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In the Forum: Analog Playback
In the Thread: A longer turntable belt.
Post Subject: Re: Driving a TT with ... shoelace.Posted by TonyB on: 2/7/2006
 Romy the Cat wrote:

I do not know, I always have difficulties to talk with audio people about those subjects. They seems to have very strong and very definitive position how different driving tool affect sound of their timbales. The most confident and vocal of them claim that driving belt hugely affect the performance of this TT. Those people use dead and LF restricted loudspeakers, disabled phonostages and very quite irrational sound in there listening rooms but still they state the DC supply for this TT motors, NASSA designed TT belt with servo circuit of belt tension monitoring is something that “hugely improves the performance of analog gear”. What a ridicules audio freakanization!

I drove my TTs with fabric threads, fishing lines, reel-to-reel tape, dental floss, nylon belts and whatever else I was able to find. All of them act differently on platter; all of them have different tensions, different slippage, and in a very microscopic and negligible way affect the micro-stability of the platters momentum. However, do they SPOUND different in context of the perforce of entire TT? I really do not think so, as least I was not able to detect it. Even if you place your motor 3 feet away, drive platter with a long reel-to-reel tape, and clearly hear that the tape ‘sings” then this very objective and very undesirable noise has completely no effect to sound coming from loudspeakers. (at least in context of Micro Seiki 8000’s platters).



Hi Romy,

I disagree. I think it depends on the turntable. If I did not try it on MY turntable, I would not believe. My Verdier uses a DC motor "sloppy" mounted on grommets. The drive is linen thread. I have tried silk, different threads, 1/4" mag tape, different 1/2" tapes, another pulley and fixed motor mounting. Each of them sounded different and in the end I preferred the original "sloppy" mounted motor with the linen thread. I came to a conclusion that Jean-Constant Verdier did his homework before he started shipping his turntables. Please do not forget that Verdier is a suspended table. Speaking with my friends, I have no doubt that their Galigier and Teres tables without suspension work better with 1/2" tape. But their motors, pods and tables are different from mine. And what works for them, does not work for me.

Similar could be said about AC vs. DC motor power. A lot of people say that battery DC power sounds better or a certain DC voltage speed controller is better. I have tried at least 3 different batteries and AC is still better in my system. The batteries made sound dead for me. The same went for the speed adjustment. I have made some high performance speed controllers, including load-compensating type. In the end, I preferred the basic regulator. (Well, it was completely rebuilt.) It is possible that I did not do everything right in the other controllers, since things like a DC supply cable make a difference (this is from my personal experience). I still have a couple of tricks in my sleeve for the DC power and the speed controller. It is a no expense spared approach but I wonder whether in the end it will be worth those $700 spent. I will know in a few weeks...

So, what works for Galigbier may not work for Verdier or Micro.

TonyB

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