[gooberdude]

I'm in the same boat as Josh....31 and started out with my folks collection & their TT.     I have no knolwedge of whether or not as a medium vinyl is better, but its the only medium that's ever made me stop & listen.

Using a record cleaning machine is needed, but a good friend of mine has very few nasties in his collection, and he hasn't RCM'd any.   However, he only buys new LP's.

Seems like the last 3-4 years has been a resurgence in vinyl...lots more tables avail & bands are releasing albums on wax that didn't just a few years ago.

Ween just re-released Chocloate & Cheese...a fantastic album cover!    its a good time to be an analog freak i guess.   

[Wayner]

This is a great thread! So many things covered and we are only on page 3. I have to bring up one point that was made mention earlier but not in depth. Cartridge alignment is a bitch, period. It can't be ignored either. I have studied the geometry in depth (with my CAD) and it is really scary. Three factors in plan view are: pivot to stylus distance, overhang (distance from stylus to spindle center), and offset angle. Pivot to stylus distance and overhang are kind of the same thing but as distances change, that affects the offset angle. There are some folks that think that standard aligment protractors work, but I've proved with my CAD that it does not. Actually, my VPI is designed to Baerwalds perfect curve with proper overhang (for a 9.00" tonearm) and I have made aligment protractors myself, printing them full scale. They work very well. They are a bitch to set up as you have to go back and forth between 2 points while also observing 90 degree cross hairs. Someday I will post a picture.

By the way, Baerwalds perfect curve for a 9.00" arm requires a .715" overhang and a 24.128 degree offset angle. Most overhang distances are controlled by the turntable manufacturer by the fact that they planted the tone arm where they wanted. not much choice but to adjust for offset angle.

W

[TheChairGuy]

Wayner - I wish I understood more than 50% of what you're saying here - it SOUNDS important, tho   Post some pics so I can wrap my oft-feeble brain around the other 50%.

This is a good thread...I've no idea why Jeff/JLM thought it would be a contentious debate over it   Seems like a helpful topic to me  aa

[TONEPUB]

I agree with Darth.   It's all about the dirt.  I've bought a lot of used records too
and I've had great luck with getting them clean again.  Scratches are another
story, can't fix that.

The Art du Son fluid is great stuff.  I've had good luck with Record Research
on new vinyl and Todd the Vinyl Junkies Vinyl Zyme on really dirty records.

Table setup and keeping the stylus clean is a big part too, but I've been doing
the ritual for so long now, it's not a big deal.

Honestly, I enjoy both formats.  More often than not, analog has that last
bit of "reach out and touch it-ness" that CD doesn't always have, but I've
been listening to some great digital lately.

Either way, once you conquer the noise issues, LP's are just fine!  It's just
a matter of if you want the ritual or not!

[eric the red]

Wayner - I wish I understood more than 50% of what you're saying here - it SOUNDS important, tho   Post some pics so I can wrap my oft-feeble brain around the other 50%.

TCG-call me and I'll send you some tones that will align your cartridge.

[Wayner]

this is the geomety.......................

[JoshK]

I agree that setting up a cartridge is a royal PITA.  When I built my Teres base, I had to figure out where the tonearm was suppose to be mounted relative to the base...not easy since you have too many variable to make it an easy solution.

[Daverz]

Every component in the analog chain -- turntable, tonearm, cartridge, and phono pre-amp -- has a effect on how bothersome surface noise is to the listener.  Every component I've chosen was tested out on some of my mediocre budget and thrift shop Lps to see how well it did in putting surface noise into the background (well, except for the tonearm, which came from my old Rega).  Of the phono pre-amps that I've heard, the Rogue Audio Stealth does a really good job at this.  And, yes, you do build up a certain tolerance to the noise after a while.

That said, you do need to be picky when buying used Lps.   If you're serious about collecting, you'll need a record cleaning machine. You may need to buy extra copies of an Lp until you get one that's quiet enough.  For an Lp that has some precious music on it and just too many clicks and pops, you can try doing a digital transfer and running the file through a program like ClickRepair.  It can't do anything for worn Lps, though.  And -- if it's available, and they've done a good job on the transfer -- I'll often just get the commercial CD.

