Audiophile Audiophoolery: 90% wrong about turntables
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- Опубликовано: 2 ноя 2021
- A major audiophile equipment retailer publishes a claim about turntables that's so blatantly false, it's enough to make you blow a fuse!
#audiophile #turntable #vinyl 
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The only thing actually proven to remove at least 90% of the surface noise of a record is to replace it with a CD. 👌🔥
i loved that part lol
A similar solution existed in the 1960's and 1970's "Replace it by pre recorded reel tape"
@@robfriedrich2822 again in the 80's with Hi-Fi VHS. 📼
Genuinely one of the wittiest cuts he's ever done, I'm not even a vinyl snob and even I felt the sting. Just wonderful.
2:15
Don’t buy an expensive record player, buy a good one
or a cd player! ;)
But it's not bright red. :(
@@Graeme_Lastname lol. :)
@@Graeme_Lastname just need a can of post box red spray paint ;-)
@@andygozzo72 Now there's a damn good idea. 🤣
A music lover listens to their music on audio equipment. An audiophile listens to their audio equipment on music.
👏💯
@@Cornholio They sell these optical cables at Lowe's I think, which are meant to be used with an outdoor light sensor or something. It has standard TOSLINK connectors on it, and it was about $2 if I remember correctly. I have no doubt it will perform exactly the same as a $100 cable.
I've noticed this myself, as I've started to dip into the world of vintage audio. I have bought some components from people off of Craigslist (all very nice to talk to btw), and gone into their space to test before buying. Audio equipment everywhere! Huge speakers! And then like 10 records...
Lol.
A lot of truth in that.
I said it once and I'll say it again. In the early 80s when a CD player cost a months salary audiophiles salivated over them, while turning their noses up at tape decks and turntables. Today they turn their noses up at CD players because they are cheap.
That's fine; more CD's for me.
Kind of crazy, as the first gen CD players suffered from poor DAC chips, all that was available back then, over-sampled 14 bit mostly. Now with better than 16bit converters they say vinyl (and tape) are better.
It's the same with quartz watches which are highly accurate vs very expensive automatic watches. Watch snobs sneer at the quartz because it's cheaper, while spending hundreds or thousands more, and special little cabinets to auto-wind their watches when they're not wearing them. Humans....
@@paulstubbs7678 4x oversampling 14-bit with noise shaping is the same as 16-bit. Only thing bit-depth affects is signal-to-noise or dynamic range of the DAC. Yeah tape could be good but the prerecorded ones sounded like crap to me. Couldn't wait to get my hands on a CD player.
Back when I bought my first and only (it lasted until I went to another country) CD player on Tottenham Court Road (London) I was so pleased that I had bought it and went to Virgin Megastore to buy CD's. To my horror they had a single spinning rack (30-40 different CD's) in the middle of the record area, in the largest music store in the world. I had instant buyers remorse. When I got it home I loved the sound quality so that helped, and 2 weeks later when I when back (none of the local stores still had any CD's) they had an entire wall dedicated for CD's. I still have most of my original CD's (I'm not a huge collector) some self destructed (delamination and rust) but other still play fantastic on my PC's Blu-ray.
They should change their ludicrous statement to something more accurate such as one of their high quality belt drive turntables will remove up to 90% of the money in your bank account.
Accuracy in marketing? What are you thinking you madman! ;-)
lmfaooo nice one!
for real for real though the shit people will believe
Now THAT would be believable!
The actual quote is talking about "suface" noise, which is totally different than "surface" noise.
I also caught that and realized that was the big difference
Yeah... *suface*... not sure what that is... 🤔
It was meant to say subphase, as in subphase filter, you ignorant, and the claim is absolutely right if you consid... Well, of course I was making it all up as I went 🤣🤣🤣
I think it is really shocking that new expensive turntables have wow and flutter and rumble values for wich any Japanes TT brand in the 80's would be ashamed of.
@@hugobloemers4425 Tremendous r\woosh...
Audiophiles (et al) remind me of an article I read years ago about an experiment. They switched an army cook with a gormet chef. Unbeknownst to them, the soldiers got fine dining in the mess hall, and restaurant customers got army slop. Afterwards they were asked their opinion. The soldiers moaned, of course. Army food sucks, whereas the diners were mostly delighted. The moral is: you get what you think you're getting. Soldiers expect slop, they got slop. So if it's expensive and exclusive, people will believe it's better, even if you can get essentially the same thing in Walmart for a fraction of the price.
I am off n a tangent here but when I was In the Royal Australian Airforce I had some postings where the mess hall cuisine was of high dining quality.
Still they complained about slop.
That right there is expectation bias, which is what drives 99% of audiophool drivel
"I payed 1k more so this can't be bad" wrong unfortunately
Reminds me of urban legend I heard years ago.
An audiophile master (big name magazine columnist also) visited an audio shop discussing about a state-of-the-art audio cable which will make a world of difference to any audio system. The shop owner didn't 100% buy it so that audiophile master gave him that cable to try out, which he passed that to the staff to setup and started A-B test. After the test the AM stressed "See, the whole world of difference I told you?". The shop owner, unfortunately, didn't hear ANY difference AT ALL. But to avoid embarrassing situation he decided to play along, until that AM left.
As soon as that AM was completely out of sight, his staff rushed in and confessed "Sorry boss I screwed up. Due to my misunderstanding I DIDN'T SWAPPED THE CABLE AT ALL. It was our own midrange cable for all the time."
"No, you didn't screwed up anything." He replied, after being stunned for a few seconds. "Actually the only one being screwed up wasn't us, for sure."😏
No wonder why he immediately unsubscribed from the magazine subscription that AM involved after that.
A big YES to placebo effect...
And in the realm of audiophilia that makes me think of high resolution downloads which usually run north of 20 to 30 bucks "because its better!" Meanwhile you can pick up an old CD of the same music for under 5 bucks (usually) and have something tangible in your collection. Hi res audio is the latest and some of the most blatant snake oil to hit in recent years.
It's refreshing to see a vinyl enthusiast who appreciates the format for what it actually is instead of buying into all the bullshit about it being "superior" to digital audio.
Imagine accidentally buying a $3000 turntable that sounds slightly worse than a $3 Discman cause some corporate shill told you to.
I'm gonna tell you one thing. It's your ears that decides which TT is the best, not what's in the righthand column of the owner's manual.
@@leftylou6070 avoid scam are kinda important.
@@Light-DelaBlue You just don't wanna buy a component with a flimsy press board bottom. That maybe a dead give away to the quality of the product. Just sayin'.
The very fact that you can't hear the difference saves me money on used vinyl.
A few years ago I bought Rega Planar 1. Got it home and was disappointed to find it didn't sound as good as I was expecting. I also noticed it was running a bit too fast.
I did a bit of research and find that it's such a common problem that a company is manufacturing replacement drive wheels that correct the speed issue.
Apparently Planar quality control allow players through if they're a bit fast, which most of them are.
Took it back to the store to swap it for another model. They didn't believe me until they actually tested it and used a strobe disc to see it running too fast. I asked if I could listen to some other turntables but they just said "no, we'll give you a refund. We don't have time to help you". I then noticed they had a big spender in their demo room and I wasn't worth dealing with.
Ended up going to Richer Sounds (UK hi-fi company) and getting an Audio Technica AT LP120 which had been fantastic.
