If you have all the right equipment for playing vinyl records, there's
still
a number of things that you can do to arrive at what everyone wants to
arrive at, listening to studio quality.
That is, of a 70s studio, and the record would have to be an original 70s
record, recorded from an analogue source. But whatever they may say in any
hifi centre, actual studio quality is unattainable. The very best you can
ever hope for is to reach to aural beauty, whose depth (read: the
possibility for improvement) in vinyl is perfectly infinite, as shall be
shown later.
Having all the right equipment was deep in the 70s, today it's almost
inconceivable, not least since you would have to build it all yourself
down
to the last detail, and the base components for doing this, i.e.
resistors,
capacitors and transistors of the required 70s quality, have been quite
obsolete since the 90s. So you would have to dig in trash cans and so
forth.
Still there are a few tricks that may squeeze the absolute maximum out of
even the worst of hifi sets, and that may give you an end result that
could
well compete with many high-end configurations, including analogue ones,
by
tuning your equipment.
First of all you have to place apart your speakers as far as you can. Then
you must set a level balance in order to experience actual stereo. Note
that
the less distortion of the signal, the better the channel separation. So
by
improving your equipment you will automatically get a better stereo
experience, due to better channel separation, requiring less precision of
the channel balance. This is basicly the way things interact.
If balance is actually level, you should hear both speakers proportionally
loud in every corner of the room. This is a nano-ohm setting that you will
have to adjust by hearing. A useful tool to set the balance control,
besides
your fingers, would be a peace of string, the end of which you can frey
into
ever thinner staples, that you then use to move (rotate) the knob. This
also
applies to recording on analogue tape-decks. You can set the balance of
any
tape play-back device by adjusting the azimuth screw. Note that in a 70s
studio balance was set with cumulative sets of slide controls of a meter
each.
Do not buy amplifiers that do not have a balance, because individual
components such as resistors all have specifications (values) that are
inside a particular tolerance, typically 10%, which means that a 10%
difference between left and right output would still be within tolerance.
Since many many components would be involved in series, 10% would just be
a
mean value, and without a means to adjust it you're basicly stymied. The
manufacturer may claim the equipment to be made up of gauged components
only
(matched pairs, never heard of one actually doing it) but never down to
the
nano-ohm level, which is what the story is about. So you will get a
basicly
balanced device for your money. And if they say that channel separation is
so good that there's no need for additional channel balance, they are
quite
certain never to have experienced anything near real stereo.
Besides setting the balance control on your amplifier you may improve
channel balance by balancing the tone-arm of your turntable. Please buy a
turntable with an S-arm. Using any other type of arm you would be wasting
the time of your ears. And of mine.
S-arms have both a horizontal and a vertical balance. Besides a horizontal
and a vertical axis, S-arms have a tail end, that is screwed onto the back
of the arm with a rubber separating ring, or sock. Over the tail end goes
the counter-weight. Horizontal balance is adjusted with the anti-skating
mechanism. Since the two channels of a stereo record are pressed into
either
side of the groove, the setting of the anti-skating influences the channel
balance. If you adjust it with a hair, you can improve sound quality a
little more.
By optimizing the counter-weight, and by reducing its tendency to impair
free stylus movement with its large mass, you can reduce signal distortion
and thus improve channel separation. Note that optimizing these settings
will increase the yield of BASS in the source signal, so your amplifier
will
have to be able to handle the additional bass, or audible results could
prove to be worse instead of better. In practice, you will be determining
the settings by hearing that best fit your particular equipment. Basicly
you
will be adding as much bass as your hifi set can handle. When the amount
of
bass is roughly determined, fine-tune the counter-weight settings while
playing a track with a lot of high distortion, such as white scraping
noises, which ideally should all disappear, but at least minimized,
getting
instruments and vocals as distinct (undistorted) as you can get them.
First you have to determine the optimal fastness with which the tail end
is
screwed onto the back of the arm, that is, the optimal pressure on the
rubber separating ring, to minimize the inertia exerted by the mass of the
counter-weight onto the stylus on the other end, which ideally should all
be
absorbed by the rubber. Therefore the rubber ring should be as loose as
possible, without "dropping" the tail entirely onto its screw alone. Like
every setting discussed here, this is a micrometer setting that is
determined by hearing.