[lcrim]

You can't use just any protractor with just any table, they have to be matched.  I can't believe that this is big news.   I have a protractor that came w/ my Dual and the Technics comes with a jig for mounting the cartridge in the head shell.  
Exactly where to position the pivot point of the tonearm when using a tonearm not included with the TT is very critical.  The cartridge must end up in a place where it is always parallel to to the track being played.  Very often an armboard with the hole already bored for a specific arm can be found but not always.
Surface noise can't always be cleaned away.  The area of the groove wall which the stylus contacts may be worn by older, inexpensive cartride styli.  Often a particular stylus design may ride in the groove in a way that avoids earlier wear.  
Not every LP I own is perfectly quiet because I have some older worn records.  As my equipment improved the less surface noise hurt my enjoyment.  Better cartridges on better tonearms and TT's as well as a vacuum cleaning machine all help reduce surface noise.  I now check my stylus w/ a magnifier I bought on eBay and its amazing how much crud I find picked up on the stylus even with very clean records. 
BTW, I don't ever use anything but distilled water and a very small amount of dish washing liquid.   Also, mold release is a myth.  The cleanest a record ever gets is when it is first pressed.
If you can't stand the ocassional click or pop then I expect that vinyl is not for you.  I have a few treasures that I cherish even though they aren't perfectly silent. 

[Scott F.]

The cleanest a record ever gets is when it is first pressed.

I really don't mean to push back here but are you saying that the waxy chemicals (salts of stearic acid) used for thermal protection during the vinyl stamping process don't leave a residue after pressing? Those should be washed off the (new) record so they don't gum up your stylus. Trouble is your typical alcohol based cleaner won't sufficiently solutionize those chemicals so you can remove them.

Do you need to remove them? That part is debatable I suppose but if you want all of the detail vinyl can give, I suggest that you wash that gunk off. There is a difference in the sound with and without a proper first cleaning on a new record.

Also, mold release is a myth.

I think you are confusing mold (as in staccibotris) with mold (as in an injection mold).

Records do get moldy, Lord knows I have plenty of those. Any good record cleaning solution and brushes like the Disc Doctor (and others) will remove the spores.





Guys, all of you vinyl fanatics are scaring away the newbies with your talk about how difficult it is to setup a turntable. Sure, to 'dial it in' can be tedious but a decent table installed on a level rack with a fairly accurate tracking weight and antiskate adjustment will get you 90% of the where you want to be. The rest is for those hardcore vinyl Geeks (don't worry, my stylus gauge goes out to two decimal places).

[BobRex]

How many of you that "enjoy" vinyl already had a collection of LPs before and during the early years of CD?

Count me as one who had maybe 2500 records before CD ever bacame a reality.  Everything was bought new and used through a number of different tables and carts.  I said this before, but it's worth repeating:  The better your set up, not just alignment and such, but EQUIPMENT, the less the noise.  Some of my worst noise problems came with cheap tables (Japanese, typically DD - I won't mention names, that opens up too many worm cans) and mediocre cartridges - typically MM. 

Oh, I'm up to about 3500 records since CD, less than 100 of them were bought used, and noise still isn't a problem.

[gooberdude]

Since this thread is about surface noise, and BobRex and others have mentioned the associated equipment, mainly phono preamp.....How does a good phono preamp work to reduce this?

I've only dabbled in the budget stages, but think the design of the phono stage has a lot to do with the noise normally associated with vinyl.    the first time i spun an LP with the VPP-1 it was like, where'd all the crackle & pops go?

if all other variables are constant, how can a 'stage let out less noise?    i'm not talking of the husshhhhh sounds that really cheap stages make, but actual groove/stylus interaction noise.


Scott F is right, its easy to get a bit scared of vinyl after hearing us yalk.       the underlying theme though is that vinyl is fun, right???   

[Scott F.]

Icrim dropped me a PM with this link that seems to counter the mold release statement I made.

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=vinyl&n=632424&highlight=mold+release+agent&session=

Tell you what, I'll make a phone call or two today and see if I can't get to the bottom of this.

[BobRex]

It's more than just the phono amp. 

1)The better cartridges ride lower in the groove and can play areas that basic ellipticals and conicals can't access.  Also, better carts decode the noise differently (more on this later.)  Better arms also typically have better wiring, and yes, that can make a difference.

2)The better arms are better damped which tends to not amplify the noise transients.  Basically it's the resonance characteristic of the arms.  BTW - the damped arms also removes the hyper detailing that comes from these resonances.

3)The better tables typically have better damped platters and clamping mechanisms which also tend to reduce the vinyl resonances at the interface.  Oh, and please don't tell me that you put 40 pounds of clay into your Technics platter, You can mod the hell out of anything - I'm talking stock.  Better isolation helps too.