Dammit. My parents splashed on a P1 and have been impressed so far, but all I've heard from elsewhere is just bad bad bad. Shame.
I have an LP120 I use for 78's. If you want accurate speed, find a used 1200 mk 2.
@@TheMaxx111 For me the speed on the LP120 has been great. The dots on the edge of the platter are always perfectly still.
With the P1 I could hear straight away listening to music I knew well that it was too fast.
@@danxepha4535 My LP 120 surfs a little. The dots do not walk away but it is constantly correcting itself and surfs about 3 mm back and forth or so. I do not notice that in the sound but just a thing that my 1200s don't do.
@@danxepha4535 Thanks for the warning! I was considering that Rega after reuniting with my LP collection from the 80's after 25+ years. Now I'll find a different one :-)
Apparently a spell checker removes 90% of spelling errors.
only for autocorrect to create 90% more errors
I love Audiophile myths, they’re the gift that keeps on giving. 😂
The grift that keeps on grifting
You have to remember, even the most "low end" technics from back in the day was manufactured in Japan. It's pretty funny that it takes a modern $3,000 turntable manufactured in the U.S. to match the Technics specs.
Paid $450 in 2016 for my 1998 Technics sl 1200 MK5. I have put over 12,000 trouble-free hours on it! Exceptional sound quality using Audio Technica 440 m l b, ortofon 2m black and ortofon om 40 with Fritz Geiger 70 and I run them through a project tube box s phono preamp. Thinking about getting a newer project tube box preamp with on-the-fly adjustment knobs on the front panel. And from what I read it is a true tube amp and the tubes can be rolled.
Posters on the Steve Hoffman forums are generally insane. I cannot believe some of the nonsense grown men post there.
They take cues from their lord and master Heir Hoffman, the master ignoramus.
There is a hilarious 67 page thread over there where the idiots rate different "audiophile ethernet cable". A staggering misunderstanding of how digital information works...
@@carltechnocop : I can think of a difference, but it's cheaper to rearrange your cables than buy shielded everything.
90% of those "grown men" were probably born in the era of the CD and cassette. Their "expertise" doesn't count. Listen to people with practical, personal experience that leave it to you to decide what's best for you.
I would not generalize so much. There’s good info in that forum too. Steve is a mastering engineer and there’s a lot of good info about masterings and lp and cd releases.
Audiophile turntable makers have the best scam going - the more basic features they remove the more "audiophile" it is and the more they can charge for it. It was amazing some of the cool things they were doing with turntables back in the 80s like programmable direct access linear tracking tables but we've gone backwards where even fully mechanical 50s features are too advanced and will somehow "cause noise" if added to a turntable.
Much the same with digital cameras. I'm trying to get one with just the absolute basics but the less there is, the more it costs. Bloody crazy. 😭
Linear tracking does nothing to mitigate IGD distortion
Hear hear! I have a Carrera LT-120 that I found at a thrift store for $20. It sounds great and blows people's minds when they first see it "scan" the surface of a record
They could go for some fancy features but it would require some actual engineering as compared to drilling few holes in particle board, putting pre-made mechanism and selling it with $1000 markup ;))
I TOTALLY agree-! Ive seldom seen as much smoke and mirrors and snake oil hype as in todays phono industry. They have reinvented the whole thing and made lame excuses for why even a mid range audiophile table cant include a simple auto stop at end or auto return etc. claiming it "causes unwanted noise" etc - the damn record has already played, who cares if theres a click or small sound when it lifts the tonearm-!! Theres no damn valid excuse for not including the much wanted and most useful auto stop or auto return function, and I dont buy the argument it costs too much or even worse it makes the table noisier etc. I have a nice old Harman Kardon T40 that cost $325 new in the early 80's and it has auto stop and tonearm lift with just a small click noise - so I can lay down and not worry about going to sleep and the needle grinding away against the label in the last groove. It seems the more you pay for so called "audiophile" tables the less useful features many of them have - hell some of the make you have to remove the damn platter and belt just to change the speed, and others have the belt running on the OUTSIDE as an answer to this-!!!!! One of my tables is an insignia model from best buy thats only $129 and it plays well has a magnetic cartridge and also has AUTO STOP!! I also have a $150 JVC semi-auto direct drive LA55 table from the 80's that has no discernible rumble at all and also has AUTO RETURN AND STOP. Finally, the only real obvious rumble ive ever heard in my experience anyway was from the old idler wheel tables like BSR and DUAL etc. when the idler wheel went bad with flat spots or dried out etc.
I got launched from those forums years ago for daring to suggest that glass CDs containing the same master as standard CDs will sound exactly the same due to the binary data being identical.
Placebo is a powerful money making scheme.
Yup. Same here except I argued that one doesn’t need gold plated cables to send digital data-- bits are bits and either arrive or don’t- and when they don’t, there is corrupted music, not “worse sounding”.
Hilarious.
But I want gormet ones and zeroes!
Audiophiles are true ignoramuses. Mental note, must start a business selling pseudoscientific hi-fi equipment to berks.
The funniest part is reading reviews of expensive hi-res audio devices where they have to talk about the music 'quality' like it's a fine wine because there is literally no difference between the devices, but they have to come up with something "The Mashaguchi 200-K123 resonates with a large landscape of bright splashes of direct sound while invigorating the senses with its ceaseless bass note highlights" etc etc 😆
I’ve suffered “audiophiles” in my family, and they’re basically expensive stuff junkies. Trying to reason with them is useless because they want to validate their life choices through an easy, watchable indicator: money.
I basically have turtables that were second hand dj gear bought in the mid 2000s (Technics and Akijama) with replaced cartridges. I do LOVE vinyl because you find lots of historic records, and it sounds pleasant (not “better”) with all the dust and crackles… though for preservation I shop for cds and FLAC files. Tapes made me happy in my teenage years and mp3s/streaming keeps making me smile, instead of wasting precious hours comparing “the cables (or fuses) that allow audio to breath, to have more air”.
They don’t care about the music. It’s just another aspirational thing
Yes. I've had those conversations. I call their need to justify huge amounts of money spent for very little (if any) return, "Costification". Try having a conversation with someone who's just spent £400 for a gold plated one metre HDMI cable. Always good for a laugh.
Some of us Audiophiles actually detest the way these companies think they can charge us £6000 for £60 worth if electronics.
My big bugbear is power. Amp manufacturers can't seem to give you anymore than 80/90 watts per channel from £200 up to £1000 getting past the 100/150 watts per channel starts to creep up to the £ 4-6000.
My all time fave is the d'agistino Amps £10000 and you get a measly 150 watts per channel.
Just utter cheapskates
I've blown them all off and have 600 watts per channel class D via a tube preamp. Lovely and the 2 combined cost less than a fuse for the d'agistino amp 😁😁
I just like tapes because they are cool.
The problem with good sound system is that everything sound horrible because it was mastered for shitty sound system.
@@MarquisDeSang taht not change the audiophile gear are most of the time just a scam. like thos stupid fuses. or magic cable.
"High quality Goodyear tires remove 90% of the bumps on the road and allow you to drive through more states compared to Hankook tires"
Bad comparison, because tire construction actually does impact felt vibration from the road. Everything from compound, to sidewall height. Now, they don't literally remove bumps, obviously.
@@Vykk_Draygo and....they are spelt "tyres". Hahaha.
