The resurgence in vinyl has caused a lot of my friends to buy record players in the past year. I’ve owned various turntables over the last 20 years and these friends usually text me whenever they don’t know how to fix their record player that sounds slow.
I normally give them 5 reasons why their turntable sounds bad, but often, the turntable platter itself isn’t moving at the proper speed which causes the music to sound slow. In this article I will give you the main reasons your turntable or record player might sound slow.
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.
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.
Below are a list of steps you can take to eliminate, fix or repair any hum or buzz noises coming from your turntable.
Make sure to ground your turntable properly using a ground wire.
Move other wires from audio components away from each other.
Move your speakers to a different surface.
Purchase a stand alone preamp.
Let’s discuss these more thoroughly below.
1. Make sure to ground your turntable properly.
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.
