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I am wondering if Acrylic Platters might have, as a material, any type of sonic signature and if you know, how might this compare tp a ceramic platter such as the Rega P9?Thanks Jay
Follow Ups:
Removing it somewhat from the playback chain, via use of a spotmat type/variant (which for me unlocks greater musical joy). [Though my cast aluminum platter still did have a tiny signature that could be read above/over/through the mat (largely ameliorated with simple/judicious two stage damping)].I see the interface of a record to a mat as primary, and thus platter material employed, as being secondary. Subordinate to whatever overall/general design imperative is employed (mass, appearance, ease of manufacture, etc.).
The constancy of the search for magic bullets, in analog, may yet never cease to amaze me. No experience with acrylic as platter, though certainly have given it a spin as chassis (myself found it lacking [but entirely welcome as an ingredient in my hybrid plinth (two years now)]).
To me, pre-selecting or designing by/for material only (magic bullets), is a dead end street. I only use materials that make music, makes no matter to me what they be. How much or how little they cost. Their cool factor (or lack thereof).
At this point, I would be quite remiss to not assert my desire to market a mat. As of this moment, really don't know if it will come to pass? But respect for the integrity of the asylum compels me to note that in future, I may actually have a dog in the/this hunt (nipplemat.com).
- http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/search.mpl?searchtext=plinthville&b=OR&topic=&topics_only=N&author=&date1=&date2=&slowmessage=&sort=date&sortOrder=ASC&forum=vinyl (Open in New Window)
Acrylic platters have a simple problem. The acoustic impedance of the acrylic is very close to that of vinyl so they couple to the vinyl very well. In physical terms this is because acoustic energy passes across the interface with less than 3% loss.Where's the problem? The acoustic impedance of the bearing / support for the platter, being metal, is far far higher so about 80% of the energy is reflected at this interface. Similarly almost 100% is reflected at the acrylic / air interface. The reflected energy passes back through the acrylic and again crosses the vinyl interface with 97% efficiency. This energy bouncing back and forth is bad news.
The thicker the platter the longer the path so the greater time lag before the reflections show up, a possible explanation of the effect noted by some listeners.
Mark Kelly
The Teres Project emails are an educational read about the efforts of a group of people trying to build a better turntable, questioning the design parameters of every part of a TT. There is some talk of platter materials, including acrylic, to my knowledge.At some point in the past, the Galibier website (www.galibierdesign.com) has had a lot of information/commentary about different materials used for platters and there was a page (I do not know if it is still there) which showed the evolution of platter materials and developments to improve the platter to remove sonic signature.
A simple read-through of past history of the two designs shows that the two companies both started out of the Teres Project in some way, and one or both started with solid acrylic, but Teres has looked for more mass and more damping and also moved to wood as a material, and Galibier moved away from acrylic quite early and has constantly tried to improve platter design and materials/combinations since.
While I have not owned an acrylic platter table, my conclusion would be that straight acrylic block platters have a sonic signature by itself that was, in the end, unacceptable.
In any case, the history of these two turntable companies (including their common history) and their explorations of materials subsequently makes for interesting reading.
In my experience, acrylic can be a reasonably neutral and lively platter material if used in moderation on a great design; the Roksan Radius comes to mind.As the acrylic get thicker, the music starts losing its pacing energy. Every thick (over an inch or so) acrylic plattered 'table I've heard (Teres, the big VPIs, Scheu, Clearaudio, Basis, etc.) sounded rhythmically lackluster and generally unexciting.
The Rega P9 is one of the most driving, lively, involving 'tables I've heard, so the ceramic platter seems to be doing its job. OTOH, I've heard the P3 with an acrylic platter "upgrade" and, while the resultant bass bloat - often mistaken for deeper bass - and subtle leading edge smearing might be an appealing difference to some, I certainly don't think of it as an improvement over the rigid glass platter.
Every material will have it's own characteristic sound and acrylic is no exception. I have experimented with a number of materials. I find that even though acrylic is not the most ideal material is is still a very good choice. It is relatively inexpensive, looks good, easy to work and sounds reasonably good. There are other materials that deliver more detail and do better at the frequency extremes. However, I have always found acrylic to be musical and easy to live with. I prefer acrylic to aluminum but think it falls far behind dense hardwoods, carbon fiber and other composite materials.In addition to the material type rotational inertia will have a major impact on how a platter will sound. A heavier platter changes how groove modulation affects speed. A light platter will have larger but short duration speed variations and a heavy platter will have a smaller but longer lasting variation. The sound is different and both are imperfect. However, most people (including me) prefer the longer, shallower variations from a heavy platter.
