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From: jeff@tesla.UUCP (Jeff Frey)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: The AR turntable
Message-ID: <216@tesla.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Oct-83 15:46:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: tesla.216
Posted: Tue Oct  4 15:46:25 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Oct-83 01:24:34 EDT
References: allegra.1861
Lines: 25

I had an AR turntable in the sixties.  It had the best performance/price
ratio available then, because it was simple and had no unnecessary frills.
The turntable and arm were mounted together on a structure isolated from
the main box, thus reducing acoustic feedback.  The tone arm was a simple
S-shaped tube with a plastic head shell.  By today's standards, the
arm was a little primitive; no anti-skate, the plastic headshell was too
massive, and the s-shape is inferior to the straight-line.  But the table
itself was virtually rumble-free as a result of its belt drive from a
24-pole motor.  Speed constancy was obtained by relying on the inertial
mass of the turntable.  I don't remember what the wow/flutter figures were.

When I had to get a turntable in the seventies, I looked for something that
had a better arm than the AR, and a no-drag automatic stop mechanism.  I
didn't want or need an automatic arm return (who does, really?).  The table
that I came up with was the Philips 212, also a belt-driven model with a
subchassis for arm and platter, a photocell-driven shutoff, servo speed
control, straight-line arm, and anti-skate.
The only drawback was the anti skate, which was spring-controlled and
therefore not constant as a function of track radius, but what do you
expect for $125 or so?  I have been very pleased with this unit for the
past eight years, through a succession of Shure cartridges tracking down
to 1.25 grams and, since I now have a CD player, don't really see the
need to replace it until it absolutely dies of old age.

Jeff