Vinyl turntables: back to the future 2! How to choose now?

So, you decided to buy a turntable, or to put it simply, a turntable. To begin with we need to outline the goals, for which it is purchased. The first and most numerous audience of consumers of this kind of equipment – music lovers, both with experience and without it.

Turntable for music lovers

Modern turntables have undergone significant structural changes. And, most importantly, engineers have practically eliminated the vibration transmitted from the engine to the record. But in spite of it, before you buy the headset, make sure to prepare the place where it will be installed – to avoid vibration, the surface should be as even as possible. There are different ways for audiophiles to get out of this situation.

The easiest way out is to buy a special turntable stand Rack and an anti-vibration mat. Experienced music lovers and if funds allow build a special podium with marble shelves and an anti-vibration cushion, built right into the floor.

Choosing the turntable

So, let’s choose. One of the most decisive elements in the sound of the turntable is the rotation stability. The turntables can be fully automated and equipped with a strobe. The first are equipped with a servo – this is a servo drive with negative feedback control, allowing precise control over the parameters of movement. That is, in this case, we rely entirely on electronics.

The products of such companies as Pioneer, Denon and some others are recognized as very reliable servomotors. If you do not like to trust electronics, choose a device equipped with a strobe light. In this case you can always adjust the speed of rotation and visually make sure that it works clearly. If you have a device with direct unregulated drive it is better to refrain from such purchase.

Now the table itself. The turntable of the vinyl record player is the base of it all. The main task of the turntable is to rotate the vinyl record with the same speed and protect it from any, even the smallest vibrations. Why is a vinyl turntable afraid of vibrations?? After all, when discussing any part of the turntable, we come up against vibrations and rotation speed. And everything is very simple! By varying the rotational speed, we distort the sound beyond recognition.

And with vibrations it’s a bit more complicated. The process of reading the soundtrack is also connected with vibrations. The fine pickup needle slides along the rough groove of the sound and thus begins to vibrate at a sonic frequency, then these vibrations are transformed into an electric signal, amplified and reproduced. If the turntable table will let in extraneous vibrations to the record’s surface, these vibrations will inevitably get to the sound pickup needle, amplify and reproduce, which will lead to the loss of precision of playback. That’s why when choosing a turntable we pay special attention to the turntable table and to the anti-vibration chassis.

The next parameter is weight. It’s physically impossible for a true turntable to be lighter than 10kg. An entry level turntable can, but a real turntable can’t. Just the number of sliding bearings, motor, servo, transducers and most importantly, the massive, molded base plate all have weight! If the bottom plate is light, it won’t absorb the vibrations and they will pass to the cartridge, and the phono stage will amplify them… and again begins the fairy tale about the white bull.

But you can save on this parameter. The reputable company Pioneer makes the PL-990 turntable weighing just over 2.5 kg, which is positioned as an entry-level turntable. But, not in vain it has huge popularity – with such small weight and the price about 6 000 Dollars , it gives out sound, as much as possible approached to audiophile. Well done, Pioneer engineers! And yet it’s still the entry-level turntable.

Denon engineers also developed the DP-29F model which is gaining popularity and weighs about 3 kg. But it’s the exception rather than the rule. And both reputable companies claim that their models are entry level, not melomaniacal! And here is a real audiophile’s McIntosh MT10 unit weighs 28kg. It’s true, and the price is off the charts!

Speaking of the platter. What you need it for, massive and heavy? Just in case of a momentary motor failure the platter, by inertia, retains its speed due to the mass of the disk and the sliding of the support bearings. The decay will be slow and the record won’t spoil, and if the decay is really short, your pleasure won’t be interrupted, you won’t even notice the interruption in the motor power supply. The acceleration characteristic the time of record’s stable rotation after pressing the “start” button for an audiophile turntable is 0,7 – 0,5 sec.

