For people who don't want to read a long article, Here I document my Journey from -> Like (to) Hate (and then to) Love Turntables.
Well before I start my rant let me first share my beginings ,
After reading about how turntables are the last word in audio fidelity , I had to try it. I wanted to buy a new Turntable but almost everyone told me that
I am better off getting an older used one in good condition, rather than a new one.
So I went ahead and got a Used AKAI Turn table (I think it was AP-D210 - Direct Drive with servo lock.) with a new Audio Technics cartridge. I got the usual old and new Records the new ones were Laagan , DDLJ, Silsila (new release) 1942 a love story etc and for the older LPs I got Miles Davis, Boney M , Bee gees etc.
The Honeymoon (Every thing is new and great )
-------------------------------------------------------------
I have an ONKYO 609 , it does not have a phono preamp so I got a Cambridge audio Preamp and connected it to my AV receiver with ELAC FS 58.2 speakers. When I played DDLJ It was ok , then I played Marvin Gaye It was great. I was actually surprised that such good sound can come from an old Turntable. I started getting more vintage and new LPs and they all sounded great , I did hear the pops and clicks but I knew that it was a
part of the medium.
Back from the Honeymoon (The cute things start to annoy you).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Well every one told me that I had to expect pops and clicks in the records and this is normal because of the dust particles on the LPs. I tried hard, but I was never able to get rid of them completely, no matter how hard I cleaned the records. They were always there. They were more on the vintage records. This was getting a little annoying.
The next was that the speed of the turntable was not always the same so I could actually hear the songs slow down and speed up. Then I found that most 80s & 90s desi records were not well produced, so much so that even the center hole of the record were not in the center. This made the tone arm drift (left to right) , leading to the sound volume increasing and decreasing. And a lot of records were a little warped so the tonearm and the cartridge was going up and down this again was leading to sound volume and range changing continuously.
I also started clearly noticing that the Left and Right channels were not having the same volume level and range. Well I know now why old amps needed to have a Balance control.
A little reading let me to understand that over time the following parameters keep changing in the turntable and need periodic adjustments. You actually also have to have this setup properly to start with.
1)Cartridge Alignment ( Tracking Angle )
2)Azimuth
3)Vertical Tracking Force (VTF)
4)Zenith
5)Base Leveling etc.
There were long multi-page articles about setting up and using the turn table.
Then there were these products like alignment protractors, VTF gauges etc.
Even if I do all of the above perfectly , I knew , I will still get clicks and pops from the dust and any time someone walks by or taps the table that I have the Turntable on , I could hear it. I even tried a Valve AMP with the CA preamp to see if it improves the sound to make it worthwhile, well it did a little but not to the point I was expecting.
I never have to do any of the above for my CDs or FLAC files from my USB HDD and the music from them sound great. No Clicks or pops , no volume level drifts, no speed issues (even if they were, not noticeable by me). Then for digital music there is the convenience of having a few GB on a NAS or HDD and have any song play at anytime from my DLNA manager instead of manually loading the LPs. Well at least from the sound quality I was getting from LPs and TT, it was not worth the extra effort.
I thought that people who say that LPs sound better than CDs and Flacs, were smoking something or like everything nostalgic you feel that things were much better earlier (even though they were not). So I packed up the turntable and went back to the FLACs.
The Re-discovery , Realization and Appreciation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There was a nagging feeling for me that maybe I missed something and there is something to LPs and turntables. I thought maybe I got some of the components wrong like using an AV receiver instead of a stereo amp and using a separate preamp instead of an AMP with phono input. Maybe my Speakers were suited for HT and not for Stereo Music.
I hunted around and I got a vintage Denon PMA 480R amp with phono preamp. I hooked this up to the AKAI TT and ELAC and I could notice a sound improvement. It sounded louder and I could make out more detail, I knew I was on the right track. I had a EPOS M12i in my bedroom, I knew that EPOS was suited for music. I hooked up the EPOS to the Denon and the sound improved greatly but still I could not get rid of the speed and volume issues with the turntable so I requested the guys who sold me the AKAI ( Mohan Musicals Chennai ) for an upgrade. Many thanks to them they gave me a trade in to a Technics SL 5100 with a Shure M44-7 Cartridge with a brand new stylus.
With this setup I played Silsia and I must say IT BLEW ME AWAY. I don't know what it was. It was not the purity, I could still hear the clicks and pops, It was not the Freq Range, the tweeters and the sub-woofer in my Onkyo setup have much better range. It was something else altogether. It was PRESENSE. I could feel as if someone was playing in front of me. I tried other LPs and they were all the same, they all had a presence that the FLACS never had. I could for the first time understand the concept of the sound stage. This Vintage Turntable and amp with EPOS speakers were sounding better than my ELAC setup. This was actually more musical.
Digital music is clear and perfect but never real. LPs are REAL. I don't know weather it is in the recording , or the analog playback path, LPs have for the first time made me Feel the music (not the BASS thumping feel but Emotional Feel). It might not have the perfection of the digital but I now know why it appeals to so many. For the first time I felt that Amitabh bachchan was talking in front of me (Silsila LP). I could hear marvin gaye sing in my living room.
I will not call LPs better than CDs in terms of quality. I know from experience, for LPs to sound comparable to CDs you have to get so many things right. The gear should be matched, the cartridge should have exact alignments , levels etc. Once you have them its very easy to surpass the CD / FLAC quality. I guess that is the reason we can never have the ultimate TT no matter how much we are willing to spend, they can always improve something to get better sound.
I have started appreciating Music more than ever before. I can now see what the guys who are playing it are trying to convey. I now can see so many dimensions of music that I never could see , feel or understand.
I would defiantly say that even though you can hear Clicks Pops and noise,
LPs convey music Much Much better than CDs or Flacs any day.
