The new Art Audio Turntable

[PaulStewart]

Tom Willis of Art Audio is now getting into front ends with the launch of the new Composer-1 Turntable. This a massive two motor job and Tom was good enough to ask me to do the first review of it on the Musicosis blog. Please check it out, it's a great piece of kit. http://musicosis.blogspot.com

[Audioman]

This looks very interesting. One point with such a large platter, having to lift to change speeds is impractical making the forthcoming power supply essential in my opinion. Providing Art don't charge £1000's for the electronics the package should remain very competitive. I'm glad you mention ability to play piano accurately as I am strongly of the opinion that you don't need a DD to achieve this.

[sq225917]

Seems like a lot of fuss over a brand adding a badge to a third party OEM design.

[NRG]

Agreed, and two motors is never the best idea as they can never be 100% synchronised...

[Audioman]

Seems like a lot of fuss over a brand adding a badge to a third party OEM design.

I think it's a new design made by an OEM manufacturer. Of course there are a limited number of variations you can dream up in terms of designing a TT and with so many on the market about everything must have been tried. The proof of how relevant this model is and it's success is sound per pound. The fact that it is apparantly ahead of the Orbe in basic form at least in some areas would make it worth investigating.


Agreed, and two motors is never the best idea as they can never be 100% synchronised...

There have been successfull designs using 2 or 3 motors. Why can't two motors be made to run at the same speed? If they are made to high tolerances and correctly calibrated this should not be an issue. Thought the point is to achieve better speed stability and less sideways drag on the platter.

[hifi_dave]

That looks very much like the Clarity (?) turntable reviewed in HFW...:scratch:

[sq225917]

It is the Clarity turntable PS's write up says as much.

NRG, Adding a second motor should significantly reduce speed instability. Base speed instability is unlikely to drop but peak instability should almost half.

[PaulStewart]

The twin motors give much greater torque, and more even distribution of force, as I understand it. Also, it is made by the same people as the Clarity, but it's not a badged deck, again as I understand it, there has been considerable input from Art Audio into this TT and it will follow an upgrade path seperate from the Clarity Dual.

[hifi_dave]

Serves me right for not reading the write-up.

So, it's not really an 'Art' turntable ?

[PaulStewart]

Dave, I just spoke to Tom Willis to clarify this, it is an Art Audio product. It's being made for them by Claro in just the same way as they have parts made for their amps, they find the company that can make things to their specs. Don't forget Claro also make parts and even whole turntables for other manufacturers, they are precision engineers, not a HiFi company

[flapland]

If you visit claro's website you will see their in lots of fields with turntables just a very small part of the business. This is very like SME who I understand turntables and arms are no longer their bread and butter.

[Theo]

It's still a bloody ugly design -IMHO of course.

[Audioman]

If you visit claro's website you will see their in lots of fields with turntables just a very small part of the business. This is very like SME who I understand turntables and arms are no longer their bread and butter.

I don't think hi-fi was ever SME's bread and butter. Started out as hobby/sideline by A.R.A.

[PaulStewart]

It's still a bloody ugly design -IMHO of course.

As you say, it's in the eye of the beholder, I just know I'm sitting here with Miles Davies in Europe and it's like he, Herbie et al are in the room. The deck has a complete lack of "sound signature". Very like the top end SMEs, which must be down to quality, tolerances and mass.

[sq225917]

Honestly that's bollocks the exact same deck was reviewed last month in Hifi world. Put your spade down and climb out of the hole.

I'd suggest that the speed improvement has nothing to do with added torque from the additional motor and everything to do with each motor effectively acting as a governor for the other motor. So the effect of one motor missing a beat, so to speak, is reduced by the presence of the other motor. Torque doesn't matter for anything other than start up as Cartridge drag is inconsequential compared to the inertia of the rotating platter.

[NRG]

...and yet I'm struggling to think of many decks with more than one motor that have actually been that good or successful...and now what will follow is loads of posts with links to multi-motor decks... :D Stability is achieved with a high mass platter and the motor 'topping up' the inertia as it where...

[Audioman]

...and yet I'm struggling to think of many decks with more than one motor that have actually been that good or successful...and now what will follow is loads of posts with links to multi-motor decks... :D Stability is achieved with a high mass platter and the motor 'topping up' the inertia as it where...

Voyd comes to mind.

There are some detail differences between this deck and the Clarity reviewed by Hi-Fi world. There may be more under the skin. The clarity version reviewed benefited from a power supply yet Noel Keywood identified worrying speed stability issues. Not acceptable in a 5K deck although Adam gave it a good subjective review. Of course the Art version may have ironed out the speed issue. :eyebrows:

[NRG]

I think I meant momentum...yes I know of the Voyd decks, heard one many years ago...

[Reid Malenfant]

I should imagine that the twin (or triple) motors on some decks are a way of attempting to iron out fluctuations in the drive.

Just like a petrol engine, motors have a certain number of poles (cylinders) & the more poles there are the smoother the drive will be, just the same as cylinders in a lot of respects. While this is applied to the flywheel (platter) a bunch of motors will be similar to a multicylinder engine like a V8 or V12 in comparison to a standard inline 4.

Or if you like a W12 a la Audi..

It's going to all be about how smoothly the motors drive the flywheel as an educated guess :)

[sq225917]

Noel Identified speed issues on the standard motor control, without the psu. You'd expect that from any unregulated motor/s. Regardless adding a second motor should almost half peak speed variance.

