Show us your turntable

In honor of late Art Dudley. He inspired my to restart my Naim life as well as to build a vintage system around the Thorens Td124. My sample has been Shopper renovated, has the upgraded inner plate and new bearing as well as the Hanze Hifi power supply. I use the last sample of the remake of the EMT 997 “Banana” tonearm and EMT Tondose tsd15 with spherical needle. All in a Woodsong Rosewood plinth. Also Kondo SUT.

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Wow, that arm is so long. It all looks rather lovely.

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I have heard both the new Technics 10R and the 1000, neither impressed me at all! The LP12 Klimax is to my ears a more accurate reproduction from a SQ perspective of the master tape and how i hear instruments in a ‘live and unamplified’ setting than these new Technics. Obviously YMMV.

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Thanks you! Its a nice turntable to handle (or caress)…

I bet it weighs a bit more than my Rega. If you remove the glass platter it weighs virtually nothing, being made from a sheet of foam. It’s amazing how turntables come in so many forms.

You do not have to bet…when I am away I place a “safety tube” under the shelf in case it decides to leave the wall…

Sorry Don Camillo, but if you find that there is little sonic difference between something like a Continuum, Clearaudio Statement…and Rega or Linn, I have no arguments.
Perhaps @Cemil or @varyat could say more, but here I feel empty.

@varyat, you have both Dohmann Helix and Cymbiosis Lp12 Javelin full spec . Can you say that Lp12 is engineered at the same level as the Dohmann?
Don’t you find the Dohmann better sounding?

Sorry @frenchrooster I didn´t say that. I´ve said they sound different but are on same technical level.

Technically speaking, the Kronos just makes a lot of ado about nothing. It does not contain any new invention and does not solve any of the important problems better than others. A counter-rotating double platter already existed at the end of the 90s, but at that time it was even better designed (technically).

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As I said, I haven’t heard any top level Linn, so can’t comment on the Klimax. I know that at the lowest level, the Majik is similarly priced to the 1200G, cheaper even as the latter doesn’t come with a cartridge. And yet, it doesn’t stand a chance. My point when replying to you was that that was different with the '80s Technics, which wasn’t as good. Hence I figured the person in your story might have confused which one the other guy had.

Sparta is the king! Such a nice looking and good sounding turntable, I listen to it with thales arm and cartridge…

LP12 is a cult far more serious than Naim…

Upgrade this upgrade that, most of the people here got one when they start their career and finish it when they retire… it is a bussines model based on the itch!

I must admit it sounds very good ( don’t remember the specs) but not the best vfm at all

It is a British tradition of turntables, if they don’t become EU as well anytime soon:)))

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I’ve read that the new SL1200G is on the level of the older SP10 mk2. Is that something you could confirm or deny?

Technically speaking it is.

  • SL-1200G: S/N ratio at -78dB (IEC 98A weighted), Wow and Flutter at 0.025% WRMS (JIS C5521), Build up time: 0.7 s to 33rpm, Starting torque: 3.3kg-cm

  • SP-10 MK 2: S/N ratio at -73dB (DIN 45539B), Wow and Flutter at 0.025% WRMS (JIS C5521), Build up time: 0.25s to 33rpm, Starting torque: 6kg-cm

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All is about accuracy , of the perfect and stable speed, precision of the arm, and immunity vs internal and airborne vibrations. The choice of materials is very important too.
Principles are the same between Klimax lp12 and the best turntables available, but the degree of precision and effectiveness is not the same.
A Fiat car has , like a Porsche, 4 wheels and a motor, but the similarity stops here.

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So many details are important to vinyl playback and there are many ways to produce a top sounding turntable. Belt , direct, idler - all different ways to spin the platter and all have their positive and negative attributes. Interesting that many of the top turntable designs prefer a stretched rubber band to achieve the goal :grinning: It all comes down to implementation and creating strict tolerances in the engineering/manufacturing process. I tend to prefer a suspended design but mass loading is also successful. What it really boils down to is how all of the bits come together in harmony to produce the sound that the designer is looking for.
When the LP12 is set up properly it will produce excellent sound. As far as engineering, the LP12 is more rudimentary with three springs compared to my Dohmann"s Minus K suspension and the Dohmann is put together with higher quality parts to match the increased price point. However , the LP12 and the Helix are essentially the same design- suspended/ belt drive. They just go about it differently. Mark Dohmann is a fan of the LP12 and that can be seen in how he designs his turntables.Does the Helix sound better than the LP12? Well, yes but that is to be expected- the execution is taken to another level and that translates in lower distortion of the playback. Distortion, both air-borne and internal to the deck is the what we want to minimize to allow the tiny signal transmitted by the cartridge to be as pure as possible. Easier said than done. My LP12 still performs on a very high level when compared to my Helix and I have no intention of moving it on. It is a special turntable and still deserves a seat among the best available imo…

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At the end of the day all this sums up (technically) to the three aspects and factors I´ve already posted: Wow and Flutter, Speed deviation and S/N ratio.

Incidentally, the discussion does not make much sense if only glossy catalog statements are quoted. So it takes a lot of technical understanding.

Of course any material shows different vibration behavior and a different speed of sound propagation. However, none of this counts as a direct variable into performance indicators but always only in terms to the effect on the S/N ratio. Turntables with more than -90 dB S/N ratio havenot been invented so far and -86dB was already reached at the end of the 70s. The alleged gain achieved by today’s turntables is therefore less than marginal.

Same when you go into technical details of further aspects like suspension, platter mass and inertia, motor and PSU.

That’s why I also say that they sound different, but are technically neither better nor worse.

And last but not least, one must not neglect that the emotional impact of an audition and individual ratings does not necessarily have to coincide with the technical facts, conditions and dependencies.

After over 25 years with highly intense experiments on turntables I´m back to what really makes sense, no frills and no superfluous constructions. So I enjoy the accuracy of a top of the line direct drive, the smoothness and imagery of an LP12 or the punch of an EMT 930, let go of hesitation and comparison and enjoy their different sounds.

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To me, all of these arguments in favor of various models is like arguing which is the better apple: French Golden Delicious or Granny Smith’s). It’s a personal choice!

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Thanks for your interesting reading. Always better to read of someone who has both at home.

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Neither do I, thats’ why “issue” was in quotes. I was making the point that it’s very hard to A/B two turntables, and say which is better. You can of course audition the package as a whole and pick the one you enjoy most, which I guess is what most of us end up doing.

I managed to a/b my NA Dais and an SME 20 at Walrus a few years ago. The same cartridge was swapped between decks, they both had an SME V arm. I chose the Dais. Then compared 3 different arms. I miss Walrus!