What makes a good turntable?

[ifsixwasnin9]

I thought I was being smart last year when I bought a $225 Fluance Turntable but it didn't sound any different than my $80 Audio Technica turntable.
What makes a turntable good?

 

[everettT]

I thought I was being smart last year when I bought a $225 Fluance Turntable but it didn't sound any different than my $80 Audio Technica turntable.
What makes a turntable good?

It is a sum of its parts. ProJect makes the best budget turntables IMHO but outside of the turntable is the preamp and that can play a huge part of the equation.

I'm sure some of the turntable aficionados will chime in to dive deeper with you.

 

[lovinthehd]

A turntable on its own should provide rock steady speed (and adjustment for such if needed) and very low mechanical noise. The rest is up to the arm and cartridge. When buying a turntable with its own arm, more likely differences would be mainly in the cartridge used. If you spend a lot more on the arm, you might get some improvements whether truly audible, maybe. The whole vinyl thing is overrated IMO, though....when cd came out I switched over fairly quickly. Haven't bought new vinyl in 30 years, altho I still have my vinyl collection and Technics SL1200mk2 (and maybe it's tenth cartridge or so).

 

[m. zillch]

Turntables used to be sold based on science back in the 1960s and 70s but then marketers realized the trick to getting good sales had nothing (or at least very little) to do with actual performance. What determines sales is actually: appearance, hype, celebrity endorsements, and marketing smoke and mirrors. Bowie's line in Space Oddity comes to mind but regarding what sells men's shirts:

"And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear"
[But think about it: logically why would an astronaut, Major Tom, know anything about shirts?]

And what is the most important spec consumers use to determine quality? Is it speed accuracy? Wow and flutter? Noise suppression? Nope, the most meaningful spec to consumers is . . . drum roll please . . . MSRP! Explaining to them that it may mean very little is close to impossible, but I try.

Also turntables, TTs, are an interesting category where dealers actually aren't interested in selling consumers a great TT that will blow them away, make them feel content and that it is their "end game keeper unit". What they want is to keep buyers perpetually coming back and upgrading, upgrading, upgrading:

"You're almost there, you just need a better TT.". . . [a few months pass]
"You're almost there, you just need better isolation feet." . . . [more time passes]
"You're almost there, you just need a better phono preamp." . . . [more time passes]
"You're almost there, you just need a better platter mat." . . . [more time passes]
"You're almost there, you just need a better cartridge." . . . [more time passes]
"You're almost there, you just need a better stylus profile." . . . [more time passes]
"You're almost there, you just need a better protractor and alignment gizmo" . . . [more time passes]
"You're almost there, you just need even better isolation feet and heavy base." . . . [more time passes]
"You're almost there, you just need a better TT now." . . .

 

[TLS Guy]

I thought I was being smart last year when I bought a $225 Fluance Turntable but it didn't sound any different than my $80 Audio Technica turntable.
What makes a turntable good?

I think you made a lateral move. I can't find an $80.00 Audio Technica turntable, their cheapest are around the price you paid to your Fluance.

Really good turntables are expensive, even if you buy used.

Then we get into to the issue of matching cartridge and arms, vis a vis moving arm mass and cartridge compliance.

Basically a turntable needs to rotate are constant speed without rumble. Ideally cartridge and arm should be designed as a unit. This seldom happens. Basically high compliance cartridges need arms of lower moving mass and vice versa. Choosing optimal turntable, arm and cartridge is an art that also requires experience.

I personally favor high compliance cartridges with arms of low moving mass.

This is one of my vintage turntables. Vintage turntables are often a good bet, as they were designed in the heyday of disc reproduction, before the digital audio era.

Here is a vintage Thorens TD 124 Mk I restored from a non working condition.

The arm is an SME series III low mass arm with a very high compliance Shure V15xmr very high compliance cartridge. In my view that adds up to a very high quality turntable.

There is not going to be a lot of variation in the performance of turntables in the $200 to $350 price range. Analog is very different to digital where increasing cost with precision engineering can lead to better results. This whole arena takes experience. The turntable you have should give you a good entry level experience.

