The Transcriptors/early Michell decks are both beautiful and interesting. I suspect record ‘support’ is one of the least understood and most misleading areas in vinyl replay and I’m prepared to bet the actual surface to surface contact area of a record on a modern hard solid platter (Clearaudio, Project, VPI, SME etc) is actually less than on a Transcriptors Ref with it’s multiple ‘pads’ as basically even flat records are nowhere near flat.
To my mind the only way to achieve real record to platter ‘contact’ is with a very, very soft mat and a clamp, e.g. something like the 1970s Spectra or Dumpa mats which were thick compliant rubber. They sounded awful!
The felt mat on Linns and Regas is likely the next ‘best’ in this regard, and whilst a felt mar certainly has a signature, it is a nice one, and they will never damage your records the way a hard platter can (especially when used with a clamp).
Everything else has very little contact area as far as I can tell, and I suspect this is not an issue at all. I would certainly struggle to tell a sonic difference in say a double album where one LP is ‘flat’ and makes fairly decent contact with my platter mat, and the other having a ‘dish’ warp where the vast majority is entirely unsupported. My suspicion is the vast majority of the shift to hard platters is just marketing rhetoric.
Anyway, apologies for the thread divert, but bottom line is I am not surprised in the slightest that a well maintained Transcriptors/Michell turntable sounds superb. I’d expect nothing less! I have some doubts about Transcriptors arms though, but I’ve never actually used one.