As Mark pointed out a thicker platter will also present a longer reflection path for vibrational energy bouncing around in the platter. No doubt this also will affect the sound. From the experimentation I have done the longer path seems to be beneficial but since a thicker platter is also heavier it's difficult to separate out the effects.
Chris
"As the acrylic get thicker, the music starts losing its pacing energy. Every thick (over an inch or so) acrylic plattered 'table I've heard (Teres, the big VPIs, Scheu, Clearaudio, Basis, etc.) sounded rhythmically lackluster and generally unexciting."You've really got to try better speakers if you believe this is always the case for these turntables. I believe your front end is synergistic with your speakers, but compensating for low dynamic lifeless speakers and probably compromising potential overall fidelity in my opinion. But at a favorable trade-off in space and money that you might have to otherwise add.
The reason I say this is that I have a pair of new BD-Design Orphean horn speakers that are point sources from 250 Hz - 22 KHz at 112 dB/1W/1m sensitivity. They rock my house with a 1 W/ch amp and feature absolutely startling dynamics without time smearing at any frequency in that range. And my direct radiator bassbins are lacking somewhat, but they're okay.
My turntable is a Teres 255 with a VPI JMW-10 arm and a Koetsu Urushi cartridge. When I got the new Orphean horns, they excited every last resonance left in the turntable that I didn't even know existed. They had to be tamed with much effort in the suspension, but also NOT to destroy the time domain smearing distortion, or the pace as you like to call it. Yes there is pace in those Teres turntables after all and also in the JMW arms and Koetsu cartridges. It just has to be brought out with a highly dynamic horn speaker. Or, rather, to show what's really there you can't crush it with a low efficiency direct radiator speaker.
After I was done fixing the resonances in the turntable, the system is still the most explosive in micro and macro dynamics I have ever heard from any system, bar none. This is praise for the rather inexpensive horn speakers (a $5K cost plus cost of the bass bins) that Bert Doppenberg assembled. And this coming from a "lackluster" and "boring" vinyl setup.
Well if the speakers just refuse to compress at normal volume levels like direct radiators do badly, then it pays not to go ringing excess resonances around. And this turntable rig doesn't do it, so long as the suspension is carefully set up as I had to change it.
It presents music on a scale I have never heard before with real pace and OPEN sound that you KNOW sounds like real live pace, not an artificially induced bouncy ride from an intentionally resonating source. So I believe in the theory of control and mass when dealing with high performance compression driver horn speakers. If you don't it can be absolutely horrid sounding and you will be wondering why the heck that turntable is sounding so bad. That will not be a synergistic system I bet. But heck, some people like to stick their heads in metal garbage cans a smack a hammer to them. :-)
A lot also went into tweaking the horn crossover to eliminate residual resonances that these horns have. Bert has incorporated those changes. But with hair trigger dynamics like these have, you do all you can to eliminate resonances. Sorry, but in this area, almost all resonances are bad, just keep them down to a minimum.
When nothing but the sound of the master tape comes pouring out, it's an amazing experience. This has been quite a ride, and nothing like I've experienced in my 30 years as an audiophile. And I've had two horn speakers before: Oris 150's and Avantgarde DUOs. But the Orpheans are a whole new breakthrough in my mind. And they can very well obsolete your turntable. It needs to be controlled in my experience or it will just be irritating and over the top.
Just my opinion, of course.
Kurt
Thanks. Very interesting post!I do have some experience with flea-watt SETs and horns, but much as I appreciate them, I was never able to get em to work with my current room and near-field listening position, whereas my Reynauds mesh with the room perfectly, and that's half the battle. "Low dynamic, lifeless" speakers? Perhaps compared to your hyper-efficient horns, but the Offrande are the best all-around musical performers I've ever heard.
I'd be foolish to argue with the perception that your Teres is pace-y in your system, but IME, these 'tables have been downright lethargic, regardless of the other components involved, and I have a little trouble with the concept that a speaker can rejuvenate what I perceive to be a rhythmically lackluster source component, but I've never heard BD-Design Orphean horns, so who knows?
I can't help thinking that if your speakers can make a Teres sound lively and energetic, what might they do with a TT well known for its outstanding rhythmic drive and pacing ability like an LP12, Xeres X, P9, or Avid Sequel, etc.? Or perhaps a really good idler...?
