Frequently asked questions about turntables and vinyl, belt-drive vs direct-drive, cartridges, headshells, alignment and more.
Certainly, if bookings are available simply fill out the contact form and request an assessment/valuation! Check our booking status table and contact us via the contact page. Note that I can’t offer a valuation on equipment I have not carefully inspected and tested in the workshop. A thorough (ie proper) assessment and valuation helps sellers […]
This one is a real gem and unfortunately causes much pain. The “only 50 hours” cartridge use meme has been part of the hi-fi community for decades. Briefly, it’s where someone selling a cartridge dramatically understates the number of playing hours a cartridge has seen to get a better price at sale. Typical phrases include:
Do you mean those ‘affordable’ modern phono preamplifiers that cost $1000 or more, contain about $50 worth of parts if you’re lucky and sound ordinary? Not a lot. You first need to understand that I’ve been spoiled by great phono preamps made when vinyl was at its peak. Much of the excellent equipment from that
Mike, what do you think of affordable, modern phono preamplifiers? Read More »
Better than many have heard but not as good as many think! For those looking for the TLDR: The Denon DL-103 MC cartridge is probably the best available for higher mass arms like my Fidelity Research FR-64S at the low $400 asking price. The DL-103 is one of my favourite budget cartridges and great value
Other things being equal, a longer tonearm is always better, with one exception: linear tracking arms. The reason you want a long conventional arm, or a linear tracker of any length, is to minimise or eliminate tracking error and therefore tracking distortion. When a tonearm moves across a record, it does so in an arc,
