Reading your opening post, the first question that came to my mind was have you listened to the same recordings through digital sources? In other words are the pitch variations you detect in the recording, or generated through playback?
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If your power supply is putting out the same voltage as an Armageddon, it will be 110v as opposed to the 85v the Valhalla was putting out.
Increasing the voltage will increase torque, which will sound more dynamic and stable. The downside is increased motor vibration and loss of detail.
I use a Hercules power supply on my Mantra with the voltage set at the recommend 106v.
I suspect the Valhalla and early lingos will have voltage adjustment should anybody want to increase to 110vš
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I have, and my pitch sensitivity is mediocre (in my trumpet playing days, tuning up was, ahem, stressful).
When I was first auditioning serious turntables, the main contenders were the Roksan Xerxes and the LP12. I recall that the Roksan was much praised for its pitch stability, and that was apparent on audition. But perhaps my lack of sensitivity in this area explains why that attribute didnāt do much for me.
Hi,
well, I am learning now that some turntables were praised for pitch stability; in my younger days of audio magazines and measures, they mentioned wow and flutter, but I never actually reflected that it would matter musically. But then, in LP replay music is truly and only generated by the discās rotation, so pitch accuracy is very important.
Brass instruments are wonderful, but I am a goat at them. Trumpetās mouthpiece is a mystery to me, while I did get some musical sounds from a flugelhorn, which has a French horn mouthpiece. On the other hand, my wife is a musician too and she thinks that the guitar is unfathomableā¦
M.
Apparently the āgeddon uses a dropper resistor to end up with 85v at the motor - which (after some trial and error) does indeed seem to be the sweet spot to my ears. As you say, less voltage seems to eek out more detail but with the penalty of poorer PRAT.
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Corry makes a good point regarding the Xerxes Max. I had one for many years but now use a Linn. The Roksans have a removable spindle so you donāt need to adjust the hole, just centre the LP on the platter and off you go! No more seasick!
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How do you mark it for the future, though? After enlarging the hole on an off-center record I would add a mark of which part of it to be pushed against the spindle. If you just adjust it manually it sounds like youād have to do it every time, no?
Maybe Iām missing something.
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You line up the edge of the platter with the record. At least thatās what I did. Tbh I only had one or two records where the hole was off centre.
Many years after I abandoned the trumpet, I was horrified to discover that all my neighbours on my small cul-de-sac could hear my inept practicing, as clear as an out of tune bell. 45 minutes every day, scales, arpeggios, various passages, over and over, almost always a fraction of a tone sharp.
This is exactly how you do it. I pencil in an arrow to show where the spindle should butt up against the LP.
I guess that wondering why such a simple thing as a pressed vinyl disc cannot be made unfailingly each time is a futile exercise.
With new pressings, the problem is that most of the pressing stamps are old / have been resurrected, demand is too high for the available capacities, and knowledge was lost while vinyl was considered dead
Yes, the old presses are operating well beyond the lifespan that they were originally designed for. That was probably fine when vinyl was a niche product and you could have rigorous QC, but with the current pressure on pressing plants, I guess something has to give.
Funnily enough I was going through some of my early '80s Boplicity reissues of the Contemporary catalogue (wondering whether I really did need to buy them again from Craft) and the pressings are generally perfect. I mean perfect in every way - perfectly centred, perfectly flat, not a flaw anywhere to be seen on the vinyl and lovely smooth edge all the way round. Sound quality on most of them is similarly superb. Do I need to buy again, but this time with the doubts as to whether the tapes have held up, or the mastering has been done right, or whether the vinyl will be off-centre, or the dreaded non-fill appearing, and all for three time what a mint Boplicity will cost? Iām not so sure. But the vinyl desire runs deep, hence my quandaryā¦
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This is almost exactly why I prefer, where I can, to buy originals rather than modern reissues (the other percentage is I just like buying the records I couldnāt afford on release, in their original form).
Time travel!
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Yes, time travelā¦
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The largest part of my LPs have been bought between 1966 and 1996, and safe for the oldest ones that have been played on less than adequate systems, they are in more than acceptable conditions. I have a number of them, letās say a few hundreds - among which some that have a truly great sentimental value - so I think that a reasonable investment could make sense for me. I only have to decide how much, and set a limit to the upgrade optionsā¦
I see. In my experience - like Richard also wrote above -, older releases, from the time when vinyl was the normal way of distributing music, were generally-speaking of quite good pressing quality.
In my collection, the older ones are much more consistently well pressed than new releases. There may well be the odd outlier, but I definitely donāt have many of them in my several hundred records from approx. 1970 to mid-90ies (after which I bought CDs mostly until starting again with vinyl in recent years)
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I had a question a while back concerning a valuable record I own that had an overly tight spindle hole*. I slightly overdid the reaming ** and was wondering if this might be bad for SQ. Your answer reassures me that itās probably not a big deal.
*, ** - obligatory āoo-er, Matron!ā
Some might say that a spindle hole thatās overly large may actually be better. On my Roksan Xerxes, for example, the spindle is removable and doing so supposedly sounds better.
Which is all that I buy. I have never (so farā¦ ) bought a āmodernā LP . Way too expensive, IMO. Butā¦ YMMV etc.