VolvoHeretic said:For people with lots of bass or a subwoofer, you need to isolate the turntable from the speakers by placing the turntable in a separate room...
No. You don't.
You need to have it on a surface that the sub is not going to shake. That's not too tough to do. My turn table is maybe 6 feet from my sub.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
Really, I'm pretty sure I have my tone arm and cartridge aligned and balanced correctly and my sub literally bounces the needle out of the grove. I was testing out the turntable before I gave it to my son who also want's to learn the Zen of Vinyl so I can't easily mess around with it.
When I gave him the turntable and my 100 or so wore out records with their snap, crackle, and pop, wow and flutter rumble plus skip I had found a Crown Pre Amp at a second hand store for $10 to isolate the player but I never got around to testing it out. When I used the player, it was sitting on top of 10 concrete 8x8x16 blocks @ 38 lb ea. or 380 pounds of mass loading on the wood 2x10 floor below. It's all on his sholders now.
I've also never had vibrations from music make my records skip. I would imagine that a lot of factors could make it happen, including the turntable itself. My "daily driver" 80's direct drive DJ turntable with its DJ-oriented stylus/cartridge is the equivalent of a monster truck and will play just about everything you throw at it without interruption. It's isolated well and extremely heavy duty.
Beer Baron 🍺 said:VolvoHeretic said:For people with lots of bass or a subwoofer, you need to isolate the turntable from the speakers by placing the turntable in a separate room...
No. You don't.
You need to have it on a surface that the sub is not going to shake. That's not too tough to do. My turn table is maybe 6 feet from my sub.
Hmmm. I would suggest that each individual could have differing results based on the structure of their listening room and the volume levels involved. Listening room floor is concrete slab on grade? Probably going to be fine. Listening room floor is carpet on subfloor on 2-by joists? Plenty of opportunity for a sub to make things bouncy. Heck, if I'm not careful about walking about gingerly, I can easily make a record skip. Home is in good repair, built in 2001.
Obviously, if you listen to vinyl with the dust cover up, it very well illustrates the problem.
Old receivers/amplifiers often had a "subsonic filter" to keep the really low frequencies from being reproduced.
1988RedT2 said:Hmmm. I would suggest that each individual could have differing results based on the structure of their listening room and the volume levels involved. Listening room floor is concrete slab on grade? Probably going to be fine. Listening room floor is carpet on subfloor on 2-by joists? Plenty of opportunity for a sub to make things bouncy. Heck, if I'm not careful about walking about gingerly, I can easily make a record skip. Home is in good repair, built in 2001.
Obviously, if you listen to vinyl with the dust cover up, it very well illustrates the problem.
Ultimately what that means is just that some environments require going to greater lengths in order to isolate the turntable.
The point about the dust cover is a good one though. That is something that could very easily resonate and shake the turntable platter even if the feet are isolated from the floor.
VolvoHeretic said:All of my Stereos have 15 band stereo graphic equalizers to boost the bass that the record companies cut in order to package the grooves on the vinyl.
This is already accounted for in how records are mastered and phono preamps are designed. There is a standardized RIAA Equalization Curve that records are recorded with lower frequencies de-emphasized and higher frequencies emphasized. On playback, the phono preamp reverses this automatically.
This allows longer recording time because the bass takes up less groove width, and attenuates hisses, clicks, and other unpleasant high frequency artifacts of physical recording.
I am not able to perceive a difference in bass levels between a vinyl and digital recording - assuming they are the same master version. (I.e. I might be able to tell between a 197X record and a 20XX digital remaster, but not between a digital version and vinyl version of that same 20XX remaster.)
Beer Baron 🍺 said:I am not able to perceive a difference in bass levels between a vinyl and digital recording - assuming they are the same master version. (I.e. I might be able to tell between a 197X record and a 20XX digital remaster, but not between a digital version and vinyl version of that same 20XX remaster.)
Hm. My understanding is that the reason they went to 12" singles for things like club remixes of dance tracks in the 80s was that the standard groove spacing on a 7" 45 or an LP was too narrow to support the bass levels needed for that market.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Hm. My understanding is that the reason they went to 12" singles for things like club remixes of dance tracks in the 80s was that the standard groove spacing on a 7" 45 or an LP was too narrow to support the bass levels needed for that market.
Here's what Wikipedia says about why 12" singles were used instead 7" singles or LPs.
Twelve-inch singles typically have much shorter playing time than full-length LPs, and thus require fewer grooves per inch. This extra space permits a broader dynamic range or louder recording level as the grooves' excursions ... can be much greater in amplitude, especially in the bass frequencies important for dance music.
...
The disco twelve-inch record came into being from several key developments:
- using the instrumental or backing track with the vocal version to create an extended version, and later on combining outtakes, adlibs and other unused material;
- creating a segued mix of different tracks, the length of which was less suited to a 7-inch record;
- using physically larger and audibly "hotter"[clarification needed] records;
- progressively increasing the awareness and availability of the format through trade publications, record shops and DJ
So it seems like the primary motivating factor for 12" single over 7" was the length of tracks that could be recorded. A 7" 45rpm was limited to about 4 minutes.
It would also have the benefit of being able to record louder, especially on bass-heavy music. (You can record an LP with bass mixed just as high, but you may need to lower the overall volume to preserve space.)
As for using them to DJ instead of an LP... well... yeah. DJ'ing you want singles generally, rather than having to carefully cue up the stylus between tracks on an LP. Less extreme version of why you wouldn't want to DJ with casettes.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
Thanks for the album education, I didn't realize how little I knew about records. 
As a long time audio and vinyl geek, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. I did a ton of research about ten years ago on record cleaning fluid and found some really interesting formulas that, at last check, are nowhere to be found on the internet. I think that wet cleaning is essential. It gets the crap deep in the grooves out and reduces surface noise like no brush system (Discwasher, etc.) can. Not just on that Bob Marley album from goodwill that somebody used as a plate for Taco Bell carry out, but also on new records, and as an occasional refresh to stuff you have cleaned before and played a bunch of times. I had a go at making record cleaning fluid (RCF) commercially and went as far as having a full product developed with bar codes, a website, amazon merchant account, etc., when a friend who was very successful selling on Amazon suggested I might sell about 5-10 a week and I scuttled the whole thing. Might work now with the renewed interest in vinyl.
The best affordable wet vacuum setup I've found is the KAB-1. $150 bucks might seem like a lot, but it works and you're protecting what might become a substantial investment in media. The Vinyl Vac that Tony S improved is very similar in concept.
Anyway, here's what I was using, from memory, since the RCF stuff is in storage:
This stuff is well loved by all my buddies. It does a good job of surpressing static for a while but that doesn't last. DO NOT use anything with alcohol on shellac 78s. It's a good idea to put your clean records in a clean sleeve. The Mobile Fidelity sleeves work well and aren't expensive.
Also... Make sure your cartridge and stylus are in good shape, and at the correct settings. A new cartridge isn't expensive and protects your investment in vinyl. If you're getting fuzzballs on your needle, it's a good sign that your stylus is acting like a chisel passing through the groove. Enough for now, I'll get off my soapbox.
Edit: The website is still live. :-0
http://sonassound.com/home.html
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