It's a matter of stiff sidewall vs soft sidewall tyres, the soft sidewalls do improve comfort but they increase the transient response time of the tyres and can cause sloppy handling -- that's why comfort tyres with soft flexible sidewalls (e.g., Goodyear Assurance) and performance tyres with stiff & rigid sidewalls (e.g., Goodyear Eagle F1 Super Sport) are very different things. If you are interested in nitty-gritty tyre testing check out the Tyre Reviews channels, it's very interesting! :)
That is funny. Kudos!
Audiophile fuses!? That made me cackle at my computer screen.
That literally seemed to be an "AD" dreamed up by "MAD" Magazine.
There are "audiophile" power cords, plugs, and even AC outlets. But the record (pun intended) for audiophile snake oil goes to the trestles intended to keep speaker wires off the floor.
@@jamesslick4790 an ad that’s bad will end up spoofed in MAD
Out of all the audiophile forums that I frequent, SteveHoffman has to be THE destination for this sort of nonsense.
Imagine a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters hoping to one day come up with a definitive answer to "do 'audiophile cables' make a difference?" and you got stevehoffman forums basically
I can only imagine the fuming heavy breathing keyboard warriors arguing that yes, they do make a world of difference despite being just pretty transparent coated bog standard copper wire, not even shielded.
Don't forget the gold plug optical TOSLINK cables tho, those at least make digital sound more "analog like".
what about Field of Crutches?
Now I at least know to avoid this one for audio forums for now
Don’t forget r/audiophile
Simply put, these are very danceable cables
You bring up a good topic about RCA cables take for instance monster brand they made all type of claims through the roof can you really tell the difference from good cables 2 real expensive Monster Cables I really don't think so I always just bought decent made cables but I would never spend crazy money on some of those cables because I did not believe what they were telling you
If you're paying absurd amounts for "audiophile" equipment, you will convince yourself that you CAN hear the difference.
Because no-one is going to admit they've been duped by marketing false claims. See also - premium HDMI cables.
Then there is also the fun stuff where the cables themselves add a good +3dB bass and needing to eq the bloody bass down so that the vocals come out clean. Might as well go back to using normal studio cables.
Oh wait nvm I think I deluded myself that my expensve audiophile cables sound worse then the studio cables I was using prevously. My bad will stick with the audiophile cable and suffer untill my brain stops deluding itself that its muddy.
Audiophiles are so damn obnoxious and boring. How dare we enjoy our basic gear as much as they pretend to enjoy their $12000 rca cables. Great video Kevin!
@@swettyspaghtti from a box they got at shell station cause 711 is to cheap even know it same wine some audiophiles are knobs
@@swettyspaghtti But the cables have to be 'broken in' first. There are companies that will actually do this for you. Unbelievable!
These are not the audiophiles, these are just some rich people doing it for show off. Real audiophile is the person who knows and appreciate the effort that goes into making good record, who knows and appreciate the history behind it and who knows how to make his setup sound at it's best no matter what it is.
Watch the boomerang heading your way when making such general statements ;)
God forbid at anybody actually enjoy the actual content regardless of what they’re watching it on or listening to it on.
That Technics turntable sounds fantastic! Goes to show that the hi-fi manufacturers had turntables figured out by the late 80s, to the point that the lower end units actually preformed really well! That's exactly why I still use my thrift store Pioneer PL-8.
But don't say that to the "audiophiles" who are justifying spending $2k on a turntable that performs worse than a $10 yardsale turntable. It's almost like it's more about showing off with expensive gadgets and following dumb trends than raw performance!
As a Radio/TV Technician i can only agree to your statement, I have a couple of very Low End Turntable that Chellenge most of the so desired Thorens Turntables!
Like my Fully from me overhauled Marantz TT 2000, with the right Tonepickup and Amp and speakers it can fully compete with the high end 300 to 500 dollar Thorens turntables.
Not saying that Thorens Turntables are bad or anything, they are extrely high quality turntables made with the highest grade of materials and components but the low enders aren't as bad as many claim to be, a lot of the low enders from the late 70s and 80s where absolute fine and performed far higher in the spectrum between low and high end as they where marketed as when you gone with one from the main brands like "technics, sony, pioneer or marantz and of cause CEC"
And as i said it highly depends on your other components as well, Vinyl is a picky format and the best turntable can't perform good when you have a bad tonepickup or amp or cables or speakers
Oh ya and the todays turntables are absolute crap made in china ESPECIALY the so desired Pro-Ject turntables, far overpriced for what you get!
I mean they are complete featureless turntables who only simulate the HIGH ENDERS of back in the day, sure they aren't bad per say but they are not much BETTER then the classic turntables low enders from the 70s and 80s... the only turntable that is faily priced and totally overlooked in my opinion that is made today is the Lenco L-3809
@Dixene Lee It's sounds better because the cartridge is more expensive/ better.
@Dixene Lee i can't facepalm enough here... you are comparing turntables to a car which is an fallacy argument of epic proportions, second of all higher quality grade tonepick up used on the VPN used... also insults show that you have a very weak character there sir... please try to better yourself
Not quite $10 -- I spent $25 to get the Technics turntable at Goodwill, and then $60 to replace the stylus on its Grado Green cartridge. (Annoyingly, they're a brand that nobody makes aftermarket styli for.)
Your video explains, almost perfectly why I am almost totally obsessed with 1970's electronics but would never ever dream of stepping into the realm of an audiophile shop !
I recently found a Technics SL-D5 at the local second-hand electronics store. Still works great, although I don't believe the stylus had ever been replaced. I got the second cheapest (not dead cheapest, I'm not THAT cheap...) cartridge from Audio-Technica to replace the old worn-out one, and after a bit of faffing around with the alignment, it sounds great. Expensive isn't automatically better.
My dad had a Bose receiver and two big brown speakers that he got in college. It was the first receiver we used to play back stereo sound for laser discs before we got a Pioneer receiver. They lasted at least until the mid-2000s. A far cry from what the brand degenerated to by the time I grew up.
Audiophile Fuse... holy crap. This is some next level snake oil right there.
I will probably fall for it.
Oh, boy, it's not even the 3rd level. Check out cryogenic frozen directional cables, lol. Just search more for audiophile snake oil and you will find yourself in one of the most entertaining rabbit holes ever :D
@@vdochev Are you telling me you can't hear the difference between a green and a black cable?
A high quality record cleaner can remove 90% of surface noise, though!
source? there are a lot of record cleaners on the market, but I've yet to see any demonstrations in which record noise was significantly reduced
@Emily Campbell the results are very variable, cleaning a clean record isn’t going to make an awful lot of difference… there’s a lot a very dirty vinyl out there though, and then it does make a monumental difference. It can’t get scratches out or replace worn out groove modulations, but it’s pull a lot of dirt out. I have over 2000 records, mostly bought used, so I bought an Okki Nokki RCM, it’s one of my better investments.
10 out of 10 audiophiles agree, they can spot subtleties in music playback others don't notice! 😅
@j2simpso I know buddy, I have one… and an LP12 with which to evaluate the difference… which is significant!
Now that sounds a tad believable, unlike the original quite.
I grew up in the audiophile world, it's nuts. Look on the right page from that catalog at that scale for 49,99. That's a 5 dollar ebay scale. I used to get into huge fights over all this nonsense with my dad's friends. From the green CD marker to iron filled wooden bricks they stood on top of everything to the 1000$ BS cables, it's a world completely dominated by confirmation bias.
