Esoteric Grandioso T1 turntable arrives; G1X Master Clock coming.

[andromedaaudio]

It's a ridiculous assertion and simply lacks common sense. One can use any method (including a donkey walking in circles) to keep a record spinning at 33.3; none of that affects the purely mechanical (analog) process of a needle bouncing around the groves.

I use a digital road runner to check the speed of my Garrard, is my table digital now? Of course not.

I agree whether the platter rotates at 33,3333 rev / min via a donkey a nuclear power plant a steam engine or what ever it has nothing to do with what the needle picks up .
Only if this measurement or drive system system would inflict distortion/ noise by itself then thats another issue , and a steam engine or a donkey drive obviously will cause vibrations to the set up
I have 3 old tape machines with " outdated " speed regulation no timing issues at all .
That said i think the Esoteric speed control and drive system is a very neat solution .
I did hear it actually in Munich this Esoteric table , but the rest of the set up wasnt all that great

Lol DD stands for.... Donkey Drive

 

[Carlos269]

I agree whether the platter rotates at 33,3333 rev / min via a donkey a nuclear power plant a steam engine or what ever it has nothing to do with the what the needle picks up .µ
Now if this measurement system would inflict distortion by itself thats another issue .
I have 3 old type machines with " outdated " speed regulation no timing issues at all .
That said i think the esoteric speed control and drive system is a very neat solution .
I did hear it actually in Munich

Here is something that you and Jeff can check with your smart friends. If you did Fourier analysis on the analog waveform coming off of this turntable and did Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) you will see the periodicity of the magnetic drive in the frequency spectrum and this periodicity will be synchronous with the motor commutations, and those motor communications will be synchronous with the external digital clock…… and as they say in elementary schools by the process of deductive reasoning and derived logic the data retrieval/acquisition is therefore digital.

You and Jeff are hung up on the fact that the acquisition mechanism remains mechanical vibration, but it is the synchronized torque pulses being driven by clock into an alternating binary magnetic injection wheel that is producing the periodic impulse responses on the platter and that is different here.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Okay then Carlos name me any modern turntable which has a analogue speed control .
I reckon most of them are digitally controlled these days

 

[andromedaaudio]

You and Jeff are hung up on the fact that the acquisition mechanism remains mechanical vibration, but it is the synchronized torque pulses being driven by clock into an alternating binary magnetic injection wheel that is producing the periodic impulse responses on the platter and that is different here.

Which brings me to the point how much speed deviation is audible .
If this Esoteric speed control can keep the speed stable untill 33,333 wil a system that is able to maintain 33,333333333 sound any better ?
When is enough enough ??
Has there ever been a study on that topic ??

I assume the speed regulation tolerance should be at least that of the cutting machine speed tolerance with which the laquers are cut.
Is better nescessary / audible ??

 

[Mike Lavigne]

certainly up till the Esoteric experience in my listening i liked the CS Port and Saskia lack of servo in musical terms slightly. although the Wave Kinetics NVS DD has great flow with the Primary Control FCL arm and Etsuro Gold combo. maybe my Rockport Sirius III which also had a DD servo was right up there maybe even a touch better than those others. maybe on the way to the Esoteric as my memory serves.

i think that the Saskia model two motor controller did use a clock, but the CS Port i don't think does.

so the non servo feedback was a positive to me assuming sufficient levels of execution. it was where my head was at. the Rockport unobtainium an outlier.

and now that's all blown up and i bow to the musical equation of the Esoteric w/clock.

this is similar to my love for bit perfect dacs with the MSB Select II; thinking that was key. and then here comes the Wadax, which upsamples, and resets my digital expectation and blows up my dogmatic viewpoint.

i need to stick to listening.

 

[Carlos269]

Okay then Carlos name me any modern turntable which has a analogue speed control .
I reckon most of them are digitally controlled these days

Typically brushless DC motors driven turntables are know for their smooth commutations, but they are further smoothed out by utilizing the inertia of the mass of the platter and reducing the coupling of the motor with either a belt or string.

If you need a name, Tim provided the Monoco as an example which is direct dive but uses a slotless brushless DC motor. Many turntables use motors that are coupled in a weaker form than magnetic coupled, by narrowing the air gap you will see a more pronounced periodic signature.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Which brings me to the point how much distortion is audible .
If this Esoteric speed control can keep the speed stable untill 33,333 wil a system that is able to maintain 33,333333333 sound any better ?
When is enough enough ??
Has there ever been a study on that topic ??

I assume the speed regulation tolerance should be at least that of the cutting machine speed tolerance with which the records are cut.
Is more nescessary / audible ??

i think steady is the key, speed secondary within reason. if given a choice, i'll take steady. it's about the reading of the groove being nano level cohesive. it why turntables sound better warmed up. or left on for a day. that extra degree of cohesion is significant.

 

[Carlos269]

i think steady is the key, speed secondary. if given a choice, i'll take steady. it's about the reading of the groove being nano level cohesive.

It’s called “precision” and yes there is no doubt that moving to the beat of an atomic clock will keep the motor commutations extremely stable.

