Five turntable sound improvements .that cost nothing .

sound improvement tips for turntables

[Fons]

Regarding turntable mats: I tried a lot but for me an acrylic one makes a great difference. The bass is much less boomy and more detailled with my cartridge Denon DL 160. Fantastic! Soon I'm going to try a Carbon mat. Greetings from Holland 😀

[christopherward]

1. correctly level the turntable and platter.
2. put a record onto the mat.
3. Set up a stylus protractor on the record and set the overhang.
4. Tighten the cartridge on once the correct overhang is achieved. Do not over tighten, it damages the arm and the cartridge.
5. Balance the tonearm i.e. set the tracking force to zero, set the bias side-force to zero and adjust the counterweight to the point where the arm floats parallel to the platter.
6. set the tracking force.
7. loosen the arm pillar and aim to get the cartridge and headshell parallel with the surface of the record by raising and lowering the arm by small increments. Temporarily lock the arm so that you can lower the arm into the groove to see how parallel the cartridge and the record are. Do this until it looks parallel.
8. if you can listen on headphones, listen to the record playing. Listen to a recording that has cymbals, drums, bass guitar, acoustic guitar. aim to hear the stick strikes and the metallic shimmer and decay of cymbals. Aim to refine the sound, it shouldn’t be splashy or, dull adjust the arm pillar height until the sound becomes focussed and dynamic.
9. Small adjustments of tracking force around the recommended value will improve the end result.

[filibertkraxner]

This has to be one of the most helpful turntable videos I've come across. Being on a bit of a budget, I'll definitely be implementing your tips to make the most of the turntable I've got! For starters, the speakers need to be moved away from next to the turntable, and then I'm cutting up some papers and getting out my spirit level. Thanks so much!

[Tmonroe]

I tried the adjustment of the tone arm weight. What a difference that made! Thank you.

[msgillingham]

Nice Vid Kelvin, My turntable is a STD 305M with an Infinity Black widow tonearm which has the damping trough, cartridge is a Adc XLM MK111 gold fitted with a ZlM Shibata stylus ABSOLUTE HEAVEN. Set up is the most important aspect of good vinyl replay. The whole turntable set up cost £575.97 which is a bargain. There are so many excellent pieces of audio just waiting to be restored and given a new lease of life. Keep the the vids coming so refreshing seeing a true Audiophile giving advice.

[MJEvermore]

I've never visited this channel before today and I'm glad I did. He has lots of great ideas and tricks that I've never thought of before or have even heard of.
Thank you very much for this simple and very useful info. Subbed! 👍

[socksumi]

I can tell you are a man with a good deal of audio experience and... (to quote a famous vintage British speaker manufacturer's slogan) "experienced ears are rare".

[MoltenJules]

Well I like the idea of layers of newspaper. I tried the Financial Times first but found it gave a richer sound. 😆
Good stuff I do like your channel but you do far more on the speakers and amps than the turntable unless I've missed those videos.

[johnnybgoode]

Good information here. Turntables as the source component can sound good or bad based not only on their design but on how they are set up. You can also adjust whether the tonearm is parrallel to the record by using turntable mats of different thickness. Cartridge alignment is also important, but probably a bit beyond the scope of most people setting up their tables, so just getting the overhang right and fully tightening the cartridge mounting bolts and headshell collar will help a lot.

[LuxmanPD]

Changing the tracking weight will have a slight effect on the bass/treble balance but that is not the optimum solution as there is a risk of miss-tracking, suspension fatigue, and increased record wear. The safest and the scientific approach Is adjustment of the Vertical Tracking Angle (VTA) and Stylus Raking Angle (SRA) that determine the position of the stylus relative to the groove and the ideal of matching the angle of the original lathe cutting head. The height of the arm at the pivot point is the main Adjustment but spacers in the head-shell can influence the angles to a lesser degree. The lower the VTA the greater emphasis on bass and conversely the higher the VTA the tonal shift towards brightness.

[JK-rtjj]

Great video. I try to avoid tonearms with a headshell. Best you can get is Hadcock. One additional tip. If you own a turntable with a springed subchassis, adjusting those springs, gives you also a possibility to improve the sound. Tight springs promote short resonances, loose springs, longer resonances in your turntable. It depends what sounds better, just try.

[sirnosedavoidoffunk]

I don't always agree with what you say but you look genuine so I appreciate the effort. There are reviewers with less knowledge that talk about things they don't know and maybe are deaf too. "The Audiophile Man" is one of those who says nonsense and delete negative comments even if they are polite.

[russputin]

If you're leveling up a turntable that doesn't have adjustable feet a coin (or coins) can be placed under the appropriate feet; they're the right diameter, rigid, cheap (literally pennies!) and available in various thicknesses. Just make sure it doesn't wobble when you're finished; from this perspective three feet are always better than four; as Roy Gandy (Rega) used to say: "you can't rock a tripod" I tend to think that stability is more important than absolute level and, for instance, with a suspended chassis turntable it's beneficial to level up for best suspension bounce (this should have been adjusted already on a level jig but they're all going to vary by a gnat's) rather than worry too much about being a millimetre or so out of level. Indeed if you have an accurate bubble level you'll find that the level actually varies slightly depending exactly where you place it on the deck; particularly so with wooden armboards, plinths and rubber feet. Absolutely agree with the wall shelf concept but most turntables will benefit from a supplementary light, rigid sub-shelf decoupled (loose - not screwed down to the main shelf) to assist with the rejection of sub-sonic vibrations (trucks on the road outside, for instance) transmitted through the wall structure. If you make a newspaper mat and you're bored with the music at least you'll have something to read but watch it doesn't make your neck hurt trying to read at thirty-three and a third R.P.M! ;0)

[utubepiotr]

Best video on tips for spinning records, thank you.

[zaxzaxx]

The newspaper mat idea is a new one on me - I'll certainly try it (I love clever tweaks that cost nothing). It strikes me that if you wanted a neater appearance you could use some coloured (or tasteful black) paper from an art supplier as the top layer - 80 gsm should do it - make it fractionally larger than the newpaper to hide the edge.

[adamant]

My favorite turntable tweaks involved swapping cartridges, replacing the stock built in interconnects with high quality double shielded cables and lastly using vibrapods isolators to isolate the turntable from vibrations. I'd consider swapping out my stock rubber mat for another type but not sure which works best as there are differing opinions on that subject.

[wzywgwzywg]

I'd like to mention one more free sound improvement; if you have a receiver with a "Restorer" function set it to "Low" to uncompress the signal and unlock the full dynamic range of the recording. All music, but especially music with a lot of dynamic range like hip hop has to be compressed so the needle doesn't jump out of the groove and the restorer setting does just that, it restores the signal back to it's full dynamic range. My receiver is a Denon and that feature is a life saver.

[chuckmaddison]

Took your advice with shure pick up big improvements thank you.

[jimmyjoejeeter]

EXCELLENT VIDEO, I making a newspaper matt today! I was wondering what would cause my stylus to skip, after the record is finish play when it is coming back to the post? It has automatic return? Does something need to be adjusted or oiled? My turntable is a vintage Kenwood KD 2000 from the 1970, s Any help would be cool!

[chuckmaddison]

Many thanks. I have just started my turntable again after a few years..
Top end is lacking . I have tried a different cartridge, might have improved.
I shall try lower weight as at higher end 2 grams.
Table is a Garrard zero 100 SB.
Carts Fidelity Research FR6SE
Now Shure M55ME.