Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Turntables equipped with DC motor solutions have a somewhat chequered history in our lab tests with many exhibiting a very low-rate drift, but the edge-driven Muse 1C, powered via an outboard 12V SBooster BOTW mkII supply, proved rock-solid with an absolute speed accuracy of –0.03% and a peak-wtd sub-5Hz wow of <0.01%. The sharpness of the driving peak in Graph 1 would put the best direct-drives to shame but there's also a discrete ±6Hz wow (which would correlate if one DC 'roller' was rotating at 200rpm) that increases the total peak wow to 0.04%. This peak is visible in the unwtd magnitude spectrum [not shown here] as are broad clusters of noise between 10-15Hz and 60-80Hz at ~75dB below the 1kHz/5cm/sec reference output. These contribute to the uncorrelated, noise-like shoulders on Graph 1 and the modest 0.03% peak-wtd flutter, and also manage to punch through the DIN-B weighting curve of the bearing rumble test to the tune of –67.9dB. However, and more importantly, the combination of the slightly under-sized spindle, the composite platter and leather mat draw the through-groove rumble down to a very fine –73.2dB, putting the Muse 1C in the 'top drawer'.

The partnering 12in 3P tonearm, equipped with a Cocobolo wood arm wand, shows a similar low-Q beam resonance at ~60Hz that we observed with the Reed 5A 'tangential-tracking'/double-pivot tonearm [HFN Jul '23], although the 3P retains the low friction/stiction multi-unipivot without the tracking error compensation of the 5A. Again, there's a clean high-Q mode at 235Hz [see CSD waterfall, Graph 2] with harmonics at 470Hz, 600Hz and 870Hz – resonances that will change with choice of wood and wand length. The high 19g effective mass suggests compatibility with low compliance MCs. PM