Thanks for the ad. Now, back to business.
If you re-read the original post, I think you'll find that promoting Fluance and its products
is the business of this thread.
I think anybody can hear wow and flutter when listening critically, the issue is more whether it bothers them, not that it is inaudible. It is perfectly possibly for that wonderful creation, the human brain, to block out imperfections in performance, in fact, the whole idea of stereo is brain trickery. However, that doesn't stop wow and flutter from being a distortion, and therefore not desirably in the hifi world.
The OP gave us a link to a review plus question and answer specifically about wow and flutter, and that reviewer said, "I did not detect any wow or flutter in the listening tests. . . I did not hear anything that I would identify as wow and/or flutter in the Fluance turntable." In other words, it was inaudible. My experience with similarly-spec'd Stanton and Music Hall 'tables was the same--any wow and flutter present was not audible to me.
I think the whole business of specifications and standards presupposes that there exists some threshold of performance where a particular distortion becomes problematic. For example, to meet DIN 45 500 standard for speed accuracy, a turntable would need to be not more than 1.5% fast nor more than 1% slow. Gramophone's review of the standards approved this particular one, saying that this level of speed inaccuracy would not be discernible by most people. The DIN standard for w&f was 0.2%, which Gramophone also said was "quite respectable."
Of course, the test conditions matter, too, and the .2% spec of my Stanton was not the same as the .2% of the DIN standard. Like the Music Hall, Stanton used JIS WTD standards, not DIN. From specifications on products that list multiple test conditions, DIN numbers are consistently higher than JIS WTD; for example, one product that I found both specs listed for had DIN w&f as 0.1% and the JIS WTD as .07%. Fluance does not identify the test conditions they used to come up with their 0.2% figure, but if it's like several other current budget offerings, it likely does not meet the old DIN 45 500 standards. Nevertheless, if reviewers and customers don't hear a problem, like I didn't with my Stanton, then I'd say it's not a problem.
Auditioning a turntable really only tells part of the story, you do need to see the specifications to know just how good a turntable is, and it's always best to start with one whose figures are the lowest available for that price. You'll get a level of wow and flutter anyway for the reasons mentioned, the point is to reduce it to a level where it becomes not noticeable in critical listening.
I would argue that auditioning tells the whole story, not just part of it. If one goal is to have wow and flutter low enough that it is not noticeable, the only way to prove that to yourself is by listening to see if you can notice it. I believe it is specifications that tell only part of the story, and they are sometimes misleading, as demonstrated by this review excerpt from Sound and Vision that compared a Rega P1, Music Hall MMF 2.2, and Technics SL1200:
"As someone who regularly plays solo piano music on vinyl, dynamic "wow" is something I've grown sensitive to. If a turntable doesn't provide sufficient motor torque or platter inertia, the drag on the record from the needle in the groove can actually cause a small variation in the platter speed that will sour the pitch ever so slightly, making instruments sound less than perfectly in tune. This effect is especially easy to hear when a pianist bangs out a big chord. (For me, an instrument has to sound like it's perfectly in tune or I'll soon be reaching for my CD stacks.)
A German EMI LP of Mozart piano sonatas played by Andor Foldes showed that while all three turntables could keeps things in tune quite well, the two belt-drive models clearly outpaced the Technics. This held especially true for the Rega, which displayed a near CD-like (in a good way!) sense of stability. Such results may seem to be at odds with the vanishingly low wow and flutter numbers in Technics’ published specs, but those measurements are made using steady signals and don’t take dynamics into account. While the Rega proved to be the pitch-stability king, I also found that the Music Hall’s transparent reproduction gave the clearest insight into the piano’s tone, as well as the space that the recording was made in."
http://www.soundandvision.com/content/face-best-turntable-budget-page-4#VWwKqhHzOceXuiUC.97
That last sentence gets to another issue, and that is that there is a lot more to pleasurable vinyl listening than low w&f. I agree with the OP that if funds are limited, there's no reason not to consider a budget model like the Fluance, but even he said that if he had to build a new system for himself, it would be with something better. I am able to enjoy music played on budget decks like those I had mentioned previously in this thread, but they've been secondary turntables or purchased with special features in mind for a particular application (e.g., the STR8-80 was primarily for 78's; a DP-300F's automatic operation made it a good choice for falling asleep in the bedroom while listening to music). At a little higher price level, I've been very impressed with the Rega RP3 I bought last year. Hi-Fi Choice's review included, "The RP3 is contagiously musical and even though there were bigger turntables in our listening room, this was the one we kept coming back to, not something that happens very often. In the end, we were frankly astonished at just how good this new Planar 3 is. Its predecessor had similar timing skills, but was nowhere near as revealing nor dynamic – clearly the arm refinements and that double brace have had a dramatic effect. . . The quality of playing is superb and this shone through from the off, distracting us from all other considerations and resulting in a slew of record sleeves on the floor. . . Uncanny ability to get to the heart of the music." With three decades of Linn LP12 ownership behind me for comparison, I have to say I agree with Hi-Fi Choice; unlike the earlier P3-24, which I had auditioned some years back, the RP3 gives me that Linn-like ability, and compulsion, to play record after record for hour after enjoyable hour. I don't know any combination of specifications that would predict this kind of outcome, which is why I always encourage people to try to listen and compare for themselves to see what's going to please them in this hobby.