Thanks again for the food-for-thought, even if it was a bit gristly. ; )
what do you think of the SME turntables, particularly the SME 30?Kurt
Sorry, I've never heard the 20 in anything resembling a familiar setting, and I've never crossed paths with a 30.I did have a chance to spend some quality time with the 10 with the stock M10 arm and a Lyra Helicon in a buddy's familiar system (I heard one with a Benz Ruby too, but the rest of the system wasn't familiar) and I guess I'm ambivalent about it. On the one hand, it was silky smooth, very detailed (perhaps bordering on analytical), "neutral," as far as I could tell, and seemed to keep the notes under very tight control, particularly the bass, which was taut, well-timed, and colorful, though it erred a little on the lean side.
On the other hand, it was a bit cool and, I dunno...business-like. I thought that the notes had their tails clipped, and it wasn't particularly ambient or atmospheric. Pacing was good, but rhythms seemed a little fussy, buttoned-down, or tight-assed. There wasn't much of what I call natural musical "flow" either; it wasn't mechanical, but neither was it particularly "organic."
Build quality was impressive, compact, and purely functional; no audiophool jewelry in sight, and overall - sans direct comparisons - I think I enjoyed it more than the equivalently-priced domestic 'tables I've heard from VPI, Basis, Sota, or Teres, but I doubt that I'd ever be tempted to buy one if a fortuitous windfall came my way; not when I could pick up something like an Avid Volvere or maybe even a Sequel for the same price.
but I wished you could have heard more from the 20 to describe it. the 20 is really different from the 10, and I wanted to find out just where your perceptions of all these turntables are coming from.I can agree with you on the 10's description. But the 20 is in a different league, and therefore so is the 30. It has a real engineered suspension/damping system that sucks vibration away and doesn't let much return (that returning part is the not-so-good part). If you felt the 20 is too sterile sounding, then I would gage that your needs for a source is more than simply hearing what's in the grooves. Maybe listening stright from the master tape with no turntable would be less enjoyable for you than having the turntable do some "processing" for you.
This is no insult, either. I like to process my sound with single ended triode amps. I think they make it sound more organic than anything push-pull, tubes or anything else.
One British reviewer (and I forgot the name of the British magazine that published it) has heard all the TT's you mentioned and thinks they've all got it wrong after he heard the SME 20. He said anyone who disliked it must not like the truth of the recording and seeks more than is there. Then he bought it.
So I was just wondering. The only TT I've heard on your list of the ones you like was the Linn. It was pretty good, but I did not know the surroundings well either to comment much more than that. I have a hard time auditioning these things in unfamiliar environments. They can all sound good to me or all bad, it's just unknown environment. The SME 10 and 20 I heard in a familiar setup at a local dealer. I've seen him so many times I know what his house sound is like and when it changes. But he only does VPI and SME.
My dad used to own an old Garrard idler TT. That was pretty good, too. It definitely had that rock thing going with it, and I don't have a clue as to why.
My experience at my home has been only with American made TT's. VPI and Teres. That's all. Teres is better than VPI for everything, IMO. I do like the inner detail and soundstaging and I just don't feel it lacking in anything else with horn speakers. With low efficiency speakers I had before, they definitely sounded *somewhat* lethargic in some ways. But until I actually get a chance for someone to put a British TT in my own system and listen, I probably will not change a thing. At this point, I'm afraid to. It sounds just right as far as I know.
Maybe, perhaps, I would buy an SME 20 if I could afford it. I think it makes it sound more like putting on a reel-to-reel master tape than anything else I've heard. There's no thinking of rhythm and pace to me when you listen to a reel-to-reel. It's just the recording and nothing more. Then send it through a SET amp and it sounds the best to me.
Again, just my opinion.
Kurt
Another very interesting post, and I thank you for taking the time."Maybe listening stright from the master tape with no turntable would be less enjoyable for you than having the turntable do some "processing" for you."
I really don't know, but it's possible. I do have a lot of studio time under my belt, and there is often something dry and analytical about the sound of the master tape in a studio environment, but that's mainly because of the ruthless near-field monitoring systems involved. I've never heard a master tape in my system - just CD-R copies, which usually sound okay, but never great, due to the nature of my CDP...and the fact that they're digital copies : ) - and I've never compared the tape to an LP.
"This is no insult, either. I like to process my sound with single ended triode amps. I think they make it sound more organic than anything push-pull, tubes or anything else.
No insult taken. I like SETs too.
"Maybe, perhaps, I would buy an SME 20 if I could afford it. I think it makes it sound more like putting on a reel-to-reel master tape than anything else I've heard." and "Then send it through a SET amp and it sounds the best to me."
I'm a big fan of well-suspended TTs, and from the way that you describe the 20, that 'table in an SET/horn system would probably be quite spectacular, though maybe a bit ruthless?
