"If you're a vinyl fan, the first cardinal rule should be to keep a firm grip -- and I mean all of your ten digits, mate -- on
R-E-A-L-I-T-Y. Forget tube junkies - they're not playing in these leagues. The black disk obsession trails off too easily into the far-outer edges of voodoo, fetish and plain old nuttiness. If you're not careful, you suddenly find yourself running your rig from your newly built, earthquake-proof concrete bunker basement, a sixty foot interconnect snaking its lonesome way exhaustedly to the listening room. Oh, and did I mention how badly you want that isolation table designed for electron microscopes that floats your whole turntable in a gravitational vacuum?
The problem with turntables - and half the fun? They are intrinsically mechanical devices. You actually get to see what's going on! The platter spins, the cartridge needle wiggles through the grooves to produce a physical movement which the cartridge moving coils translate into electrical signals. It's the identical process to what moving coil speaker drivers do - except in reverse. But unlike with speakers, a turntable gets you a front row seat with the perfect view. More importantly, you can tweak it incessantly without having to rebuild a speaker cabinet each time. Bass sounding a bit boomy? Let's nudge the VTA (Vertical Tracking Angle) up a notch. Need a little more bite to those leading edges? What about aluminium discs under the turntable spikes? Or better yet, brass? Bit of hash in the lower mid bass? Try a different oil in the platter bearing. The Never-ending Story. And you get to be its author and sell the movie rights.
So far, I've managed to keep a reasonably tight rein on incipient loopiness. My worst foible is to keep the turntable spinning permanently. "Dahlin', do we have to have that thing turning all night? This is the bedroom". "Good God, don't you realize how important speed stability is?" She gives me a wicked grin. "Speed stability? I love it when you talk dirty, hon'." (This is followed by a five minute rant on why keeping the, ahem, oil in the bearing at a constant temperature, hence viscosity, is absolutely crucial). You get the picture. Pillow talk vinyl-style.
Anyway, the wonder of a turntable is that it produces divine music through only four moving parts (OK, five - if you count the belt between turntable and motor; six, if you count the turntable's movement against the outer world; seven if you include your bopping head, more if something inside your head is rattling). You've got the motor, the platter bearing, the arm bearing and the cartridge needle. That's it. Everything else is passive (which is not to say it isn't important). Obviously though, these moving bits have a huge effect on the sound the rig produces."
Edward Barker, from here:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/hadcock/hadcock.html
R-E-A-L-I-T-Y. Forget tube junkies - they're not playing in these leagues. The black disk obsession trails off too easily into the far-outer edges of voodoo, fetish and plain old nuttiness. If you're not careful, you suddenly find yourself running your rig from your newly built, earthquake-proof concrete bunker basement, a sixty foot interconnect snaking its lonesome way exhaustedly to the listening room. Oh, and did I mention how badly you want that isolation table designed for electron microscopes that floats your whole turntable in a gravitational vacuum?
The problem with turntables - and half the fun? They are intrinsically mechanical devices. You actually get to see what's going on! The platter spins, the cartridge needle wiggles through the grooves to produce a physical movement which the cartridge moving coils translate into electrical signals. It's the identical process to what moving coil speaker drivers do - except in reverse. But unlike with speakers, a turntable gets you a front row seat with the perfect view. More importantly, you can tweak it incessantly without having to rebuild a speaker cabinet each time. Bass sounding a bit boomy? Let's nudge the VTA (Vertical Tracking Angle) up a notch. Need a little more bite to those leading edges? What about aluminium discs under the turntable spikes? Or better yet, brass? Bit of hash in the lower mid bass? Try a different oil in the platter bearing. The Never-ending Story. And you get to be its author and sell the movie rights.
So far, I've managed to keep a reasonably tight rein on incipient loopiness. My worst foible is to keep the turntable spinning permanently. "Dahlin', do we have to have that thing turning all night? This is the bedroom". "Good God, don't you realize how important speed stability is?" She gives me a wicked grin. "Speed stability? I love it when you talk dirty, hon'." (This is followed by a five minute rant on why keeping the, ahem, oil in the bearing at a constant temperature, hence viscosity, is absolutely crucial). You get the picture. Pillow talk vinyl-style.
Anyway, the wonder of a turntable is that it produces divine music through only four moving parts (OK, five - if you count the belt between turntable and motor; six, if you count the turntable's movement against the outer world; seven if you include your bopping head, more if something inside your head is rattling). You've got the motor, the platter bearing, the arm bearing and the cartridge needle. That's it. Everything else is passive (which is not to say it isn't important). Obviously though, these moving bits have a huge effect on the sound the rig produces."
Edward Barker, from here:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/hadcock/hadcock.html
