SAT Direct Drive Turntable!

[tima]

Thank you, Tim!

I apologize for reading what I thought mistakenly was an implication into your observation!

No worries. Thanks Ron.

 

[TrackingAngle]

Hi Tim,

Why do you think this? How do you know how often Michael attends live music performances?

What is your basis for this assertion?

I just found this thread. The usual hilarity. For 20 years I had a 20th row center seat at Avery Fisher Hall for The New York Philharmonic (loved the 3 Ms-Mehta, Masur and Maazel, quit after two seasons of Alan Gilbert). Does that count? I've seen live music at Carnegie Hall, Morton Meyerson Symphony Center (where I was a guest of the string section), The Royal Albert Hall, The Village Vanguard, The Jazz Standard, The Iridium, Paul's Mall and The Jazz Workshop (where I saw among many others, Miles Davis) and many other live venues including Madame Wong's. Also BTW: I supervised the Academy Award nominated soundtrack to the movie TRON collaborating with Wendy Carlos, during which we recorded string ensembles at the famous Walthamstow Town Hall, which I chose for these recordings. The LPO sessions with 108 pieces were recorded by a BBC remote crew at The Royal Albert Hall and I was there too and heard actual live music.Oh and Royce Hall at UCLA where we recorded the chorus for the soundtrack. I've been backstage with Eric Leinsdorf, Andrew Litton (told me he's a turntable guy) and others. So yes, I've heard some live music and find the implication in this thread that I don't listen to live music, insulting, ignorant and childish.

As for comparing a stereo to live music, GET OVER IT. Recorded music doesn't sound like live. "The Absolute Sound" (the concept not the magazine) was Harry Pearson's marketing invention and a good one like "Living Stereo" and "Living Presence". NO stereo (and I've heard many incredible ones all around the world) sounds like live music, though many, including my own produce incredible pleasure and by "letting go" I can be in any great venue just as I can watch a movie and be in Buckingham Palace if the acting is good (like in The Crown).

 

[TrackingAngle]

I would love Fremer to review this. But, would it even fit into his room

The Air Force Zero fits, so you never know!

 

[TrackingAngle]

Nice post lordcloud, and thank you for starting the thread and keeping us informed about this new turntable.

I do not think there is any problem with referencing other equipment. That is part of a comparative review, as MF does here. I think most audiophiles want to know how one piece of gear compares to another, and this is what we each do when auditioning gear in our homes or at a show or dealership, though in some cases it is comparing whole systems.

I personally use a number of references when assessing gear: specific components, specific systems, and live music. Each reference has its value. I happen to think a review is richer and more informative if it considers both the competition and the sound of real music. MF does a lot of wonderful reviews of music. Surely his comments about the sound of a recording reference his memory of the sound of real music, otherwise, what is the basis for any meaning or common understanding of what he is writing.

When a reviewer describes the crash of the cymbals in the back of the hall, or as MF wrote the whack of the timpani being distinct from the reverb or reflection of the rear wall, this is a direct reference to the actual sound of those instruments in real spaces. That is excellent, and something to which many of us can relate. There was some good descriptive language in the "listening" part of the review. I think it is difficult to avoid describing specific sonic attributes when sharing one's impression of the sound of a piano on a specific LP. We see this in most if not all reviews.

I am simply hoping for a bit more in addition to the comparison to another similar product. I want to learn how the listener is moved by the experience - or not. What is it about the design that elicits such a response? And does the piano sound more real on one turntable or the other. It does not matter where one's seat is located in the hall. A piano either sounds convincing or it does not. Or it is more or less convincing than a different presentation.

I would like to better understand what MF means by "blacker backgrounds" and why they are either desirable or not. What causes them, do they come at the expense of something else which may go missing, and how they relate to what we hear when listening to actual music.

There is no problem with referencing other equipment. Bring on more comparative reviews, just add some more thoughts about how those comparisons help or hurt the believability of the reproduction by referencing real music. Personally, I want to know if the component moves the system in the direction of hi fidelity to the source recording or more toward the natural sound of real instruments. Both are valid goals. They are just different and often result in different sound.

'Black backgrounds'. the Air Force Zero has the blackest backgrounds of any turntable I've ever heard. Lower the stylus and you think you hit the mute button. Not hyperbole. Every visitor reacts the same way.