Yeah, that side of the audiophile world is nuts, those people are delusional. There is another side of it though, where people are interested in products that are well engineered, and where people make genuine efforts to get the best sound they can afford.
@@Si1983h Oh I know, I've heard plenty of great gear and I've met and spoken with many people from companies like VPI and Martin Logan. There is a real dedicated side to audio, just wish it could exist without the snakeoil.
@@robertleeluben you and me both buddy. I’m looking at making custom cables for kit from the likes of Naim, B&O etc… I’ve made a few for people already and they’ve been immensely pleased with them, but I’ve had others questioning how a cheap cable (I use VanDamme) can actually be any good.😫
@@robertleeluben It's sad that decent hi-fi is dead. There's only entry level stuff and overpriced "high end" snake oil bullshit. All good stuff died in the 90s.
@Shadow Flash there’s more decent affordable kit available now than there has been at any other time in history… and that’s coming from someone who’s main system is mainly from the late 90’s. And whilst there’s a lot of snake oil BS out there, that trend started in the 80’s… there’s plenty of extremely well engineered high end kit out there. I have heard some £100k systems that have left me feeling cold… I’ve also heard some £100k systems that have left me feeling lustful and poor!
Personally, I like my audio to be imperfect and a little distorted - I guess it adds character. People seem to miss the point of listening to an outdated format. Music is supposed to be fun, and you should be impressed that the sound a tiny needle makes as it drags over a piece of plastic sounds as good as it does. If you're bothered by the fact your piece of plastic sounds somewhat like a needle dragging over a piece of plastic, you're obviously going about it the wrong way.
You might as well listen to mp3s and you would get better sound quality.
That is perfectly ok
However companies that make outlandish claims - well that is unpalatable
Man I'm in the wrong business. I should buy a Chinese tonearm assembly, some plexiglass and a chunk of mahogany and start making turntables. I'll call it the Cork Sniffer 9000! It's $4,000 for the main assembly, or $6,000 if you get it with an AT-VM95E stylus. 😁
Just don't use the sort of imagery that Behringer used for their "Cork Sniffer". For one, Behringer will sue you; for other, it would be in extremely poor taste towards people of semitic heritage.
A phenomenal crowdfunding idea! Let's get some bikini models and a couple of old guys to play the experts, get the solar freaking roadways guy to do the voice over and hire the film maker who did the Fyre Festival promo. It can't miss!
I've had old Sony's and Technics TT's on my bench and they are indeed very quiet. Try this: record the noise with the tone arm raised versus an unrecorded portion of a quality disk. I think you'll with find that the majority of the rumble is transmitted through the surface of the disk as well. The quieter TT's have quieter motors as well as more massive platters and plinths and better damping. I enjoyed your perusal of the spec sheets and your logical presentation. Expect lies from advertisements always. I haven't found quality direct drive TT's to be any more or less noisy than quality belt driven TT's. Belt drive TT's are cheaper to manufacture though.
There should be a difference, but if the designer's done something to shove the motor frequency up beyond the hearing range of a dog, then does a tree make a sound when it falls in an uninhabited forest...
Absolutely… what can be quite telling is lowering is lowering the stylus onto a record whilst the deck isn’t actually rotating, you’ll soon learn how well isolated your deck it and how much environmental noise can get through. Someone made an amazing demonstration about that using an original AR turntable recently, he made some samples with the suspension floating, and some with the suspension locked out and the difference was astounding. I’m sure I could replicate it with my LP12 if I could find a practical way of locking the suspension out. My first turntable, a budget Hanpin made Aiwa deck used to generate insane levels of low frequency feedback at anything approaching realistic listening levels rendering it basically useless unless you were using headphones.
spindle bearings and platter material matter more than belt vs. dd
Ohhh, "moderator approval," that's soooo important.
wee woo
It's basically Reddit but worse?
next step: gets banned
@@rutgerkerpel306 There is a ton of arguing on that forum, worse than most. Some of them spend more time obsessing over their equipment than they do actually enjoying it.
@@Lesrevesdhiver collectors in a nutshell. They only like to brag about how much money they wasted on something when they could have just gone to a flea market and bought a used hifi deck for cheap. Heck, you don't need a hifi to enjoy music. I'd be happy with any cheap boombox as long as it sounds good
VWestlife: "So the only thing that's actually proven to remove at least 90% of the surface noise of a record, is to replace it with a CD." I totally agree, and that's exactly why I did that 30 years ago.
That's why it had to be invented. But looking at the comment section it's clear there are still a lot of chronic masturbaters who jack off to vinyl and have not moved on. And bitch at you if you don't jack off with them. Sigh...
@@redcomusic Gotta say I love vinyl too though I hear you about the fanatics.
Only in the last 5 /6 years have DACs truly improved to the point where I now can enjoy listening to digital as much as listening to vinyl.
I'm going to throw my jerk off into the mix:
Valve preamps coupled with massively powerful class D ( 600 watts per channel) power amplifiers.
That revolutionised both my digital and vinyl experience ( I don't bother fetishizing old valves either)
The only thing worth jerking to is pure massive power
😁
@@sbwlearning1372 Nice. But after all of that, most vinyl simps are still jacking off to their 12" diameter plastics and their delusion that it's the best music format, ever.
Hope you don’t mind using chemical solvents and buffers to get out the scratches.
What scratches? I don't use my CDs for drink coasters.
You should do more videos like this. I love showing the bs in a lot of bougie audio equipment.
It would be cool to see a myth-busting series on audiophile nonsense. I think VWestlife has covered a few topics in this area, but I'm sure there's much more.
When you stumble across a video in your feed and it’s playing your record! 😄
I approve of this video - mostly because it’s dealing with what I hate most: The quacks that is the audiophile society. So much hogwash out there. Take it from someone with years of experience in professional studios and rental companies. A $100000 cable or lifting them above the floor is not making the audio better! 🙈🤪🤷🏼♂️
Oh god, the Hoffman forums! A place where reason and technical knowledge goes to die! Cheers to you for getting put in quarantine there! (p.s. the Technics vs. Pro-Ject 10 db difference reveal genuinely made me LOL!)
A wonderful place for people with plenty of money and no taste in music, movies, or television.
My friend bought a Rega Planar 3 as his first record player, and when he said you can't even simply change the playback speed with a button, and it's all manual, I laughed inside with my fully automatic belt-driven Technics from the '80s that I've bought for around 30 bucks...
I haven't heard his gear though (he couldn't decide on speakers...) It can be good, but this kind of barebones attitude is laughable at that price point.
Anyway, I don't listen to records for some audiophile high quality sound reasons, it's just that vinyl makes listening to music a kind of ceremony, that I love ever since I've listened to some of my Mom's records as a kid. It's a warm, fuzzy feeling compared to digital audio, but that's very subjective.
Audiophiles hold that more machinery equals more interference and noise, so those high-end turntables are quite the faff. I've got an entry-level one like that myself, though at least the speed can be changed without taking the platter off. Wishing I'd got a decent secondhand Technics "DJ" turntable, though.
@@worldcomicsreview354 There is truth to that. I had a semi auto belt driven Kenwood from the mid 80's, and it performed well, but in the end, didn't quite match up to the Rega Planar 6. The Rega, overall was a touch quieter, rendered the subtle nuances better, I think had less wow and flutter, sounded a bit more refined, and yes, it had the electronic speed control standard, but was otherwise the same, basic design, the main difference was the sub platter and plinth.