4)Now let's talk about the phono stage.  Phono stages typically won't reduce the noise so much as they decode it differently.  Lesser phono stages tend to decode the noise are part of the signal, overlaying the noise in such a way as to make it integral to the music.  The better phono stages decode the noise separately from the signal, such that it sounds independent of the music and is more readily ignored.  The noise may still be there, but it's less intrusive.  I'll use HP's old window pane analogy.  Consider that there is a pane of glass between you and the music.  Dirt on the glass (surface noise) will have more impact if the glass is close to the performers (lesser stages) than if the glass were closer to you (better stages) where you can actually look around the dirt.  Another way to look at it is with eye glasses.  Those of us that wear glasses know they can get pretty crummy before the dirt becomes annoying.

[TheChairGuy]

Bob,

How can a cartridge and a preamp decode nose from signal...got me lost there    Amplification is amplification (be it quiet, noisy, accurate or innacurate) - unless it's otherwise filtered (ie, subsonic filtering - which the CIAudio phono pre's have - can remove a layer of noise one never knew existed).  Infrasonic filtering can help, too.

Damped arms, damped headshell, damped interconnects - I understand critical damping as profoundly important to noise levels.  I totally get the use of fine line or hyper-elliptical stylus shapes that ride where heavy-handed conicals have not previously. I concur about wet washing/vacuum cleaning with cleaner/anti-static agent.  I even recently found that better table isolation and or drainage removes noise from the equation (much like a filter)...so that clicks and pops are relatively de-emphasized on the playback side.

But actually decoding noise from signal in cartridges and preamps.....this, I'd like to hear more about as it's entirely new to me 

Now this topic is really morphing into technical side....newbies, hang in there or turn off at this point.  We don't want to scare you away further from vinyl now that we reeled you in 

[WGH]

But actually decoding noise from signal in cartridges and preamps.....this, I'd like to hear more about as it's entirely new to me 

This would be a good place for the one of AC manufacturers who have been designing phono stages for a while like Jim Hagerman or Frank Van Alstine to jump in and educate us.

[gooberdude]

I marinated on my last post last night....i'm probably way off in my statement about phono preamps.    i've owned 4 difft ones, all budget stages under $300 or so.     the changes i hear witht he VPP-1 compared to others are probably due to increased signal-to-noise ratio, better overall design & the lack of glare that i found in most stages at this level.


is it safe to assume that in order to truly reduce surface noise is what others have posted??   damping the tonearm, using a cartr with a fine line stylus (Ex: AT 440LMa) and a phono stage with low noise and a beefed up power supply + using an RCM?      Correct alignment should be there too....

If so, these are all attainable for a newbie, just takes some trial & error...and lots of questions here at the Vinyl Circle.
 

[lazydays]

Prompted by a suggestion by member 'JLM' in an Audio Central topic recently...he and I would like to know 'how do you cope with it' and still wanna' listen to music on vinyl?

*first thing is to pitch the cartridge and get another one
*second thing is to really learn to deep clean an LP
         (I use a home brew, and RRL deep cleaner)
*buy a good brush
*sleeves
*Check your cartridge alignment (had that problem with a couple Denons)
gary

[lazydays]

Since this thread is about surface noise, and BobRex and others have mentioned the associated equipment, mainly phono preamp.....How does a good phono preamp work to reduce this?

I've only dabbled in the budget stages, but think the design of the phono stage has a lot to do with the noise normally associated with vinyl.    the first time i spun an LP with the VPP-1 it was like, where'd all the crackle & pops go?

if all other variables are constant, how can a 'stage let out less noise?    i'm not talking of the husshhhhh sounds that really cheap stages make, but actual groove/stylus interaction noise.


Scott F is right, its easy to get a bit scared of vinyl after hearing us yalk.       the underlying theme though is that vinyl is fun, right???   

I think the phono preamp does amplify the noise to a certain extent. I've use four different ones in the past, but never really noticed this problem to any real degree.
The last two I've owned are dead quiet when it comes to what's on the disc. The new AVA one is so quiet that you'd think I forgot to turn it on! In my opinion I think cables are more a problem than the phono stage. I use nothing but ZU's, but have a really neat Van Duhall setting in the box waiting on me.
    Lastly I think one should be more concerned with feed back and the basic T.T. setup.
If your running a direct drive, you really got to attack the feed back thing. Get rid of the lid when spinning a record. It's nothing but an antenna for catching feedback. Also I've found that if the VTF is set on the light side it will cause surface noise (I always run my tables at + .1 gram over the spec).
gary

[TheChairGuy]

Definitely - ditching that lid is a must during playback. BIG difference with it on and off.