Back to the engine again. All modern turntables are divided into two types – BeltDrive and DirectDrive. All other things being equal, a Direct Drive turntable is more advanced than a passive turntable. The Belt Drive technology was developed many years ago, when they tried to put the drive unit as far away from the table as possible to get rid of parasitic vibrations. The turntable with a direct drive has a higher value such as acceleration time and starting torque, it is not necessary to change the belt over time. But we can’t jump over the top. They squeezed everything out of Belt Drive technology. But, on the other hand, it’s proven reliability.

To check the desktop is easy. In the store, when you are listening to a model you like, clap your hands loudly or tap your fist on the surface where the turntable is. If the sound does not float, the suspension is reliable. To tell the truth, it won’t make the salesmen happy, but our task is to buy a qualitative thing.

Tonearm

A tone arm is a device fixed on the turntable table and intended for reading information from the soundtrack of a vinyl disc. It holds the cartridge above the record surface, allowing it to slide along the groove with a certain amount of downforce, transferring the signal from the cartridge to the phono stage.

The tone arm itself is a hollow metal tube that converts the vibrations of the cartridge needle into an electrical signal. The value of a tone arm is so high it affects the sound quality of the turntable. The tonearms fall into two big groups – rotary and tangential.

Rotary tonearms are the most common. It is equipped with a clever system of bearings and counterweights. Counterweights are used to press a needle against a platter. The optimal load is 2.5 grams, but it’s adjustable up to 4 grams. Length is considered a classic 9 inches, but on the expensive models it is increased to 10 – 14 inches for more accurate playback of 1 and the last track. I’m not going to go into that, it’s only important for audiophiles. In most cases turning tonearms are equipped with microlifts.

Tangential tonearms are less common due to the high cost of making them. A well designed and built tangential cartridge will improve the sound many times over while a poorly built one will make the sound almost unrecognizable. The way it works is the tonearm slides along the rail from the edge of the record to the center along it.

Sound pickup head

Voice-coil head also has a great influence on the sound of the records, because it is responsible for converting roughness of the sound track into vibrations of the needle which are then transformed to an electric signal through phono stage and fed to the preamplifier.

The operation of the pickup head is based on the physical phenomenon of electromagnetic induction. The principle is simple – if a stationary conductor is placed in an alternating magnetic field or, conversely, a moving conductor is placed in a constant magnetic field, then in either case an alternating electric current will appear in the conductor, the value of which will depend on the speed and amplitude of the movement of the conductor or magnetic field. That is why there are two types of heads – MM-type head with a sliding magnet and MC-type head with a sliding coil .

The main advantage of MM-type heads is the fact that the signal level is 10-12 times higher than that of MC-type heads and it allows using phono stage with a simple amplification scheme. It means less parts, less noise and, consequently, less price for the phono stage. The MM heads give you a powerful, open, and clean sound, transporting you to the concert stage. But the MM heads sound less detailed than the MC-heads.

Extremely light MT-heads Moving Coil – the top of engineering and produces the real masterpieces of sound reproduction. You hear everything on the record with stunning detail. The main drawback of this type of head is the price of the head and the phono stage. Budget models do not use this type of head but only the premium models.

Phono Corrector

And the final touch to the turntable is the phono stage. The phono stage is responsible for transcribing the vibration signals and converts them into a form compatible with the preamplifier. You should agree, it is a very important element. By the way, no matter what part of the turntable we touch, they are all very important. But let’s get back to our mutton, the phono stage. Here there are two main points for which this unit was made.

First. The input from the cartridge is negligible and the pre-amp stages do not pick it up. In this case the phono stage becomes like an amplifier for the preamp. It slightly amplifies a signal to the value, to which pre-amplifier stages will react. But it should be done very accurately, without distorting or adding extra signals to bring to the listener all sound nuances of the recording. After all, everything will intensify later – both distortion and true recording. That’s why phono stages are made of the highest quality materials. Hence the high price.

