Here is a picture of a Grado cartridge with its cantilever/stylus assembly highlighted and labeled.
The cantilever, a tiny rod of aluminum or exotic metal, is the only thing in an entire turntable assembly that should passively vibrate.
But that’s not usually the case. There are many things in a typical turntable that vibrate:
Motor sends vibrations to whatever it touches, most notably the platter and plinth.
Platter relays these vibrations to the stylus
Stylus oscillations create resonances within the vinyl record itself which are also picked up by the stylus
Some of the cantilever’s oscillations are lost to the cantilever flexing
Some of the cantilever’s oscillations are dissipated by cartridge body resonances
Stylus oscillations send vibrations up through the tonearm, and can cause it to resonate and vibrate; the cantilever’s movement should do nothing but disturb the magnetic field relationship between the magnet(s) and coils.
In-room vibrations, such as soundwave vibrations from the speakers, are transmitted up through the equipment rack into the turntable and are picked up by the cartridge
Speaker output also travels through the air to be picked up by the cartridge
If you play records with the dustcover in place, it adds resonating standing waves that correspond to the dimensions of the dustcover, and are fed back through the cartridge.
In other words, much detail and dynamics pressed into the record may not make it out to the speakers without proper vibration control.
Dude, where’s my dynamic range?
These additional vibrations muddy the sound, raise the noise floor, obscure low amplitude details, truncate bass extension, and compress dynamic peaks by dissipating and masking energy generated by the cantilever that should have entered the signal path. Remarkably, very few turntable designs in the “golden age of LP playback” addressed these vibration issues beyond slapping a rubber mat on the platter and attaching cushy feet to the bottom. Is it any wonder, then, that:
LP sound is often characterized as compressed, noisy, and muddy
LPs’ vaunted “warmth” is mischaracterized as an excess of euphonic harmonic distortion (as was posited by a detractor in the previous thread)
I (and many vinylphiles) have a different idea:
Compression, noise, and mud come from vibration mis-management in the playback chain
LPs’ vaunted "warmth" comes from its near infinite resolution of minute changes in amplitude. It re-creates fine nuances of musical expression that even 24-bit digital can't perform, let alone 16-bit. It is this resolution of amplitude that provides a near-liquid sense of continuity, resulting in the overall descriptive characterization of “warmth.”
Therefore, the better the vibrations and resonances in an LP playback chain are managed, the bigger the dynamic range along with improved nuance, clarity, frequency extension (better bass and treble extremes), and musical “warmth.”
Most of the engineering in today's fully manual turntables is concentrated on vibration control. Here is an example, the Music Hall MMF 7.1 turntable, which is similar to PunkAvenger's 'table.
This turntable has vibration control in nearly every design feature as described here.
The plinth (the rectangular platform) has an upper and lower level. The space between is filled with a shock-absorbing elastomer. Both parts are made of MDF, which is dense and fairly non-resonant.
Platter and tonearm are attached to the upper plinth; the platter bearing is attached (i think) to the lower plinth.
Motor sits in a cutout in the plinth and sits independently on the shelf below on its own shock absorbing pad.
The connection between motor and platter is an elastic belt, which filters out motor vibrations before they reach the platter.
The platter is acrylic, which is composed of random variable size molecule chains, which keeps resonances low in amplitude and evenly spread out.
The main shaft of the tonearm is tapered to break up standing waves inside, and it is made of carbon fiber, which is both extremely rigid (so it does not waggle in response to the cartridge cantilever movements) and well damped
The headshell is an integrated part of the tonearm, so there is no joint to flex between the cartridge and tonearm.
The counterweight on the tonearm is de-coupled from the tonearm so it also acts as a vibration damper.
The platter mat is thick felt, which is an effective noise isolator between platter vibrations and the record.
At the center of the platter you can see a screw-on record clamp. This quells vibrations in the spindle shaft and vibrations and resonances in the record itself.
Quite a bit different from the turntables you're used to, no?
But what if you want better turntable performance, but aren't prepared to spend the $1300 for an MMF 7.1 ($1500 with factory installed/aligned cartridge)? There are a few other approaches. There are turntable designs with vibration isolation in mind all the way down to $349, $379 in an assortment of designer colors. What do you give up? First of all, speed consistency. Many of the sub-$1K belt drive turntables have audible pitch variation on solo piano. You may or may not notice. Some can be improved with an add-on speed controller, which adds about half again to the price of the turntable itself. Any of them can be improved with aftermarket feet, turntable mat, record clamp, etc. Also, the lowest price turntables like this don't accommodate a wide range of cartridges unless you add an aftermarket counterweight which range from $20 to $100. To their credit, however, these entry level models are built mostly of vibration-damping MDF, use a fairly quiet motor which is further isolated by the belt drive, and a fairly decent tonearm that is far more rigid, and helps the cartridge extract more music and leave more noise behind than the tonearms we used 20 years ago.
