In praise of idlers

[spiritofmusic]

Jeffrey may struggle to hear PTP in the US. Plenty of Shindo/Dobbins/Artisan Fidelity Garrards, Lencos and Thorens about. But at a price.

Torqueo also a possibility.

 

[jespera]

A friend of mine owns a schopper td 124 with schopper power supply, and ikeda arm and ikeda cartridge.

Its a smooth and very refined performer but to these ears not quite the slam of the garrard or the bounce of the lenco.

But its difficult for me to make very strong conclusions as i have not compared side by side, in the same system, etc.

I may hear his system again this week-end.

Jesper

 

[bonzo75]

For rock I would choose a PTP over the 124

 

[spiritofmusic]

Jesper, I think you'd approve of my L75-derived rim drive Salvation. It fairly bops along. Sad music was never so upbeat LOL.

 

[bonzo75]

Gian's Torqeo with the SAEC and Lyra had loads of detail and nuance and slam and stage. It did not sound anywhere similar to a vintage idler

 

[spiritofmusic]

Is that a sweet spot for a totally modern, reasonably affordable take on idlers? Less than €15k w the SAEC, I believe.

 

[jespera]

Jesper - your thoughts on what derives the best plinth for say a Garrard?

There seem to be two main schools for plinths for garrard:

Pieces of solid cherry wood a la shindo.

Slate or corian.

I believe both approaches can yield excellent results.

The stone is cooler clearer sounding than the cherry wood, which on the other hand has a more organic sound. Solid wood is better than ply.

These statements correlate with what ive found when using different plinths for lencos.

Jesper

 

[jespera]

For rock I would choose a PTP over the 124

But then we agree:

Ptp for rock, 124 for classical, 301 for jazz!

Normally, audiophiles can only agree that they disagree.

Jesper

 

[jeff1225]

I enjoy my ptp. It has a lower noise floor than any other lenco ive owned. It seems to be quite sensitive to choice of mat. Now I use cork with suede on top.

The only thing that annoy me a bit is that the idler wheel is permanently engaged but the manufacturer says i shouldnt worry about it.

I have trouble deciding whether its the best or second best table i own. The contender is the garrard 301 in solid cherry wood plinth — a la shindo. ;-)

I tend to prefer the ptp for rock and pop and the 301 for jazz.

Jesper

Thanks Jesper. I listen to jazz about 70% of the time so I'll take your suggestions into advisement.

 

[jeff1225]

This guy had the Shindo 301, he replaced it with teh UK Audiograil 301 in BobC plinth which he said was close, especially for the monetary trade off. The Schopper was way more preferred to his Audiograil.

http://zero-distortion.org/schopper-thorens-124/

This was later followed up with a visit to Hanze Hifi where we compared to Schoppers to the 401. One was better, one wasn't.
http://zero-distortion.org/more-on-restored-thorens-124/

The schoppered 124s have much more linearity, detail, nuance, and lack of the bump sound as compared to the Garrards. I also find the 301 lacking big time in decay, the 401 is better in that regard. The Schoppered 124s also give nice bass and slam compared to the Garrards.

You can see here another quote from https://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=23054&start=30
“Don’t have a Lenco but do have a Loricrafted 401 and a Schoppered Thorens in other words 2 fully restored turntables. The Thorens 124 with its new bearing and platters has an amazing bass and midrange response and to my ears is superior in most respects to the Garrard…but a lot of money went into the restoration!!
Prior to the restoration, the Garrard had the edge over the Thorens in a vanilla sort of way”

Anamighty has multiple PTPs to compare
http://zero-distortion.org/analog-shoot-anamighty-sound/

Ok I'll do some work later today on your website after I watch Nadal Best this bullshit Russian.

 

[ddk]

Let's get real guys, I love my idlers but it's not as if they conquered the world. We only have a handful of them from the past that everyone's after, if you take out the EMT 927 which is in a league of it's own the remaining 4 (2 Garrards, 1 Lenco and 1 Thorens) are basically 50-60 year old good value alternatives, very musical but they lack resolution. The rest of the idlers were commercial junk. You need to narrow the field to the few manufacturers who made good commercial idlers.

david

 

[jeff1225]

Let's get real guys, I love my idlers but it's not as if they conquered the world. We only have a handful of them from the past that everyone's after, if you take out the EMT 927 which is in a league of it's own the remaining 4 (2 Garrards, 1 Lenco and 1 Thorens) are basically 50-60 year old good value alternatives, very musical but they lack resolution. The rest of the idlers were commercial junk. You need to narrow the field to the few manufacturers who made good commercial idlers.

david

David,
Have you ever heard the Commonwealth?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Dave, my rim drive is an evolution/mutation of the L75. Vic the designer has taken the basic concept, and managed to crack some of the technical challenges, esp re minimising rumble, and it's transmission to the stylus. If you Google "From Lenco To Salvation" on Lencoheaven forum, you'll see a heroic effort to preserve the inherent vitality of idlers, and addressing those weaknesses that can limit the highest performance.

 

[spiritofmusic]

But then we agree:

Ptp for rock, 124 for classical, 301 for jazz!

Normally, audiophiles can only agree that they disagree.

Jesper

Jesper, once you crack issues associated w rumble and it's transmission, idlers can really start to be impressive on classical and other acoustic music. It's fun to consider one idler each for LZ, Miles and Ravel. Maybe more fun to wrangle one idler to do the lot.

 

[djsina2]

But otherwise I agree with you. I don't like Garrard, I like schopper 124, PTP is nice but schopper is better.

Did something change your mind? You mention a couple times on your blog that you like the Garrard 301 and even call it “excellent”.

 

[microstrip]

Theres no stylus drag on a tape recorder.

Jesper

Can I conclude that you consider that stylus drag is the cause of the differences between idler and other drive types?

 

[ddk]

David,
Have you ever heard the Commonwealth?

Once at a show I think it was in the Atmasphere room.

david

 

[ddk]

Dave, my rim drive is an evolution/mutation of the L75. Vic the designer has taken the basic concept, and managed to crack some of the technical challenges, esp re minimising rumble, and it's transmission to the stylus. If you Google "From Lenco To Salvation" on Lencoheaven forum, you'll see a heroic effort to preserve the inherent vitality of idlers, and addressing those weaknesses that can limit the highest performance.

I never said that idlers aren't valid just there are very few successful models, I believe even the Lenco cult was mostly postmortem. My point was that the success of those models is because of the men behind them and not the drive system. Thorens went on to have even greater sounding turntables all belt driven, the drive system is only one of many components that goes into the design of a turntable.

I know nothing about Vic's TT's Marc, never even seen one so I'll take your word for it. The weakness you mention are an issue with every drive type that need to be worked out.

david

 

[spiritofmusic]

Dave, we idler fanatics are not putting belt drive down. I've heard the Vyger twice now, and it pulls magic from those grooves. I'd reluctantly LOL set aside my rim drive for it.

I hear a certain magic in the well implemented idlers I hear very rarely in other more expensive idlers, but I'm also aware of shortcomings. My rim drive fully tricked out w bespoke LPS to motor, mag lev feet and bearing, and totl Stacore/additional slate stand, really stirs the blood, yet is a mere fraction of the cost of high performing belt drives.

Nothing in the belt drive world is getting close to PTP Lenco at it's price point.

 

[microstrip]

Jeffrey, my rim drive Salvation is a direct evolution of the Lenco L75. I was very close to considering moving to the PTP, but decided to maxx out my tt instead. (...)

As far as I know your turntable is an almost isolated case - the LP is very poorly coupled to the platter. IMHO it should make a much greater difference in sound quality than the drive type.