Opinions: Clearaudio Concept vs VPI Scout Jr

My newer Rega RP5 FAR outshines my Dual cs5000 from 1986 By a wide margin.

 

Yes, outshines. We were not talking about outperforming, in terms of fidelity. ;-)

My newer Mercedes also outshines my old VW beetle from 1986, by the way. ;-)

 

How so? And I'm not being flippant, I mean how so? My Mitsu decks were TOTL for their day, built like tanks, and had very impressive specs regarding W&F, Rumble, etc. So how is it that a new TT magically outshines one that was made when TT's were the only choice for audiophiles? What is it, specifically, about the design and/or materials used in new TT's that allow them to "outshine" one from 1978?

 

Clarity, Musicality. The Rega is much quieter, in fact it is virtually silent. The Rega is just more solid. However I do LOVE the look of my Dual with it's wood plinth and it served me well in the late 80s and early 90s until I took a 15 year break from vinyl. When I cam back to records around ten years ago, the Dual sounded dull so I upgraded the cart but still just so so after years of CDs.

When I purchased the RP6 almost three years ago, the difference was dramatic. Also the RP6 always plays better with older worn records and or warped records.

I still love how the Dual Looks.

 

No turntable is virtually silent.

 

Well except for right at the startup, my RP6 is extremely quiet.

Except when the music is playing....That's when the music is coming out loudly through the speakers

 

What are the W&F and Rumble specs on the RP6? I can't seem to find them anywhere (or on most any of the Rega decks).

 

I decided to test this theory a little bit. Not a great test, just a very quick one using a smartphone SPL meter but, can you tell where my turntable was turned on? Note, my ambient noise floor is pretty low so one would think if a table were going to be noticeable in a room when it was running, it would be in my room.



Note - I will repeat this with the AP Test record "rumble test" as well as I think that would be interesting.

Edit - that little blip at the end is me walking over to my phone to hit "pause" on the app to get the screenshot.

 

And the screenshot after playing the Rumble track (silent groove). This is much more indicative, I think, of actual turntable noise though you have more components involved, obviously:



Pay no attention to the 28 dB number, that's from after I lifted the tonearm and paused the app. It was averaging around 20 dB higher than complete silence in my room, versus playing the rumble track.

Not sure if this amounts to a hill of beans to anyone, but who knows, maybe someone will find it interesting.

 

Have been running a Concept for 3 years(?) now.

Great little deck. Super easy setup. Super reliable. never had a hiccup of any kind.

No way it will be my last table, but I can't find anything I want to 'step up' to for less than 4k.

I would rec. going MC over MM from the get go, though.

 

Yeah...that smartphone app is almost useless for accurate measurements.

 

I installed an app that looks just like that one on my Samsung (might be the same program). It topped out at around 85dB no matter how much louder I turned up the volume. Uninstalled that worthless app.

 

At the volumes I was recording at, my UMM-6 calibrated mic, used with REW, is extremely close; not far enough off to worry about for a silly time-waster experiment, qualified as such. I liked that app because it shows a graph over time - I could give two ****s what volumes are what, I was looking for delta and, for that, it worked fine.

 

Well,

I have a Technics for some years.
It's totally silent and solid like a tank.
It's very easy to set up, to adjust the tonearm and to change platter speed.
In terms of fidelity, clarity and musicality, it outshines every other record player.

My advice, if you are looking for a serious record player, go for a used Technics, or a similar decent no-nonsens brand from the heydays of vinyl.
If you want a new one, go for the new edition of the Technics.

 

If I correctly understand what you were doing, you were trying to measure the mechanical noise your turntable was creating in free air, not rumble noise heard through speakers?

When most claim their turntables are "quiet," they're referring to a lack of mechanical noise that can be heard during quiet passages, transitions when playing an LP.

There's many budget tables that hardly create a whisper when only spinning.

 

Never mind...I think I understand what you were trying to do.

 

To my knowledge rega does not publish the information and I've not seen anyone individually test

 

Yea, it was actually a little bit of both. I started, just curious how in a pretty quiet room (my UMM-6 has measured as low as 16 dB noise floor in this room late at night with nothing else on) figuring that if I were going to hear the motor or anything, it would be a neat test to try. Also, I had just had a PM from someone asking if I had heard any motor noise so this was an opportunity to test that, I suppose.

It was after I ran it that I started to think... wait, that's probably not what was being asked, so that's when I switched to that silent/rumble track to find the delta between "silent" and "rumble/silent track playing" which definitely produced a delta.

Far from a perfect test with full acknowledgment the tool I used is sketchy at best, but I figured in the context of what I was doing, that wasn't too big a deal

 

Yes. That makes it suspicious to me.
Every serious engineer should be able to measure their constructions, or prototypes (and production models, for quality control), to check whether their designs work as desired or not.
Wow and flutter, and rumble and deviation from set rotation speed are the most important specs for a turntable (the noise specs and freq response are determinded by the cartridge).
I don't see the point in not publishing them, if they are truly good or even outstanding.

 

I understand. But...
The sound pressure level of the rumble depends on the volume setting of your stereo system. So, the rumble measurement alone does not make much sense to me.
It makes sense if you'd play a normaly loud recorded record, and play and record the sound pressure level of the silent grooves between titles and the start of the music (if it starts with a "bang" at full level). The difference between the music signal and the rumble level is all that matters.
(Of course, there might be very silent passages of music, where the music is hardly louder than the noise of the silent grooves. But then, there's also loud passages of the music. What matters is the difference between the loudest passages of the music and the rumble/noise level of the silent grooves.)

 

Which is exactly why I asked the questions I did. Telling me it sounds more "musical" is not what I was looking for.

 

For me, too.
However, most record players have better rumble specs than the record itself.
Say, a warped record creates it's own rumble noise, no matter how good the turntable.

I am interessted in best fidelity of a playback system. For a record player, this means: less self noise and rumble than the normal silent groove of a really good pressed commercially available record, less wow and flutter, distortions, etc., than the record itself. (A normal record has it's own wow and flutter, distortion and so on, resulting from the mastering and fabrication process, no matter how good the turntable is.)

However, I can understand that some people like the "colouration" of the sound produced by the record player, and they feel that this colouration is "musical" and "clarity", maybe.

 

Hi Tim, the only way I could think to try and control for this - and your point is well-received - was to test the silent track at the same volume level as what I would listen to a loud track at. With an AVR and a digital volume control, getting that setting consistent was easy but with regard to the actual sound pressure, I didn't go further than what i posted.

I'm not a scientist, just a bored audio fanboy

 

Hi Fi News does measurements with reviews, below is link to RP6 review in 2012 ...

http://audiocounsel.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HiFiNews-RP6-April-2012.pdf

HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONS
Turntable speed error at 33.33rpm 33.43rpm (+0.27%)
Time to audible stabilisation 4sec
Peak Wow/Flutter 0.07% / 0.02%
Rumble (silent groove. DIN B wtd) -70.5dB
Rumble (th rough bearing, DIN B wtd) - 71.6dB.
Hum & Noise (unwtd, re I. to 5cm/sec) -61.3dB
Power Consumption 7W
Dimensions (WHO) 446x105x363mm

 

Ah well there ya go!
Not sure why rega can't just publish this