"There's no thinking of rhythm and pace to me when you listen to a reel-to-reel. It's just the recording and nothing more."
I think this is an extremely important point. The whole PRaT issue is subtractive once the music is set to tape. No audio gizmo "has" PRaT, but they all screw with it to a greater or lesser extent.
OTOH, I have heard master recordings involving my own playing where the recorder tripped over some of the band's timing subtleties - and I'm in a position to know! Coincidence or not, whenever a master had demonstrably corrupted timing, it was always some kind of hard drive; never analog tape in my experience.
Got a gig tonight, so I won't be replying anymore 'till tomorrow.
Thanks again for the interesting insights.
"outstanding rhythmic drive and pacing ability like an LP12, Xeres X, P9, or Avid Sequel"Any others come to mind? These are expensive. My Scout will hold me over for a while though.
Dennis
Well, it's all a matter of personal taste, so your best bet is just to drag your butt out there and listen to everything you can lay your ears on rather then relying on anyone else's opinion...even mine! ; )My personal take is that many of the Brit TT designers have the whole PRaT thing at or near the top of their priority lists, compared to the American and German builders who - yes, this is a gross generalization - seem to focus on sonic and spatial attributes and eye-candy over the big musical involvement picture, so that's where I'd start auditioning. Sadly the GBP to USD conversion rate pretty much screws us over here in the US when it comes to UK TTs unless you go demo or used.
Be that as it may, I'd give the Nott Spacedeck, Michell Gyro SE or Orbe, any Avid or Roksan, and various upper-line Regas a listen. I'm sure there are many others, but those are the 'tables I've heard that deliver good to excellent rhythm 'n pacing.
I haven't had enough experience with vintage idlers thus far to recommend them one way or another, but they certainly deserve a place on your list.
Your Scout has fairly decent drive, as long as you don't encumber it with the VPI audiophool-jewelry "upgrade" path (IMO). Play around with various shelves and supports, and if you and the Scout are going to stick together for a while, look into a cost-effective PSU upgrade.
Good luck.
I try not to be a slave to others opinions. Opinions though can steer one in a direction where one can verify someone elses observations.Most certainly I would audition options when Im ready. This plater thing has my attention and I'm doing the research.
Dennis
"As the acrylic get thicker, the music starts losing its pacing energy. Every thick (over an inch or so) acrylic plattered 'table I've heard (Teres, the big VPIs, Scheu, Clearaudio, Basis, etc.) sounded rhythmically lackluster and generally unexciting."Could that "excitement" be added resonance from the vinyl not be damped well enough?
I'm not trying to tell you what to like, just trying to point out that what you like might not be part of the recording.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
"I'm not trying to tell you what to like, just trying to point out that what you like might not be part of the recording."Since it's a safe bet that most of us weren't present during the actual recording process, we'll never know for sure.
What I have noticed over the years is that familiar music that sounds light on its feet, pacy, and rhythmically nimble on a wide variety of gear suddenly suffers unacceptable losses in those areas when an excessively thick plastic platter in involved.
For example, I played one of my favorite LPs - Allan Holdsworth's "Secrets" - on a friend's VPI Scout and it sounded reasonably lively and involving; not great, but not bad either. He swapped out the stock platter - itself needlessly thick, IMO - for an even thicker acrylic platter "upgrade" and the same LP suddenly lost some of its rhythm and pacing energy.
I've seen Holdsworth live over a dozen times, and I can assure you that there's absolutely nothing lackluster about his music! Hence, I find it difficult to believe that a component that reduces this rhythmically aggressive, soaring, driving music into something comparatively tame and lethargic is more accurate, or that the excellent drive and energy I'm used to hearing from the LP on several musically-accomplished turntables is some kind of distortion.
Acrylic platters are supposed to be very neutral sounding and are used on many high end tables. They should impart little, if any, sonic signature of their own. I replaced the MDF platter on my NAD 533 about 2 years ago with an acrylic platter from Brit Audio. The acrylic platter looks much cooler, but I have never been able to detect any meaningful difference between the two sound-wise. This was with the LP sitting directly on each platter's surface. MDF actually is a great platter material since it is also sonically neutral. That's what most loudspeakers are constructed of. Granted, I may not have the most developed listening skills or a reference grade system, but I heard significant improvements after I upgraded the endstub and counterweight on my RB250, replaced the rubber feet on my NAD with metal cones and placed the TT on an isolation platform. The platter is more like a $60 piece of audio jewelry, at least to my ears.Pat
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