I'll let you know exactly. I have a second lp12 motor that I can attach to my Kuzma. I already have multiple speed measurements for the deck as it stands using both wavelet power speed analysis and a very large bucket FFT analysis that outputs a graph of instantaneous speed relative to angular position of the deck, ie speed and position. Both of these measurements ate significant more useful in analysing speed instability than the typical magazine measurements of wow and flutter which actually tell you very little about how any instability will be perceived. I'll build a second motor pod this week.

[sq225917]

Oh and there's the Voyds, the multimotor Raven decks, the Audionote decks, Tim D P's deck, a couple of transrotors, the Kuzma reference and XL models and a whole host of small brands that also use multiple motors in their higher end decks.

So yeh I think it's a well accepted route to enhanced speed stability by many well respected designers. That a few people who have never measured, designed or built a turntable but have a forum opinion doubt this to be true isn't really cause for concern. ;-)

[Audioman]

Noel Identified speed issues on the standard motor control, without the psu. You'd expect that from any unregulated motor/s. Regardless adding a second motor should almost half peak speed variance.


Thanks for that Simon. To be honest that was not exactly clear from re-reading the review but would explain the 5 globe rating. To be honest I would not buy an expensive TT without proper speed regulation. Add to that inability to change speed instantly as there are now a lot of 45 rpm LP's coming out. So the real deal on Clario/Art TT's is value v SQ including the PS upgrades.

Paul.

[sq225917]

You could always just add the £2000 psu...... :-0

You can buy two Hercules psu for less than 1/5 of that where do they get off charging that much for a PSU.

It certainly doesn't represent my idea of VFM.

[Audioman]

You could always just add the £2000 psu...... :-0

You can buy two Hercules psu for less than 1/5 of that where do they get off charging that much for a PSU.

It certainly doesn't represent my idea of VFM.

Then that doesn't say too much about good value. A seperate power supply should be around £500. If Mitchell can do it why can't others ? So it's actualy over £5K for the proper TT package which puts it against some stiff competition.

[sq225917]

I Could have bought two of my Kuzma for that, inc mods and psu.

[vouk]

Hate to point out the lame and mundane - but 3000 pounds w/o tonearm/cartridge and a 2000 additional outlay for an upgraded power supply hardly constitutes "incredible value for money"....In my book at least.
I have the utmost respect for Art Audio as a company and their amplifiers are indeed highly regarded in every respect- but since this is their first venture into the analogue end - how competitive can it really be? There are a lot of established manufacturers including some real heavyweights in that price category - can an OEM t/t from a relatively little known company (especially outside the UK) carve a niche for itself?
On another note, many t/t designers have embraced the twin or multiple motor approach and with some solid tech argumentation behind it; there are others that consciously steer clear of it and with equally persuasive reasoning.
Just my two pence...

[PaulStewart]

The retail price of the Art Audio Composer-1 will be £2999.00, The power supply will be very close to £1000.00. That's a least £1000.00 less than much of the high end competition.

[Audioman]

The retail price of the Art Audio Composer-1 will be £2999.00, The power supply will be very close to £1000.00. That's a least £1000.00 less than much of the high end competition.

That sounds more reasonable for the PS making it cheaper than the similar Clario offering. In fact £1000 saving for a what may be a superior product and an established brand behind it. Certainly will be well worth an audition.

I am surprised how little Art Audio get mentioned on forums. Years since I have heard their amplifiers (Chesterfield Show). Always got the impression they were a quite costly brand.

[sq225917]

I wish Tom well with it, some straight talking honesty and a carefully written and professionally launched press release could have gone a long way to helping the launch. So far all this PR has really garnered is adverse reaction in forum land. I commend him in his sensible pricing for the PSU.

[Beobloke]

Thanks for that Simon. To be honest that was not exactly clear from re-reading the review but would explain the 5 globe rating.

If I may clarify, I found the Clarity to be immensely sensitive to the lubrication used on its bearing, due to the very fine manufacturing tolerances. When it arrived with me, after being measured, it was still loaded up with the original grease and I found that, as Noel's measurment found, it would run well for a while and then all of a sudden the speed would change.

After a day or so of this, I cleaned out the bearing well and re-lubricated with small amounts of Audio Origami bearing oil and it ran absolutely solidly after that.

[sq225917]

Grease, how very 1950's ! That really does show a lack of understanding of the difference between general precision engineering and the requirements of turntable manufacturing. There's a balance to be had with a turntable bearing between accuracy, tolerance and precision. Whereas you need a very precise bearing, ultra close tolerance can introduce its own issues. I'd assume the tolerance of the parts is too high for the grease to satisfactorily circulate in the bearing meaning you get occasional 'hot spots' as it revolves.

It begs the question. Do they not put these things on long term, measured soak test before deigning them fit for sale? The mind boggles.

[Audioman]

I wish Tom well with it, some straight talking honesty and a carefully written and professionally launched press release could have gone a long way to helping the launch. So far all this PR has really garnered is adverse reaction in forum land. I commend him in his sensible pricing for the PSU.

Adverse reaction from you Simon anyway and jumping to conclusions.

Mystery why grease was used in a modern bearing though. Also Adam why weren't the final conclusions with regard to speed accuracy and the cure highlighted in the Clarity review? Anyway if the Art Audio is essentialy the same design and 1K less for the PS the Clarity is unlikely to garner many sales.