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LP12 Blue Belt

M

Mr Pig

^'- -'^
I think most of you are aware of the blue turntable belts available on this forum? I've had one for a while so I thought I'd share some thoughts.

The belt is not expensive, about £25 delivered and comes in a box not a bag. They are available for lots of different turntables, which is impressive, although several people reported issues with sticky belts and inability to get the speed right. These problems were supposed to be resolved but I couldn't get the deck up to the correct speed without rubbing the belt guide and the belt made creaking and squelching noises in use. If you listen to the deck you can hear the Linn belt running but the blue one is much louder and sounds like something isn't right. My one did anyway. Length seems spot on as I didn't have to august the suspension to level the platter going between the belts.

The speed was close enough and I wedged a piece of plastic into the belt guide to open it up slightly so I had the belt off and on a few times over the last month or so. Subjective impressions were almost entirely positive. Compared to a Linn belt, the blue belt offer more body and weight to the sound. Vocals and instrument are more fleshed out and natural sounding. At times there seemed to be a question mark over speed stability but hey, it's an LP12 so isn't there always?

Would I recommend buying one? Yip. It's cost £25 and does something good. It's not a huge upgrade, I realized today that it's similar to upping the tracking weight by about 0.2 of a gram, but...it costs £25. You''re probably going to like it and... it costs £25. It's a bigger difference than the Collaro mat and they cost £100. It's not a can't live without it upgrade, I'm not using it just now and I ain't crying but for the money it's great value and definitely worth trying.
 
I decided to give this a miss along with the Collaro mat that I thought about purchasing. Both items from what I have interpreted here have issues, the belt, speed problems when the deck doesn't really have any with the outboard Linn PSU's & belt. The mat: A) because it is a fair chunk of money. B) Reports of the mat not being thick enough for the LP12 where it can cause some vinyl to touch the periphery of the outer platter. C) Is it really worth £100, does it make that much difference? & D) I've tried several mats on my LP12 & whilst all make it sound different & "better" in some ways if you like your music portrayed in that manor, I still prefer the Linn felt mat which I must admit probably could do with being replaced as it is many many years old now looking a little shrunk.

The only thing I have on my TT under my felt mat is a small extremely thin cellophane type disc which was manufactured by someone for some reason I can't remember now lol. Possibly to reduce static not sure. I left it on because it does not make the sound worse.
 
Sounds a bit "bodgetastic"

I'd expect a properly designed 3rd party product to actually work correctly without any such issues.

I'm long departed from the Linn treadmill but I do have other TT's which may benefit from improved belts so this is not good news.
 
I had similar experiences to Mr Pig but couldn't look beyond the issues.

My original comments.

My concern is not just the physical noise, the inadequate speed adjustment for this belt, but the whole operation of a different type of material with the operation of the original motor and conical pulley belt start up mechanism. Does it stress the motor more? I worry it does, I worry the noise is partly the belt, partly the motor bearings being stressed.

I am happy it works for people with speed controlled motors, say Radikal or Lingo 4, or people with newer tilt speed adjusted motors than mine, it isn't a drop in replacement though.

It also simply didn't improve wow measurements, it was worse on every measurement. So ...
 
If it were well covered, there would be some sort of consensus and I see two well defined opinions: crap and absolutely brilliant. I have no idea what the stickiness/boiling rigmarole was about but FWIW I just fitted mine and after 2 seconds the difference for the better was patent. Why people should be messing about trying to measure wow figures with dubious measuring equipment is beyond me,whatever happened to subjectivity ? FWIW, I’m extremely happy with my Blue Belt and there’s no noticeable noise nor rubbing against the guide. I use a Norton and Vivid sub, if that’s got anything to do with it. I can’t justify a Karousel
 
colasblue said:
Sounds a bit "bodgetastic"

I'd expect a properly designed 3rd party product to actually work correctly without any such issues.
Click to expand...


David E is right, the Blue belt project is adequately covered elsewhere on the forum. However...

Absolutely, but the caveat here is - the Blue belt is still in development and this was made known to members who indulged themselves..

I have one of the early ones and "fixed" the noise issue by talcing the belt and then removing surplus talc. Another development to help folk with AC motors was to increase the belt thickness and doing so appears to have provided an engineered solution to the slow speed issue with AC motors and its tilt adjustment to achieve 33.33/ 45 RPM.
 
In fairness my position isn't it is crap, it is that those of us with tilt speed adjust motors need to be aware it isn't necessarily for us. I tried the later thicker belt, same issues for me. YMMV. I would suggest people with speed control motors try it, and those with tilt speed adjust motors try it but with less expectation it will definitely be for them.

The reason I mentioned measurements was simply because the original thread provided and expectation of improved measurements. Not for me, again YMMV.

As to the measurements being junk because they are from a mobile phone, well if they were junk you would expect random/noisy results, not solid, repeatable results. We can argue about absolute measurement accuracy but not relative measurements once they are shown to be consistent.
 