Lastly matching the cartridge to the front end of the amplifier, is a whole other issue. However these days equipment does not allow for matching cartridges to the front end as a rule.

Digital equipment is much more plug and play.

Getting really good disc reproduction is difficult. Getting a good average performance is not that difficult though.

Lastly, you have to know how to setup your turntable optimally, this is something of an art. They are not plug and play devices, by a long shot.

 

[highfigh]

I thought I was being smart last year when I bought a $225 Fluance Turntable but it didn't sound any different than my $80 Audio Technica turntable.
What makes a turntable good?

What cartridge is on each? The next most important parts are the speakers and LPs- what are you using for speakers, are you playing new production LPS, older but in great condition LPs or well used, and what are the ones you listened to that made you conclude that the new TT isn't better than the AT?

Most phono preamps are pretty good, regardless of the hype about them if the price is low to moderate.

 

[dlaloum]

The base requirements of speed stability and a halfway decent arm (decent bearings, good geometry) are relatively easily met (you don't need to spend an arm and a leg)

Vibration / Resonance control is critical for a turntable - and regardless of what you spend, it can be very very hit and miss - mostly due to needing a solution that matches YOUR home - is the floor a slab, or sprung - what sort of cabinet or rack are you mounting the table in, is the table in a solid plinth or a sprung plinth - solutions to vibration/resonance control will vary dramatically with all the above!

Traditional sprung plinth TT designs have much of the complications resolved for you... solid plinth designs may need you to spend more time experimenting with its mounting, isolation feet etc...

Then there is arm/cartridge matching - the (effective) mass of the arm needs to be matched to the compliance of the cartridge to ensure that the resulting resonant frequency is kept at the frequency range where it does the least harm (around 10Hz... higher and it has impact on the audible signal, lower and it exacerbates footfall and other environmental vibrations!)

If possible get an arm with built in damping (whether than is electro-magnetic, oil based or other doesn't matter) - it has substantial (measurable) impact on performance, and widens cartridge/arm compatibility substantially.

Then there is electrical matching of cartridge to phono stage - optimum results with MM/MI cartridges requires tuning the capacitive and resistive loads (most phono stages don't have much flexibility in this area!) - MC cartridges are much less demanding in loading terms - but then you cannot tune them using loading to get optimal results!

Yes getting good results is easily achieved - even with economical TT's - getting optimal results on the other hand is very difficult and requires a lot of patience... modern digital tools help a lot.

The sheer number of variables that affect TT performance, has made it a black science, leading to a lot of subjectivism - but the tools and the knowledge are available if you have the patience to use them... you can take an economical TT, and achieve superb results.... but there is a lot of learning to work out how to achieve that, and then measuring, adjusting etc to get it there.

That's why digital took off so quickly - you get a close to optimal signal with zero effort.

 

[m. zillch]

I thought I was being smart last year when I bought a $225 Fluance Turntable but it didn't sound any different than my $80 Audio Technica turntable.
What makes a turntable good?

Good? Do you mean compared to digital? Has it ever occurred to you that the people who told you a turntable can sound good were either mistaken, exaggerating, or lying?

I'm thinking your expectations being too high might be the real issue.

 

[dlaloum]

Good? Do you mean compared to digital? Has it ever occurred to you that the people who told you a turntable can sound good were either mistaken, exaggerating, or lying?

I'm thinking your expectations being too high might be the real issue.

There is no question that a turntable CAN sound good - generations of turntable listeners attest to the enjoyment they gained from their turntable throughout the 20th and 21st century... even the basic plastic portables with speakers in the lid "sounded good".

There are inherent limitations in the vinyl medium - and moving the "needle" from "good" (however the individual defines it) to something close to "optimum" for the vinyl medium as actuall a remakably difficult thing, and an area of great interest for the more nerdy/technical people in our hobby.

Making a CD / Digital sound its best is easy.... making a record sound its best - that's challenging.

But any decent record played on a basic but decent turntable will "sound good".

Best is the enemy of Good...