Well isn't that what we all want ?
Well before I start my rant let me first share my beginings ,
After reading about how turntables are the last word in audio fidelity , I had to try it. I wanted to buy a new Turntable but almost everyone told me that
I am better off getting an older used one in good condition, rather than a new one.
So I went ahead and got a Used AKAI Turn table (I think it was AP-D210 - Direct Drive with servo lock.) with a new Audio Technics cartridge. I got the usual old and new Records the new ones were Laagan , DDLJ, Silsila (new release) 1942 a love story etc and for the older LPs I got Miles Davis, Boney M , Bee gees etc.
The Honeymoon (Every thing is new and great )
-------------------------------------------------------------
I have an ONKYO 609 , it does not have a phono preamp so I got a Cambridge audio Preamp and connected it to my AV receiver with ELAC FS 58.2 speakers. When I played DDLJ It was ok , then I played Marvin Gaye It was great. I was actually surprised that such good sound can come from an old Turntable. I started getting more vintage and new LPs and they all sounded great , I did hear the pops and clicks but I knew that it was a
part of the medium.
Back from the Honeymoon (The cute things start to annoy you).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Well every one told me that I had to expect pops and clicks in the records and this is normal because of the dust particles on the LPs. I tried hard, but I was never able to get rid of them completely, no matter how hard I cleaned the records. They were always there. They were more on the vintage records. This was getting a little annoying.
The next was that the speed of the turntable was not always the same so I could actually hear the songs slow down and speed up. Then I found that most 80s & 90s desi records were not well produced, so much so that even the center hole of the record were not in the center. This made the tone arm drift (left to right) , leading to the sound volume increasing and decreasing. And a lot of records were a little warped so the tonearm and the cartridge was going up and down this again was leading to sound volume and range changing continuously.
I also started clearly noticing that the Left and Right channels were not having the same volume level and range. Well I know now why old amps needed to have a Balance control.
A little reading let me to understand that over time the following parameters keep changing in the turntable and need periodic adjustments. You actually also have to have this setup properly to start with.
1)Cartridge Alignment ( Tracking Angle )
2)Azimuth
3)Vertical Tracking Force (VTF)
4)Zenith
5)Base Leveling etc.
There were long multi-page articles about setting up and using the turn table.
Then there were these products like alignment protractors, VTF gauges etc.
Even if I do all of the above perfectly , I knew , I will still get clicks and pops from the dust and any time someone walks by or taps the table that I have the Turntable on , I could hear it. I even tried a Valve AMP with the CA preamp to see if it improves the sound to make it worthwhile, well it did a little but not to the point I was expecting.
I never have to do any of the above for my CDs or FLAC files from my USB HDD and the music from them sound great. No Clicks or pops , no volume level drifts, no speed issues (even if they were, not noticeable by me). Then for digital music there is the convenience of having a few GB on a NAS or HDD and have any song play at anytime from my DLNA manager instead of manually loading the LPs. Well at least from the sound quality I was getting from LPs and TT, it was not worth the extra effort.
I thought that people who say that LPs sound better than CDs and Flacs, were smoking something or like everything nostalgic you feel that things were much better earlier (even though they were not). So I packed up the turntable and went back to the FLACs.
The Re-discovery , Realization and Appreciation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There was a nagging feeling for me that maybe I missed something and there is something to LPs and turntables. I thought maybe I got some of the components wrong like using an AV receiver instead of a stereo amp and using a separate preamp instead of an AMP with phono input. Maybe my Speakers were suited for HT and not for Stereo Music.
I hunted around and I got a vintage Denon PMA 480R amp with phono preamp. I hooked this up to the AKAI TT and ELAC and I could notice a sound improvement. It sounded louder and I could make out more detail, I knew I was on the right track. I had a EPOS M12i in my bedroom, I knew that EPOS was suited for music. I hooked up the EPOS to the Denon and the sound improved greatly but still I could not get rid of the speed and volume issues with the turntable so I requested the guys who sold me the AKAI ( Mohan Musicals Chennai ) for an upgrade. Many thanks to them they gave me a trade in to a Technics SL 5100 with a Shure M44-7 Cartridge with a brand new stylus.
With this setup I played Silsia and I must say IT BLEW ME AWAY. I don't know what it was. It was not the purity, I could still hear the clicks and pops, It was not the Freq Range, the tweeters and the sub-woofer in my Onkyo setup have much better range. It was something else altogether. It was PRESENSE. I could feel as if someone was playing in front of me. I tried other LPs and they were all the same, they all had a presence that the FLACS never had. I could for the first time understand the concept of the sound stage. This Vintage Turntable and amp with EPOS speakers were sounding better than my ELAC setup. This was actually more musical.
Digital music is clear and perfect but never real. LPs are REAL. I don't know weather it is in the recording , or the analog playback path, LPs have for the first time made me Feel the music (not the BASS thumping feel but Emotional Feel). It might not have the perfection of the digital but I now know why it appeals to so many. For the first time I felt that Amitabh bachchan was talking in front of me (Silsila LP). I could hear marvin gaye sing in my living room.
I will not call LPs better than CDs in terms of quality. I know from experience, for LPs to sound comparable to CDs you have to get so many things right. The gear should be matched, the cartridge should have exact alignments , levels etc. Once you have them its very easy to surpass the CD / FLAC quality. I guess that is the reason we can never have the ultimate TT no matter how much we are willing to spend, they can always improve something to get better sound.
I have started appreciating Music more than ever before. I can now see what the guys who are playing it are trying to convey. I now can see so many dimensions of music that I never could see , feel or understand.
I would defiantly say that even though you can hear Clicks Pops and noise,
LPs convey music Much Much better than CDs or Flacs any day.
Well isn't that what we all want ?