Serge wrote:

Today every Design (even the most stupid ones) will have - or have - a Fan group. High End Audio actually used to have a goal:

Perfect reproduction of the sound of real music performed in a real space. That was found difficult to achieve, and it was abandoned when most music lovers, who almost never heard anything except amplified music anyway, forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. 

Now we have a lot of manufactures in analog, not because they are clever, no, because making a "Turntable" is no big task and the profit is high.

Digital for example is expensive, when you want a good one, you NEED the latest and fastest processors, or a top Transport, here you have to pay the high prices from the suppliers. No way out.

In analog you simply find the most simple „Design“ but covered with a nice finish Design all over, only cables and Speakers are in the same league.

The customer wants something "new", because he wants something outstanding (whatever this is).

Back to the good old times when real brain was behind a Design, a lot of Parts were used and when looking inside, the customer sees a lot of unknown but impressive parts. No idea what they do, but they look serious. 

Idler drive is going back to 1920's, more primitive Design simply does not exist (maybe rim drive, I am not really sure about the rating).

When we multiply a regular Tonearm by Factor 100, the Arm is about 27.34yd (25m) long, the Cartridge System is about 1.09 yd (1m) high with a Length of the cantilever in the area of 0.55 yd (0.5m) and the contact area from the Diamond is only 0.020 in. (0,5mm) ! Similar is the Mass in comparison.

A simple example to show what analog reproduction really is. Mechanic. Precision. Tolerances. Material mixes, suspension...Removal of all distortions which can influence the diamond (motor, bearing, spindle...)

This old Design was used as long as nothing better was available. It was replaced immediately even from Radio Stations when Direct Drives were available. But even this is sonically not the holy grail. Stations never had any importance for maximum Performance. They wanted speed to start the record, reliability and that was enough. Bass or high frequencies were never important, they couldn't send it out anyway.

These turntable were dirt cheap to buy in the 90's and now we can go back to the blood which moves the market: Marketing

See these companies who offer these vibrating units with expensive plinths, even when completely useless (some of the main units are suspends with springs, but nobody cares...). And then we have Listeners who have no idea from anything but they want to live their hobby and this is something "different", to show others "I go a different route, I am more clever than you.."

Listening with such units can make fun. Each his own. But real Performance is something different.

Colorations, vibrations can create something which some call PRAT.

A good turntable does nothing, he spins a record and isolates everything which influences the area of diamond when it is in the groove.

But when someone writes, this or that design is completely BS (you need no big intelligence, just some thinking how something works) you will get immediately flames from hurt owners, who are so happy with it. And paid a lot of money for that crap.

And they fear negative comments, because this ruins the value of their unit when they want to sell it. But - slightly - intelligent audiophiles are a minority anyway, so who cares...

Modern times :-)    

Stitch wrote:

Today every Design (even the most stupid ones) will have - or have - a Fan group.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I do like the idea of magnetic suspension; I do not know why you feel that it is a stupid idea. As you built up the mass of your platter then very soon will not be able to hold the heavy platter at a single point bearing. The 20 point still cap sit on vertical bearing but 50 or 70 pound will not as the contact surface per mass ration will be too great. So, to use magnetic suspension in this scenario I fell is very cool idea. Pretend you have 100 pound platter but only 10 of them is being handled by bearing, the rest is elevated by magnet. I think it is an elegant solution as you would have high moment inertia combined with hard path to ground (important in my view). Rgs, Romy the Cat

Serge wrote:

It's silly because the minuses outweight the pluses. In order to suspend the heavy disc constant magnetic field should be strong. This field will easily travel through the platter, since the platter is by definition non-magnetic. MC-cart will be actually moving across this constant magnetic field which will generate current in the coils, law of physics. This current will be uncorrelated to the audio signal generated by groove modulation. This is obviously bad. Consider also that the 'constant' field from a permanent magnet is non linear (related to distance) in practice and will also cause some resonances between its 'springiness' (inductance in electronics) and platter 'mass' (capacitance). So IMHO outwardly the magnetic suspension is nice but does not hold to further examination.

It is not necessarily true. Of cause no one wants to inflict cartridge by a stray magnetic flux but do you insist that it will?

The field from a permanent magnet is linear. It varies with distance but distance varies with mass. So, as platter sit on an array of magnates then it will self level itself and if there is no further vertical movement then it will be in very stable magnetic condition.

Now, let see what we have with magnetic field affecting cartridge. Your feeling that magnetic field should be strong I think is incorrect. The magnetic field shall be very week. My relatively heavy Micro 8000 platter is suspended by air but my compressor that pumps the suspension air is EVRY week (very small aquarium pump). Since the air is distributed across large surface of platter then there is no need for high pressure. The very same is with magnets. I see the magnets to be VERY week, not to mention that they might be focused with not a lot of stray magnetic fields. Do not forget that you do not need to levitate the platter 10” in air but just rise it for 1mm or juts unload the mass of the platter for let say 80%. So, I think that leaked magnetic forces, if any leek even takes please, will be so week that when it reaches cats if will be at the level of background magnetic noise.

I think it is very simple to measure the influence of the platter magnates to the cartridge. I never had magnetic TT but I am sure the people who do it measure it and take actions that the stray fields are not a problem at all. What I am saying is that if the magnetic fields would affect the cartridge and tonarms in any meaningful ways then no one would make the magnetic suspension on TT as the negative impact is VERY simple to detect. BTW, I do have magnetic suspended tonearm, I did not see any magnetic related problems with it. The tonearm sound like shit but not due to the magnets…

Serge wrote:

Okay, I see your point, though I feel there is something wrong about magnets in the MC catridge's vicinity. I will have arguments later, probably. Now we can look at it differently. Remember direct drive? A motor sits right below the platter and emits a lot of electromagnetic garbage through it. Could it be one of the reasons that direct drive sounds incoherent and muddy?

Serge wrote:

that direct drive sounds incoherent and muddy?

Romy the Cat wrote:

I personally tend to use TT with heavy platters and I feel that if a platter is substantially heavy then there is no different how you would drive the platter. Put a platter of 100kG then you will never recognize HOW the platter was pushed. So, all of these conversation about platters and way to drive them are for light platters, for heavy platter it is all become less and less relevant, up to the point of being irrelevant. The Cat