Vintage

This fully automatic turntable (with manual override) is both novel and complex in build. For example, the cartridge output is routed through a transistorised muting circuit that's only enabled if the platter is rotating and the arm lowered. Similarly, the main sub-platter drive motor is a DC type but the shaft drives an AC tacho used to govern absolute speed. The latter is user-adjustable up to ±3% but with the platter strobe stationary the speed at 33.3rpm is good to −0.08%. Wow/flutter is 0.07% [see Graph 1] and while still superior to some DC-driven designs of today, there's an uncorrelated (noise-like) broadening of the 3150Hz test tone that pushes up the peak-wtd wow to 0.07%. Flutter is lower at 0.04%. Through-groove DIN-B wtd rumble is impressively low at −73.0dB, although this might not hold for all LPs as Philips' hard polymer mat does not uniformly support the entire playing surface. Through-bearing/spindle rumble is necessarily higher at −67.4dB but this is still a good result (all figures at 20Hz-20kHz re. 1kHz/5cm/sec).

The integral tonearm looks robust but large mouldings keep effective mass down around 12g or so – it is best suited to moderate/high compliance MMs. There's also a stylus force gauge built into the tonearm rest – the scale is coarse, but not inaccurate with an indicated 2g reflecting a true downforce of 1.9g. The main arm beam is an open square section tube with a main bending mode at a respectably high 145Hz and with harmonics or twisting modes at 270Hz and 370Hz [see CSD waterfall, Graph 2]. The higher modes at ~760Hz look to be associated with the big headshell, and none of these resonances, localised though they are, appear to be especially well damped. PM