Darth Vader
From the Dark Side
The wow/flutter percentages I quote come from a recent magazine test of Sondek, and from the manufacturer's published spec for the Technics. I quite accept that they may both be anomalous or misleading, hence the use of "allegedly". I suspect that the recent magazine test was quite good. I also think that Panasonic put quite a lot of engineering effort into their decks' wow performance back in the 70's, so I don't have any reason to doubt their figures. On top of all this, I imagine that I can sometimes hear pianos going out of tune from one second to the next on standard Radikal and Lingo Sondeks. Perhaps that's what 0.08% wow sounds like, or perhaps I just imagine it. Before anyone asks, I haven't done a proper abx test to prove to myself that I can hear 0.08% wow, but I have posted needledrops on several threads about this, including methods to stabilise the Sondek subchassis in a way that, to my ear, overcomes what I hear as a pitch stability problem. There is some research cited on the Well Tempered Labs web site which suggests that listeners are able to distinguish wow down to about 0.06%, so that would put recently measured Sondek wow in the just audible band.
I get that on certain records and it is the recording for whatever reason as all other records are fine.
So if it can be reproduced its the recording if its random its the deck.
Cheers,
DV