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...

 

[m. zillch]

It depends on one's definition of "good", I suppose. To me vinyl's sound is unacceptable (at least since the early 1980s when CD arrived on the scene) and I only use it when I have to.

I may be in a unique position though because I have zero interest in getting a sound "I like" or that I prefer (which seems to be the goal of many). So exploring if vinyl/tube's so-called "euphonic distortions" are, um, "pleasurable" [a ridiculous notion concocted by marketers who knew their wares were flawed so they came up with this silly excuse which I don't buy, but audio reviewers seem to eat up] is of no interest to me. By my definition any perceptible alteration in a source device's reproduction of its input signal whatsoever is inherently a flaw and not for me.

My goal in source components is to faithfully reproduce the studio master recording perfectly (as far as the ear is concerned) at home using whatever media I can, as faithfully as possible (within my budget and room constraints), warts and all. AKA 100% transparency.

I'm the same way about buying bathroom mirrors. I don't want to see a reflected image of myself that pleasingly shows me at the svelte weight I wish/prefer; I want a mirror to show me at the weight I am.

 

[lovinthehd]

Reminds me of a friend visiting a while back. I had a record on the turntable playing and it ended a bit after his arrival, and he was surprised when I got up to lift the arm that it was vinyl rather than cd (altho volume was more background level) and I had to tell him they aren't readily distinguishable aside from noise/distortion which many don't notice. He had a fairly cheap record changer before he went to cd, though, so he probably just found better playback thru cd when he made the change (and had little vinyl in his collection at the time). He liked cassettes a lot, too.

 

[3db]

Reminds me of a friend visiting a while back. I had a record on the turntable playing and it ended a bit after his arrival, and he was surprised when I got up to lift the arm that it was vinyl rather than cd (altho volume was more background level) and I had to tell him they aren't readily distinguishable aside from noise/distortion which many don't notice. He had a fairly cheap record changer before he went to cd, though, so he probably just found better playback thru cd when he made the change (and had little vinyl in his collection at the time). He liked cassettes a lot, too.

Agreed. Well kept and maintained vinyl on quality systems are indistinguishable from their CD counterparts. But as always, sight bias has a way of distorting the truth in audio.

 

[Mikado463]

Op, you still around ? get your questions answered ?

 

[mtrycrafts]

.... (you don't need to spend an arm and a leg)

....

You mean people are eager to give up their body parts to buy things and owners accept them? I thought you have to die first.

 

[lovinthehd]

Agreed. Well kept and maintained vinyl on quality systems are indistinguishable from their CD counterparts. But as always, sight bias has a way of distorting the truth in audio.

I can still tell the difference in noise levels, what immediately sold me on digital. Vinyl can sound fine otherwise, reminds me of the time a friend came by while I was playing vinyl and when the last track ended he was amazed that I had to get up to lift the arm, he thought it was a cd. CD is easier to rip, too.

 

[Mikado463]

I can still tell the difference in noise levels, what immediately sold me on digital.

Interesting, for in the early years there was so much 'poorly' converted material (remember AAD, ADD, etc.) that noise levels on top flight TT playback systems still rained supreme. Eventually I did come around to the 'silver disc' though and today all three, including streaming occupy my playback setup

 

[m. zillch]

I abandoned vinyl and converted to digital almost instantly upon the release of CD in 1982. The difference in noise level is so profound that CD suddenly exposed us to music we had never heard before.

The opening fade in of the classic Traffic song, "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" is profoundly different in these two versions I downloaded from YouTube. Since vinyl is incapable of playing low level material what the engineers decided to do is completely scrap the song's opening 12 seconds because it would otherwise be hopelessly swamped in surface noise and deemed unlistenable.

Turn up your volume and compare the two. [Note: I have tacked on 12 seconds of silence to the start of the vinyl (to replace the music the engineers were forced to throw away) so the two presentations are synchronized]:

The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys music synced excerpt, digital, uploaded to YouTube (not by me):

The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys music synced excerpt, vinyl, uploaded to YouTube (not by me):

With CDs you are hearing an extremely faithful reproduction of the master tape's sound that's so incredibly close it is likely indistinguishable from the real McCoy in a properly conducted blind test.

With vinyls you are hearing a modified version of the master that's been shoehorned to fit within the medium's limitations, plus on top of that you get added audible noise, distortion, rumble, wow, flutter, warp wow, imperfect spindle hole location wow, inner grove distortion, occasional pops/ticks, etc., and contrary to the claims of many, one can't "buy their way out of it": A state of the art pressing played on a state of the art turntable rig will still have audible flaws on some material.

 

[highfigh]

I abandoned vinyl and converted to digital almost instantly upon the release of CD in 1982. The difference in noise level is so profound that CD suddenly exposed us to music we had never heard before, such as the opening fade in of the classic Traffic song, "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys". Since vinyl is incapable of playing low level material what the engineers decided to do is completely scrap the song's opening 12 seconds because it would otherwise be hopelessly swamped in surface noise and deemed unlistenable.

Turn up your volume and compare the two. [Note: I have tacked on 12 seconds of silence to the start of the vinyl (to replace the music the engineers were forced to throw away) so the two presentations are synchronized]:

The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys music synced excerpt, digital, uploaded to YouTube (not by me):

The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys music synced excerpt, vinyl, uploaded to YouTube (not by me):

With CD you are hearing an extremely faithful reproduction of the master tape that's so incredibly close it is likely indistinguishable from the real McCoy in a properly conducted blind test.

With vinyl you are hearing a modified version of the master shoehorned to fit within the medium's limitations, plus on top of that you get added audible noise, distortion, rumble, wow, flutter, warp wow, imperfect spindle hole location wow, inner grove distortion, occasional pops/ticks, etc., and you can't "buy your way out of it" as many claim. A state of the art pressing played on a state of the art turntable rig will still have audible flaws on some material.

A 1982 CD of Low Spark would have used the master for LP, as most of the earliest CDs did and for that reason, the CD CAN'T be called 'extremely faithful' because the master takes into account the general limitations of LPs AND the limitations of the LP as the music becomes closer to the spindle since the vinyl is moving past the stylus much slower than at the outside. That's the reason test pressings are made- to find out which tracks sound best near the center and tracks with what could be called 'normal high frequency content' don't sound 'normal' in that area unless they use heavy EQ.

 

[m. zillch]

The album Low Spark of High Heeled Boys was first released on LP in 1971. The first CD release I am aware of was 1987. The people who uploaded these versions to Youtube I downloaded to make this comparison did not specify what the years they used were.
---

Beside having to chuck the music's opening 12 seconds, I believe there has also either been dynamic range compression applied to the vinyl's opening to raise the level above the noise floor as quickly as possible, or perhaps a manual "riding of the gain" has been applied:

compared this to the CD's more gradual ascent over that same time period:

Keep in mind in addition to the master tape used itself, the cutting lathe technician (who is not necessarily the engineer responsible for creating the master tape) can apply subtle alterations as well.