Turntables, and why they make a difference.
There has never ever been so much advice available, the internet is a great resource, but of course it can be more than highly confusing, sometimes bustling with technobabble words and conflicting advice. Here, we look to make it simpler, by explaining just what you need and why!
A record player has the job of tracing the tiny and very delicate grooves on your records, and turning them in to an electrical signal that can be amplified to play music through either your headphones or loudspeakers. The information on the grooves is tiny, really tiny. Any undue vibration, resonance, rattle, will lose detail and information, and give you a poor sound.
Of course, different decks come in a different prices. Compromises have to be carefully made by the turntable makers on a budget; a simple deck can still have the quality engineering required to give you a good sound. The more budget, the more information can be 'retrieved' by your turntable, and the more enjoyable and pleasurable the sound will be.
A record player consists of a stylus and pick up cartridge, a tone arm and the actual deck itself. You can actually buy all three separately, although at entry level, most are packaged together, to help make it a little easier.
Rega’s Planar 1 above, and Pro-ject E1 below, the ideal budget starter decks.
The record player has a very hard time of it. The small stylus might only track the record at a couple of grams, but due to the tiny size of the stylus, the forces involved equate to over 25 tonnes of pressure per square inch! And thanks to that pesky Isaac Newton, his laws of physics dictate that for every force there is an equal and opposite force.
So what does all that mean? It means a record deck, cartridge and tone arm have to be designed and built to cope and deal with these tremendous forces. In a perfect world, we would only want the stylus to move in the groove on the end of the tone-arm. But sadly as much energy energy passes through the cartridge body, down the arm tube, through the arm base and in to the turntable itself. Similarly unwanted vibrations can go in to the record and through the platter. Any resonances in the arm tube, cartridge body, or the base of the turntable will be excited by this energy (which is actually the sound of your own records) . On really cheap decks, made of plastics, this can be a real problem, as this energy feeds back in to the stylus and cartridge, and spoils the sound. On better quality turntables, there are two common approaches to dealing with these forces (unwanted sound vibrations remember).
One approach is to try and ‘sink’ these in to a heavy weight deck (this approach is taken by the Pro-ject deck above), the other is to make the deck as light and minimal as possible, and maximising the energy fed in to the stylus (Rega have popularised this approach, see below).
The cartridge needs to be securely mounted, and in fact the tone arm, which holds the cartridge, is the most important part of your record player. A tone arm has to have the best bearings (pivot points) that are friction free, to allow you to track the record and all of its grooves, but at the same time hold the cartridge firmly, it must have an arm tube that has little resonance as possible, although all arms have some resonance, the better quality arms have less.
The drive from the decks motor, and the platter must revolve at the correct speed. As well as this, they should be as noise free and wobble free as possible. The main bearing, on which the platter sits, is another very vital component. It shouldn’t allow the platter to rock from side to side, and it should provide minimum friction, or drag. The platter itself needs to be as flat as possible, and be of a decent weight. Acrylic, aluminium, ceramic, and glass are all popular choices, depending on budget.
Pro-ject's acrylic platter, available as an upgrade on certain decks.
There are two common types of motor system in use. By far the most common is belt drive, it is simple and very effective.
An example of a High End belt drive system; Rega's NAIA.
Direct Drive was the choice for DJs during the 80s and 90s, and at the more expensive end of the market, these rival the very best in belt drive systems. But there is little point having an expensive direct drive motor fitted to a cheap turntable, with a plastic base and a wobbly arm.
A break down of a complex Direct Drive motor, this one from the Technics deck below.
The Technics SL-1200G ‘Grand Class’ – the correct way to instigate Direct Drive.
Remember the key ingredients; the arm is much more important, along with the good bearing, heavy platter and solid resonant free base. More than anything, avoid any deck made with cheap plastics
The differences between decks are very easy to hear, why not book a demonstration in store, or call us 01295 828 009 and hear these differences for yourself.