Frequently asked questions about turntables and vinyl, belt-drive vs direct-drive, cartridges, headshells, alignment and more.
Yes, though this answer depends on what one considers decent and affordable! Those looking for new high-performance machines for under $1,000 will find very little of interest. High-performance turntabling can’t be done for $1K new, spend a little more though and things start to improve. If you broaden your horizons to include pre-owned equipment, then […]
Are there any decent, affordable new turntables? Read More »
Anywhere from 200 to 2000 hours, depending on the cartridge design and stylus profile. I’ve written about this elsewhere, but the increased contact area of line contact gems leads to lower contact pressure, less friction, lower wear and better sound. The best line-contact types can last 2000 hours or more, but line-contact styli are more
Without getting too technical, as a cartridge mounted to a radially tracking tonearm moves across the record, playback distortion characteristics change with changing tracking error. Generally, the highest distortion is found playing the innermost grooves of a record. There will be two points with the lowest distortion, where the radial arc traced by the arm
Assuming you have around $1000 to spend, this gets you a far better vintage turntable than a new one, assuming the vintage deck is in good working order. There actually isn’t anything I can strongly recommend for $1000 new, unfortunately. But, that same amount of money would get you a decent Technics SL-23, SL-120, SL-1200,
What’s better: a vintage turntable or a new one? Read More »
Because in order to faithfully amplify the minuscule signals generated by a phono cartridge, they must have the highest precision and lowest noise of any amplifier in your system. It’s no mean feat to take a 0.3mV signal and amplify it to the level needed by a regular line-level preamplifier. One millivolt or 1mV is
Only if you understand that with phono preamplifiers, like everything else, you get what you pay for. There is enormous variation among phono preamplifiers and the only time you should buy a cheap phono preamp is to add vinyl playback to an affordable system that doesn’t have already it, where you don’t care too much
A number of critical adjustments must be made each time a cartridge is fitted to a tonearm. These adjustments are vitally important in getting the most out of your records and stylus. Let’s look at them in the order I normally set them, this is a sequence I apply to all turntables that visit the
What are the important adjustments to make when setting up a cartridge? Read More »
