Why disable the strobe?

I saw in another thread where someone had a nice modded turntable. Among the mods they listed was a strobe light disabler. I didn't want to thread crap so I thought I would start a thread and ask why would you want to disable the strobe? What is the downside to having a strobe?

 

less electical interference. supposedly, turning it off makes the TT (a technics sl-1200) slightly more quiet. i don't doubt that it does, the "supposedly" is in that statement because i honestly haven't heard a TT modded that way.

 

Does the mod offer the ability to arm/disarm the strobe or is it down for the count? I can see wanting that tad bit lower noise floor, but I also find a strobe to be very useful.

 

Usually I'd think it was for 'dark' working. There are times when you don't want any extra lights on.

If it's just a neon bulb, that's not exactly any more of a noise source than the wires to the motor....

 

it is useful for visual verifying speed (though it's not exact). as i understand it, from reading on the KABUSA site, the mod basically adds the option of turning it off, by twisting the knob a little further past "on" and holding it there for ~5 seconds.

owning a technics 1200, i can't really see any instance where you'd want to do that. the pop-up stylus light can really light up an area in complete darkness, but the strobe's pretty benign. all it does is show the dots, and it's not bright enough to even light up any of the platter.

the strobe in a technics 1200 is an LED. i don't know if that affects anything, but the rumors i've heard are that with highly sensitive (ie: MC) carts, you can pick up some extra hum from it.

 

The mod allows you to turn the strobe on/off as you please...according to the KAB site, the strobe puts a 100mA pulse on the line, and while not a huge deal (certainly not as big of a deal as getting the tonearm mods), if you are going all-out, you might as well do it.

 

Personal preferences. I turn off the strobe because I don't like seeing the orange light in low light. You turn the strobe off by pressing and holding the "Start/Stop" button for 5 seconds. I like the mod but don't think it does much to the sound although I have not tried it with a low-output MC cartridge.

 

I don't think that it makes much of a difference. Out of all the mods I got it's the most questionable. The two no-brainer mods are the fluid damper and the isoplatmat as they're immediately audible.