 

[Kingrex]

I have a question. There are 5 components in a vinyl chain and all have a cost. What is the ranking of return for the $$ invested.
Cartridge
Tone arm and internal cable
TT
Cable from tone arm to phono pre
Phono pre.

I ask as I see the TT itself can easily be $30k, $60k. A lot of money. Is the TT itself a subtle device?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I have a question. There are 5 components in a vinyl chain and all have a cost. What is the ranking of return for the $$ invested.
Cartridge
Tone arm and internal cable
TT
Cable from tone arm to phono pre
Phono pre.

I ask as I see the TT itself can easily be $30k, $60k. A lot of money. Is the TT itself a subtle device?

deserves it's own thread.

briefly; can't generalize for all levels and price points. and some view old school phono cable as ideal. whereas others think it's the limiting factor.....and you can go to the moon about it. so maybe remove phono cables and arm wires from the discussion as it's too controversial.

there are vintage tt's, arms and cartridges which blow up any attempt at using price or age to rank. beyond that it's a non linear discussion as there are levels and plateaus of performance where the emphasis changes. at the top of the food chain it all matters.

the other problem is that products like the Esoteric w/clock exist where new tech might change the order of things. if upon wider review it turns out to change the paradigm, then maybe the tech will trickle down and change how significant the turntable is, compared to the other pieces.

and then matching gear correctly is important, there are synergistic combos that exceed the some of the parts.

and for arms and cartridges, not sure price is a good gauge, there is some degree of relative value, but many exceptions. these days prices can be raised to get attention. not all, but enough to be wary.

the T1 is using a $7k retail new tonearm, which is a $5k addition to the $75k T1 (plus $27k G1X clock + $2450 for Shunyata Sigma v2 clock 50 cable) including an armboard. yet; in the package it is kicking major ass. which means exactly what? i don't know. maybe that the tt itself is doing all the heavy lifting. maybe.

for me, this a face to face talk over a beer, since there are so many twists and turns.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Mike since you have the new tape machines and tape pre amps besides the WADAX and recordplayers i think your sources are second to none on this planet .
I reckon especially the Tape sounds awesome on good material

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike since you have the new tape machines and tape pre amps besides the WADAX and recordplayers i think your sources are second to none on this planet .
I reckon especially the Tape sounds awesome on good material

i would be lying to say that possibility has not crossed my mind. it was not my intention. i was just doing my thing.

i listen to so much digital that i did want to take it all the way. but also who knows with digital progress, for how long that will be for? and many don't agree and have their own ideas on which digital is best. normal with digital. i'm happy for sure.

the tape thing was my friend AK doing these amazing things, showing me, and finally me seeing i needed to do it, as it was a one time thing. so i never pursued it. it pursued me. the tape is awesome.

we don't know whether the Esoteric will turn out to be tip top. it is better than i expected it might be. i just wanted to take things up a notch.

we will see how that goes. i do feel of the new tt offerings, that i did choose the right one i could afford to take me farthest. but there are many very fine turntables, and for sure the T1 w/clock is one of them. in a year we might know more about that tip top question. other very top players are much heavier. can the magnetic drive and clock accomplish the equal performance in a different less costly way? does it have advantages in precision? it might. hard to imagine those others are not still a bit better.

 

[emoonie]

i think steady is the key, speed secondary within reason. if given a choice, i'll take steady. it's about the reading of the groove being nano level cohesive. it why turntables sound better warmed up. or left on for a day. that extra degree of cohesion is significant.

Agree with this wholeheartedly. Flow and micro dynamics are my most savored improvements. Hoping that steady and speed improve to convergence (no error).

 

[mtemur]

You and Jeff are hung up on the fact that the acquisition mechanism remains mechanical vibration, but it is the synchronized torque pulses being driven by clock into an alternating binary magnetic injection wheel that is producing the periodic impulse responses on the platter and that is different here.

That’s where you’re wrong besides other things. Magnetic attraction between platter and motor pulley is not produced electrically cause both are permanent magnets AFAIK. Digital signal is employed to control motor not the magnets of pulley or platter. Digital is widely used on motor control electronics. This one is just adding a better clock to improve accuracy of the control electronics.

Motor vibration can travel through magnetic attraction as it does with belt, idler wheel or direct drive but it’s not equal the digital control signal. It’s a sum of many things like bearing noise, case, driving current etc and definitely has an analogue waveform nature.

BTW you keep mentioning commutation how do you know that it uses a DC motor?

 

[bonzo75]

I have a question. There are 5 components in a vinyl chain and all have a cost. What is the ranking of return for the $$ invested.
Cartridge
Tone arm and internal cable
TT
Cable from tone arm to phono pre
Phono pre.

I ask as I see the TT itself can easily be $30k, $60k. A lot of money. Is the TT itself a subtle device?

While I have my own answers to that question, that question misses something important.

Assuming you want to maximise the sound of your system with a TT set up, once you get to a certain level the record makes the bigger difference to the sonics, as does the synergy of the analog to the downstream system to show case the recordings. For example, if you compare a bad to mediocre pressing on two tables, and if you find one table to be better in sonics, you could change this equation by putting a good pressing on the table that sounded lesser. So, you really need to know this crossover point where records become more important for sonics than the 5 things you asked about (keeping aside the music benefits from the records).