Next you optimize the vertical counter-weight by rotating it, preferably
without rotating the tail end underneath it as well, so you will have to
hold it with your other hand. First establish zero weight for a starting
point. Now for most current stylusses a weight of 3 grams is considered
normal, but for 70s cartridges and stylusses the specified counter-weight
is
usually somewhere between 1.5 and 1.7 grams.
We are going to ignore this. If you have built equipment that can handle
the
phono-signal undistortedly, the optimal counter-weight would be somewhere
between 0.5 and 0.7, whatever the specifications of the cartridge say. The
only question is if your set, and first of all the phono pre-amp, can
handle
the result. You can verify this on lesser sets with a head-phone, which at
lower volumes usually can handle the bass. 0.5 to 0.7 is very steep indeed
and requires absolute top equipment, so you probably want to go a little
higher, usually 1.4 is a good measure, unless you don't mind a little
added
distortion.
Added advantage is you never create a scratch, even if the arm skates the
record. If all you hear is scratches that is because somewhere in your set
the bass is filtered out of the signal, typically by inadequate
components,
because both bass and treble increase proportionally in the source signal
if
the counter-weight is decreased.
Well so much for adjusting the arm and increasing stylus vibration. Since
the arm is still at the beginning
of the amplification chain, the impact of balancing it on signal
distortion
is considerable. But there still is a play-back level preceding the arm,
and
even the cartridge, and that would be the record itself.
Well what can you do to improve on a record? It will come as a surprise to
you, but you can CLEAN it. It will actually be even more surprising that
properly cleaning a record would account for 50% of your end sound quality
whatever equipment follows it up, i.e. increase the signal yield to 200%.
What can I say, it's startling. First of all records are torn from their
matrices thanks to a layer of grease that hardens like raisin and impairs
every record in the world from being played back undistortedly. This layer
will only detach above 80 degrees centigrade, which is the precise
temperature at which the record itself changes into a Dali object with
surreal properties as to flexibility, and will become completely relaxed.
Strange enough pouring boiling water on it and leaving it in there for a
few
minutes doesn't affect the information that is contained in the grooves.
The
rub is rather that the record fails to cool down to a flat object. At best
it will become warped round the edges so only the inner track can be
played,
admittedly, without the slightest distortion, but a little metallic as
well.
Records should have a minimum of distortion to retain their colours. Same
goes for turn-tables, or we would all be listening to brick Thorenses. But
it's the only way to actually remove the top layer.
This isn't of much use until now, eventhough it shows that it is for ever
impossible to play back a record in studio quality, because of top layer
distortion. You can however partly dissolve, or better partly break down
the
top layer using the most aggressive detergents that are available, but
then
you would be dealing with dust.
If, at 80 degrees, the top layer detaches, the dust on top of it is
automatically released. However if you chemically try to dissolve the
layer
you will additionally have to dig through miles and miles of dust. The
amount of dust that a record may absorb, hold or contain is scientifically
unheard of. I have managed to have a record soak for 24 hours in
dish-washing detergent, scouring it out under the hot tap, and the next 24
hours in a litre of pure ammonia, thoroughly washing it in the
disco-antistat machine afterwards, after which the needle picked up a pack
of dust the size of my thumb. If there is to be proof of dark matter
anywhere in the universe, we should look for it in records.
Now if you let a record soak for a few hours in water of 50 degrees
centrigrade using a biological washing powder like BIOTEX, you will get a
swinging sound and perfectly clean labels at that. If you don't care for
labels, you can get even better results by leaving it overnight in liquid
bleach. Just take care to wash it out with ample water and then to dry the
record with a cloth, rather than to allow the water to evaporate, since
water contains minerals which are then left as a residu.
Currently I'm soaking records in chlorine for a week, then in plain
kitchen
vinegar for three weeks, after which I use the disco-antistat basin to
scrub
them in pure ammonia, and then very thoroughly, very slowly in 96%
alcohol.
The alcohol does it.
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