By Michael Miguest
Constant speed is sine qua non for turntable design to deliver exceptional sound on half the goods on a vinyl record. That's right, only "HALF". All record players consist of the turntable, tonearm, and cartridge. However, most people believe the cartridge does the job of reproducing the entire music waveform while the turntable and arm merely provide a stable foundation for the cartridge and the record.
The reason the cartridge can't read the entire music waveform from the vinyl record is because it contains only half of the music waveform. The other half of the the music waveform is supplied by the turntable. The music waveform is a function of Amplitude (the vertical axis) and Time (the horizontal axis). The grooves in a vinyl record contain the analog of the vertical amplitude axis of the variations of the music waveform.These amplitude variations are laid out along the length of a long linear groove (that spirals) awaiting the horizontal time axis (frequency) for the music waveform to be supplied by the turntable rotating the vinyl record at a "Constant Speed".
Everyone should now realize that purchasing the perfect cartridge that will accurately reproduce the amplitude half the the music waveform is only as good as the turntable's ability to create the time axis half of the music waveform and vice versa. In other words, if either or both the amplitude and time are compromised, the music waveform you hear will be irrevocably distorted. However, the Time component (speed accuracy) which supplies the correct frequencies of this 2 dimensional phenomenon (the music waveform) has a much greater influence with regard to this distortion than the Amplitude component.
For any readers who wish to delve deeper, I highly recommend J. Peter Moncrieff's IAR article The Rockport Sirius III.
http://www.iar-80.com/page12.html
Enjoy the Read!
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