I thought I read somewhere that they only sold/made 50 of the Naiad?
I would buy a preowned table to get the most value, and add new cartridge. Synergies are very important, more so than with other gear. That said, the synergy of cartridge + tone arm + step-up + phono stage is more important than the turn table manufacturer and the rest of the gear. The TT is after all âjustâ moving the record.
Since we all care about power, you may find the tube power supply that Brinkmann has designed in the RoNT to be quite interesting. The reason for the tubes is to completely isolate the AC mains from the DC motor. I have this unit, along with a Brinkmann Bardo and it sounds fantastic.
Quite possibly. Not many. I was surprised to see a local dealer had one.
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I donât see why the motor has to be separate. My turntable uses a similar design to Rega with two under-mounted motors at the same distance, indeed my unit uses Rega belts. The motors are the same as in the LP12 with electronic speed control.
There is a lot of precision engineering capacity in the UK. My turntable was made by a company that is primarily a CNC engineering business. All parts are manufacturers to a tolerance of ±0.01mm and the bearing much tighter tolerance, I think ±0.002mm.
SME is known worldwide for their turntables and tonearms, but they are also primarily a precision engineering business.
https://sme.co.uk/engineering/sectors/
Itâs just that even when itâs tried to isolate such a motor which is connected to the chassis as good as possible, one very basic intent in turntable design is to avoid any tiniest vibration existing or holding in the unit.
The motor (besides the weight of the platter grinding on the spindleâs pivot) is a major vibration stimulator. If anything, then the first measure would be to separate the motor from the chassis and isolate the chassis as good as possible from the base the motor stands on.
The connection between motor and platter by the belt is then damped by the same and the heavier the platter is, the less is the influence due to the higher inertia.
Thatâs why itâs a very good idea to 1. have the motor separated, 2. a heavy platter, 3. low or no weight on the spindle, 4. a non resonating/ringing material as platter surface, a good isolation of the table from the baseâŠand as far as it comes to the tonearmâŠa fully adjustable, rigid arm construction with good bearings.
Rega, except of just the last two arm criterias, in most of their designs inherits none of them.
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There are of course the benefits of having a close-coupled drive. They are designed to be high torque and low power sent to the spindle. The platter in my unit is made of Acetal and weighs 10kg, sitting on a drive made I think of titanium. Acetal platters are a common upgrade for Rega decks. It is about as inert a material as you can get. The Premotec motors used by Linn for decades are very good and the electronics keep them running at minimum voltage. It helps to give the plinth a shove to get it going and it only rotates 2.5 revolutions after switching it off. The idea is to have the plinth under continuous low power drive. Having everything fixed into a solid aluminium one-piece plinth gets the measurements down to very acceptable levels (rumble through the bearing around -69dB).
Of course there are more theories about turntables than there are stars in the sky. Mine seems to work, I chose it because itâs extremely well made, measures well, goes together in 5 minutes, uses standard parts (Linn motor, Rega belts) and takes two arms.
It has no external isolation, but that is fixed with a Townshend platform. Some decks are designed so you could demolish your house around it and it would play until the floor collapsed. Horses for courses.
I try to get away from talking about certain turntables.
Itâs interesting to talk with those building absolutely highest end turntables. You learn what makes big differences and what are measures to do whatâs possible at a certain price point. Where a focus makes most sense depending on other preconditions.
The thing with (also turntable) isolation seems to be to go as low as possible, means high mass and soft isolation, just as putting a sub on concrete and isolate this with sorbothane. Few designs address this, most mass designs are coupled hard with no proper platform below. Low mass designs have advantages to not properly designed mass concepts but play on an entirely lower level when compared to properly done and isolated mass concepts imo.
What has relevance is often beyond what we have on our mind as in vinyl playback the tiniest resonances and inaccuracies multiply by a magnitude due to the mechanical characteristic of the whole dimensions of a needle in the groove and the surrounding correcting variables and interferences.
Even after you achieved to isolate the deck as good as possible from sound waves, itâs an essential difference when you got as low to isolate it from the house resonance. Yes, the houses own resonance. Crazy I know. But back to normal and more affordable stuff.