There is a third approach, the one I chose for myself: A Technics SL1210 M5G with some aftermarket mods and tweaks. Advantages include:
The speed accuracy and consistency of the Technics SL12x0 series is about as good as it gets. Belt drive turntables that approach the SL12x0s' speed accuracy cost around $5K and up.
They are inherently quiet and vibration-free. They do, however, require a little aftermarket "help" to attain the subjectively lower noise floor and improve inner clarity that comes easily to well-damped belt drive turntables.
Precisely and solidly built. Tonearm bearings are finished to within .5 micron; the plinth is a massive aluminum casting. Weight is about 27 lbs.
Easy and relatively inexpensive to tweak, resulting in significant improvements in dynamic range, clarity, and musicality.
Disadvantages:
Out of the box the SL12x0 TTs sound only so-so, rather murky and compressed.
Wiring inside the tonearm is substandard, imparting a certain darkness to the sound UNLESS you get the upmarket SL1210 M5G, which uses quality oxygen-free copper in the cabling and gold-plated RCA plugs. Rewiring the tonearm with good wire runs about $169 (at http://www.kabusa.com) unless you are an accomplished DIY-er.
There are inherent resonances in the platter and tonearm tube. Undamped, the machined aluminum platter rings like a bell--really.
Tonearm isn't well damped; jumps groove of warped records fairly easily.
Included feet and turntable mat are inadequate; so is the turntable's overall resistance to external vibration. Originally the mat was 1/4" thick solid rubber and weighed over a pound. The original 17 oz. "Supermat" is available from www.kabusa.com for a mere $20. If you order a Technics DD table from him, he includes it at no extra charge.
Here's my rig to illustrate how to get more performance out of a vintage direct drive design:
Chose the SL1210 M5G with the improved tonearm wiring
Replaced stock mat with heavy sorbothane mat which performs three functions effectively: 1) extra weight dampens platter ring; 2) Prevents rotational or motor noise from reaching the cartridge; 3) Absorbs vibrations and resonances in the record (excited by the moving stylus) so they don't smear the sound.
Added low-cost rubber record grip (truncated rubber cone placed on spindle); this further reduces vibration sent up through the spindle and especially damps vibrations and resonances in the vinyl record. On records with noisy surfaces it noticeably drops the noise level.
Wrapped tonearm in plumbers' teflon tape, which completely quelled a resonance around 3Khz.
Replaced standard Technics headshell with this one, which is extremely rigid, non-resonant, has significantly better wiring, and adjustable azimuth (enables me to eliminate any diagonality where the stylus meets the record groove).
Added aftermarket damping trough to tonearm ($150, my most expensive tweak/mod), which enables tonearm to track hideous warps and removes noise and chatter from the signal chain.
Created somewhat elaborate construct of vibration management layers to drain vibration out of the turntable base and isolate turntable from in-room vibrations:
Swapped stock rubbery feet for solid brass cones which thread into the same sockets, damp vibrations, and direct them downwards to...
Surface protectors that sit atop Vibrapods, which dissipate the vibrations from the brass cones. The Vibrapods sit atop...
A thick butcher-block cutting board, which breaks up and dampens resonances coming from either direction.
Butcher block is supported by two full-width silicon gel pads. They're "repurposed" wrist pads for computer keyboards.
[*]I never play records with the dustcover in place. The SL1210 M5G model makes this easy as it comes without hinges. I lift the dustcover off and place it somewhere else.
Each change brought an immediate, noticeable, quite audible improvement to the sound quality, which my wife confirmed and described in her own terms without any prompting from me. The total result is that this playback rig is very rhythmic (thanks to the quartz-controlled direct drive), dynamic, quiet, musical, extended at the frequency extremes (both high treble and low bass), and provides a wealth of inner detail, making it easy to hear deeply into the recordings. It is especially good at enabling you to hear subtle vocal harmony blends in the mix.
I also have help from a great cartridge mounted on that inert headshell, the Audio Technica AT150MLX:
There is an internally similar cartridge called the AT440MLa for quite a bit less money:
Its body is all plastic; the AT150MLX uses an extruded aluminum body with a thick, inert stylus housing. The At150MLX is noticeably cleaner and more neutral and linear owing to the superior damping properties of cast or extruded aluminum over plastic. Vibration control has to start at the beginning. If your cartridge body buzzes or sings, there is no way to fix it other than replacing it with something else.
Here's another example. Denon has been making a broadcast standard low output moving coil cartridge for 47 years, the DL-103 at $199:
With the right tonearm and setup, this cartridge is considered a grand over-achiever in some circles. While its motor assembly is precise and top-notch, it performance is limited, however, by its resonant and not-so-rigid plastic housing. Enter a small cable and speaker company in Utah, Zu Audio, who buys these cartridges from Denon, removes the plastic housing, and re-pots the cartridge in a solid aluminum housing, raising the price to $399:
How much difference did that remount make in its sound quality? Consider these concluding words in the Stereophile review:
The stock Denon DL-103 is a superb cartridge and a remarkable buy; if $229 is the limit of your moving-coil cartridge budget, you can do no better, assuming you're prepared to work with it and to toe the setup line described above. But for almost twice the money, the Zu DL-103 will indeed bring that much more pleasure, and then some. The Zu doesn't just slay giants: It rips their beating heart from their chests, shows it to them, finishes them off, then chases their souls and drags them down to hell.
