Retro review - Acoustic Research EB101 turntable

[@billywindsock9597]

I had an EB101, it was brilliant. I sold it when I got a Linn LP12. It was the first turntable I had that sounded really good. It looked great too.

[@705johnnyboy]

me to lol

[@sagerman6779]

I purchased this turntable in 1985 for $300 from Crutchfield along with a Proton D940 integrated amp which was touted as having a really good turntable preamp with selectable MC/MM and bias. This was my first turntable other than my older sister's record player and my best friend was amazed at how he could literally pound on it with his fist and it never skipped a beat. Along with the Proton D940 which cost $400 at the time it was a potent combination. At that time CDs were just starting to enter the market and I agonized over getting the AR vs a CD player. I went with the AR because at the time in Knoxville Tn many record stores had row after row of Albums but only a small selection of cd'"s. I still have it. I always kept the belt off when I wasn't using it and kept it coated with talcum powder and it's still in perfect condition. It's a purchase I never regretted. Thanks for this review.

[@andrewweis5857]

I had an ARXA. It did sound good and its minimalist design was a thing of beauty.

[@greatpix]

That is quite different looking than my 'The AR Turntable'. Mine still works, still looks great. When I bought it I bought the table alone and I added the Linn Basik Plus arm.

[@vinylrulesok8470]

I remember lusting over one of these in Laskys in the mid eighties.

[@andrewlittleboy8532]

New Sondek's stay 'stay setup' very well.

[@richardelliott8352]

I had one of those players, in walnut veneer and sold without a cartridge in the american market. Made me a believer in suspended turntable designs, if worked so well. So much so that I kind of wonder at people who buy a turntable and then are on their own to try and figure out how to acoustically isolate the thing once they get it home. I would rather have that issue addressed in the original design, by the designer. It never was offered with a removable arm, but was offered without an arm and with a sapphire main platter bearing , plus a more stylish plinth, for the higher needs market. I put a bit of memory foam to provide some acoustic damping on the plinth, which was a conventional pressboard box with a wooden top, like most players of the day, and that improved the sound. Seeking more acoustic isolation, I put the cover on and put damp towels over it, making a kind of isolation dome, which was a successful and fun experiment, which gave me a lot better bass sound, but was not for everyday listening , and the dampness, over time, screwed up my veneer. I never glued it back where it started peeling but probably will for the convenience of the next owner. The experimenting showed me the turntable was my systems weak link. So, not wanting to mess with what I knew worked in my system, replaced it with another belt drive spring suspension design, that didn't have any plinth issues, a Michell gyro deck. That turned out to be a well regarded classic design, and really delivered insight into what high end record playing can do. Once I get the better power supply, I won't need more, and will upgrade my new weak link, amplification. Then I will be done, unless something fails.

[@ravingloony9043]

I bought my EB101 from Laskys somewhere around 1986 ish. I was using it until last year and is still in mint condition. I have moved on to a Linn now but still have the EB101 stored away.

[@Muninman]

What fantastic memories this have evoked. In early 1987 I was looking for a new turntable and wanted to audition the AR turntables and simply could not find any retailers in the NW (I was living in Barrow in Furness at the time) who stocked them. I also wanted to listen to a Rega Planar 3. I ended up going to Brady's in Warrington and bought a Systemdek IIX after a shootout with the P3 and Revolver. I wish I still had the Systemdek, though the build quality was not great.

[@Muninman]

Early 1986!

[@Andy-pu2iv]

Back then I couldn't afford an EB101. Ended up with a Revolver, which I thoroughly enjoyed. That went through my Cyrus One into a pair of ARs that I can't remember the model number of...

[@colinhepburn2818]

Yes I bought my AR101 from laskys in the late eights as well and still using it today with a goldring 1042 on it and I still prefer it to my ordinal black rega 3

[@johnabedggood6280]

I compared a Rega Planar 3 with one of these many years ago when I lived in Chester: the AR was so much better it was unbelievable and like you I bought one from Lasky's.

[@planet_oith]

Hi, next time you service the deck, take look at your spindle bearing housing, the area that sits atop of the actual ball bearing and see what kind of finish the dome is? Mine looked to be poorly machined by way of grooved ridges cut into it's surface. But either that it is on purpose to allow lubricant to flow or not? This deck was capable of producing a three dimensional sound domain, stunning sound dispersion and nostalgically atmospheric atmosphere. I got mine second hand from a mate, I remember when he got it. Originally he got the Legend but it's platter was set too low so was swapped for the eb101e. It had an mp 11 boran on it and 1042 when I had it. It's nice to know people still use and is held in high regard.