Eeek! Oh no I’d forgotten about it all. I’ve got a WT deck now and Pear Audio sent me 6 belts free because the last one broke.
 
nobeone said:
In fairness my position isn't it is crap, it is that those of us with tilt speed adjust motors need to be aware it isn't necessarily for us. I tried the later thicker belt, same issues for me. YMMV. I would suggest people with speed control motors try it, and those with tilt speed adjust motors try it but with less expectation it will definitely be for them.

The reason I mentioned measurements was simply because the original thread provided and expectation of improved measurements. Not for me, again YMMV.

As to the measurements being junk because they are from a mobile phone, well if they were junk you would expect random/noisy results, not solid, repeatable results. We can argue about absolute measurement accuracy but not relative measurements once they are shown to be consistent.
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Indeed, your experience and views are fair. However, the Blue belt certainly adds to my personal musical enjoyment. I don't really care if the platter cannot reach 33.33 given my perception of musical improvement with the BB (which is repeatable) 33.23 rpm is acceptable to me and given the sonics I shall no longer obsess over absolute rotational speed.
 
nobeone said:
As to the measurements being junk because they are from a mobile phone,
Click to expand...

Slightly OT but...

I recently acquired a fairly professional looking SPL meter and a calibrator. The SPL meter was reading 4dB low at the two test levels. My iPhone SE was within 0.5dB of the calibration tone and is able to provide a spectral analysis as well!

I was very surprised. The numbers (usually) don't lie.
 
Slightly OT it may be, but I have spent many man months trying to get 3D Accel, gyro, magnetometer combo calibrated to anything like as good as Apple do, never mind the use of GNSS and other location services, to get a reliable indication of direction. It is truly impressive what a modern mobile phone has built in. Easy to knock, hard to beat :)
 
The problem with using an Iphone to measure an LP12 speed is that fitting the Iphone can upset the suspension and cause speed instability.
 
Just to be precise, I never said junk, just dubious, repeating what innumerable others have said, for which I apologise. I have neither an IPhone nor have I seen the app, nor have I ever tried to check the absolute speed of mydeck in 40 years. I just try and get the belt to assume it’s, presumed by me, correct position on the inner platter I.e. halfway up. I dare say that if my ears detected fast or slow sounding distortion I would have investigated further but I’m not that good.
 
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colasblue said:
Sounds a bit "bodgetastic"' I,d expect a properly designed 3rd party product to actually work correctly without any such issues.
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I know what you're saying but I think you need to cut the guy some slack. It's not a big company here, just a guy looking for an improvement, and he's clearly on to something. There might be issues but I reckon this belt will be enjoyed by a lot of people and for the money it's a very low risk experiment.
 
I bought an early one and waited a while before fitting to "cure", not running on the pulley correctly and snagging on the belt guide at 45 so I took it back off as I had neither the time or the headspace to start adjusting the motor tilt at that time. I will revisit when I am not so busy.
Rgds
Stuart
 
stuwils said:
I bought an early one and waited a while before fitting to "cure", not running on the pulley correctly and snagging on the belt guide at 45 so I took it back off as I had neither the time or the headspace to start adjusting the motor tilt at that time.
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It isn't reasonable to expect to be able to change the belt and not have to adjust the speed. Even going from a worn Linn belt to a new Linn belt will almost certainly need a tweak and it's a very simple job.

Chris said:
I just try and get the belt to assume it’s, presumed by me, correct position on the inner platter I.e. halfway up.
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The position on the inner platter is irrelevant. The correct belt position in the one which results in the deck going round at the right speed.
 
At my age and here in nontechnoland, under a palm-tree, the correct belt position is the one which gives the least hassle. My belt has always been half way up/down and there it will stay. Although officially part of the EU, I don´t even trust that my power supply is as it should be at 50Hz so who needs a strobe disc never mind an iphone - I tried counting the revs but got dizzy. And even those who do live in Technoland are not much better off ; I´ve had a small parcel with a new carb for my Beetle on its way from Germany, supposedly still in the EU, by DHL since 1st June and it still hasn´t arrived- it would seem to be in a loop between Lahr (DHL hub in Germany ) and Madrid. At least the Blue Belt did arrive by good old Royal Mail despite its supposed shortcomings. Why worry ?
 
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Would I be right in thinking that when Rega came out with an improved white belt it was just fit and play - no faff?

Many of us have LP12s and very little knowledge of how the speed works. Hence what might sound like a simple speed tweak would make me nervous. I would expect plug and play

Fortunately I have a Lingo 4 so no tweaking required. My initial belt didn’t work and Mike was excellent swapping it over to another. Like @stuwils I don’t have time to keep chopping and changing back and forth but my initial reaction to the second belt I received was positive. Certainly worth trying for £25 when you compare it to the ridiculous price of a replacement Linn belt.
 
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