Second . Since vinyl is the substance sensitive to mechanical damage, and a heavy cartridge in the process of playback will leave its mark, then, initially, when recording, the edges of the frequency ranges are intentionally distorted. But we want to listen to a distortion-free record! And that’s where the phono stage comes in. Listen to the word – correcting background! And not only that. The phono stage makes the so called RRIA-correction, that is it restores the form to a signal which was before distortion.

As we see we can’t do without phono-corrector. Quite often the phono stage is integrated with the preamplifier. Next, you also have a preamp in your stereo. Many manufacturers have option “phono cutoff” not to amplify parasitic signals. This option turns off not the phono stage, but the turntable preamplifier. If your home stereo system has a line input analog audio input , the preamplifier on the turntable comes in handy.

Conclusions and recommendations

We have reviewed the basic components of the turntable, we understand what we need and are ready to go to the store. But first, let’s see what we have.

And we have a monoblock stereo or a multi-unit system, a home theater system “out of the box” or a receiver with inexpensive speakers, an active computer speaker system. That is all the equipment at a price up to 1000 dollars. That means you get the sound you’re used to. Don’t expect miracles here. In this case the turntable of an entry level will do for us. You shouldn’t throw away a lot of money on a vinyl player your equipment isn’t ready for. In this segment the choice is huge.

For those, who needs a high quality vinyl player and doesn’t want to spend money on “extras”, I would recommend Pioneer PL-990 turntable. This unit costs around 6000 Dollars I’ve already written about it above, but I repeat – the sound is excellent . Denon is very close to him, but I’ve already told about it.

For those who want a modern gadget – I recommend Ion Audio Pure LP model at a price around 5000 Dollars. This device not only plays vinyl records, but also allows you to convert them to digital.

All the software is included. The similar in features model is Sherwood PM-9906, only this model has USB for conversion and it doesn’t need a PC. But I don’t understand, why you need to buy ANALOG turntable to convert it to digital, and especially to super-compressed MP3 format?! After all, specially trained sound engineers HAVE done this, and their work on CD is considerably cheaper than on vinyl!

For those who have good acoustics from 800$ for the front , a good receiver, I would recommend a “melomaniac” turntable. I specifically said RECIPER. Those who have high-quality “amplifier” and the speakers of 35AC or higher do not need my recommendations, they will give me advice themselves, because we are all from the country of “advice”. This is primarily Japanese Technics about which they say he died with models SL1200MK2, SL1210MK2 at a price of 600-800 dollars. Not bad models make Vestax and Maranz. Denon in this price range is also a broad front.

I am not going to tell about audiophile turntables – those who buy them know everything better than I do – but I will answer your questions with pleasure.

P.S. Talk about their youth

And what about those who are not burdened with stereo systems, but sometimes want to listen to the music of their youth in a pleasant company on vinyl, because the collection remains and tell a bedtime story to a child?. After all, it is read and sung by such meters as Rostislav Plyatt, Yuri Antonov, Oleg Anofriev, Tatiana Peltzer, Rina Zelena and many other legends. And in the morning, coffee for the news. For this category there are music combines or multifunctional music centers.

For those who are ripe, but not ready to pay much for this kind of equipment, the company Watson offers a line of stereo systems at a price from 2000 to 7000 Dollars. The whole line is designed in the style of the 70s, and the price is determined by the number of options. The cheapest model consists of a turntable, built-in speakers and a stereo tuner. The most expensive includes a vinyl player, CD recorder, MP3, USB port, stereo tuner, two remote speakers, LCD display.

For those who can not imagine their life without the prestigious attributes, its products offers a Japanese company Teac. This is a line of multifunctional music centers. Design with a touch of retro, but only with a touch of retro. Price from 22 000 to 30 000 Dollars.

These are stylish music centers with built-in and remote speakers, great sound and assembled with Japanese quality. On board they carry a stereo tuner, vinyl player, player or CD/MP3 recorder, built-in equalizer or without it , USB-port, all kinds of converting, CD-tape recorder. All devices are equipped with an LCD display, the functionality depends on the model.

Join the community of vinyl lovers! You’ll discover a sea of positivity and pure, high quality sound.