[@stuartfrance5284]

Got one of these through a relative. Setting it up and hoping to make it sound ace. Anywhere I can find a decent manual?

[@m.zillch3841]

This is what Edgar Villchur meant: a turntable rotates the medium. End of story. It's the CARTRIDGE which makes the music. A CARTRIDGE has "frequency response", channel separation, harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, channel tracking error, etc. THESE things alter the sound stage, dynamics, imaging, stereo width, etc.. Phono preamps also differ a bit (mostly in their accidental contribution of hum and hiss) but an ideal turntable has ZERO sound. A perfect turntable doesn't spin at 33.3 RPM, it spins at exactly 33.33333333333333333. . . . RPM, without fluctuation (wow and flutter) even under adverse loads (he mentions that heavily recorded passages introduce markedly greater drag on the stylus hence they can momentarily slow rotation on lesser brands) nor from warp wow , has zero platter bearing rotation noise, has zero motor noise/hum, zero susceptibility to room rumble, and the tonearm can track anything, even warped records, as if a perfect record without eccentricities. Thinking a turntable has a "sound stage" is like thinking different dinner plates have "taste". No, a perfect, clean, dry dinner plate introduces zero taste to your food. Watch my "hammer test video" on the original AR XA turntable to learn more.

[@richardelliott8352]

if the dinner plate used as an example above had food on it from another meal, then it would be equivalent to a turntable with uncontrolled energy blurring the sound, and destroying the soundstage, exactly like what can effect a cartridge performance. While I agree a turntable doesn't create musical sounds, it can introduce energy into the signal, and contribute to what is sent to the phono stage, and some isolate spurious energy better than others, and do contribute or detract to what is called the "sound stage". And that is delivered in the much more advanced recording technology that record players are still struggling to match . In my own personal experience, I had a well regarded direct drive table that worked well, and produced a kind of flat stereo effect, as one might expect. When I replaced it with the AR eb101, changing nothing else, all of a sudden I had sound coming as though well beyond the speakers, with well defined instrument locations , as though the speakers weren't there, if you closed your eyes.

[@m.zillch3841]

@@richardelliott8352 What specific measurable aspect of the new, better turntable performance do you attribute to this change in sound you just described as "sound coming as though well beyond the speakers, with well defined instrument locations , as though the speakers weren't there, if you closed your eyes."?

[@NotMe_NotMe]

A: “Detail”. That is the difference. (Its also mention in the review.). If you add even small amounts of “noise”, your brain won’t be able to find the detail mixed in with the noise.

[@robmills537]

Hi Phil I had this turntable back in the late 80s but 2 small toddler's & 1 fragile turntable resulted in a broken stylus, so lps stored and turntable sold I now wonder how it would sound with my better speakers amp & phono amp against my Rega P2 ? .

[@1x3dil]

I think we have to mention that big bugbear , when it comes to these vintage decks can they really hold their own against a mid priced modern player . Yes this is a form of heresy , but I still feel it needs to be considered . If we look at the linn which can still be found in its original form , can we assume even with upgrades it will outperform a say Rega p6 assuming they have the same cartridge etc . Just thinking out loud

[@richardelliott8352]

while the job hasn't changed, the designs have matured, mostly in resisting spurious outside acoustic energy, with a lot of automation dropping out of the marketplace as sonically undesirable. I know the eb101 had a very good motor, so it might have that advantage over a modern deck, but from looking at the rega six, it probably has the sonic advantage because of the more advanced plinth. The eb101 probably couldn't have been sold at the time with a vestigial plinth like the rega 6 uses, which is really the only obvious problem with the design, the plinth needed to be dampened for better sound, because it was just a box, mostly of pressboard so it resisted vibrations, with a wood veneer, nothing special, kind of typical of the times. I do know a lot of audiophiles complained when that motor was discontinued . I believe it was from Hurst, and was primarily sold for medical equipment. Now turntable motors are DC and need very good voltage regulation to keep speed, where the AC motors used the cycles in the Ac line for speed stability.

