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Do you consider yourself to be an Audiophile? You know, a person who is especially interested in high-quality, high-fidelity sound reproduction. If you answered ‘no’ to that question then you will probably be happy with using you current turntable, or going with a relatively inexpensive USB turntable to simplify the conversion project.

However, if you answered ‘yes’ then you are the type of person that looks at the bit rate of MP3 files, has high-end noise canceling headphones, and cleans your records before and after each use. If that sounds like you then read on.

There are three major components that contribute to the overall sound quality when it comes to playing vinyl records, the turntable, the amplifier, and the speakers. Of these three, the turntable contribute to 2/3 of the overall experience. Believe it or not, the amplifier only weighs in at 15% and the speakers at 20%. Why is this so? Because the turntable is the primary source of the sound reproduction. In the vinyl world, everything is about vibration and properly controlling it. Because the movements of the stylus needles are so unimaginably small, the output must be amplified to the magnitude of ~8,000x in order to produce a suitable output. This also means that the slightest bit of unwanted vibrations is also amplified resulting in imperfections. A turntable that can successfully minimize these unwanted vibrations will produce a highly superior product for the audiophile.

What Features are most important?

So now that we know that the turntable contributes to 2/3 of the quality and listening experience, lets breakdown the turntable and see what features contribute the most in order of importance:

Turntable Design………………………40%
Tone Arm……………………………………30%
Pre-Amp……………………………………..15%
Needle/Stylus/Cartridge………….10%
Environment……………………………….5%

This may surprise a lot of you, but remember that it’s all about eliminating unwanted vibrations so if you think of it in that manner it all makes sense.

 
Turntable Design

• Belt Drive is preferred over Direct Drive primarily because the belt itself will absorb more of the unwanted vibrations generated by the motor.
• DC power is preferred over AC power because of the electronic noise generated by AC.
• Suspended Sub-Chassis is preferred in order to absorb external vibrations.
• Strobe marked platter for rotation speed fine adjustments.
• A cover is recommended to also absorb external vibrations.

Tone Arm

The tone arm is especially important. The fact is that a high end tone arm with a low end needle will outperform a low end tone arm with a high end needle every day of the week. The reason for this is that the needle must have the proper SUPPORT in order to reproduce the sound effectively. Tone arm calibration is critical for correct playback of records. An improperly calibrated tone arm can result in skipping needles, increased record wear, decreased stylus life, and overall poor fidelity. There are three settings that affect tonearm calibration: weight (tracking force), anti-skate, and height. In order for your stylus to be at its best, all three of these settings must be correct and working in harmony.Desired features of a quality tone arm are:
• - Rigid metal construction to create a solid foundation for the stylus.
• - Weight (tracking force) adjustment with a counter-balance at the opposite end of the tone arm.
• - Anti-Skate adjustment to insure the stylus is tracking in the center of the groove.
• - Height adjustment to maximize the desired vibrations and minimize record and needle wear.

PreAmp
The PreAmp is much more important than the amplifier because it contributes to over 80% of the amplification (95% in the bass frequencies) of the low output signal generated by the needle & cartridge. The job of the preamp simply put is to amplify the cartridges output to line level (~ 2 volts), restore the natural frequencies, and filter out noise. Different types of cartridges present different noise challenges.

Some turntables come with an integrated preamp, but rarely do they ever come close to the quality produced by a stand-alone preamp. Why? Because they have to share power with the other turntable components, and quite frankly it’s not a high-impact selling feature of a turntable so manufacturers don’t invest a lot in the design of this feature.

Desired features in phono preamps are:

• - Make sure to properly match he preamp to the type of cartridge you are using, MM or MC. A preamp resigned to handle both is optimum.
• - external power supply or battery power to isolate power generated noise.
• - A high S/N ratio (signal-to-noise) measured in db. 70Db is ok, but 85db or better is desired. If it doesn’t have a rating, then it’s probably not good.
• - Low tolerance resistors to provide accurate equalization.
• - Adjustable output so that you can tweak the line-in levels for different recordings.
• - If you are using a MC cartridge, a dip switch to select between high impedance/low impedance output is desired.

Needle(Stylus) & Cartridge

There are two types, MM (Moving Magnet) and MC (Moving Coil). If you are using a MC cartridge, you have stepped into the high end as they generally have a higher price tag associated with them. The debate is ongoing regarding the superiority of MC over MM as far as sound reproduction. Our recommendation is to save your money and stick with MM cartridges at this time unless your system is specifically designed for MC cartridges.

Features to look for are:

• - Select a cartridge with a head shell that will fit your tone arm.
• - A cartridge that will allow you to remove and replace the stylus is preferred.
• - A stylus with a micro-ridge, elliptical, hyper-elliptical or Shibata tip will produce the best sound quality.

Environment
This is mostly common sense regarding where you place your turntable and related components. As you layout your system, keep in mind that you need to minimize GROUND and AIRBORN vibrations and make sure that your system is properly shielded from external electrical and RF noise.

• - Turntable placement should be such that it wont be affected by speaker vibrations.
• - Place it on a solid surface that is cushioned from ground vibrations.
• - Isolate the turntable for power circuits that are servicing other components that could generate unwanted electrical noise if your turntable does not have a DC power supply.

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