Vinyl records, original or remastered? Advice required

[MontyVeda]

OK, I say this with a large amount of trepidation, but what is a 'quality' turntable and how much should I be looking to spend?

I certainly can't run to a £15k+ Linn LP12, and I guess my budget for this part of the set-up would be in the £3-500 range. The friend at the start of the post has bought a Audio Technica LP5 which is a direct drive turntable which seems to get great reviews for the £330 purchase price; is there anything else in this price range that I should be considering or comparing this with instead? One of the Project Series or and Elipson, or should i keep my powder dry and save for a more expensive option?

just buy a turntable.

Mine cost £5 from a carboot twenty years ago. I could describe it as shoddy and did spend a while last year looking at upgrading. Should spend £150-200 on a Project of save for something better? In the end i bought some new drive belts off ebay for £3 and just started playing my vinyl again. I sounds fine.

 

[swee'pea99]

OK, I say this with a large amount of trepidation, but what is a 'quality' turntable and how much should I be looking to spend?

I certainly can't run to a £15k+ Linn LP12, and I guess my budget for this part of the set-up would be in the £3-500 range. The friend at the start of the post has bought a Audio Technica LP5 which is a direct drive turntable which seems to get great reviews for the £330 purchase price; is there anything else in this price range that I should be considering or comparing this with instead? One of the Project Series or and Elipson, or should i keep my powder dry and save for a more expensive option?

Ebay is your friend. People upgrade constantly, and excellent little-used stuff sometimes goes for a song. But be prepared to do your homework and bide your time. It took about a year, all told, for me to:

• Replace a NAD 3020i amp with a Cambridge Audio Alpha 8
• Replace a Project 1.2 turntable with a Rega Planar 2
• Replace an Ortofon OM10 cartridge with a Pickering XSV3000

The effect has been transformational. What was a good budget hi-fi has been replaced by a good hi-fi, albeit at the lower end of a mountain whose tops, up there in the clouds, hold 5 grand turntables and cartridges carved of ivory by Tibetan monks.

The total cost was something like £250. But like I say, it took me awhile and I got outbid many times on many things en route. You could doubtless do much the same much faster, but of course you'd pay more that way. Maybe double my budget and spend it well to get in on or around my 'lower floor' relatively quickly & easily. One tip: focus on the cartridge. It's the most important bit. The photographic equivalent would be: it's the lens that matters. (Also true. Having said which, probably much less so than back in the day.)

 

[raleighnut]

OK, I say this with a large amount of trepidation, but what is a 'quality' turntable and how much should I be looking to spend?

I certainly can't run to a £15k+ Linn LP12, and I guess my budget for this part of the set-up would be in the £3-500 range. The friend at the start of the post has bought a Audio Technica LP5 which is a direct drive turntable which seems to get great reviews for the £330 purchase price; is there anything else in this price range that I should be considering or comparing this with instead? One of the Project Series or and Elipson, or should i keep my powder dry and save for a more expensive option?

As others have said 2nd hand is your best bet although the past few years have seen prices rocket as the vinyl 'comeback' has taken hold. My turntable is a modified Thorens TD166 MkII with a Rega RB250 arm (using a dedicated arm board adaptor plate) with a Stilton Audio modified Nagaoka MP11 Boron cartridge sat on a JBL turntable isolation stand, you could put something very similar together for about £700 today (or buy the latest spec Thorens TD166 which has pretty much the same spec for £1600)
Other ones to look out for are AR, Michell, Project 6-9 (higher end) and of course the LP12 (about a grand for a good 2nd hand one) but don't forget something rigid to mount it on either.

 

[Tim Hall]

The rest of your post is reasonable or at least arguable but the harmonics thing is plain wrong. You simply can't hear any higher harmonics which are above the range of hearing. A musical note has harmonics at various multiples of the underlying tone''s frequency -any of the higher harmonics above 15 or 20kHz are simply inaudable and matter not a jot. In any case your speakers won't reproduce then, many (sensibly designed) amps will deliberately filter them out, and they won't even be on the original studio tapes in the first place.