[@derekshorrock594]

The AR Legend was brilliant I had it with an outboard power supply and Rega RB300 but I suppose it is all opinions

[@markfischer3626]

Rather unusual to see American audio equipment on the UK market. Many many manufacturers copied the suspended subchassis. I saw Villchur demonstrate it at a trafde show periodically whacking the plinth with a hammer that didn't jar the turntable in the least. Villchur who started Acoustic Research was what I'd call an intuitive inventor. He wasn't an engineer but had taking some engineering courses. He never fully understood why his acoustic suspension woofer/enclosure worked. It was almost 25 years between the time I had acquired the analytical tools as part of my engineering education and the time I applied them to understand how it and all other woofer/enclosure systems work and why his is the best one. If you have any mechanical engineering or physicist friends tell them the tools are Newton's second law of motion applied to forced oscillatoon and the ideal gas laws. It should have been called a pneumatic suspension speaker. The Teledyne AR9 modified remains my best speaker. He also invented the dome midrange and dome tweeter. Roy Allison was responsible for AR3a and did a lot of work research how low frequency sound propagation from a speaker couples to a room. Teledyne AR9 and AR90 incorporated his ideas into the speaker design.

[@EddyTeetree]

The AR-XA was the BEST turntable ever made and beats $200k jobs in blind tests even now. Audiofools and manufacturers hate it because it shows up the overpriced mediocrity they own and produce. If Felcher had been an inventor in the fields of power or fossil fuel or motor vehicles he would've been paid off or disappeared by the big corporations for sure. I don't own one but I wish I did and I hate how ppl cant help but ruin it by trying to change the arm or add stuff as its a complete harmonious design perfect in the sum of its parts!

[@armanddimeo6575]

I loved AR products when they were a proper hi-fi company. Engineer or audiophile, Edgar Villchur was a genius, giving us the acoustic-suspension loudspeaker, the belt drive turntable, the dome tweeter, and the three-point turntable suspension. I always suspected that ARs later turntables were made by an American company called SOTA, or at least that they were made with many SOTA parts, but I might be wrong about this.

[@richardelliott8352]

while this AR design was sold in an upgraded version without an arm and with a sapphire main bearing, like the SOTA, I never heard of any connection between the two companies. They did outsource the arm to the Japanese maker Jelco, who does a lot of arms for other people and sells their own.

[@ReferenceFidelityComponents]

Refreshing content snd delivery. Big thumbs up from me. Too many people owning mics and making vids pontificating their subjective hifi drivel presented as fact. Yours is different. Interesting, relevant, gentle presentation, pleasant and informative. Of that era which was when I first got into hifi I really rated the TD150 and still do and somehow never managed to hear an EB101! LP12’s to me were over rated, not especially well engineered and expensive for what they were. I believe Ariston had something similar although it wasn’t as nicely made as that and at the time, urban myth was that AR and Ariston decks might have been the influence being early LP12’s. The TD150 I thought bettered the first LP12’s. I must get to trying one of these. Love the engineering and thought behind it and that AR engineer’s comments remind me of myself, also an audio engineer who thinks very similarly! We’re the worst people to be selling our products because I have to admit, I sometimes struggle dealing with some audiophiles. Music lovers are easier. 😂😂😂

[@Muninman]

You are entitled to your opinion of course, but I bought an LP12 in late 1986 not long after buying a Systemdek IIX. It was better, but who can say by how much. However, my main consideration was buying something that I thought would last. It seemed to me, at that time, that vinyl was finished and I wanted to ensure I had a long-term solution for playing my large vinyl collection. Given that the main rival was Pink Triangle I probably made the right decision. In any case, almost 37 years later, I still own my LP12 in upgraded form. I suppose it is like the old axe, how much is original? It has a had a new motor, bearing and inner platter, outer platter, one new cover, and last year a new circuit board and power supply... Perhaps the most relevant point is this: how many of us in our twenties in the 1980s thought that we would witness a new generation of vinyl playback systems in our 60s? Or watching videos of vintage turntables? Not me. Oh, and I kept my vinyl too, and is worth £40k if Discogs is to be believed. One of the few good decisions I have made in my life.

[@Muninman]

My point being, the LP12 was almost certainly overhyped, but Linn offered a level of support and security that few rivals (Naim?) offered then or now. And as one dealer once said to me, Linn never introduced anything unless they genuinely believed it made an improvement.

[@Theoriginalramjammer]

1st!

[@mikemcguinness1304]

I've missed your videos