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Topic: My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh (Read 47521 times) previous topic - next topic
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My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh

Reply #25 –
Quote from: dhromed on
Let me get this straight; vinyl used to be the common standard in ordinary people's homes before it was usurped by CD, and now suddenly it's very hard to set up?

What am I missing from this picture?



What is missing is the wide range of possibilities. Some rigs are just plain easy to set up as well as they can be set up. Some require excellent hand /eye coordination, a proper test record and a lot of skill/patience/experience. You can find a rig for every in-between level of difficulty.

My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh

Reply #26 –
Quote from: analog scott on
Some rigs are just plain easy to set up as well as they can be set up. Some require excellent hand /eye coordination, a proper test record and a lot of skill/patience/experience. You can find a rig for every in-between level of difficulty.

Point is, a turntable that's 'just plain easy to set up' won't deliver sound quality anywhere near what's expected today. Not that it's not possible; it's just that old time models of that kind were cheap machines for people with low expectations, while hard core vinyl fans today don't want anything to be easy...

A good budget/mid-price TT like REGA (or any of it's many copies) needs some care and some skills.

And even a correctly set-up REGA Planar 3 (like my own) can't compare to a digital source, if the recording/mastering is identical.

My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh

Reply #27 –
Quote from: MichaelW on
Still, vinyl beat the crap, at least in convenience terms, out of having to sharpen needles and only getting 3' a side.



If memory serves there were sapphire stylii and magnetic cartridges for playing the old 78s.  There were also record changers.  I seem to recall 78s with at least 5-6 minutes a side.

My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh

Reply #28 –
I used to listen to my grandfather's hand-cranked 78 record player. There was a whole pile of steel needles because they wore out fairly quickly. You didn't dare put a used needle back in because if you didn't get the identical orientation, the sharp edges would tear up the records.

My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh

Reply #29 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: MichaelW on
Still, vinyl beat the crap, at least in convenience terms, out of having to sharpen needles and only getting 3' a side.



If memory serves there were sapphire stylii and magnetic cartridges for playing the old 78s.  There were also record changers.  I seem to recall 78s with at least 5-6 minutes a side.


Luxury!

My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh

Reply #30 –
That's all pretty antique from my perspective! My vinyl experience is limited almost exclusively to the turntable on a Sony all-in-one stereo set circa 1987.

I inherited a record player that's quite a bit older than that, but I don't own any records and find vinyl rather impractical from every perspective. I'm not sure what to do with it, so it's been collecting dust.

My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh

Reply #31 –
Quote from: pdq on
I used to listen to my grandfather's hand-cranked 78 record player. There was a whole pile of steel needles because they wore out fairly quickly. You didn't dare put a used needle back in because if you didn't get the identical orientation, the sharp edges would tear up the records.


One of those was arguably my first audio system. I don't remember how the hardware fell into my hands, but I fooled around with it for a few weeks and played a number of 78s to death.  I was somewhare between 7 to 9 at the time. By the time I was 13 I was up to speed with the then current LP playback technology including an Audio Empire 108 cartridge.

BTW, you can play 78's with your thumnail if you let the nail grow a little long and trim it to a sharp point.
 

My turntable sounds awful: no bass, very harsh

Reply #32 –
Quote from: pdq on
I used to listen to my grandfather's hand-cranked 78 record player. There was a whole pile of steel needles because they wore out fairly quickly. You didn't dare put a used needle back in because if you didn't get the identical orientation, the sharp edges would tear up the records.


From what I recall, the upscale option was cactus needles.