The NEW technics SL1200?

I bought the 1200G, and at first I too found the sound slightly dry. However, this turntable responds to ‘fettling’ very well. I upgraded the interconnects and power-lead (not massively expensive ones) and used an audiophile mat in place of the rubber one supplied. I spent ages making sure the cartridge (Linn Adikt) was at the right weight and subsequently discovered the Technics weight was not calibrated as well as my digital gauge and I had too much weight dialled in. The difference in presentation once I’d taken real care, was profound. I cannot recommend the G highly enough and hope it’s DNA runs through the model you’re looking at.

 

I have no idea if I am going to buy one of these units yet. But I'm definitely not going to buy one unless I am able to hear one sounding a lot better than what I heard yesterday. If I should become convinced that the G is indeed the cat's meow, then I might spring for it. But if I should come to the conclusion that the GR is sonically very hard to tell apart from the G, then I would be delighted to save the money and buy the lesser model. But I'm not buying anything until and unless these can demonstrate that they present a genuine to challenge my Linn sonically.

I'm pretty skeptical about power cords. But I totally believe in using a good mat. Which Mat are you using?

 

I’m using a mat called ‘wooden bull’, it’s a cork base and leather upper. It’s excellent and I saw it recommended for the 1200g by Mikey Fremer. It would be worth your while reading his review too.
Interestingly, my 1200g has replaced my radikalised LP12 and I prefer it by a country mile but, if the mellow warmth of the LP12 is your thing, the 1200 might not be for you as it’s presentation is slightly more clinical.

Listening to one correctly set up is essential but that might be hard to find?

 

You can test different groove modulations by measuring platter spin down time. I predict the differences to unmodulated grooves will be insignificant.

 

Can it be a belt drive TT - I'm sure it can crush a wide range of them. Can it beat an excellent belt drive - that's a harder question to answer. But if it's in the same price class I'd imagine it would beat several options, but maybe not all based on preferences. Can it beat your LP12 - that's a much harder question to answer. And I honestly think a proper demo is the only potential way to find out. Now when you do demo, we'll all be ready to hear about it

 

I think my turntable has some kind of braking on it (PS-X800) as it stops and starts pretty quickly. So, I don't think I can perform the test.

I looked into it and found this article: http://www.audiomods.co.uk/papers/pardee_recordfriction.PDF The coefficient of friction varies with the distance from the record's centre. To test unmodulated grooves compared to modulated grooves, you'd have find a records that have those things at the same distance from the centre. I think you're on to something.

Just based on the on article I linked the stylus drag (with an average coefficient of friction 0.3 or so and tracking force of 1.5g) would be a force of 4.43N or something. I don't know enough physics to determine if that is a meaningful amount. You'd need to know things like the torque of the motor and the inertia of the platter. I'm bad at math.

Ultimately stylus drag is a thing and it varies over the course of the record. Measuring a heavily modulated passage vs one with no modulation would be a tricky, but worthwhile endeavour.

 

As You can see in this paper the stylus drag varies rather much with which cartridge is used; i.e. the damping of the cantilever. When I tested this I got no significant difference in stylus drag between: unmodulated grooves, normal music and high modulated grooves. I also tested with different types of lubrications.
I then came to the conclusion that the modulations in music are totally uninteresting, it´s the friction coefficient that is interesting; which will depend on many things, as said in the paper, and normally is hard to know, and or to change. And as for slowing down the platter I don´t see how it can happen, not even with a very light platter.

I think the force should be 4,43mN.

 

You're right about the force. I forgot to take into account the difference between kg and g. There's no way yo tell without knowing the torque of the motor, which most manufacturers don't provide (with the exception of Technics who boast about their torque). If you knew the mass of the platter, and the torque of motor for any given turntable it would be easy to calculate whether stylus drag is a factor (since we've got a pretty good estimate of what the frictional forces are).

I'm inclined to believe it is no big deal, but other sites have some long threads about the topic. I certainly don't see the advantage of going out one's way to specifically use a low torque motor.

 

The Kinea Direct Drive turntable from Primary Control is one of the newer low torque high end designs. They actually use variable torque, so increase it at startup and then back it down to reduce magnetic cogging effects...

 

I don´t know, I believe heavy platters is a way to cope with several parameters, where W&F is one. Can´t really see the advantage with a very strong motor.

 

Good to see there are new DD turntables out there. I don't see how varying the torque fixes cogging. Pretty much every motor design is susceptible to cogging. I was under the impression it was caused by the discrete poles in the motor. I don't see how lowering the torque fixes that. I guess DD tables got an deserved reputation for cogging because they use relatively few poles compared to AC synchronous designs (I have a Dual 505-2 which uses a 16-pole synchronous motor). The reality is that the existence of any cogging is unsupported by measurements. Here are the results of some tests on Technics 1200 (using the old motor that supposedly cogs): Archimago's Musings: MEASUREMENTS: Technics SL-1200 M3D Wow & Flutter - PlatterSpeed + Dr. Feickert's Test LP...

Primary control also makes some of the coolest tonearms. It's too bad: I am part of the linear-tracking camp; I will never have enough money to own one of their arms. I've wanted to put together some kind of setup that uses a pivoting arm (just for fun and because I like turntables), but tonearms are so expensive—especially anything over 9". I mean I don't really need another turntable. I purchased my PS-X800 with the idea that I would never "need" to upgrade (I think it would be tough to get better "objective" performance), but that doesn't stop me from wanting more tables.

 

Varying torque is not what addresses cogging. Reducing torque does.

 

But how exactly does it do so? Cogging is the result of "slippage" in between the poles of the motor, yes? I don't understand how reducing the torque addresses that.

 

It does so by not having enough torque to transfer tiny brief changes of speed to the heavy platter. The platter has too much momentum to be disturbed every fraction of a second by a weak drive system.

 

But the platter is constantly losing speed due to friction. Torque from the drive system is necessary to keep it spinning at a constant speed. You need sufficient torque to overcome the frictional forces. It probably doesn't much, but I don't see how using more torque than necessary would cause cogging. Aren't the speed and the torque of direct drive system the result of different electrical properties (voltage and current)?

I found a whole Wikipedia article on cogging torque: Cogging torque - Wikipedia The techniques to reduce cogging also apparently reduce the running torque. Motors are complicated. If I had to guess, I'd say that the speed controller modulates the waveform somehow which controls the cogging but results in less torque? I dunno. It sounds like they're just trying to market their turntable by latching onto the audiophile conception that "low torque=hi-fi". They're not really lying, but it seems like an oversimplification.

I dunno. I don't know anything about motors. I'm mechanically inept. I don't really think that cogging is big issue for turntables despite their low RPMs. Most DD turntables have very low speed deviation, which would not be case if they had significant problems with cogging.