'ShaknSpin' and 'ShaknSpin2' Turntable Analysers

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The sensor needs to be placed underneath the platter. I used a small piece of wood to which I attached the sensor and I placed it behind the plinth with a small patch of blue tack between the piece of wood and the platform so the sensor would not move.

If I understand correctly you use a block of wood to raise the sensor above the plinth (1 24/32") so it reaches to within 1/8" of the magnet on the bottom of the platter?

Did you glue or double-stick tape the block of wood in place on the plinth? (I am afraid it will look DIY.)

IMG_9311.jpeg
 
If I understand correctly you use a block of wood to raise the sensor above the plinth (1 24/32") so it reaches to within 1/8" of the magnet on the bottom of the platter?

Did you glue or double-stick tape the block of wood in place on the plinth? (I am afraid it will look DIY.)

View attachment 119369

Yes. The block of wood was not on the plinth but on the platform on which my Balance TT was residing. I used a very small patch of Blue Tack to make it stick to the platform. The magnet is delivered with a soft removable glue.
 
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Yes. The block of wood was not on the plinth but on the platform on which my Balance TT was residing. I used a very small patch of Blue Tack to make it stick to the platform. The magnet is delivered with a soft removable glue.

Sorry, my mistake. Yes, I meant the platform.
 
Ron, my whole TT rig has a thrown together look (let's not think about the sound), so a somewhat higgledy-piggledy SOTA Condor/Eclipse/RoadRunner speed tach/motor lash up here is no problem aesthetically.
 
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I got one of these Shaknspin last week. I like it. Simple to use. I check/adjust the speed of my table at every session. I also have the KAB and a label size strobe like what Peter mentions. I’ll install the RPM app on my phone and compare that with the Shaknspin and the strobes.
 
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@djsina2 enquiring minds would love to know how you got on with a comparison of RPM app and the Shaknspin? :)
 
i will receive my new ShaknSpin 2 today and so I am in real danger of beating @djsina2 to the punch. i aim to provide an insight for members as to the RPM app and how the numbers compare with a dedicated device. in the RPM app i have been getting "w/f%" down to 0.10. the only issue is i have no idea what the metric represents as the RPM app is mum on the topic (possibly).

i wish i had kept track of these things since i first got the 401. the latest installation of Classical Turntable Company "Shindo" platter halved the w/f% number on the RPM app.
 
in the RPM app i have been getting "w/f%" down to 0.10. the only issue is i have no idea what the metric represents as the RPM app is mum on the topic (possibly).
It’s percentage w&f. Which means your turntable’s w&f is 0.10%. The measurement standard is probably RMS. RPM measurement depend highly on accelerometers inside the iphone and vary between phones. Latest iphones show higher numbers old iphones and probably android phones show lower number. IME iphone 6s was measuring 0.06% while iphone 12 measuring 0.09%.

Try this one. It measures 10 seconds for w&f and %0.03-0.04 is the best I get with iphone 15 pro max. These number can be halved with older iphones or android phones depending on the model.
 
OK so all up what i found was that the ShaknSpin is just a very charismatic measuring tool that begs to be used. i haven't touched app since. the rpm app is good for speed more or less. terrible for W/F measurement. no longer need to centre a cardboard tube and then balance phone on it. the calibration done by ShaknSpin is also very good. one just feels in total control of things.
 
index.php

Above are some examples with Shaknspin data for different turntables. The data from the app can be transferred to Excel, and I massaged the data there for the presentation above.

Below my Denon 51F DD
index.php
Shaknspin is very useful , especially if you have a belt drive since they vary more and drift compared to DD,
IMG_3704.png
The plots above is my Denon 51F and it is has better stability than a new Technics 1200GR that Fremer published Shaknspin test on.

Thanks to Shaknspin I was able to get reliable speed data and then I could -by trial and error on leveling and belt tension - reduce wow from 0.2% to 0.05% in my Belt drive Michell Gyro, values for the phone app for you to compare

Note: My Shaknspin absolute speed can be off , 33.42 is 33.33 on strobedisk.

Many of the phone apps do not present DIN or JIS W&F values, just the variation in%. See the Shaknspin documentation for explanations and definitions. Without a reference to the method or standard a simple % value can be very misleading. What I look for is Peak Wow that is close to the 2S value( 95% of the data are less than the 2S value) . This is a good indicator of the speed quality and can be compared directly with most phone apps Wow value. The DIN and JIS (WRMS) values will be lower numbers but can also hide many problems that are obvious in a time plot as given at the top
 
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The cellphone apps suck!

I'm tired of the KAB.

I just ordered a Shaknspin 2!
 