The other thing is depending on your system philosophy, you could get lower priced gear sounding very high resolution, to the extent that adding higher priced gear does not get an added delta - and yes, the whole system sounds higher resolution than many other higher priced systems with higher priced analog. This happens because if the source to speaker path is kept simple, you get to hear a purer signal from the record as compared to adding costly sh*t in between that does not let the signal through.

 

[morricab]

Here is something that you and Jeff can check with your smart friends. If you did Fourier analysis on the analog waveform coming off of this turntable and did Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) you will see the periodicity of the magnetic drive in the frequency spectrum and this periodicity will be synchronous with the motor commutations, and those motor communications will be synchronous with the external digital clock…… and as they say in elementary schools by the process of deductive reasoning and derived logic the data retrieval/acquisition is therefore digital.

You and Jeff are hung up on the fact that the acquisition mechanism remains mechanical vibration, but it is the synchronized torque pulses being driven by clock into an alternating binary magnetic injection wheel that is producing the periodic impulse responses on the platter and that is different here.

I would be curious what kind of motor is attached to this rotating magnet drive. If that has significant torque ripple then that will likely create “beat” patterns in addition to the individual inaccuracies. If they invested in a really good motor then at least the motor torque delivery will be smooth…doesn’t address the discrete nature of the magnets though… it looks like one is introducing torque ripple where it doesn’t need to be…regardless of how precisely the motor is controlled…

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I would be curious what kind of motor is attached to this rotating magnet drive. If that has significant torque ripple then that will likely create “beat” patterns in addition to the individual inaccuracies. If they invested in a really good motor then at least the motor torque delivery will be smooth…doesn’t address the discrete nature of the magnets though… it looks like one is introducing torque ripple where it doesn’t need to be…regardless of how precisely the motor is controlled…

here is the website info about the motor, FWIW. not sure if this is helpful, or marketing speak.

A motor unit incorporating the best of Esoteric technology
The motor unit, which controls the precise rotation of the magnetic driver, is the culmination
of Esoteric’s accumulated mechanical and circuit engineering expertise.
The motor unit is isolated from the main unit and thoroughly controlled
by mounting on a heavyweight 6mm-thick brass bottom chassis.
The motor driver circuit uses a high-precision 10MHz clock to accurately generate the drive waveforms
that drive the motors. Furthermore, by supplying extremely pure DC from an independent
power supply unit, the transmission of unwanted vibrations to the motor unit is minimized.

 

[andromedaaudio]

I dont see the issue here the motor is on a seperate base you have a gap between the magnetic driver and the induction wheel .
The speedcontroller makes sure that the speed is 33.3333 for example .
How high that tolerance is at which it is keeping the speed seems to be the discussion point
It seems to me highly unlikely that the 19 kg platter would be influenced , it would may be if the controller was working in a high tolerance but that seems highly unlikely , ask the manufacturer or may be the tolerance is in the manual
I think its a excellent clean TT solution .

Cutting lathes speed control

Disc-cutting lathes

Stereo Lab recording lathes record lathes cutting lathes

pspatialaudio.com

 

[morricab]

Typically brushless DC motors driven turntables are know for their smooth commutations, but they are further smoothed out by utilizing the inertia of the mass of the platter and reducing the coupling of the motor with either a belt or string.

If you need a name, Tim provided the Monoco as an example which is direct dive but uses a slotless brushless DC motor. Many turntables use motors that are coupled in a weaker form than magnetic coupled, by narrowing the air gap you will see a more pronounced periodic signature.

Brushless DC can only be truly smooth if the motor is iron free (slotless/coreless). The Japanese figured this out in the late 70s (sadly, Technics only adopted this in their modern TT reboot). The Kenwood L07, Yamaha GT-2000, Exclusive P3 an P10, Nakamichi TX-1000 and Dragon, JVC TT-101 all had brushless, coreless/slotless motors…some also had heavy platters. The most sophisticated servo as far as I can tell came from JVC (and used by Yamaha), which was bi-directional to prevent hunting, and Kenwood, which was a nested series of PLLs that were deliberately “loose”.
Modern control is based on optical encoding (like the Monaco). I have played with this on an own design (using a brushed coreless pancake motor) and it is hard to tune it to not overreact and “hunt”.

 

[morricab]

here is the website info about the motor, FWIW. not sure if this is helpful, or marketing speak.

A motor unit incorporating the best of Esoteric technology
The motor unit, which controls the precise rotation of the magnetic driver, is the culmination
of Esoteric’s accumulated mechanical and circuit engineering expertise.
The motor unit is isolated from the main unit and thoroughly controlled
by mounting on a heavyweight 6mm-thick brass bottom chassis.
The motor driver circuit uses a high-precision 10MHz clock to accurately generate the drive waveforms
that drive the motors. Furthermore, by supplying extremely pure DC from an independent
power supply unit, the transmission of unwanted vibrations to the motor unit is minimized.

Sadly no. It says nothing about the motor type or design.