Note: The text below is the verbatum response sent to Stereophile
Magazine as published by them. Because of space limitations imposed on
manufacturers' responses, much was left out.
We have published an addendum to this official reply on a separate web page. You
can link to it from our main Rants page, or by clicking here.
Editor:
That our high mass design caught Art's attention delights me. Like Art, I've
never been enamored with high mass turntables, and was surprised that our
development process led us here. I’ve generally found examples of this genre
to have prodigious bass and black backgrounds, but to be sorely lacking in
pace, rhythm, nuance, and music. To me, they are the musical equivalent of a
1960's style hot rod - spinning off the road at the first curve (musical
nuance).
Art's comparison to a Hardy fly reel is particularly gratifying to me. In the
early days, we took some heat over our aesthetics. While I'm proud of our
visual design, this is to a large extent incidental. What you see as
industrial art is an outgrowth of a desire for functionality and flexibility,
serving our first principle - the music.
It didn't occur to me to send Art a rubber belt to try. I think it would have
given him further insight into our design philosophy. During development, we
observed "flexy" drive linkages (rubber belts) to be analogous to driving a
car with play in its steering. As dynamic passages in the music modulate the
platter speed, the belt continually stretches and relaxes - hunting for its
original length and in turn for speed consistency, even with the inertia of a
33 pound platter.
We're not talking about gross speed inaccuracies like wow and flutter, but
rather orders of magnitude below this threshold. You can think of this as the
analog equivalent of jitter, if you will. As we moved from thread, to tape,
and then to wider tape, each improvement brought with it a more solid image,
greater frequency extension at both extremes, and a richer, more complete
harmonic structure.
As Art found out, if you don't pay attention, you can "toast" a belt in no
time flat. The good news is that once installed, you're done. People like Art
and myself are likely to rearrange our gear more frequently in a single week
than most people are in a year. A new belt will cost you about a penny. If you
add the cost of a splicing block, you have a lifetime supply of belts for the
cost of a single rubber replacement belt.
We used to provide "training wheels" of a sort with our turntables – drive
belts made from narrower tape. This helped the user get accustomed to fitting
the belt. The wider the tape, the more finicky it is to align but the better
it sounds. Last year, we began machining decorative grooves on the side of the
platter. These grooves also serve as a visual aid in aligning the belt. As
people found it easier to install and align the belt, we stopped dispensing
the narrower belts.
The Anvil is controversial to say the least. I am loathe to make record
playing a complicated affair. Much as I loved my Merrill periphery clamp, it
turned playing records into a chore for me. In comparing the Anvil against the
current crop of periphery clamps, I found it to perform nearly as well as the
combination of record clamp plus periphery clamp without all of the bother.
For me, this is the ideal solution. Furthermore, periphery clamps present an
unacceptable risk of cantilever damage for me to be able recommend them in
good conscience.
Certainly, our platter and base design doesn't depend on the Anvil for success
and one can choose to simplify life further by not using it – just remove the
reflex washer from the record spindle. I'm all for anything that makes playing
tunes enjoyable, and if an Anvil doesn't float your boat (or sinks it for that
matter) then by all means, return it for a refund. Alternatively, remove the
lead shot from the central chamber and store the ashes of your deceased
parakeet in it.
Our online instruction manual continues to be dangerously close to completion.
Mea culpa. Given how easy our rigs are to set up, I've prioritized compiling
and producing additional educational materials for our web site over
completion of the manual.
If our ‘tables were more difficult to set up, the manual would have long since
been complete. As Art commented, the most challenging aspect of setting up his
Supreme involved lifting it onto the turntable shelf. Until such time that we
complete the manual, we have the opportunity to walk our customers (my
favorite people) through the setup process over the phone.
Thanks for "Listening".
Thom Mackris
Galibier Design
