Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

This new Miracord 80 has more in common with the older, 'Anniversary' Miracord 90 [HFN Jul '17] than the more affordable Miracord 70 [HFN Jun '18] not least because the '90 and '80 share a low-ish torque DC motor solution. ELAC has solved the problem of very low-rate drift (sub-wow) that still afflicts many DC-driven decks and so although its absolute speed is ~0.13% slow, its peak-wtd wow remains an impressively low 0.02% [see Graph 1]. Flutter is higher at 0.09%, with sidebands at ±10Hz and, in particular, ±34Hz clearly revealed on the W&F spectrum. Both modes are related to the bearing and/or PID (servo) drive mechanism because they also show very strongly on the unweighted rumble and noise spectra (not shown here) at –53dB re. 1kHz/5cm/sec. The DIN-B wtd through-bearing rumble is slightly below average at –64.5dB, improving to –66.5dB through-the-groove, with the benefit of some isolation provided by the high quality felt platter mat.

The partnering carbon-tubed tonearm's gimbal bearing enjoys low levels of friction (typically ~15mg in both planes) but does betray a little play. This, the slightly 'loose' fitting of the heavy counterweight and unbraced 'L-shaped' detachable headshell may all contribute to the fairly complex bending, twisting and harmonic modes of its resonance spectrum [CSD Waterfall, Graph 2]. The main beam mode is a low-Q 120Hz but is accompanied by sharper modes at 220Hz, 260Hz, 410Hz, 495Hz and 900Hz, the latter creeping into the midband. Otherwise the 9g effective mass seems well suited to the relatively compliant suspension of the Clearaudio-sourced D96 moving-magnet cartridge. PM