With Record Store Day having just passed, and turntable and vinyl sales bigger than ever, we thought it was our duty to offer some hints and tips on ways of setting up and getting the most out of your turntable. There may come a day when the upgrade fever hits, and you find yourself wanting more from your turntable setup. Don’t fear! There are a variety of tweaks and upgrades that can be had without replacing your entire turntable.
Turntable Placement
Even the best designs of turntable are subject to the effects of resonance and vibrations on record playback. For this reason, manufacturers and hobbyists go to great lengths in seeking to isolate their turntable from motor vibrations and generally unwanted resonances from other equipment or movement.
Tip: When positioning your turntable, it is important to put it somewhere where it will be as isolated from movement and other equipment as possible. A separate shelf or plinth can help to achieve this. There are a range of isolation platforms design to further isolate your turntable from resonances, though many users find DIY alternatives such as placing your turntable on a piece of marble, slate or other dense and solid material.
Fitting the Belt
The turntable belt is the unsung hero of the turntable – an essential part of the mechanism which turns the platter and creating the sound you enjoy. The majority of turntables are belt-driven. This means that the belt needs to be fitted, which for many can be a fiddly and frustrating exercise.
The motor spindle and subplatter of a turntable.
Tip: Start by placing the belt into the grooves of the small motor spindle. Using your first finger, keep this in place and do not let go. With your other hand (and making sure the belt isn’t twisted), align the belt with the section of the subplatter closest to the motor. Again using your first finger, keep the belt in place on the subplatter and simply rotate the subplatter until the belt fits the whole way around. Then let go, and your belt should be ready to go!
Over time, a turntable belt may become stretched and worn. Periodic replacement of your turntable belt is essential to ensuring the ongoing optimum performance of your turntable and ensuring that records are played back at the right speed and the best possible speed to achieve the best possible sound quality.
Speed Box
Besides simply giving the convenience of changing speeds at the push of a button, a Speed Box can actually impact the sound quality you experience from your turntable, and is considered to be one of the most worthwhile upgrades, particularly with budget decks. A speed box regulates playback speed through voltage control, and can result in a more accurate playback speed an ultimately a more accurate sound and rendition of your favourite records.
Platter Upgrades
There are a range of platter upgrades which can also offer a decent boost to sound quality and turntable performance.
The Debut Carbon Espirit SB comes with an upgraded Acrylic Platter unlike the Debut Carbon which uses a metal platter. The platter upgrade is available separately here.
Acrylic and glass are popular in higher end turntables – the nature of the material helps to avoid resonance and can offer improvements to depth, detail and soundstage when compared to standard metal platters. It can also be a hidden advantage with acrylic and glass platters to not need to use a turntable mat, with the record able to perform just as well placed directly onto the platter itself.
Dust and Turntable Maintenance
Dust is a vinyl lover’s worst enemy – it can clog up the grooves of your record, get stuck to the stylus and is generally detrimental to the sound quality you enjoy from your turntable. Purchasing a dust cover to go over your turntable when not in use is a must as far as we are considered.
Regular turntable maintenance is also a key part in keeping your turntable and record collection sounding their best. A carbon fibre record brush should be used before most playings of a record. This isn’t quite the chore it sounds, and takes just a few seconds. A carbon fibre record brush has thousands of tiny soft bristles which attract dirt and dust and keep your record’s grooves clean and clear.
The Pro-Ject Carbon Fibre Record Brush
A stylus brush can also be used to remove accumulated dust and dirt from the stylus which can deaden the sound from your turntable. Stylus brushes and carbon fibre record brushes are ideal for daily maintenance. However, for older or dirtier records, there are a range of products and cleaning fluids available to offer a deeper clean.
Cartridge and Stylus
A vital component of the turntable and the resulting sound quality you experience is the cartridge. While it would make no sense to mount a £1000 cartridge on a £200 turntable, there are often worthwhile improvements that can be had by upgrading the included cartridge.
There is a huge range of Phono Cartridges available separately to replace or upgrade those included with turntables.
Many Pro-Ject turntables come with the impressive Ortofon 2M Red cartridge pre-installed. It is possible to use a 2M Blue stylus with the 2M Red cartridge shell (as they are the same). This gets you the performance upgrade of the 2M Blue without having to buy the whole cartridge! You can then keep the 2M Red stylus as a spare, or sell it privately to partly cover the purchase of the 2M Blue stylus.
No matter what you do, and as with most things in hi-fi, there is always possibility for improvement, and tweaks/improvements to improve the performance of your system and equipment. The above hints and suggestions are some of the more obvious ways of optimising your turntable setup and any future upgrades, though there are always other ways you can gain improvements, such as upgrading your phono stage or even other parts of your system. As always, we are more than happy to help, and want to do our bit in educating the masses about the vinyl revolution and the sonic benefits of analogue, so don’t hesitate to give us a shout should you have any questions or need any advice.