What makes a good turntable?

[pewternhrata]

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).

I hold onto my vinyl for the artwork, tried getting back into playing it but too much of a nuance to clean, static pops are cool in an old nostalgia appeal. I get the analog vs digital debate but I choose physical cd every time. I have some sacd and it has its appeal, but honestly I don't hear the difference.

 

[lovinthehd]

I hold onto my vinyl for the artwork, tried getting back into playing it but too much of a nuance to clean, static pops are cool in an old nostalgia appeal. I get the analog vs digital debate but I choose physical cd every time. I have some sacd and it has its appeal, but honestly I don't hear the difference.

Yeah I just use SACD for multich versions. The 2ch versions, meh. My biggest reason to keep my vinyl is nostalgia I think....at least as long as I have a tt to play it with (same one for 40 years now). I was just thinking the other day there are some vinyls I can play where I can anticipate certain damage/pops even though I haven't listened to it for a long time (but many many plays back in the day burned it in I suppose).

 

[pewternhrata]

Yeah I just use SACD for multich versions. The 2ch versions, meh. My biggest reason to keep my vinyl is nostalgia I think....at least as long as I have a tt to play it with (same one for 40 years now). I was just thinking the other day there are some vinyls I can play where I can anticipate certain damage/pops even though I haven't listened to it for a long time (but many many plays back in the day burned it in I suppose).

So honest question; sacd multi channel, say dark side of the moon. I have a denon dvd2900 but only in a 2 channel setup, would i benefit with integrating that into my surround sound?

 

[lovinthehd]

So honest question; sacd multi channel, say dark side of the moon. I have a denon dvd2900 but only in a 2 channel setup, would i benefit with integrating that into my surround sound?

Looks like the optical disc player is capable, but the 2ch setup isn't. I have several multich setups otoh so not a restriction for me and the one 2ch only setup I have with an older optical disc player, altho it can handle dvd 5ch, just use 2ch output. Downmixing I can't see as a goal particularly

 

[m. zillch]

So honest question; sacd multi channel, say dark side of the moon. I have a denon dvd2900 but only in a 2 channel setup, would i benefit with integrating that into my surround sound?

If I remember correctly, in that song where the guy is running through the airport (?) terminal you hear him run behind you at one point on the multi-channel SACD. Kind of cool.

 

[lovinthehd]

If I remember correctly, in that song where the guy is running through the airport (?) terminal you hear him run behind you at one point on the multi-channel SACD. Kind of cool.

So that's just when using 2ch?

 

[m. zillch]

No (although I never checked it) I was speaking to when playing the multichannel SACD layer on a setup capable of providing multi-channel speakers. The Denon DVD2900 has 5.1 analog outputs, I believe, so conceivably there could be a way to hook it up in his surround sound system. [I don't know the full details of what the gear is, like if it has the required 5.1 analog inputs.]

I happened to see a used receiver today at my local Goodwill store with 5.1 analog inputs. $40! I was tempted to buy it (even though I have no need for it) since that feature is so rare these days on affordable gear.

 

[highfigh]

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

What S/N specs were turntables reaching? If the phono preamp isn't capable of better than 84dB (14 bit), it can't be left to the vinyl itself to be more quiet than the preamp and it's not. The CDs that were based on vinyl masters were mostly pretty bad-sounding but as soon as they started remastering for digital, the noise level of CDs became unreachable. However, even if someone paid full price for the early CD players, and they were expensive, the S/N level of DDD was better than the best vinyl reproduction systems because clicks & pops are almost impossible to completely eliminate.

Hearing the noise on some of the earliest CDs really took the sheen off of the format for me (as someone who worked at one of the first 50 Sony dealers that received the initial shipment of four units)- so much emphasis was on the lack of background noise, but that was before the actual release and Sony mainly used music that had been produced by their partners for demo purposes.