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Forgive me if I have shared this here before (I seem to recall I have). From time to time when I see discussions of trading one turntable for another I am reminded that 98% of ultimate performance once you reach a certain level of table is in the set-up. I venture to say from my own experience with about eight tables in the last ten years that very few of us have our talbes set up optimally. It is truly a shame. In the tenth grade i took a photography class offered at my high school as an alternative to shop. Ironically, it was a shop teacher who taught the class-a great guy named R.D. Reynolds who moonlighted as a wedding photographer. The first day of class, we all assembled around a bunch of tables placed in a circle all proud of our parents' SLR cameras we borrowed and brought to class and RD sniggered and pulled out an old Brownie camera and said, "I promise each of you that I can take better photos with this Brownie than any of you can take with those fancy SLR's".
My advice to anyone who is not happy with their (say) $1,000 on up table is to find an expert on table set-up and have the do their stuff. Your $150 or so will likely pay huge dividends. It is no fluke that the few folks who really know how to set up a table correctly report that an inexpensive or outdated vintage cartridge provides incredible sound. It is all in the set-up.
I am quite self-aware that to many of you, this will be "yawn, everyone knows that" stuff. I am no expert by any means. In the past I tinkered and tinkered without success. By some fluke of serendipity, I now have my table dialed in. The difference between being close and being dialed in is dramatic.
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Hi,
I sell and install cartridges, tonearms and turntables, so far be it from me to denigrate expert set-up. But couldn't one argue the reverse of your second sentence, that is 98% of ultimate performance once you reach a certain level of set-up is in the table?
My pig ignorance bars photography analogies. Thanks for your thoughtful contribution.
"But couldn't one argue the reverse of your second sentence, that is 98% of ultimate performance once you reach a certain level of set-up is in the table?"
Perhaps. Interesting way of looking at it. But my gut says no. Even if so, the premise would be "once you reach a certain level of set-up proficiency, 98% of ultimate performance is dictated by your choice of table UP TO A CERTAIN POINT".
You don't need to know much about photography to get the point.
How about this one; you must pick one of two options for your own system and the only criteria is sound quality and you are not allowed to change/fix/tinker with the choice. Option A is a $4,000 table with a $2500 cartridge set up poorly and Option B is $1500 table with a $250 cartridge set up optimally. Which will produce better SQ in your opinion. Easy right? Now let's change it just slightly. Option A is not set up poorly, but it is not set up perfectly either, say a B+ job but still off on few parameters. Which would you predict to give better sound. I happen to predict it would still be Option B. That last 3-5% of alignment and set-up potential among all the parameters of tonearm/cartridge set-up is a deal breaker between ultimate glory and less-than-satisfying sound.
Where the analogy breaks down is that photography encompasses elements of art (composition/subject/lighting/focus, etc) whereas we are talking about reproduction of art.
If you find yourself in or near Rochester, N.Y., I recommend touring the George Eastman House/Museum. Eastman was the founder of Kodak and the company's arsenal included the iconic Brownie. (Brownie was a fuzzy/friendly Canadian cartoon character and Kodak swiped the image and name for its then-new camera.)
The docent I recently toured with visited the whole digital vs analog debate - even applying it to audio.
Of course, while Kodak had the patents to digital photography, they scoffed at digital. Kodak employment went from 72,000 to less than 7,000 today.
I hear they are launching a new Super 8 movie camera.
You're right. And the new Star Wars movie was shot on Kodak film made right here in Rochester, N.Y.
Rock on Rochester! I go over there and do some offset work from time to time, and was lucky to assist Carl Chiarenza on a catalogue for a somewhat recent show. Kodak lives!
You didn't mention what turntable you are using so we can trash it and tell you how it's impossible for it to sound good. Just kidding of course, you have made some very good points...
You probably just "think" your table sounds good. Let us talk you out of that....:)
K.
I use turntables for archiving. I think you're better off with sound principles and inexpensive but durable equipment than you are with astronomically expensive equipment and complete technical ignorance. I would hate, for example, to be dependent on a service tech to mount and align a cartridge for me. Geez, what a drag.It took a lot of technical research and designing of my own tools before I appreciated the benefits of simply "getting it right".
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It's amazing that hipsters who insist they can hear the little steps in interpolated 24/96 digital waveforms can somehow fail to hear the surface defects in their own vinyl records.
Edits: 02/03/16
I have been a commercial photographer and college teacher for 25 years and you are right on. When we taught film classes we would make the students buy Diana Cameras-3 dollar carnival toy cameras and use them for the first half of the class.
You don't need a $500 camera to make a %500 dollar photo :)
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