Overall, I find I like the Planar 6 better than my old table, though to be honest, it's not a huge difference, but the overall presentation is improved over the Kenwood.
However, both require your records be clean, or pops and clicks will be heard. That said, my cartridge is the $100 Grado Prestige Green 1 that I bought new in 2018. I also run a separate phono stage that is worlds better than most built in units in many lower end/mid priced receivers and integrateds.
@@johnhpalmer6098 belts slip and warp , its idiocy to think belt is better than di]rect drive
@@ku16610 While that may be true for an old belt, new belts will perform about as good or as good as a well designed direct drive. Belts do need replacing about every 5 years or so and takes not long to swap out. The other potential issue is the platter bearing and its oil as that can affect overall performance and neither issue take long to do when it comes time to oil and/or replace the belt.
Audiophiles are crazy. I've even seen "audiophile" SATA cables selling for hundreds of dollars, for that extra-clean reference-quality data transfer! :o
To make sure those bits come through nice and bitty, I guess.
They need an audiophile whack in the head, not an audiophile SATA cable
😂
What??? _HUNDREDS_ of dollars? SATA cables for the ISS maybe?
"Sir, we've lost drive 7b again!"
"DAMMIT, DID YOU ORDER THOSE AMAZON BASICS SATA CABLES AGAIN???"
TBH, with the margins made on products like that, I don't think they even have to worry if 90% of people in their own markets think they're fulla crap and don't buy it. The ones that will, always will. And that sustains them well.
The entirety of the Steve Hoffman forums memberlist can firmly grasp it.
i wonder what you can catch with this?
certainty not jellyfish
Joe Collins addressed the "audio phoolery" of "high end" turntables several years ago and he was pointing out the relatively high wow & flutter vs the old Technics TT's (namely the 1200). Most of the high end turntables are horribly overpriced for what you get, IMHO. It's an expensive rabbit hole to climb down into once one goes into "audiophile" territory. Those $50 "audiophile" fuses were the icing on the cake. I literally LOL'ed when I saw that. It's just as absurd when some sh*t for brains thought that CD's sounded better when you colored on them with a yellow highlighter pen. Wow, just wow! That BS went around in the late 1980's.
I've never heard of the highlighter thing before, can't believe how gullible some people are
The 'audiophile' fuses reminded me of that company that will 'break in' your audio cables for you by playing music through them for X number of hours before shipping them to you! What a crock! 😂
When people pay $600 for a pair of speaker cables, or $500 for a HDMI cable, paying $50 for a fuse kind of doesn't surprise me at all. It takes a special kind of stupid to fall for that crap. Or a supply of money that has nothing better to be spent on.
Look up PS Audio on RUclips. They were credible until the dude doubled down on those goofy CD markers. I have screenshots and everything, so I do plan to make a video about it. I had completely forgotten until now.
@@awesomeferret I unsubscribed from that channel, I could see right through him, I got fed up with having my intelligence insulted.
Look forward to seeing your vid on the markers.👍
The whole audiophile industry is ridiculous.
Has been for a very long time. ;(
It's not ridiculous. It's mega ridiculous
Loving the Technics, it sounds so crisp and vibrant.
This is a fantastic and real world commentary about high end hi-fi products. It reminds me of Peter Aczel's Audio Critic articles who bravely stood up against many of the expensive audio equipment manufacturers and magazines of the day. I wish there were more of these articles today. There are many other areas in the industry right now that are bogus in all facets of the hobby - not just turntables. My hat's off to VWestlife.
Vinyl sounds best when the listener wears a tin-foil hat.
Turntables do impact surface noise, though not by 90dB.
Surface noise picked up by the stylus travels into the cartridge, arm and turntable structures. If those are flimsy and resonant, as they are with many very inexpensive decks, they resonate along with the noise, making this more audible. A turntable system designed to be inert, either through the use of stiff and non resonant materials or through the use of damping will sound quieter in terms of surface noise.
Even funnier is the fact that on the catalog page you are showing there's the "Revol Stylus Gauge" for 50$. But typing record scale into Amazon returns the exact same scale without the brand logo for only 12$.
I even own one, they're pretty good.
Oh boy. The redditors will not like this one
*ANGRY R/VINYL SOUNDS*
I'm actually surprised there's doesn't seem to be any white knight comments trying desperately to disprove this video...
@@JohnSmith-xq1pz There too busy getting mad at ASR Speaker reviews. /r/headphones is much worse shockingly compared to /r/audiophile. I remember in 2019 having Crinacle fans claim in a few ER4SR threads that BA drivers can't push much air. Anytime it was called or questioned they just run to personal attacks & downvotes.
@@MT-ll3tu Lol
Those fuses!. I made a point when acquiring my HIFI equipment to buy the best for my budget and leave it at that, those that never stop in the pursuit of the "audiophile sound" spend more time listening to their equipment than they do the actual music, what a waste.
Forget audiophile fuses, audiophile POWER CABLES is where the REAL difference is!
My favorite is the ‘gold-plated TOSLINK cable’
Especially the last 2 metres from the socket to the devices matter the most! Forget about the miles of non audiophile aluminium and standard cooper in the transmission network up to your house 🤣
No, you need an audiophile power plant to start with! ;-)
Sanity is so refreshing. Thanks!
My old Dual 522 with belt drive has a DIN-B value of 70 dB, the new price in 1979 was around $ 235 (US). I got it 20 years ago from the father of a friend who I helped with gardening. Still works fine and I use it almost every day. It also has many features that most of the new "high-end" turntables lack, such as an illuminated strobe, manual speed control, automatic start-stop, ...
Would be a very smart choice to upgrade to one of these new models for as little as $ 2,000.
Oh yeah, gotta add this for anyone who cares...I just got a collection of records from a friend's dad who passed that were covered with mold and cobwebs. I cleaned up a bunch of them with screen cleaner and a microfiber cloth and not a single one skipped. And I touched them with my fat fingers too!
However you like to enjoy the music. My wife says she likes records that are more beatup she says she loves the crackling sound and that its soothing with the music.
@@Bangulo lol whaa
@@bradygiltz5160 I mean in trip hop the crackling sound of vinyl plays a huge role in that genre and a lot of 90s hip hop as well they didn't sample the cleanest records for sure
@@Bangulo That's actually quite beautiful.
@@Bangulo I have my dad's old and slightly scratchy copy of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Having the slight crackle right in the intro has just always sounded "right" to me, and I prefer it over other recordings. Other stuff I'm not so attached to, but that one is special.
l guess because of the return of vinyl, there are many companies trying to cash in and they make all sorts of ridiculous claims to justify ridiculous pricing. As Techmoan recently stated, the so-called high-end turntable basically do nothing and the companies making them can charge whatever they want. What more, many consumers, as if by reflex, seem to make excuses for these companies, as if they work for these companies themselves. So you're better off getting an older used table and putting in a bit of money to fix it up.
I always find the videos you do on subjects like this refreshing. There are a lot of people out there that cannot afford the astronomical prices of some of these 'high end' turntables, and yet, once again you prove without doubt that getting a so called 'lower end' turntable is just what they need without either robbing a bank or remortgaging their house!
The bottom line is that modern manufacturers don't have the expertise or money to develop a decent Direct Drive motor. They use off the shelf DC motors together with a belt because it's cheap and easy.
