Frequently asked questions about turntables and vinyl, belt-drive vs direct-drive, cartridges, headshells, alignment and more.
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
Why are phono preamplifiers so important and good ones so expensive? Read More »
Not if you care about hum, noise and sound quality! The only time you would buy a cheap phono preamplifier is to add vinyl playback to a cheap system that doesn’t have it and where you don’t care too much about the results. Whilst that use case does not reflect most of my customers or
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 »
No, a good quality, correctly set up vinyl playback system should be almost silent and exhibit no noticeable hum. This is one of the great revelations about vinyl that you get to appreciate in the typical journey from basic gear to more aspirational equipment. What is Hum? The term ‘hum’ describes continuous low-frequency tones of
Not if you care about sound quality and the life of your vinyl! Funky Furniture Radiograms and stereograms, with a handful of exceptions, are not hi-fi equipment, they are furniture pieces that play music. This was their original design intent and in this role, they work well, but don’t expect more of them. The problems
Should I play my records on radiograms and stereograms? Read More »
Yes, it’s a critically important part of the chain, just as important as the turntable itself. Cartridges are transducers, like microphones, headphones and speakers and you probably already know just how much each of these contribute to the sound you hear. In the case of cartridges, these tiny little transducers do incredible work, converting groove
Does a cartridge really affect the sound of a turntable? Read More »
