Ignorance knows no bounds! This guy is either really ignorant, or nearly deaf, or really :screwy:
If a $50 Sony sounded as good as a turntable that costs thousands, there is no reason to have expensive TTs, beyond rip-offs and snake oil. But there ARE reasons. (Of course, if the turntable that costs thousands is a "work of art" with a few diamonds glued onto a $50 Sony, then all bets are off...
)
Vibration and its control is critical for any phono system's performance. After all, the stylus ("needle" to your friend) is picking up fluctuations --physically embedded patterns of vibration--from the physically-recorded groove, and using magnets and coils to translate that into electrically-fluctuating signals. That is where the "sound" begins - at the interface between stylus and vinyl, with the cart translating (transducing) the physically-encoded variations into electrical variations.
Ever do experiments with electromagnetic induction in school? Add a few coils, remove a few coils, move the magnets closer or farther away, change almost anything(!) and you will get a measurably different result. Motors are designed for different levels of speed and torque, using these principles. This is why different types and designs of carts have different outputs. Why do we have piezo, ceramic, MM and MC carts? Why are some carts LOMC and others HOMC? Because of these little differences in their design, their sonic output is different. Even if they were sonically the same in their qualitative output (which they are not), differences in output levels and impedance mean they will sound different, when matched with different phono preamps. Experimentation will easily confirm this.
Past the cartridge, the laws of inertia and motion --basic physics, really-- mean that the interaction between the cartridge and the tonearm will affect sound. This is why we talk about "compliance." The usual analogy (and a good one) is automotive springs: put heavy tractor springs on your Volkswagen, and you're in for a rough ride. Similarly, putting VW springs on a heavy tractor won't be satisfactory. But put compatible springs on each vehicle, and the performance will be fine. These differences, in a cart-tonearm interactive system, will be audible.
Moving the other direction from the cart-vinyl interface, the platter (and the mat atop it) is also a key factor, in several respects. The cartridge doesn't only pick up vibrations, it also causes them, vibrations that move through the vinyl record, and pass which then pass through (and/or are partially reflected off) the interface between the vinyl and the mat/platter underneath. A very large, heavy platter may help these vibrations to dissipate, whereas a thin and/or resonant one may reflect more of the vibration back into the record, to affect the interactive motion occurring at the stylus-vinyl interface.
Similarly, vibration may be caused by a poor bearing, and certainly will be caused by the motor that drives the TT. It may also come from outside factors, like footsteps across a floor. All those vibrations may pass up into and through the turntable, to that all-important stylus-vinyl interface.
To make an extreme and recent analogy, some people in Japan reported that they were unable to stand up during the recent Earthquake. Imagine you are trying to walk along a zig-zag painted line on the ground. Normally, this wouldn't be difficult. Now imagine you are trying to do this accurately while the ground is moving during an Earthquake. Suddenly you will be much less accurate in following that zig-zag line. You may even "skip" off of it entirely, which is what your stylus will do if you have springy floors and stomp right next to your TT!
A more massive plinth may help to dissipate vibration. It is easy to shake a big block of lightweight styrofoam back-and-forth, but try doing that to an equally-large slab of dense, heavy material. Clearly, the way vibrations pass through different materials matters.
Similarly, the resonance frequencies of the different materials used matters. Plenty of people here have heard improvements when they have damped the undersides of stamped-metal platters, to stop them from ringing.
What about speed fluctuations? Anyone who has ever listened to stretched tape, or more appropriately, ever stuck their finger against the edge of a record to slow it down while playing, or played with a variable speed control on a playing TT, knows that speed of rotation/playback affects sound. So how well the motor maintains an absolutely steady speed, affects sound. A high-torque DD motor or a well-coupled idler wheel powered by one, with very good speed stability, will give a more accurate sound. "Wow and flutter" are real things, that people can hear! This is why good belt drive TTs use very massive platters -- the higher mass of the big platter creates an inertial momentum, a "flywheel effect" that helps offset the design's inherently less-stable speed control. Try running a belt drive TT with a lightweight platter and a very stretchy belt, and tell me you don't hear a difference! Similarly, listen to records on an old direct drive whose speed controls are failing from age. Your ears will beg for mercy.
There are many other factors that affect sound. For example, the basic design. The tonearm materials, resonance and damping. Distribution of mass within a tonearm (again, basic physics at work). Platter-driving torque (Oh, just mentioned that!). Wiring and connections. Magnetic influence on cartridges (some Grado carts are notorious for picking up motor hum on some TTs). Physical layout (do those little wires that carry the tiny signal from the cart pass too near to the motor? Do they affect tonearm motion?) The precision ("slop" or the lack of it) of the actual parts, due to the manufacturing process. And more...
This guy is spouting stuff that both empirical evidence (experience and observation) AND lab-proven science (physics, chemistry, electricity and electronics --and all the engineering that stems from them) just proves to be untrue.
One might argue about just how much the refinements matter beyond a certain level. Probably the best-engineered turntable ever built was the Rockport Sirius III. I actually wonder whether our ears and brains are remotely capable of sensing differences on the scale of tolerances that that machine is built to. I doubt it. Very possibly, it went beyond the "law of diminishing returns" into an area where the improvements are way past our ability to detect them. But that in no way implies that there aren't differences that some highly-sensitive measuring gear could detect, or that it sounds remotely the same as the $50 Sony.
Let him enjoy his $50 Sony. I sold a cheap Sony TT a few weeks ago. If I could have convinced myself by any stretch of the imagination that it really sounded as good as my more expensive tables, I would have sold the more expensive ones in a flash. Who wouldn't like to have great sound AND more money in their pocket? But ANYONE --and this is not self-delusion, it could be proven double-blind without question-- could hear the differences, and the $50 Sony, while fine for some people in some situations, just didn't cut it in a good system, for someone looking for really good sound.
So why do expensive TTs cost so much more? Sure, to some extent there may sometimes be "marketing" involved, that isn't exactly related to sound quality, but at a more basic level, it costs more to make a TT better. Better research and development, which means better engineers (who charge more). More R&D to choose the best materials and designs. Working through various prototypes through multiple iterations, to make things better and better, all adds to cost. Balancing a platter costs more than leaving it unbalanced. Higher tolerances in bearings and other parts require better machines to make them, and better machines cost more. Sometimes the best materials are cheap, but these days just as often they are exotic new substances that cost more. Anyone can make a "bottle rocket" for pennies, but if you want to make one that will reach the moon and back, you'll have to pay an awful lot more pennies!
So what makes a good TT?
I think the most critical factors in a TTs sound are:
The tonearm and cart - sensitive, well-designed, well-made and well-matched.
The platter - big and heavy. Nothing disturbs its silent, relentless and accurate turning.
The bearing - smooth and silent.
The motor - high-torque, constant and silent.
The plinth - massive and vibration-sinking (/non-resonant).
The feet/base/stand/environment/system (i.e., the rest!) - work well as a system to handle the vibrations and deliver them to your ears in a way that replicates the sound as it was recorded on the record.
Let your friend live with his delusion. If it keeps him happy, then there is no harm done. But if you think he really should/would like to know better, set up a blind-comparison demo for him, and invite him over for a listening test. If he agrees, let him bring his own TT and cart, to be included in the test. He may resent you afterward, though, when he realizes how much he now needs to spend to get the sound he REALLY wants!