This was posted on an audiophile website many moons ago.... "Can you hear the difference between -65db and -75db? Probably not, because ambient noise would mask any differences, and most records were not that quiet to begin with, and that was mostly due to the built-in rumble from the cutting lathe and even a worn stamper". The phrases "chasing a dream" and "diminishing returns" comes to mind when I read that.
I agree totally with your comments. hilarious - marketing does not require a minimal education in maths.
One thing I note (I have an AR legend turntable from 30 years ago - with a rumble of 73db - belt drive), is that the noise that can be heard out of the speakers of a system from a turntable source has 3 significant sources.
1) rumble - low frequency sound often removable with a sub-sonic filter (low band pass filter) - that is the one you comment and comes from bearing surface noise, pules modulation of a drive - often due to the multi-pole design of motors, "vibrations" in a belt drive.
2) true surface noise : clicks (transients), hiss. In the latter case this is the result of the component material of the record and wear of the needle; we know that during the oil crises in 1973 record quality took a dive and this, in particular, hit Tubular bells by Mike Oldfield due to its quiet and long instrumental piece. As noted, true surface noise can be helped by clearing the record and buying records that don't use cheep materials such as filler - good luck on that one especially with the current expensive resurgence of vinyl, they will sell you rubbish for cheap turntables.
3) The pre-amp quality. The main signal amplifier in a good system will often have a SN of around 100 db, often much better, but a pre-amp stage for MM for a good pre-amp is 70-90db and for MC cartridges is much lower at 60-75 db. This noise is generally pink-noise (white noise, but not full spectrum) and can be heard if you turn a power amp right up with no source sound. You will hear the difference in hiss as you switch between standard line in, MM and to MC. You cannot remove this with filters on anything as it "full" spectrum.
Keep up the work.
A good turntable will not ADD any rumble or vibration to the record whilst playing it. The quietest tables I've used were direct drives. The noisiest were rim drive, but there are examples of quiet rim drive, and noisy belt or direct drive.
A noisy DD TT has a cogging motor or power transformer that is vibrating, the older 9" rim BSR TTs are quieter than the 7" drive crap 70's on
The bottom line is that a needle is still being dragged through a groove. Those turntables you showed in the catalogue are way over engineered and they make them look like something from the future so the "look" of the turntable is supposed to make people believe that this is the perfect turntable. I'm no audiophile, can't tell the difference between a good clean record and a CD. Records have been around over a century now and have improved incredibly throughout the decades but some people are trying to make it as if this is some sort of new technology. When CD's first hit the market, they were up to twice the price of LP's but super cheap to make. Now that vinyl is making a comeback, the prices for these albums are very expensive compared to the CD counterparts! Probably because of limited editions, runs, etc.
Over engineered? They look like leftover spare parts mounted on a piece of wood... Like something you would do if you hadn't had enough money as a teenager in the 80's. Just look at the VPI Prime Scout for more than 3000€, how can that be considered high quality when it *exposes* the most *vulnerable* part to dust and daylight? Belts, like any polymer, and light are not a good combination if you want them to last as long as possible. And with the forces working on that poor belt from the mass of the oversized platter and the force coming from the motor to rotate that chunky monstrosity, I doubt this belt will last or hold its specifications for very long.
@@andreasklindt7144 I think he meant "over-designed"?
Depending on how it's pressed, the quality of the "metal master", a vinyl record can sound fabulous, just as good to my ears as a CD. All that amazing sound made by a groove, cut into plastic being, 'rubbed' by a needle. Amazing!
@@PCFixer Sure thing! But the point of the records -- be it shellac or vinyl -- is that they were a cheap consumer format! Quite some way below high-speed 1/4" tape, similar quality to which can of course these days be achieved easily with a high-resolution lossless digital file due to how incredibly powerful our modern computers are thanks to miniaturised integrated circuits. :)
@@PCFixer The sad thing is, CDs sound mostly worse due bad mastering in the studio and extreme dynamic compression, even though a CD of course could do more dynamics... But these days, it's all about the highest RMS dBs....
I bet the turntable brands are Butt Hurt because the Direct Drive turntables from the 70's and 80's ARE STILL WORKING GREAT and sound better than most new models until you get too at LEAST $700 and can match $1500-$2000 models and can be had at an estate sale, flea markets or Garage sales for $60 maybe less of you are lucky
got my technics from an online estate sale thingy and it’s dope as hell
quartz lock and no detectable rumble
An excellent informative post! As someone who has been a long-time audiophile with a vintage system it's great to read this, however, I must chime in with a comment too. I had vintage mid-range Technics DD turntable I purchased new, while I was a salesman at a high-end HiFi store back in the early 80's. It got extensive use over the next two decades, but by the mid-2000s I began noticing increased rumble between tracks and quiet passages that got progressively worse, to the point that by 2010 I was looking for an upgrade. I took it to the local Techinics repair station for a tune-up and was told there was nothing wrong with it. When I got it back I noticed little to no improvement, so I sold it, purchased a Rega P3, and haven't looked back. It was like a night and day difference. Turntables do wear out especially old DD rigs that have no provision for lubrication or maintaining them. This is unlike most higher-end belt-drive turntables that are designed to be periodically lubed and serviced. So it's quite plausible that many of these old DD turntables are 90% noisier than newer belt-drive models, if only due to decades of wear and tear. Just my 2 cents.
Okay, Robert; good post. However, in my case I have at least 2 turntables; and at least a future almost complete DiY project. I've bought a used Harman Kardon T25 from the 1980s in good condition 2 years ago, and then replaced the AT70 MM with a used Denon DL80A Moving Coil cartridge. Sound very good; and it is one of the rare MC cartridges whereby the stylus can be replaced.
I have bought an Odd, used Rega Planar 3 plinth upgrade that I refurbished, and repaired with a used Linn Basik Plus Tonearm with phono RCA Cable. Since the previous owner drilled a hole, and 3 small ones, close toward the spindle's hole; mounting distance had become shorter!
I also mounted, aligned a new Audio Technica AT95E MM (not the newer VM95E as you may know) on the Linn Basik Plus tonearm; and searched all over town for those 3 longer machine screws for the mounting bracket of tonearm. I finally found those 3 machine screws, and 2 new motor mount screws; one has a stripped head. I also installed a new drive belt, motor suspension belt, and a Rega dust cover; also going to solder a new capacitor within the motor assembly.
In the case of lubrication for the HK T25, I had to - by myself - unscrew 3 machine screws, which was difficult because those screws were very tightly fastened at the factory; and applied a special oil, made in Canada, to the Bottom of the spindle bearing as I held the spindle bearing assembly upside down.
Speaking of equipment, roughly one half of the SHF "regulars" are genuinely convinced that $10,000 cartridge/stylus and tube amps eliminate all inherent flaws in any record. The other half tends to be pulling the others' leg(s).
You could put a down payment on a Tesla for that kind of money.
That feel when i just listen to music for the pleasure and not the audio quality
Indeed. Audiophiles rarely sit and listen to the music. They're too busy testing and 'upgrading' their gear. Or arguing in forums about nonsense that makes no difference to anything.
@@frazzleface753 looks like they have addiction problems
@@frazzleface753 Not true. Maybe 5% of those do.
You're telling me forum moderators get sticks up their asses when proven wrong? As a Redditor of 5 years, I'm literally shaking. XD
He's spreading dangerous information! 🤣🤣🤣
You know those comments are going to be held indefinitely. You just know it.
