11/16/2021
Evening Folks. Hope your spinning is in full force right now and you are enjoying your evening.
Just a Pet Peeve, and that is about sites that talk about the Best
Turntables, or the Top 10. After reading some of the comments from the reviewers, I must tell you that I swear many of them have never played a record or understand anything about how a cartridge tracks or record wear. In that light, I would like to share some of my thoughts about the relationship between record players and records.
My first thought, after reading many posts from you all is that after a couple of years, most of us will acquire somewhere between 100 - 300 LPs. We take them home, clean then, perhaps put on new sleeves and pay attention to how they are stored. A carefully selected record collection can very easily be an investment of $1500 to $3000. You may not have paid that, but once they are brought up to playing condition, that is the likely amount that you would have to shell out if you had to replace them all.
When we read these reviews as presented, they usually focus on features such as automatic in some form, maybe it has a built in phono stage, shows a fancy plastic tone arm, but doesn't offer you any information on how this system will treat your records.
The reality is, if you have table with a mediocre tone arm/cartridge combo, It can easily ruin your record collection within a few short weeks. (This by the way has been gained by experience)
How? In many cases, these inexpensive turntables (specifically the ones like Crosley or it's ilk, or the all in ones that look antique) usually are equipped with Ceramic Cartridges and stylii, these are the turntables that we used to put pennies on the tone arm to stop it from skipping, although now due to inflation toonies and loonies are used (that's a joke BTW). The tracking force exerted is closer to 5 or 7 gms which is horrendous for record wear. Add to that the stylus tip has no real finish or polish that makes it like course sandpaper on the vinyl. The table may look pretty, but it's actually pretty awful!
So, does that mean you have to spend hundreds or thousands? No way! If you look through posts on FB, there are many mentions of turntables like Technics SL-23, early pioneer or Hitachi often available for less than half the price of these new vinyl wreckers. Do yourself a favour when you want to purchase a turntable, consider used. For the princely sum of $200., You can usually get a good running table with a half decent cartridge that will "baby" your vinyl and keep your investment secure. In addition many of these older tables like DUAL, can sound as good or even better that some new $500. turntables! Amazing!!! PS... If you have more to spend, invest in a phono amp - lots available for $200 +
