Looking to upgrade my turntable

[lovinthehd]

I honestly didn't think I was going to start listening to vinyl all that much again. When I put some records on the other day, they sounded really good. I have so many old, used records that it would be a shame not to listen to them. I have so many.

Now I have a lot of cassette as well, but being they are all around 30 years old, they are either breaking or squealing so bad they are unlistenable. Now the JVC TD-W318 Double cassette deck works better than the cassettes I own. I just cleaned and demagnetized the heads. Even in their best day, even the Chrome Prerecorded tapes didn't hold a candle to Vinyl because their dynamics and frequency response was so bad.

Vinyl sounds just as good if not better than many CDs depending on their masters. Just no reason not to listen. The pops and crackles bring me back to my younger days sitting in a garage, made into a hang out with a Scott receiver and high end turntable, listening to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and "Wish You Were Here".

Vinyl can sound fine but better than many CDs hasn't been my experience, but good recordings are good recordings (good music means a lot more than the media itself, too). The cassettes are long gone, too fussy to deal with. I have something like 800 LPs and a hundred 45s but still don't use 'em much these days except for nostalgia sessions or something that's hard to find a digital copy of....can't think of any where I think "oh the vinyl sounds so much better" though. Got some examples of what vinyl you think sounds better than the digital versions?

 

[Mike Up]

Vinyl can sound fine but better than many CDs hasn't been my experience, but good recordings are good recordings (good music means a lot more than the media itself, too). The cassettes are long gone, too fussy to deal with. I have something like 800 LPs and a hundred 45s but still don't use 'em much these days except for nostalgia sessions or something that's hard to find a digital copy of....can't think of any where I think "oh the vinyl sounds so much better" though. Got some examples of what vinyl you think sounds better than the digital versions?

I did prefer Billy Squier's Enough is Enough vinyl master to the Digital 16 bit/44.1Khz FLAC master.

 

[lovinthehd]

I did prefer Billy Squier's Enough is Enough vinyl master to the Digital FLAC master.

Well, that's one.....otoh when I first got cd it was a fairly obvious how better it was over vinyl in just the limitations of the vinyl media over a wide swath of music. Sure, there are lots of masters for vinyl that are very well done, but not all....and some digital was just the vinyl master. OTOH bulk of recording has been done digitally for quite a while now, making vinyl more a lifestyle thing IMHO.

 

[Mikado463]

Further reading for your record cleaning journey .......

Record Cleaning: Developing the Best Possible Methods

For another group, I was asked to put together a series of comments on record cleaning. I thought I'd share excerpts from it with this forum, fully knowing that it will be controversial with some who swear by their methods. Keep in mind, they are my opinions as a former Biochemist and as a...

audiokarma.org

 

[m. zillch]

So, for those spinning vinyl, what is your favorite 'flavor of the month', concerning stylus shape ?

There's no one answer because the answer is different depending on how you prioritize your goals:
- minimize record wear
- minimize cartridge wear
- optimize playback for a precisely setup cartridge (done so meticulously you need to alter it due to the variations in record thickness, like for those thicker 180 and 200g LPs, or different mat thicknesses).
- optimize playback for typical cartridge setup and alignment where you set it up once and don't change anything per record height changes like picky people do.

A very, very common mistake people make is to use a light tracking force (thinking it minimizes wear) but it actually can be the most damaging!
It is said that the cartridge is less likely to cling tightly to the walls during loud (heavily modulated) passages and instead of maintaining proper contact it gets bashed from side to side like a ping pong ball, smashing into both sides of the groove wall causing dents. That bashing around left to right is what causes the most damage! [It's largely why I usually avoid buying used records: I have no idea how it has been played before I got it.]

 

[m. zillch]

Don't they already exist, like a CD or BD player?

But with them if you press the pause button the laser keeps playing the same "groove" and it can burn a circle into your disc causing a tick or a thunk sound upon future playbacks. [JOKE]

 

[Mike Up]

Since I'm going back to my record collection, I thought I would go back to Videodiscs (CEDs) as well and pull out that old dusty disc of 1941.

 

[Mike Up]

No, I don't have any VideoDiscs but when I was a kid, my friend had a bunch and our favorite movie was 1941 (which we weren't suppose to watch!).

 

[Mikado463]

There's no one answer because the answer is different depending on how you prioritize your goals:
- minimize record wear
- minimize cartridge wear
- optimize playback for a precisely setup cartridge (done so meticulously you need to alter it due to the variations in record thickness, like for those thicker 180 and 200g LPs, or different mat thicknesses).
- optimize playback for typical cartridge setup and alignment where you set it up once and don't change anything per record height changes like picky people do.

A very, very common mistake people make is to use a light tracking force (thinking it minimizes wear) but it actually can be the most damaging!
It is said that the cartridge is less likely to cling tightly to the walls during loud (heavily modulated) passages and instead of maintaining proper contact it gets bashed from side to side like a ping pong ball, smashing into both sides of the groove wall causing dents. That bashing around left to right is what causes the most damage! [It's largely why I usually avoid buying used records: I have no idea how it has been played before I got it.]

Exactly, I'm well aware, thus my question / wondering what all are using currently.

For me, it's a Benz Micro Gullwing, nude line-contact stylus.

 

[TLS Guy]

There's no one answer because the answer is different depending on how you prioritize your goals:
- minimize record wear
- minimize cartridge wear
- optimize playback for a precisely setup cartridge (done so meticulously you need to alter it due to the variations in record thickness, like for those thicker 180 and 200g LPs, or different mat thicknesses).
- optimize playback for typical cartridge setup and alignment where you set it up once and don't change anything per record height changes like picky people do.

A very, very common mistake people make is to use a light tracking force (thinking it minimizes wear) but it actually can be the most damaging!
It is said that the cartridge is less likely to cling tightly to the walls during loud (heavily modulated) passages and instead of maintaining proper contact it gets bashed from side to side like a ping pong ball, smashing into both sides of the groove wall causing dents. That bashing around left to right is what causes the most damage! [It's largely why I usually avoid buying used records: I have no idea how it has been played before I got it.]

You are correct about too low playing force. You want to set the tracking force towards the upper end of the tracking force spec.