Who'd have thought disproving a claim from a source trying to sell you stuff would have been such fun.
The tone of this video was outstandingly dry. So dry in fact, I think you altered the ionisation of the air in the room, which my turntable salesman says makes surface noise worse.
Rega doesn't publish their specs because they're actually mediocre, if not flat out bad in some cases.
That sounds just like Bose! Only specs available are dimensions, weight and maybe power consumption. But compared to much of Audiophoolery, Bose is a discount brand, so who cares?
My old ex-dj Technics SL-1210 Mk2 still measures better on all metrics compared to many "audiophile" TTs going for 10 times the price. The difference is that back then there was a mass-market catering to serious music listeners and they made hundreds of thousands quality decks on a large scale (open up an old SL-1200 and you'll be challenged to find anything better built that isn't bespoke and silly money) where-as now it's a mass market of ear-buds and smart-speakers so the "audiophile" market is much smaller and aimed at those with more money than sense.
Audiophile FUSES????
Literally the room was full of my booming laughter, the neighbours must have heard it!
“Audiophile wall outlet” good laughs there.
"Audiophile Fuses"
*excuse me, what!?*
1:17 For an audiophile magazine, its editors are not very good at spelling since I noticed the phrase "SUFACE noise" instead of "SURFACE noise". ;)
Suface... 🤣
Suface is a part of the esoteric lexicon of audiophiles.
They are busy collecting the money from manufacturers, sellers and advertisement-clients. Every magazine works this way. It's pure scam.
Please please for God's sake please make more of these videos!
I was asking the same thing
This is what I still come to RUclips for.
In experiments I have done, having no fuse in the plug (silver plated or not) removes all surface noise.
Alternatively, polish the record to remove all of the microscopic grooves and permanently remove all surface noise.
Actually there is one fuse that will remove 100% of surface noise. A blown one.
90% of music on records is noise anyway... 😂
Audiophiles has made me smile and laugh for decades. 😁
Thanks for another informative (and important, considering the prices of this stuff) video on audio. I have an old Technics SL-92 direct drive, quartz locked, linear tracking turntable and the specs for it are better than even the most expensive turntable in the catalog you showed.
I am so glad I ignored all the "get rid of vinyl" nonsense that came out when CDs were released. I have a collection of very rare recordings that never even went to CD anyway. Of course, they didn't point this out back when the push to abandon vinyl was a hot button topic. Then, the claim was that all albums were being converted. Really, even those from small print, limited edition labels? Hmmm.
Also, they never talked bout the often horrendous re -mixing that went on (and still happens) when an older title was converted to CD.
Oh, and another easy way to remove 90% of record surface (suface ?) noise is to use one of those "record killer" devices (the van that runs around on the record). It will remove 90% of the surface noise because it will remove 90% of the surface! (sarcasm). Yet, people still buy these things and the prices on some versions are, as you well know -- well, rather insane.
Thanks for calling out the obviously false catalog claims you found.
Let the buyer beware!
Do they list placebo effect in the specifications?
Before spending $1500 on a turntable to remove 90% of the surface noise, try spending $15 on a spray bottle, a bottle of distilled water, a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, a small bottle of liquid dish detergent, a microfiber towel and a stylus brush.
Well said, @danielphillips7537. However, I don't actually believe in adding any alcohol to the mix. I use a commercial record cleaner. And if a mix, and make my own record cleaning solution, I do not add alcohol to the brew any more.
5:28 Now I may be a simple country lawyer but to my eyes that's the lid of a bulk tub of mayonnaise, not a turntable.
That's the latest fad -- an acrylic (hard plastic) platter. It'll scratch your records, but it looks so pretty!
Vinyl TV made a really good video some years ago, also talking about audiofoolery, it’s great. I consider myself an audiophile, but spending hundreds of dollars in a belt claiming that it “improves the bass response” is simply absurd…
Looking at that catalog I noticed the Stylus Gauge for 50 bucks! Mine looks identical to that and I think I paid less than $10 for it.
Great vid on the reality of turntables. As a vinyl junkie and (yes I will admit it) audiophile, I have been playing with 'tables for the last 4 decades. Audio Advisor (AA) is doing a bit of a disservice to the vinyl crowd here, but they are also selling stuff, and they wouldn't be the first audio company to print, shall we say, misleading ad copy.
I have several turntables, including a vintage Technics SL-M3 which was their top of the line linear tracker back in the day, and was listed in your spec sheet for Technics 'tables. Rumble is listed as -82 dB and it is probably one of the quietest direct drives out there still. I also have a vintage Roksan Xerxes belt drive 'table with similar rumble specs and can definitively say that the belt drive Roksan not any "quieter" than the Technics. Where the Roksan does greatly exceed the Technics is in it's ability to suck the smallest bit of information from the groove. This results in greater detail such as the ability to pick out individual performers from the mix, a bigger and more specific soundstage, deeper, tighter bass, yadda yadda yadda. It sounds miles better on my big system *on the right material*. (i.e. REALLY good pressings, excellent recordings, etc) Of course, this is with a tonearm, lo output MC cartridge, and a SUT that cost several times what the Technics cost back then, even adjusting for inflation.
Don't get me wrong, the Technics is excellent overall and has a purpose. I use mine in my somewhat less resolving living room "party" system. The Technics looks killer, is far easier to use, is better isolated from footfalls, feedback, etc. and is practically "drunk person" proof. It also sounds great with an AT series V MM cart. on commercial pressing rock records, which is mostly what I play on it.
You also mentioned the Rega Planar 3, a 'table I previously owned on a long term basis. The Rega is NOT a quiet table in terms of rumble, all (at least the older ones) run fast, and they are very poorly isolated from footfalls, vibrations, etc. This is also probably why Rega never publishes these specs. That said, I still think it is a good 'table, mostly based on the performance of it's excellent RB300 arm, which can do justice to cartridges several times it's cost. It's other flaws can be fixed or at least improved by a good isolation platform or wall stand under it, and a good speed controllable power supply to feed it. Of course, by then you've spent serious money.
I'll add another sideline of my own here. I've started at digitally archiving my records. I use my Roksan set-up into a nice vintage tube phono stage, a high quality A/D converter, and the Vinyl Studio recording program. The resulting 24/96 FLAC files sound just like the record, but without the inevitable tics and pops of vinyl. (The Vinyl Studio program has a great noise reduction system) This, to me, finally makes digital better than analog. Remember, this is from a guy who finds at least *early* 16/44 digital recordings, CD's and CD players to sound bloody awful. Of course, this digital archiving process takes a lot of time, and I won't live long enough to do my whole collection. But I digress.
Well, enough ranting from this audiofool. Thanks for the video, and keep at it. Subscribed!
I did a side-by-side test of my second-hand 1980s Dual turntable, bought for 75 Euro, against a one year-old Linn LP12 which cost my buddy north of 6000 Euro. We used his audio system for the test.
Much to our surprise and his chagrin, his Linn sounded only marginally better than my Dual. Yes, you could certainly hear the difference. The Linn produced a bigger sound stage, where my Dual sounded "narrower". But the difference in sound did not really line up to the (huge!) difference in money spent. I guess I was just really lucky with the Dual I bought :)
I grew up with a Dual CS-505-2, 1985 model. It sounded fantastic! Vividly, loud, and clear, all the way (driven by a Kenwood amp)! I played records on it to death! I even abused the poor TT while being a teen or an angry rock youngster, but it never let me down! And it played EVERY vinyl placed upon it: bright new/min condition, down as in poor condition, scratched or even warped records - the TT kept on playing all of them, without hesitation!
