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The turntable has several basic components including the plinth (base), the revolving platter, the tone arm, the cartridge and stylus, and the mechanical and electronic components to make it all work.
Tag: stylus
Reducing Unwanted Noise
The phono cartridge contributes to unwanted noise as well. It is a sound transducer and can be thought of as a specialized type of microphone in that it picks up the vibrations from the stylus as it tracks the record groove and responds to its encoded vibrations.
Unfortunately it can also transmit the vibrations from any noise that it picks up. This includes your footsteps on a wooden floor or any noise including your voice! You can actually record your voice by talking very loudly and very closely to the phono cartridge.
Choosing a Quality Turntable
So how do you know how good a turntable really is regardless of cost?
First, heavy is good! Next, turn the turntable on and have the platter spin. Then lift the stylus up from the record surface using the lifter and then slowly turn your amplifier up. The better the turntable the less noise you will hear.
Any noise that you do hear is coming from the turntable or possibly the preamp or amplifier.
To eliminate the amplifier and preamp, disconnect the turntable from the rest of the system, slowly turn up the amplifier and see what noise is left. Any noise that disappeared is due to the turntable. Of course nothing is quite that simple but it is a reasonable test.
That’s Not a Scratch on Your Vinyl – It’s Dirt!
Dirt and static electricity may cause good records to sound “scratchy”. A proper cleaning will remove dirt and static electricity from the vinyl. You may be very surprised to hear how good your records sound once cleaned. What you thought was noise caused by scratches may disappear.
An old or worn stylus will cause your records to sound bad or sound scratchy. This is because a worn stylus is getting down to the bottom of the record groove where there is no music. Understand that a stylus begins life shaped like an ellipse (rounded) and then wears down to a point and falls further down into the groove until it hits bottom. This is bad for your records. The music resides on the sides of the record groove and is where a new stylus (needle) sits while playing.
