It looks like the revival of LPs is hotting up. The consumer hi-fi companies are introducing more and more turntables to the market. Panasonic is bringing out an updated model its famous Technics 1200 series complete with a modified direct drive system. You will have to pay big bucks for what is really quite old technology, and the marginal improvement to the sound might not justify the extra expense. Direct drive turntables were introduced to the market in the early 1970s.
Many manufacturers are now producing turntables with built in phono-stages and USB stages so that you can easily digitise your LPs and store the result on a computer drive.
Many of the hi-fi forums have members which pour scorn on the feature of having a phono-stage built in to the turntable. But isn't this where it should have been in the first place? Most modern amplifiers no longer provide a "phono" input. Audiophiles with lots of money to throw away on specialist phono-stages never use an amplifier with a built in phono-stage, anyway.
By having a phono-stage built into your consumer deck you can connect the turntable to any integrated amplifier, powered speakers or even a mini-hi-fi or television sound bar. It's all very convenient and it is all very flexible now and that is the way it should be.
Consumer turntables now sound very good. And, because the limiting factor to quality is the LP production process itself the marginal benefits of spending thousands on a turntable probably do not justify an expensive outlay. A die hard audiophile, who loves his LP, will never acknowledge this fact. Let's face it, LPs are old technology where a diamond is scrapped against a piece of plastic at a fixed speed - it's a minor miracle that an LP can sound very good. A turntable and all its accoutrements could cost you thousands - all that to play a piece of plastic worth 10 pence.
Phono-stages have been around since the 1950s. It is easy for electronics companies to mass produce ones that work very well.
The phono-stage acts as a means of amplifying the rather weak signals generated by a moving magnet (and coil) cartridges. The phono-stage also applies RIAA equalisation to accentuate the bass response and attenuate the treble response. Thus it reverses the equalisation applied when the master vinyl pressing plate is cut.
The circuitry to produce a phono-stage is as cheap as chips, just like the DAC circuitry found in even the most expensive CD player or network streamer. Millions of these hi-fi chips are produced in factories and all hi-fi makers benefit from the economies of scale of modern manufacturing.
One consumer electronics manufacturer is associating its turntable with high definition sound and it provides users with the means to digitise their LPs to 24/192 high definition music files. Don't be fooled by this; the LP is not high definition. LPs cannot reproduce music to a higher definition than CD. The whole process of producing an LP and playing it is flawed. What is more, 24/192 "high definition" files do not sound better than a 16/44.1 CD music file when all other factors remain equal. Double blind listening tests prove this time and time again; no one can hear a difference at safe listening volumes.
Hi-fi magazines perpetuate the myth of using high definition music files to digitise your LPs as if this was going to make the LP sound better - it won't. You can use software to remove the clicks and pops on an LP but doing this actually removes some of the music frequencies. You have made the flaws of vinyl more acceptable but you have not improved frequency response or dynamic range by using noise removal software.
I am not suggesting that those new to LPs should throw away their vinyl and ditch their turntable. I am appealing to their sense of reason so that they can see through all the marketing hype and myths perpetuated on forums. Hi-fi magazines should know better as the vinyl revival will not lead to improved sound reproduction over CD.
I have got two turntables and my wife and I like to sit down and listen to an LP every now and then; just for old time's sake. To this end, I recently bought my wife David Bowie's Blackstar: it cost me a lot of money, £25 as compared to £10 pounds for the CD, but I got a voucher for a 320 kbps mp3 download.
When I played the record it sounded fantastic. The LP was well produced in "180 g virgin vinyl", there were no scratches and there was only one pop which I heard on one of the quiet parts of the album - of which there were few. When I played the digital version it sounded almost exactly the same. Why was that ? I used the same amplifier and speakers and I matched the volume and I also played it back in the same room. Over time the LP will wear out and it will collect minor scratches and ingrained dust, despite cleaning, so the sound will deteriorate. I shall save playing the LP for special occasions or when we feel in the mood. In the main I shall play the mp3 download. There will be no need to digitise the LP to 24/192 high definition. The download will be free of pops and clicks.
There is no doubt that the Blackstar album would have been recorded digitally and then transposed to analogue for the production of the LP. There is nothing wrong with this and this is one of the reasons why the LP sounds so good.
The LP production process degrades the sound by introducing harmonic distortion, clicks and pops and sometimes audible wow and flutter. Playback adds further harmonic distortion and sometimes extra and audible wow and flutter too. Playback also adds surface noise to the sound reproduction just from the stylus rubbing against the plastic disc. Playback can also introduce static electricity pops and dust can land on the playing surface to introduce further hissing noises.
Despite all the hype most modern LPs will have been recorded digitally and you will not be hearing so called analogue purity.
For pop music, most of the faults of LP playback are inaudible because the music is much louder than the surface noise. Wow and flutter can be audible though. For classical music, which usually has a much wider dynamic range than pop, the surface noise intrudes into to the quieter sections of the performance. I cannot stand this, and for this reason I never play classical music on a turntable. I always use digital sources.
Please do not fall for all the hype and if you do not have lots of money to spend on new equipment then you might be better off sticking to CD. There is also the time overhead of setting up your turntable and making sure it runs properly. LPs can sound very good and it is great to see a mechanical device spinning your music around. But, there are many pitfalls and if you do not look after your records they will eventually sound awful.
