"Iain Churches" wrote in message
...

David Looser wrote:

Modern turntables work no better than those of the 1970s,

I would be interested to know, David, have you even seen,
let alone auditioned, a Verdier or SME?

No, I have seen neither. Indeed I've never even heard of a Verdier and,
whilst I am familiar with SME arms, I was not aware that they also made
turntables.

But say I had "auditioned" these turntables, what would that prove, unless I
had been able to compare them with every TT made in the 1970s? There are
many fine turntables dating from the 1970s which are still in use and whose
owners will claim sound every bit as good as anything more recent.

My claim "Modern turntables work no better than those of the 1970s" is based
on the fact that modern turntables work no differently from those of the
1970s. The TT is far from high-tech, on the contrary it's a very simple
machine whose requirements has been well understood for over half a century.
If you are claiming that mechanical engineering has improved dramatically in
recent years I suggest you look at some of the machines the Victorians
built. In view of the well-known performance limitations of the vinyl medium
even you must accept that there must be a point of perfection in TTs beyond
which no audible improvement will be apparent. I suggest this point was
reached by 1980 at the latest.

So if you want to claim that modern TTs sound better than those of 40 years
ago I suggest that some evidence would help your cause. I don't mean
personal anecdotes, but a properly conducted listening test.

[BTW a properly conducted listening test includes the following
requirements: listening panel of at least a dozen, preferably more.
Listeners to know nothing about the test in advance (i.e.. they don't know
they are listening to turntables, let alone which ones), Each listener
listens on their own to avoid influencing each other, order of presentation
to vary with each listener to avoid precedence effects and inclusion of
'trick' comparisons (e.g., both A and B are the same TT) to see how much
listeners are subconsciously trying to provide the answers they think are
expected.]

I look forward to seeing the results of your test in due course Iain.

David.