A website about turntables, audio gear, vinyl records, and more!
Turntable cartridges are not universal, but it’s easy to figure out which cartridge fits your turntable or record player.
No, the reason cartridges are not universal is because there are two main types that fit differently on turntables, P-Mount and Half-Inch.
Continue reading “How To Decide What Cartridge Fits Your Turntable or Record Player”A list of facts about the tiny part on your turntable that plays an important role in vinyl record playback.
Turntable terminology can be confusing for a beginner. It took many years for me to properly understand just what all of these moving parts are doing in order to produce sound. I often found myself calling certain parts of the turntable by the wrong name, not really understanding their purpose.
Since falling in love with vintage gear several years ago, I’ve begun to educate myself more on how everything works. I’m often asked questions by friends who are setting up new stereo systems or have run into trouble operating the ones they own.
I’ve been asked a lot lately about the role of the stylus, the “needle” and cartridges in general. There are differences in each that are worth exploring further.
For the purposes below, I am going to focus simply on the stylus itself, not the entire cartridge. I think it’s important to separate the two and explain the purpose of each. An entire article could be written on cartridges alone (something I will probably write in the near future), so I felt it necessary to stick with just facts about the stylus.
I learned even more about the stylus while writing this article and I hope you do the same.
(Also see our articles on 5 Reasons Your Turntable or Record Player Sounds Bad, Weird or Distorted and How To Repair a Record Player or Turntable That Sounds Slow for more troubleshooting.)
Continue reading “Everything To Know About The Needle or Stylus on a Record Player”Four easy ways to fix the annoying hum or buzz sound coming from your record player.
I love turntables, but they can be finicky at times. Having a properly dialed in turntable is key to optimal performance and playback. Record players can be a little intimidating to set up at first, but once you’ve done it a few times, it’s easy to get music playing properly right from the start.
A common question I get from people is, “What can I do to get rid of this annoying buzz or hum coming from my turntable?”. This happens when your turntable isn’t properly set up or you have interference from another component.
Let’s discuss these more thoroughly below.
Turntables often have a small wire in the rear of the unit located next to the RCA cables. Attach this ground wire to the GND screw on the rear of your receiver. Once this is connected properly, the ground loop causing the hum will be corrected and the noise will disappear.
Continue reading “How To Remove Hum or Buzz on Your Turntable”
There is a never ending debate on what sounds better, analog or digital. Digital fans love the clean sound of mp3s, lossless audio or even CDs. Analog fans love the warm sound of vinyl.
Let’s set aside that argument for a minute and try to answer the question, “Do vinyl records sound better than Spotify?”. As with anything, it’s a personal preference, but as someone who has grown up listening to all formats of music from records to cassettes to CDs to mp3s and now streaming, I do have some thoughts on the differences in sound. Below are my top three reasons why I think vinyl sounds better than Spotify.
What does “lossy” mean, exactly? Mark Harris at Lifewire, explains, “The word lossy is used in digital audio to describe a type of compression used to store sound data. The algorithm used in a lossy audio format compresses sound data in a way that discards some information. This signal loss means that the encoded audio isn’t identical to the original. The lossy audio produces a lower quality sound and has a smaller file size.”
Imagine someone served you a piece of apple pie with ice cream on top. If Spotify were serving you the pie, it might remove the bottom crust and the top layer with the ice cream, leaving you with a lot of baked apples. It’s not the worst piece of pie you’ve ever had, it’s just missing parts that make it taste great.
Audio signal compression isn’t really an issue with vinyl record playback. You are hearing what the artist intended when they recorded, mixed and mastered their album. Vinyl playback is a much better representation of the actual sound the artist recorded in the studio.
Continue reading “3 Reasons Why Vinyl Records Sound Better Than Spotify”
I’d been researching vintage receivers for over a year, having decided I wanted to completely rebuild my stereo system from the ground up with all vintage gear. I have owned several stereo systems in my life but never with any vintage pieces included. All my research led me to Marantz, specifically the 2270.
A few years ago, while visiting family in Alabama during the Christmas holiday break, I went hunting for Marantz receivers on craigslist. I found someone in Manchester, TN, selling a Marantz and a couple other receivers for $600. I immediately contacted him and we went back and forth a few times before finally he told me if I wanted these I could have them but he had another buyer behind me bugging him. The next buyer didn’t want all three so in order for me to do the deal I had to purchase all three at $600. I jumped on it.
I had to meet to him very early on a Monday morning at a Cracker Barrel in Manchester, TN, which is a 45 minute drive in the opposite direction of my office. The man was very nice, explaining his elderly father was a hi-fi nut and he was cleaning out his collection.
The receivers included in the purchase are pictured above, a very clean Marantz 2270, a Sansui 2000 and a Pioneer SX-450. He told me the Pioneer was not working properly but the Sansui 2000 was still in the original box and even included the receipt from where his dad had purchased the receiver brand new in the 1970’s. The one thing I’ll never forget was picking up the Marantz receiver and placing it in my car. The receiver weighs almost 40 pounds and I had never picked up a piece of stereo equipment that heavy before.
I finally had my Marantz 2270 and it sounded great. I was so nervous hooking it up, worried it wouldn’t work properly after paying someone $600. Thankfully it did and I’ve used it as my every day receiver since. As for the $600 price tag, I sold the Sansui and Pioneer receivers for around $200 so really my Marantz 2270 only cost me $400. Of course, once I had the Marantz in place, I then had to upgrade all of my other stereo components, a story for another day, especially how I came to own my Pioneer HPM-100 speakers.
This one purchase started my love affair for vintage audio gear and I’ve been buying and reselling ever since.
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