 

[ALF]

I just found this thread. The usual hilarity. For 20 years I had a 20th row center seat at Avery Fisher Hall for The New York Philharmonic (loved the 3 Ms-Mehta, Masur and Maazel, quit after two seasons of Alan Gilbert). Does that count? I've seen live music at Carnegie Hall, Morton Meyerson Symphony Center (where I was a guest of the string section), The Royal Albert Hall, The Village Vanguard, The Jazz Standard, The Iridium, Paul's Mall and The Jazz Workshop (where I saw among many others, Miles Davis) and many other live venues including Madame Wong's. Also BTW: I supervised the Academy Award nominated soundtrack to the movie TRON collaborating with Wendy Carlos, during which we recorded string ensembles at the famous Walthamstow Town Hall, which I chose for these recordings. The LPO sessions with 108 pieces were recorded by a BBC remote crew at The Royal Albert Hall and I was there too and heard actual live music.Oh and Royce Hall at UCLA where we recorded the chorus for the soundtrack. I've been backstage with Eric Leinsdorf, Andrew Litton (told me he's a turntable guy) and others. So yes, I've heard some live music and find the implication in this thread that I don't listen to live music, insulting, ignorant and childish.

As for comparing a stereo to live music, GET OVER IT. Recorded music doesn't sound like live. "The Absolute Sound" (the concept not the magazine) was Harry Pearson's marketing invention and a good one like "Living Stereo" and "Living Presence". NO stereo (and I've heard many incredible ones all around the world) sounds like live music, though many, including my own produce incredible pleasure and by "letting go" I can be in any great venue just as I can watch a movie and be in Buckingham Palace if the acting is good (like in The Crown).

Hehehe...

Ah, AP, cool...a quick question for you, have you had a chance to try out the new vacuum hold down solution for the SAT turntable?

vbw,
-a

 

[ALF]

The Air Force Zero fits, so you never know!

...it’s a “FIT!”

 

[TrackingAngle]

Appears to be a substantially modified Technics DD Table........( the new model, SL 1000R)

Is not, any more than a turntable using a Pabst motor is a 'substantially modified' whatever. It uses elements of SP10R but not "the motor" itself in other words it's not an SP10R installed in a 'space age' looking plinth.

 

[TrackingAngle]

Hehehe...

Ah, AP, cool...a quick question for you, have you had a chance to try out the new vacuum hold down solution for the SAT turntable?

vbw,
-a

Yes. I'm wrote about it in the review and I'm using it right now as I type! It's been effective on many difficult to play warped records but not as foolproof as the system on the Air Force Zero also here. That sucks down anything....

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . find the implication in this thread that I don't listen to live music, insulting, ignorant and childish.

As for comparing a stereo to live music, GET OVER IT. Recorded music doesn't sound like live. "The Absolute Sound" (the concept not the magazine) was Harry Pearson's marketing invention and a good one like "Living Stereo" and "Living Presence". NO stereo (and I've heard many incredible ones all around the world) sounds like live music, though many, including my own produce incredible pleasure and by "letting go" I can be in any great venue just as I can watch a movie and be in Buckingham Palace if the acting is good (like in The Crown).

+1

Thank you, Michael, for slaying definitively that insulting and ignorant implication..

 

[Lagonda]

Yes. I'm wrote about it in the review and I'm using it right now as I type! It's been effective on many difficult to play warped records but not as foolproof as the system on the Air Force Zero also here. That sucks down anything....

With both TT's present we don't have to rely on your aural memory, wich one do you personally prefer ? Answer not really expected.

 

[Halcro]

The Air Force Zero fits, so you never know!

Covid hair.....

 

[tima]

'Black backgrounds'. the Air Force Zero has the blackest backgrounds of any turntable I've ever heard. Lower the stylus and you think you hit the mute button. Not hyperbole. Every visitor reacts the same way.

A refresher for you Ron ...

Finally, the last sentence of this paragraph kind of sums it up for me, along with Fremer's descriptions of "black backgrounds". Is this the way we hear real music live? Or is this table a tool to get to what is on the recording? Both approaches seem valid to me. Ron even started a thread on the subject. One seems an appreciation for, even celebration of, the whole or gestalt of the music and its message, the other seems a diagnostic analysis of its many parts. Two different approaches leading to two different sounds.

To which I replied:

Fremer enjoys (and promotes) audiophile 'effects' - sonics more likely heard in a listening room than a concert hall. His reference tends to be other equipment.

To which you replied:

Hi Tim,

Why do you think this? How do you know how often Michael attends live music performances?

What is your basis for this assertion?

So yes, I've heard some live music and find the implication in this thread that I don't listen to live music, insulting, ignorant and childish.

+1

Thank you, Michael, for slaying definitively that insulting and ignorant implication..