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Above are some examples with Shaknspin data for different turntables. The data from the app can be transferred to Excel, and I massaged the data there for the presentation above.

Great.

In my opinion, as long as a turntable stays within 33.0 - 33.7 rpm or so, I would not bother to do anything about the speed.
I would never use tools to continuously adjust the speed during play. I think they do more damage than good.

The important factor is W&F, i.e. the ongoing change of speed during play.

For most of the tools I’ve seen, including Shaknspin, different ways to calculate wow, flutter and w&f is presented. Does the user really know what’s going on and how to address this? Do they know what is good and what is not good? What to aim for?
Does it get clarified by showing eight different ways to present W/F/W&F? Especially when not showing how they are calculated?

W&F is defined by two major things;
  • how much (how many +/- Hz) the speed deviates from the average speed. This is called the frequency deviation. Let’s call it Δf.
  • how fast the speed moves from and to the maximum and minimum deviation. This is called the modulation frequency. Let’s call it fm.

Wow is simply defined as fm<6Hz and flutter is fm>6Hz. Frequencies below 0.5Hz is called drift and it’s a different topic. Flutter is normally measured up to less than 100Hz.

In order to measure Δf and fm we use a carrier frequency, which is the average speed of the track (the groove velocity) on a test LP. It’s an old habit to use 3150Hz sine which seems a bit odd, but it’s the midpoint between 1 and 10kHz on a log scale paper. Let’s call the carrier frequency fc.

Music is not pure sine waves but instead a compound of very complex waveforms and transients, so in a similar way as we use rms values and not peak values to denote magnitude of varying levels, it is common to use a value of the deviation Δf which is not exceeded 95% of the time (of a measurement). This is called 2σ (two-sigma) i.e. two standard deviations of a normal (gauss) distribution.

I made a summary illustration;

image.png


Our hearing is normally most sensitive to a frequency deviation of 4Hz. So, it is most annoying if a 1kHz tone is meant to be pure but sways between 996 and 1004Hz. If it sways less or more than that, it is less annoying. Therefore, a weighting factor was expressed in AES6-2008. We can call this factor α.

Again in my opinion, based on all the above, we should help ourselves in trying to stick to one common nomenclature, e.g. w&f % 2σ weighted AES6-2008 test tone 3150Hz.

If we do that, a sensible requirement based on human perception is then to not exceed w&f +/-0.2% 2σ.

It is very easy to measure a signal for the analysis of speed, wow and flutter. But it is quite complicated to calculate the W&F. For most disturbances or properties of sound, we can use filters and/or FFT to extract the information. But for W&F we can’t do that because the signal is frequency modulated. The W&F is inherent in the signal. Therefore, again in my opinion, it is important that the tool maker states the method used to calculate the W&F.

To conclude, if we assume the speed deviation has a normal distribution, the following should be measured and calculated for a turntables speed, wow and flutter. τi can be regarded as the individual periods in a measurement (i.e. the inverse of the instantaneous frequency fi):

1724488295512.png



image.png


The requirements we should put depends of the standard of the player and is in the end up to each of us, but for a good standard turntable I would recommend:

  • 33.0 < SPEED < 33.7rpm
  • W&F < +/-0.2% 2σ weighted AES6-2008

The test record (and all our LPs) has some warp and the center hole is never perfectly centered. The record player shouldn’t be blamed for that, so 0.55Hz wow (33rpm) should be disregarded or filtered out.
 
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index.php

Above are some examples with Shaknspin data for different turntables. The data from the app can be transferred to Excel, and I massaged the data there for the presentation above.

Below my Denon 51F DD
index.php
Shaknspin is very useful , especially if you have a belt drive since they vary more and drift compared to DD,
View attachment 133753
The plots above is my Denon 51F and it is has better stability than a new Technics 1200GR that Fremer published Shaknspin test on.

Thanks to Shaknspin I was able to get reliable speed data and then I could -by trial and error on leveling and belt tension - reduce wow from 0.2% to 0.05% in my Belt drive Michell Gyro, values for the phone app for you to compare

Note: My Shaknspin absolute speed can be off , 33.42 is 33.33 on strobedisk.

Many of the phone apps do not present DIN or JIS W&F values, just the variation in%. See the Shaknspin documentation for explanations and definitions. Without a reference to the method or standard a simple % value can be very misleading. What I look for is Peak Wow that is close to the 2S value( 95% of the data are less than the 2S value) . This is a good indicator of the speed quality and can be compared directly with most phone apps Wow value. The DIN and JIS (WRMS) values will be lower numbers but can also hide many problems that are obvious in a time plot as given at the top
That's awesome. Any chance you'd share your excel sheet?
 

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