Onkyo Direct-Drive Turntable

I just set this up last night and I used my two 30 year old Telarc Omnidisc setup and test records to check it out. After following Onkyo's instructions to set up the table I ran it thru the test records. While I am not a true audiophile expert, I think I am pretty good at following the simple testing directions in the Telarc instruction book. What did I find:? 1. Setup: The cartridge comes mounted to the head-shell. All I had to do was insert the head-shell into the tonearm. Doing so was easy and resulted in as perfect a set up as I could do myself. The needle was precisely at the specified 15mm overhang, the cartridge lined up perfectly with Telarc's alignment instructions. Vertical angle and skew (side to side angle) are not adjustable, but were were all dead straight as far as I could tell. 2. Cartridge tracking test: This is the torture test. A tone gets louder and stronger until the stylus either jumps out of the groove or distortion sets in on one or both channels. There was no needle jumping and no distortion until 35+ seconds into the test -- in the very good range and as good as my Shure M97Xe on my Dual 1245. And while Onkyo recommends that you set it to track at a 3.5 grams and 3.0 for anti-skating, I found that there was no tracking improvement beyond 2.75 grams for weight and 2.5 grams for anti-skating. The cartridge tracks better than its specifications. 3. Tone-arm: The quality is average or better for sub $500 units. There was not any noticeable play, rattling or looseness. It moves up and down and side to side freely with no binding or catching. It is a moderate weight metal arm, probably aluminum with plastic base and parts. 4. Sound quality: Overall, very good to my ear. There is no low frequency rumble, the electronics are dead quiet and there is no detectable wow or flutter. The motor and bearings are as dead quiet as I have heard on any recent sub $1,000 turntable and much quieter than on my belt drive Dual or my 20 year old direct drive JVC. Sometimes a turntable has connection or grounding issues that result in background noise or hiss in the electronics. Obviously the cartridge and turntable are well suited to each other and the wiring is all properly grounded. Turntable speed seems dead on. I could hear no wow or flutter using the Telarc test tones. As for frequency response, the Onkyo seems to do as well as my Dual with Sure M-97Xe cartridge. I could hear the Telarc test tones down to 20 hz and as high as 16,000. Both turntables are probably better than my hearing. 4. Overall fit and finish and other things: Excellent in all respects. The base is is made of solid and heavy wood fiber board with four height adjustable feet. This wooden base and feet isolate the turntable from vibrations. When I knocked on the table top next to the Onkyo, I could hear no sound coming thru. The switches are nicely finished. The dust cover is mounted with well balanced spring loaded hinges. Even the little 45 RPM adapter is well finished and attractive heavy aluminum or another metal of some sort.