Technics SL1200/1210 debate

I'm very impressed with the turn this thread has taken and James seems to be asking the right kind of questions in the right frame of mind.

James, the Timestep makes a clearly audible improvement, that is enough for me but it is certainly interesting to discover parhaps why this is the case.

 

That may well be the case. Where do you think the 'frequency generator' part is?

 

I've been in a very good frame of mind throughout the thread, despite your emotional outbursts upthread, and I always ask the right questions.

I think we are still in the process of discovering whether the Timestep makes any difference, rather than why. The manufacturer thinks it does, but then they would.

 

SP10 torque 6kg/cm, mass 2.9kg
SL1210 torque 1.5kg/cm, mass 1.7 kg

 

Short of somebody buying one, fitting it to a 1210 and then looking at the resultant output on an oscilloscope, I can't see that its possible to establish, on a forum, whether something like the Timestep is beneficial or not. But then that goes for much hifi. Look at Naim's add on power supplies which afaik are just better regulated than the smaller, less substantial ones. The evidence that they bring any improvements is usually based on anecdotes from amazed users. initially at least. Even SME uprated the psu on the model 20 at some point which I understand made quite a significant improvement. Other than taking a manufacturer at their word, or believing a reviewer, what other way can you find out than by trying it?

 

too simplistic, it depends on the weight being controlled aswell.

 

See above but either way the SP10 is a far more powerful beast.

 

I wouldn't dispute that (I do own 2 of them!) but that's not to say the electronics controlling the 1210's platter can't endow it with great speed accuracy or that there isn't room for improvement in the performance of the regulated supply it comes supplied with as standard. It'd be interesting if HiFi World were to try and quantify the improvement although quite how they'd do it, I'm not sure.

 

Even if it could be quantified by measurement, it's extremely unlikely to be audible. Psychology isn't unimportant in human perception.

 

My post was in response to DP's 'slightly less torque' (than a SP10) nothing else.
My own experience from using them professionally many moons ago was the fact it took a awful lot of pressure to stop the platter by hand whereas the SL1210 is easy peasy.

 

The torque figures are irrelevant to the audio performance. They're all about getting the platter up to speed in less than half a rotation.

The cool stuff is that this power doesn't corrupt.

Anyway what would be quite interesting would be to treat one of these motors as three phase synchronous and see where that lead (or lagged...)

Paul

 

I really don't know. A while ago I saw some photos of a dismantled SL12x0 that made it clear, but memory fails.

Paul

 

Having heard both, I'd say it was audible. I think the stock 1210 always sounds a bit 'grey' almost as if there was some kind of midrange grunge that the motor & platter were trying to follow. On the couple of occasions I've heard a deck with one of these power supplies running it, that greyness was noticeably diminished perhaps gone altogether. The earlier (pre quartz locked) SL110 also had that flat, colourless, grainy quality, probably even more pronounced. However, I don't think the SP10 Mk2 has it at all.

Motors follow what they are sent. They are transducers. Feed them rubbish, and they try to 'play' it.

 

There's no evidence that the standard PS is feeding the motor rubbish in the first place. There's some marketing puff on Timestep's website, but the standard 12x0 already has pretty much perfect speed stability.

 

The stock SL1200 has an excellent, torquey motor. It's far more robust than almost any belt drive system I've tried, in terms of listening to how easy it is to slow the platter down when force is applied.

The SP10 is outrageously torquey, but as it's been said, it mega torque is not necessarily better sonically; it's more about super-fast start-stops. You need a very torquey drive system, but only up to a point. Arguably, if it's too torquey, then noise interferes (a la 301). Fortunately the SP10 has mega torque and ultra low noise, so the best of both worlds. My point is that you need a good torquey drive system, with a good clean power supply, and then things are going to sound good.

The stock SL1200 already has both of these, but giving it a better PSU has subtle effects, making it more natural sounding and less edgy - my subjective listening tells me. If you've ever powdered your phono stage off a battery, you can see how much crap the mains is putting into the system, even via well designed power supplies, when you go back to the mains supply. It proves that even apparently decent PSUs are left wanting. Any t/t responds well to the best possible PSU, so it's always a goal to aim for.

a phono stag

 

That's ok. I'm only expressing an opinion based on what I've heard. Nobody is obliged to give it any credence. If you think the 1210 is unimproveable, I've no problem with that view at all.

 

No doubt true, but irrelevant. Stylus drag doesn't slow belt-drive platters.

Have you compared the standard item with the externalised-PSU item?

 

What we are talking about here is the power supply, and whether that makes any difference.

 

Well, as no one here is sitting next to a 1210 with & without the Timestep power supply and the necessary test equipment to look at it, then your question as to whether it measurably & audibly makes a difference is unlikely to be answered definitively. All we have are the opinions of 3(?) people who've listened to one.


I'm not sure the discussion can really go any further.


Incidentally, when you acquired the SME 20, was that based on some technical data that proved beyond any doubt that it would retrieve more information from your records than the LP12 did? Or did you just listen to it & think, 'yes, thats better'?

Sometimes a subjective opinion is all it takes.

 

Capture the sound of both and see what the world thinks.

OTOH £300 seems a bit steep for a single 21v regulated PSU.

Paul