not capable of reproducing what it's capable of.

I will take ur point about what and how to measure and the preset conditions will affect the final results

A while ago, I worked with the metrology engineer and sit in a room where the setup is very similar to a tool room

the room is conditioned and air tight

parts required to site in the room for more than 6 hours prior to measurement

there are lots of procedures in place be cause we are measuring micron and mins and seconds not degrees

The part being measured is a medical device with strange shape and the program will automatically compare with the drawings

We have been making t/t for so many years and it is not v difficult to setup, why would we thrust someone like Michael framer to evaluate the t/t. I am sure the manufacturer’s will have a set of measuring tools and procedures before the product ship out

 

[GregWormald]

On 18/05/2022 at 10:28 AM, Batty said:

I just trusted J7 from Audio Origami.

Yup, me too. He did the same to my Linn Ittok LVII, and I got some custom cables to the phono stage from him as well. It was an upgrade from the standard bits for sure.

[Batty]

20 minutes ago, GregWormald said:

Yup, me too. He did the same to my Linn Ittok LVII, and I got some custom cables to the phono stage from him as well. It was an upgrade from the standard bits for sure.

If your cables are blue, I have the same.

[GregWormald]

2 minutes ago, Batty said:

If your cables are blue, I have the same.

Black. Labelled Van Damme Pro Classic XKE Pro-Patch