The very latest Well Tempered
turntable takes a different approach to both Tonearm and plinth. We take it for
a spin…
A long, long time ago in a place far, far
away, Bill Firebaugh built the first Well Tempered Lab turntable. Bu the
standards of the guy admittedly very conservative and still showing undue
influence from the likes of Thorens’ TD150 – it was a pretty radical piece of
audio engineering.
WD
- Simplex
There was refreshingly little ‘me too
thinking’, especially in its Tonearn design, which was novel to say the very
least. The bearing consisted of a paddle suspended in a pot full of silicone
fluid and the platter bearing was no more conventional. It was a pretty
expensive and exotic piece of kit. I only ever heard one in the flesh, but
enough were sold for the company to keep going and indeed earn a modest but
very devoted customer base. These days the company is going from strength to
strength, and indeed it appears to be flourishing, as this new Versalex model
would seem to prove. The latest turntable is its new range topper, having taken
the crown from the distinctly different Amadeus GTA. The latter is the same
size as the Versalex and shares many of its elements, but has a different and
seemingly more expensive means of suspending the arm bearing in its silicone
bath. But the biggest difference is the plinth, where the GTA has acrylic and
aluminum plates bonded together in an effort to ill of vibration, the Versalex
is built on a slab of Finish ply, a 30mm thick slab that looks considerably
better than the painted black finish of the GTA. The latter is the same size as
the Versakex and shares many of its elements more expensive means of suspending
the arm bearing in its silicone bath. But the biggest difference is the plinth,
where the GTA has acrylic and aluminum plates bonded together in an effort to
kill of vibration, the Versalex is built on a slab of Finish ply, 30mm thick
slab that looks considerably better than the painted black finish of the GTA.
Exotica
Well Tempered Versalex Turntable
The Versalex has an oversize Delrin platter
that comes with a mat, but its use is optional. John Burns the UK distributor
recommends it be left off in the first instance. The platter’s long spindle
sits in an unusual Teflon bearing that has a corner against which the spindle
is pulled by the drive belt, without the belt it can be move around with ease
as the entry hole is triangular in shape. The belt itself is a piece of fishing
line, or 0.1mm polyester filament to be specific, this is almost invisible
except for a knot with loose ends, which looks odd but it’s so small that it
doesn’t cause any problems. The motor itself is a small DC type driven by a
torque servo designed by Firebaugh and is isolated from the plinth by a
compliant ring of unspecified material.
The LTD Tonearm on the Versalex is the
first Well Tempered Labs design that is actually available on its own for
fitting to third party turntables, all the previous examples had multiple fixing
for the gantry, armrest, etc. the LTD is all one piece with the gantry that
supports the ‘bearing’ on monofilament that supports a black golf ball in
silicone fluid, and setting this up is a little trickier than usual, but a lot
easier if you take the distributor rather than the manufacturer’s advice and
fill the silicone fluid first. Still, you get there in the end…
How much fluid you use is a matter of
taste, the more used the greater the damping and Pear Audio suggests you don’t
use too much to begin with as it can be added more easily than it can be
removed. That said, there is a feature on the LTD that means this aspect can be
changed. It consists of an adjustable plug underneath the bath that can be
raised or dropped, having the same effect on the silicone fluid.
The arm tube itself is 10 inches long and
damped with sand as per that on the Amadeus. As with other WT designs there are
no arm cables, but merely a pair of RCA Phono sockets with an earth lead
attached, this adds cost (and an electrical junction) but lets you choose the
best cable for your system and cartridge.
WD
– Simplex ball
If you know how to set up a Well-Tempered,
then you’ll not find this especially fiddly in the same way that changing the
spark plugs on a Jaguar V12 engine isn’t too much of a chore if you’ve done it
before. If you haven’t however, welcome to a world where you’ll be swearing
more than a shell suited sociopath. Setting up that arm might just have you
wondering why the hell you didn’t buy that SME 309…
But there’s more! The most controversial
thing about this turntable is not the silicone bearing, the golf ball or the
main bearing, it’s the fact that the tracking angle is fixed on the arm. There
are holes rather than slots in the head shell so you can’t adjust angle and
there is no alignment gauge supplied not encouraged. Bill Firebaugh’s opinion
is that tracking angle errors result in second harmonic distortion which is
“not injurious of musical quality but rather, makes for a richer and more
enjoyable musical experience”. This is another one of those things that makes
hi-fi such a fun hobby, or so teeth-Gnashingly annoying – depending on your
point of view. Suffice to say this is a controversial view, one which is not
held by the vast majority of the hi-fi world. Even those unfamiliar with the
mathematics may well have heard evidence to the contrary…