Wall-mounting solves a lot of problems, something Rega advocate, and make a made-to-measure wall mount. You then still have airborne vibration.
I was just reading Robert Harleyâs book and hit on the section on turntables. Itâs very long and detailed, but highly informative. For example, one of the problems with motors is the smallest instability in a power, so you need to spend a lot of money on the power supply.
He also explains at length the theory behind compliance, effective mass and the resulting resonant frequency, complicated by the fact that manufacturers figures are often wildly incorrect. The easiest way to measure the resonant frequency is the HiFiNews Test Record, but by then itâs too late!
Actually JAZZNUT, you are not crazy. When I was in college, I was in an engineering co-op program and conducted chemical reaction experiments using something called thermal galvanometric analysis. I wonât bore you with the details, but we used milligram samples. You knew when the trains were running several miles away! And that was with a 5 inch thick marble table set up on a sand base. Iâm guessing that the folks who have the best handle on vibration/noise control would be the sub designers. Good luck getting any of that info. 
Just ordered Harleyâs book! Thanks for the tip, much appreciated.
The isolation demands of turntables are similar to those of electron microscopes. Thatâs why a lot of measures come from there.
If the contact area of the needle would be a pinhead, the armâs length would be many football fields and a slight tilt of a cartridge would extremely influence its position.
All this is why taking things crazy seriously improves things dramatically compared to what people know from designs making things simple. But a rough approach can already sound fine at a certain level.
Those who build up an opinion about the potential of vinyl playback without having heard certain measures addressed, just have analogously driven a sports car on a rough road. And they might count some characteristics as a strength or characteristic of vinyl, which in fact have been an inaccuracy due to a non addressed necessity leading to a loss of information. But thatâs similar in many other components designs, tooâŠjust not as strongly.
Yes, a better motor and whatâs around it makes a very big improvement.
And yes, a wall mount solves problems which occur in bad or springy floor setups with a turntable positioned near badly isolated speakers. But itâs no option for higher end turntables as those usually are too heavy.
As I think Iâm beginning to understand an analog system, one starts with turntable optimization first, followed by the tonearm, then the cartridge(s).
If so, then step one is to deploy a relatively heavy table that would be isolated from the listening room floor via a âsoftâ surface interface such as felt and/or rubber. I could almost envision 2 rectangular sheets of some material attached to each other with 4 legs. The bottom surface sitting on a dampening material between it and the floor to attenuate any ground induced vibration. Then one would consider the leg construction - solid or hollow. If hollow, fill with sand or lead shoot. Finally material selection. Any suggestions? And then something like a Townshend platform on the top.
Would a wall mounted system have any technical advantages over the above?
I had a 38kg turntable on a wall mount. It didnât even fall off. And the wall didnât collapse.
Thatâs light weight
You need to see this video from Max Townshend. He shows how you get serious vibration even through a concrete floor from 4m away. I use one of the platforms as you really can fine tune them and eliminate vibration. The bars are more for damping and are good for components and small speakers.
I fund a picture of the motors in my unit and the notable thing is that they run really quite slow - a maximum of 250 rpm - with electronic controllers. The speed can be fine-tuned with an optional external speed controller. External belt motors tend to run much faster, often 1,000 rpm or more.
The problem with turntables is as much high frequencies as low frequencies. itâs trouble everywhere you look!
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What I talked about might not be suitable for a first and easy measure. Felt or rubber doesnât do it. Imagine putting a 160lb weight perfectly balanced on 3 soft squash balls. You might then end up at around 4Hz. That would be soft.
Did you ever see Fremer tipping on his turntable standing on a MinusK platform and how long it takes until itâs quiet again?
That is gold. Thank you!
Vertere is a local manufacturer, only 3 or 4 miles away. My main dealer is their main dealer and Iâve heard the reference system a few times. The whole deck is suspended on rubber bands and it has a remarkable AC power supply, described in this booklet.
The deck and tonearm alone are about $60,000, so a bit over budget for @BillT.
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Yea, but I can dream!!!