Dear Ron - This is on you. Sorry but your attempt to twist my reply to PeterA that "His reference tends to be other equipment" into "How do you know how often Michael attends live music performances" shows that non-sequitar for the lawyer's trick that it is. It's your implication that you claim slayed - no one elses. I think you owe him an apology.

As for comparing a stereo to live music, GET OVER IT.

 

[tima]

As for comparing a stereo to live music, GET OVER IT. Recorded music doesn't sound like live.

I've heard no audiophile claim that reproduction is indistiquishable from live music. Nor claim that it can be. But it is a reproduction of something. When I compare two systems or pieces of gear I prefer the one that sounds more natural, like what I hear in the concert hall, than the one that sounds more like something else.

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

grow up folks........

 

[Ron Resnick]

Dear Ron - This is on you. Sorry but your attempt to twist my reply to PeterA that "His reference tends to be other equipment" into "How do you know how often Michael attends live music performances" shows that non-sequitar for the lawyer's trick that it is. It's your implication that you claim slayed - no one elses. I think you owe him an apology.

Dear Tim,

I cannot agree. I think, at least in the context of this hobby and of this discussion, that "his reference tends to be other equipment" contains the implication that his reference tends not to be live music.

I think it is you who owes Michael an apology.

 

[microstrip]

I've heard no audiophile claim that reproduction is indistiquishable from live music. Nor claim that it can be. But it is a reproduction of something. When I compare two systems or pieces of gear I prefer the one that sounds more natural, like what I hear in the concert hall, than the one that sounds more like something else.

Different people will valuate in very different ways the same characteristics of sound quality. It is why "the one that sounds more natural, like what I hear in the concert hall" is very ambiguous when addressing stereo sound reproduction and must always be complemented by clear descriptions of what we are exactly addressing. IMHO just telling us that it sounds more natural is meaningless.

Stereo recording heavily manipulates the physical signal - each of us has own preferences in this aspect. The good thing with frequent reviewers is that we can understand and know about theirs.

Personally I am not a partisan of the "closed eyes school". I do not want to recreate just the sound wave, I want the full view of the concert room - that I think is most of the time the intention or the recording producer. IMHO Michael Fremer also seems to prefer this way of listening.

Considering the black background, IMHO we should not mix signal to noise ratio or real music with it - it simply describes an aspect of sound reproduction related to freedom of artifacts.

 

[PeterA]

Considering the black background, IMHO we should not mix signal to noise ratio or real music with it - it simply describes an aspect of sound reproduction related to freedom of artifacts.

in my opinion, black backgrounds are an artifact caused by something in the reproduction chain. If every recording has a black background, it is a coloration, just like to bright treble or solid/hard bass are colorations. I don’t associate black backgrounds with live music. There is always some subtle sound or energy in the air. The better the system and recording, the more of it one hears.

I think one of the stated design goals of the Air Force one was “black backgrounds like cd.” Or “ silence like digital”. When I listened to the Air Force one I heard this attribute but not with the other table in that system, so in that sense the design is a success from the designer’s point of you, but the table had a distinct signature overlaying every recording.

The Air Force one reminded me of listening to digital in that sense and it caused a sameness to each recording. I have heard similar from other turntables but to a lesser degree. I think it may have something to do with the level of dampening, but I not sure.

 

[bonzo75]

Personally I am not a partisan of the "closed eyes school". I do not want to recreate just the sound wave, I want the full view of the concert room - that I think is most of the time the intention or the recording producer.

Sorry, why do you think people who like to attempt to recreate live music (or like natural sound) do not want the full view? What is just recreating the sound wave?

The older originals played through a transparent system are the best at creating a full view of the concert hall, and in a transparent system each recording will change the view. In a not so transparent system all views will feel similar across recordings

 

[PeterA]

The older originals played through a transparent system are the best at creating a full view of the concert hall, and in a transparent system each recording will change the view. In a not so transparent system all views will feel similar across recordings

Well stated, Kedar. This has been my experience too.

 

[tima]

Dear Tim,

I cannot agree. I think, at least in the context of this hobby and of this discussion, that "his reference tends to be other equipment" contains the implication that his reference tends not to be live music.

I think it is you who owes Michael an apology.

Sorry Ron - you have history of drawing implications from uncareful reading or some reason. The implications are your creations. You're doing it again as no one said anything (except you) about whether Fremer listens to live music which is what he got all piqued about and which you tried to make the discussion about. Of course he compares equipment to other equipment rather than live music.

the Air Force Zero has the blackest backgrounds of any turntable I've ever heard

What the heck do you think this implies:

As for comparing a stereo to live music, GET OVER IT.