As referenced by @srw upthread:

All the highest notes neither sharp nor flat,
The ear can't hear as high as that.
Still, I ought to please any passing bat,
With my high fidelity.

 

[Profpointy]

I reckon you can get a 2nd hand linn with one of the lesser arms for maybe £500 and a rega or logic for a fair bit less. Ok a latest spec linn with Cirkus upgrade and Ittok or latest arm will be 3 x that (2nd hand), but that's a different thing

 

[raleighnut]

The rest of your post is reasonable or at least arguable but the harmonics thing is plain wrong. You simply can't hear any higher harmonics which are above the range of hearing. A musical note has harmonics at various multiples of the underlying tone''s frequency -any of the higher harmonics above 15 or 20kHz are simply inaudable and matter not a jot. In any case your speakers won't reproduce then, many (sensibly designed) amps will deliberately filter them out, and they won't even be on the original studio tapes in the first place.

There are harmonics both above and below the note.

 

[Profpointy]

There are harmonics both above and below the note.

Below ? Or is that where the (say) 2nd harmonic is loudest and presumably then the "note" you percieve but there's still a quiet "undertone" an octave below ? Does this happen?

I guess with the longer organ pipes the "note" is felt rather than heard, but you can hear the overtones. The organ bit after the first section of Zarathustra is near silent unless you've very big speakers indeed

 

[raleighnut]

Below ? Or is that where the (say) 2nd harmonic is loudest and presumably then the "note" you percieve but there's still a quiet "undertone" an octave below ? Does this happen?

I guess with the longer organ pipes the "note" is felt rather than heard, but you can hear the overtones. The organ bit after the first section of Zarathustra is near silent unless you've very big speakers indeed

Best illustration I can find of spectral analysis of a note,



I seem to remember being told it was due to 'nodal reinforcement' (it was 35yrs or so ago*) but it does show frequencies below the fundamental note.

* it could have been hifi salesman's bull though as he was demoing a cartridge that reproduced up to 35KHz (some even claim to go to 40KHz or more)

 

[srw]

Below ? Or is that where the (say) 2nd harmonic is loudest and presumably then the "note" you percieve but there's still a quiet "undertone" an octave below ? Does this happen?

I guess with the longer organ pipes the "note" is felt rather than heard, but you can hear the overtones. The organ bit after the first section of Zarathustra is near silent unless you've very big speakers indeed

Or are sitting on the organ bench. If anyone wants to hire me to play the organ part, I'm sure we can negotiate a fee!

The lowest note of a standard 16' pedal on most organs is 33Hz, says Profgoogle, with a wavelength of (guess what?) 16', or about 5 metres. A double bass bottom note is a third higher, which is the lowest you'll get in an orchestra. So your speaker will need to be acoustically similar enough to a tube 16' long to cover a standard symphony orchestra (or even a standard pop quartet). I don't know enough about speaker acoustics to know whether that's feasible in a living-room-sized box. I'd guess not, based on the fact that you can set up a 16' standing wave in an 8' stopped pipe, but will struggle to get it out of anything smaller - which is why organ pipes are as big as they are.

A 32' pedal stop (only on the largest cathedral and concert hall organs) will be 16Hz or so. I'd like to see the domestic speaker (or even domestic room) that can cope with that.

I suppose it's not utterly implausible that some stringed instruments have a quiet "undertone", but it seems rather unlikely to me. Based on the picture just posted, there's no evidence of undertones - you'd expect a peak at perhaps 70Hz and another at 35Hz, where there are distinct silences. I'm no expert, but that looks like white noise, either background noise from the room and the recording/analysis equipment or else (if it's a wind instrument) the player's breath.

 

[raleighnut]

Or are sitting on the organ bench. If anyone wants to hire me to play the organ part, I'm sure we can negotiate a fee!

