Vinyl For Beginners

[bmd]

http://bigmikeydread.wordpress.com/2010 ... enis-envy/

[Geoffrey]

Nice post, Mikey! Agree with pretty much everything you say, but especially the bit about this being music. Music for dancing and enjoying. Not music for filing and cataloguing and boasting about.

[bmd]

Thanks Geoffrey,

Glad to see you feel the same way, however I do have to admit to filing and cataloguing and having a detailed database of what I have, but when all is said and done, I don't play the bad tunes, i put on the good ones and dance...

[bmd]

Hi Klaus, I wanted to answer a question that you had on the other thread, about what weight to adjust your tone arm to, for pressure onto the record when playing.

It's good to have this as light as possible, any extra pressure results in extra wear to the record and that means a shorter playing life. However as you'll find out some Jamaican pressed tunes in particular need extra weight just to keep the needle on top of them, so you may have to add more weight than you might want to really.

What I tend to do is take the weight forward until the needle is just touching the playing surface and then add a gram or so of weight, with the Technics there is a handy sliding scale that you can zero and use for this purpose, with others, you may just have to play it carefully!

Of course lazyness may take over and the job of continually re-setting the tone arm weight gets boring so I have tended to leave the weight at that needed for the Jamaican singles. Of course this means that my Micro-groove Mantovani Lps are going to wear out all the quicker, but hey,,,,... they're only Mantovani!

[Klaus5]

Ok thank you for your advice. Ill have to have a little play later, but from what i remember, mine isnt very easy to set the weight/pressure, although its a slidy switch it is more or less either up or down with only slight variation in pressure when stuck somewhere between the 2 extremes which is what lead me to believe it might not be meant to be adjustable, just straight up or down. It doesnt "feel" like its meant to be accurately adjustable.

Well, i will investigate further when i have time later.

How big a deal is tone arm pressure? Should i be concerned about it and begin looking for a turntable upgrade(although i dont think i can really afford one just at the moment). Surely it should be ok to use this bog standard one for the time being without causing major damage?

[bmd]

It sounds to me like your turntable isn't meant to be adjustable, with as you say two positions, up... and... down. so I wouldn't play with it, at the risk of breaking what you have.

There are really only two elements to tone arm 'weight' or downpressure and they are
1. A lighter weight means less wear on your records
2. The correct weight (a matter of trial and error, means the correct tonal response from your stylus. ie, the deeper the groove, the heavier the bass and if your needle isn't reaching the bottom all the time becuase your weight is too light, then less tonal width. however this is really only for worrying about at 'audiophile' levels, and I for one don't get too concerned about it.

Why not try and find friends with different setups and equipment and compare one record you know well on them all, including yours. This could give you an idea about if you think upgrading is worth the expense or not.

I certainly played tunes on equipment that was sub my current standard, a 1210 Mk5 Techinics and the tunes havn't suffered as far as I can hear.

Many people would say that the Technics is more of an old war-horse of a turntable, as opposed to anything truly sophisticated anyway...

I'm really pleased to see someone getting into Vinyl, it was getting to be an old man's sport!

mikey

[jols]

Hey i want to pick some records at dubvendor.co.uk , How secure is buy with credit card in reggae shops like the webs u posted here? , any advise? is more usefull to use paypal or not ? , thanks!!

[nugs]

Paypal is definitely more useful because you're transferring money as opposed to giving someone your card number and letting them charge you. I personally haven't used dub vendor but from what I've heard it is a site you can trust.

[bmd]

Have used places like DubVendor and Early B for years online withut any problem, you can always phone to place your order..... thn again are people any more or less secure than an internet?

[yms]

All, you should be setting the weight based on the specs set out by the cartridge manufacturer. I became slightly obsessed with getting this perfect a while ago and did a lot of research. The conclusion is start at the top end of their recommendations. I was runnning an Audio Technica AT120e and then an Ortofon 2M Red for a while but ironicaly I now run an Ortofon Arkiv Concorde as it plays everything and I can't become obsessive about adjusting the damn thing. Important points:
Cartridge set up in headshell using a cartridge protactor.
Weight set to manufacturer's spec.
VTA set correctly (typically the tone arm should be parallel when a record is playing)
Anti Skate set to same as tracking weight (although if you're running a Hi Fi cart it usually sounds best round about 70% of tracking weight, this is very much down to listening.)
There are pros and cons of using a decent cart vs something like the one I currently run. A good hi fi cart that matches your table will sound lovely BUT will probably struggle with bumps, warps and other crap pressing oddities.
A dj type cart will generally be less forgiving as far as pressings are concerned but will sound nowhere near as good.