Take care of your 80s Dual TT - if you are a true discophile (and NOT an audiophile), it is one of the best brands around to bring your vinyl records back to life!
Record "sooface" sounds? (Trying to pronounce a ridiculuos misprint that even MSWord spellcheck should have caught -- makes you think about the quality level of the rest).
Seems they reduced the noise of "surface" by removing the letter "r" in both versions of that claimed quote, they do make me laugh though, it's like claiming that to reduce road noise in a car journey, you need a different and more overpriced car, instead of just replacing the tyres with better quality ones for much less money... :P
Audiophile turntable reviews always make me laugh. They're almost never blind against a reference system with the identical cartridge, yet the reviewer is certain that the turntable is responsible for the sound. What utter nonsense. Speed accuracy, freedom from rumble, isolation from external vibration and a light, rigid tonearm are the only things that matter in a turntable.
And a tonearm with smooth, frictionless bearings with no perceptible "play" (looseness). That is an absolute NON-NEGOTIABLE for accurate tracking.
Unless a true direct-drive has a poorly-engineered motor, a direct-drive almost always has smoother speed and less vibration than a comparable belt-drive model. In most cases, either one is sufficient. Neither could possibly impact "record surface noise." That was elementary information when I was still a hobbyist -- some 30 years ago.
How can a direct drive have less vibration than a belt? They are directly coupled through a much stiffer interface than a belt. The rubber belt should dampen most high frequency noise.
Assuming the platter is heavy enough, the physics could not be more basic. For belt-drive, the motor spins much more quickly, which can impose vibration. The belt tends to isolate, but the motor must be dampened from the chassis as well.
For direct-drive, the stator is generating at synchronous speed of the platter. There is virtually no vibration.
Now if it's a cheap direct-drive with a lightweight platter, your assumption would be correct. That's why I specified "true direct-drive."
I used to own an SL-QD33 turntable. It was probably the best sounding turntable I ever owned. I used to just play and enjoy my records, before I went "audiophile" and crazy. Now I have a simple AT-LP60, which I'm enjoying very much.
Thanx for removing the smoke and mirror from these snake oil retailers!
That Technics DD actually sounds really good.
That's a really interesting video, thank you. I looked at the Hoffman forum comments about audiophile fuses and also read through many of the great comments below. My main take-away is that knowing how much you paid for your Hi-Fi equipment is a significant contributor to how much you enjoy listening to it, even if the contribution some components make to the sound you hear can't be measured. I like listening to vinyl, although in general I wouldn't say it sounds better than CDs, but playing records is a more engaging process for me - an abstract pleasure that can't be measured.
I came across a post on an audiophool forum years ago where one poster claimed he noticed an improvement in sound quality when he slackened the screws on the cover of his amp. I’m sure he was messing with the dribbling morons… There was also a discussion about de-skinning the electrolytic capacitors, ie removing the plastic sleeve, to make it sound better. Then there’s pure silver speaker cables, bags of crystals to hang on your interconnects, special audio grade power cables that cost hundreds, the list goes on. They’re delusional to the point of being detached from reality. Still, if it makes them happy…
Should be: Still, if it makes someone else money...
There was PWB "improvements" many years back, such as a sheet of A4 paper under each leg of your stand improved the sound. I didnt bother.
I heard that hitting your amp with a sledgehammer 6 times will improve the audio quality even further
I remember a couple years back AA put in one of their mailings a totally incorrect explanation for the difference between class A and A/B amplifier circuits (I'd imagine the engineers at Bryston were cringing). They just pull **** out of their rear and slap it on paper.
I think you're right, they're getting confused with drivetrain noise. Which is a thing for turntables.
Brilliant! I always enjoy your in-depth videos, VWestlife. :)
Great in depth review of this issue at hand, although I would have to add that in defense of more expensive turntables, the more important variables of a good quality turntable are found in the design of the tonearm in terms of its lighter weight and lower friction of the mechanisms allowing for up and down and side to side motion. Whether these improvements are sufficiently audible as to justify the higher price is an entirely other matter. And then the issue I'm faced with, finding a table with a long enough so that I can mount and set up my new cartridge without so much counterbalance (or the ideal degree of counterbalance) to assure accurate tracking. A vinyl record is actually quite amazing technology, but also quite complex in terms of the task of capturing the stereo signal accurately.
That Technics sounds fantastic. I would be curious to hear the comparison of the same record on the other turntables that were featured, but I know that wouldn't be possible without spending the money. Because of RUclips channels like yours I have been able to decide certain things to buy and I certainly want to thank you for that. I've been listening to records for over 50 years and had some bad record players but also have some very good record players but all of my turntables are over 40 years old and sound fantastic. I just try to keep them going.
You make me happy that I'm not an audiophile. I'm rocking an old Direct Drive Pioneer PL-250 I got from a garage sale years ago. It sounds wonderful to me and I enjoy my records. I also enjoy my CDs, tapes, MP3s etc. I wonder if audiophiles ever even listen to music for enjoyment.
For a group of people who are so against noise that they listen to, audiophiles make a lot of noise that I don't really want to hear or care about.
Rumble and surface noise are completely different phenomenon.
The typical size of the dust motes that contaminate the record groove are 3-9μm. The average velocity of the groove past the stylus is about 600,000μm/s. Taking the size of the stylus into account a dust mote will pass the stylus in around 1/20,000th of a second. A single impulse of this duration is inaudible. What you hear as surface noise is actually the deck, mainly the arm, resonating in response to this impulse, the impulse being much higher in amplitude than the music signal.
Higher quality decks control resonances better than basic models so they resonate less due to the impulses of the impacts with the dust motes. Therefore surface noise on higher quality decks is suppressed.
Great video. I think people that go nuts over "Audiophile" stuff are just being arrogant assholes. Cheapaudioman has a great video talking about the fact that the term "Audiophile" is all BS. There are hundreds of factors that affect how a record sounds to each person. Could be a great sounding turntable and the person has crappy ears so they think it sounds horrible.
I say to get what you think sounds good and will not damage your records. That is all that matters.
Nice video...the first i saw from you and just subscribed! Unfortunately nowadays companies do not respect the customers at all. I do not know what happened in the past but i can tell for today. It is so obvious that companies spent more budget for marketing than the actual product. Especially when we deal with mechanical devices as turntables, to which every component quality discount has severe audio results. There are so many myths in this hobby that make me puke. I have been at a store to buy a cable, and the seller tried to convince me that a higher quality cable make a dramatic, enormous audio difference that someone should invest serious money to them. I have never heard any difference ever, but even if there is it is so small that there is no reason messing. I want to say that if someone wants a nice system he/she should start choosing 1/ the speakers 2/ the amp then the rest of them and NEVER mess up again with his system, unless he get bored of it after years. Everything else give the opportunity for companies to sell snake oils, and not trying to truly upgrade their products. I have tried new turntables and cannot keep up to older, un-serviced and cheaper ones. The same happens with amplifiers and with headphones and everything else... Hifi has become a big materialism fetish and companies know it...and of course take advantage of it.
78 (DIN-B) is also the given for my 1980s Sony linear-tracker (which is direct-drive).