The lowest note of a standard 16' pedal on most organs is 33Hz, says Profgoogle, with a wavelength of (guess what?) 16', or about 5 metres. A double bass bottom note is a third higher, which is the lowest you'll get in an orchestra. So your speaker will need to be acoustically similar enough to a tube 16' long to cover a standard symphony orchestra (or even a standard pop quartet). I don't know enough about speaker acoustics to know whether that's feasible in a living-room-sized box. I'd guess not, based on the fact that you can set up a 16' standing wave in an 8' stopped pipe, but will struggle to get it out of anything smaller - which is why organ pipes are as big as they are.

A 32' pedal stop (only on the largest cathedral and concert hall organs) will be 16Hz or so. I'd like to see the domestic speaker (or even domestic room) that can cope with that.

I suppose it's not utterly implausible that some stringed instruments have a quiet "undertone", but it seems rather unlikely to me. Based on the picture just posted, there's no evidence of undertones - you'd expect a peak at perhaps 70Hz and another at 35Hz, where there are distinct silences. I'm no expert, but that looks like white noise, either background noise from the room and the recording/analysis equipment or else (if it's a wind instrument) the player's breath.

Its a spectral analysis of a guitar string.

 

[Profpointy]

Best illustration I can find of spectral analysis of a note,



I seem to remember being told it was due to 'nodal reinforcement' (it was 35yrs or so ago*) but it does show frequencies below the fundamental note.

* it could have been hifi salesman's bull though as he was demoing a cartridge that reproduced up to 35KHz (some even claim to go to 40KHz or more)

Not really my field but can't gelp noticing the below fundamental spikes are some 30dB below the fundamental. ie 0 .1% of the fundamental if I read it right. Presumably rumble or mains hum rather than anything to do with the note itself.

Anyhow "nodal reinforcement" - mmm?
You'd certainly not hear 35kHz even if the system could reproduce it, which it can't, and indeed shouldn't - but anyway 35kHz won't be on the record in the first place -at least, not as actual original signal.

 

[srw]

Its a spectral analysis of a guitar string.

Depending on the kind of guitar, the bulge at the bottom is either the rumble of the guitar body, or if it's one of those horrible electric things it's the noise of the amplifier. And yes, @Profpointy is right (even if he means Hz, not kHz!) - one of the few things I know about acoustics is that dB is a logarithmic scale, so 30dB is 1,000 times quieter. Probably inaudible.

 

[Profpointy]

Depending on the kind of guitar, the bulge at the bottom is either the rumble of the guitar body, or if it's one of those horrible electric things it's the noise of the amplifier. And yes, @Profpointy is right (even if he means Hz, not kHz!) - one of the few things I know about acoustics is that dB is a logarithmic scale, so 30dB is 1,000 times quieter. Probably inaudible.

I did mean kHz refering to the top end extension - a different point. Should have had 2nd paragraph I guess

 

[Tim Hall]

The lowest note of a standard 16' pedal on most organs is 33Hz, says Profgoogle, with a wavelength of (guess what?) 16', or about 5 metres. A double bass bottom note is a third higher, which is the lowest you'll get in an orchestra. So your speaker will need to be acoustically similar enough to a tube 16' long to cover a standard symphony orchestra (or even a standard pop quartet). I don't know enough about speaker acoustics to know whether that's feasible in a living-room-sized box. I'd guess not, based on the fact that you can set up a 16' standing wave in an 8' stopped pipe, but will struggle to get it out of anything smaller - which is why organ pipes are as big as they are..

Wavelength is velocity/frequency. Velocity (speed of sound in air) is 343ms^-1, so for a frequency of 33Hz, wavelength will be 10.4m (around 34 feet).

 

[srw]

Wavelength is velocity/frequency. Velocity (speed of sound in air) is 343ms^-1, so for a frequency of 33Hz, wavelength will be 10.4m (around 34 feet).

Damn you and your science. You're right - within the pipe you only get half a full wavelength.