GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Analog Playback
In the Thread: The Foolishness of Analog People

Post Subject: Micros or the modern unitsPosted by Stitch on: 11/12/2012

In a way you can write some positive / negative about nearly every Design out there. The Micro 5000 & 8000 are 20 years old, they have 2 weak features
- a Platter which rings

- no suspension

BUT, when we look at their latest units, we can see that Micro discovered these Problems in their last years. They offered a Vacuum Base (comparable to a modern Vibraplane) and a steel platter. Maybe they would choose something different today, who knows, but anyway, when done some simple "mods" these Seikis can show a Performance where the Listener asks himself, "what happened in the last 20 years please ???" ...

Turntable Design has a lot to do with energy transfer, there are various solutions, some work, some not, most are more or less useless because of other Design problems. These Seikis are from stock quality outstanding (tolerances, metalwork...) they have chosen an energy transfer which works very well, when a VP or similar is used. The ringing platter is also no problem, all you need is a vinyl mat taped onto and it is done. The motor is adjustable, very reliable and when it isn't modified from a DIY guy, it will work the next years like it did before. And they got very soon the knowledge that platter weight has a huge impact to sound quality...also the knowledge that belt quality has listenable results (good or bad) even with such high mass units, so they offered thread drive pretty early or very interesting belts (technically)...

Probably this is the reason why these Seiki models raised their prices, some Audiophiles don't trust modern units anymore (they had some and sold them), some go for modified 5000 or 8000, some go for old direct Drives .... each his own.

It is not easy for the normal Reader to find out what is really good, we know, even crap gets great recommendations. In a way the only solution is to travel to owners from whatever tables and to listen to their units. Sooner or later you will learn why some designs sound better than others, when you find out why this is the way it is, you are experienced, so it is step by step.

But real life also will show that you can ruin the best Performance with the rest of the chain, let's say in theory you listen to a super turntable but the Arm, Phonostage, Preamp, Amp is horrible, you can imagine what kind of result will be offered.

That's the reason why outstanding Systems generally guide automatically the way to the owners brain (his kind of understanding and the solution he made), spending endless money can work, but mostly it doesn't. In the last 10 years I heard about 5 Systems, where I said "unbelievable good", all 5 were different, some with Horns, one with Stats, some regular speakers, some with Tube amps, some with solid State, the only common from all those owners was - or is - they knew exactly what's on their records, their mastering...in a way, knowledge about music. None used Reissues, some had expensive carts, one had a modified Denon 103R, one old FR-cart, Ikeda cartridge...one a Graham Arm, a few these old FR-64s ... and so on.
But none of them had a - modern overpriced - crap Player, they had Seiki (so I saw them the first time, I didn't know them before), Verdier from France, Cotter or some self modified Mass-Tables....

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