The "giants" the reviewer is referring to are exotic moving coil cartridges that cost $2000 to $3500. That's the difference that vibration control makes in LP playback.
Question
JohnnyB
Here is a picture of a Grado cartridge with its cantilever/stylus assembly highlighted and labeled.
The cantilever, a tiny rod of aluminum or exotic metal, is the only thing in an entire turntable assembly that should passively vibrate.
But that’s not usually the case. There are many things in a typical turntable that vibrate:
In other words, much detail and dynamics pressed into the record may not make it out to the speakers without proper vibration control.
Dude, where’s my dynamic range?
These additional vibrations muddy the sound, raise the noise floor, obscure low amplitude details, truncate bass extension, and compress dynamic peaks by dissipating and masking energy generated by the cantilever that should have entered the signal path. Remarkably, very few turntable designs in the “golden age of LP playback” addressed these vibration issues beyond slapping a rubber mat on the platter and attaching cushy feet to the bottom. Is it any wonder, then, that:
I (and many vinylphiles) have a different idea:
Therefore, the better the vibrations and resonances in an LP playback chain are managed, the bigger the dynamic range along with improved nuance, clarity, frequency extension (better bass and treble extremes), and musical “warmth.”
Most of the engineering in today's fully manual turntables is concentrated on vibration control. Here is an example, the Music Hall MMF 7.1 turntable, which is similar to PunkAvenger's 'table.
This turntable has vibration control in nearly every design feature as described here.
Quite a bit different from the turntables you're used to, no?
But what if you want better turntable performance, but aren't prepared to spend the $1300 for an MMF 7.1 ($1500 with factory installed/aligned cartridge)? There are a few other approaches. There are turntable designs with vibration isolation in mind all the way down to $349, $379 in an assortment of designer colors. What do you give up? First of all, speed consistency. Many of the sub-$1K belt drive turntables have audible pitch variation on solo piano. You may or may not notice. Some can be improved with an add-on speed controller, which adds about half again to the price of the turntable itself. Any of them can be improved with aftermarket feet, turntable mat, record clamp, etc. Also, the lowest price turntables like this don't accommodate a wide range of cartridges unless you add an aftermarket counterweight which range from $20 to $100. To their credit, however, these entry level models are built mostly of vibration-damping MDF, use a fairly quiet motor which is further isolated by the belt drive, and a fairly decent tonearm that is far more rigid, and helps the cartridge extract more music and leave more noise behind than the tonearms we used 20 years ago.
There is a third approach, the one I chose for myself: A Technics SL1210 M5G with some aftermarket mods and tweaks. Advantages include:
Disadvantages:
Here's my rig to illustrate how to get more performance out of a vintage direct drive design:
[*]I never play records with the dustcover in place. The SL1210 M5G model makes this easy as it comes without hinges. I lift the dustcover off and place it somewhere else.
Each change brought an immediate, noticeable, quite audible improvement to the sound quality, which my wife confirmed and described in her own terms without any prompting from me. The total result is that this playback rig is very rhythmic (thanks to the quartz-controlled direct drive), dynamic, quiet, musical, extended at the frequency extremes (both high treble and low bass), and provides a wealth of inner detail, making it easy to hear deeply into the recordings. It is especially good at enabling you to hear subtle vocal harmony blends in the mix.
I also have help from a great cartridge mounted on that inert headshell, the Audio Technica AT150MLX:
There is an internally similar cartridge called the AT440MLa for quite a bit less money:
Its body is all plastic; the AT150MLX uses an extruded aluminum body with a thick, inert stylus housing. The At150MLX is noticeably cleaner and more neutral and linear owing to the superior damping properties of cast or extruded aluminum over plastic. Vibration control has to start at the beginning. If your cartridge body buzzes or sings, there is no way to fix it other than replacing it with something else.
Here's another example. Denon has been making a broadcast standard low output moving coil cartridge for 47 years, the DL-103 at $199:
With the right tonearm and setup, this cartridge is considered a grand over-achiever in some circles. While its motor assembly is precise and top-notch, it performance is limited, however, by its resonant and not-so-rigid plastic housing. Enter a small cable and speaker company in Utah, Zu Audio, who buys these cartridges from Denon, removes the plastic housing, and re-pots the cartridge in a solid aluminum housing, raising the price to $399:
How much difference did that remount make in its sound quality? Consider these concluding words in the Stereophile review:
The "giants" the reviewer is referring to are exotic moving coil cartridges that cost $2000 to $3500. That's the difference that vibration control makes in LP playback.
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