[JPL] You Say You Want a Revolution (at 33 1/3)

[Jazz Promo Services]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/technology/techspecial2/02table.html


December 2, 2008
You Say You Want a Revolution (at 33 1/3)

By ROY FURCHGOTT
WHEN Melissa Walker, 31, was growing up, vinyl records were nostalgic
artifacts. But when three crates of LPs were left in an apartment she had
rented, a $10 thrift store record player turned those records into a kitschy
novelty. And when her boyfriend bought her a Rega P1 turntable and a Bill
Evans jazz album for her 30th birthday, playing the records became a daily
ritual.

³Dave brought it home, and we dimmed the lights and sat on the couch with a
glass of wine, and I felt like we were in a jazz club,² Ms. Walker said. ³I
could hear the musicians breathing. It felt like I could hear them smoking.²

Now she holds listening parties in her Brooklyn apartment, introducing
friends to the rich sound of vinyl. ³There is something I like about the
process of listening that way,² she said. ³Having to listen to it in the
order the musicians intended, and turning it over. There is something social
about it.²

Sales of new LPs show that Ms. Walker isn¹t the only one rediscovering
vinyl. While CD sales dropped last year, sales of records were up 36
percent, although they are still a minuscule part of the music market.

All those records have to be played on something. And when it comes to
turntables ‹ no one would dare call them record players these days ‹ there
are many options, from bare-bones $99 models to ultra-high-end audiophile
equipment with price tags of $100,000 or more.

There are so many choices, in fact, that it can be tough for a shopper to
know where to begin. ³You can buy too much turntable or too little turntable
for the rest of your equipment,² said John-Paul Lizars, marketing director
at Sumiko, which imports and distributes turntables. He recommends investing
about a third of your equipment budget in a turntable. ³I urge people to get
the best turntable, cartridge and phono preamp as they can,² Mr. Lizars
said, ³because if you don¹t capture the content at the source, no other
component can enhance it.²

A turntable is a basic piece of equipment ‹ a motor turns a platter on which
the record sits, and a tone arm holds a needle and a cartridge. The needle
wiggles as it rides the record¹s groove, and the cartridge converts those
vibrations to electrical signals that go to an amplifier.

But in those few parts lies a world of variation.

Modern turntables are usually either direct drive or belt drive. Direct
drive has been popular with radio and club D.J.¹s because the record gets up
to speed very quickly. The downside is that motor rumbles can be audible on
lesser models.

Belt drive is more common, with a rubber belt insulating motor noise from
the platter. Belt drive turntables can require maintenance (belts
occasionally wear out), and they can be less precise, causing speed
variations heard as wow and flutter. But that is not a problem in
audiophile-quality equipment, said Ed Dorsey of Soundscape, an audio
boutique in Baltimore. ³The wow and flutter is so small, the average person
isn¹t going to hear it, only the musician with perfect pitch.²

Less expensive turntables, like the Denon DP-29F, which lists for $150, and
the Pioneer PL-990, which lists for $130, generally come with permanently
installed cartridges. That means no souping-up the turntable with
aftermarket parts.

But adding a new cartridge is the most common way to improve a stock
turntable. ³Most of the time turntables come with an entry-level cartridge,²
said Ken Bowers, manager of Needle Doctor, near Minneapolis. A better
cartridge will get more information from the record groove for more detailed
sound, he said.

As prices go up, the quality of the parts improves. The turntable bases,
instead of hollow plastic, are made of metal or dense wood, which dampen
vibrations. ³You¹ll get tighter bass, better imaging, more detail,² Mr.
Bowers said.

On high-end equipment, motors tend to be heavier and more precise, the
bearings in the tone arms present less friction, and the level of
craftsmanship is higher. ³You are buying build quality, you are buying
precision,² Mr. Lizars said.

Once again, more precision means more detailed sound. The price of
turntables with solid bases and replaceable cartridges generally begins
around $300. Ms. Walker¹s Rega P-1 and the Pro-Ject Debut III, which is
imported by Sumiko, both list for $350 to $400.

To those audiophiles returning to vinyl, that may seem like a small price
for high-fidelity quality, but like all things technological, turntables
have become cheaper and better. ³The $300 turntable of today is vastly
superior to the $300 of 20 years ago,² Mr. Lizars said.

Those who want to spend more can do so easily. ³Our turntable lists at
$46,000, but we are far from being the most expensive,² said Lloyd Walker of
Walker Audio in Audubon, Pa., who handcrafts the company¹s Proscenium Black
Diamond turntable. ³They go up to a quarter of a million.²

For $46,000, Mr. Walker said, you get 250 pounds of turntable with a platter
and tone arm that float on a nearly frictionless cushion of air. And Mr.
Walker comes to your listening room to tweak every setting for optimum
performance. ³Setup is extremely important,² he said.

That is also true of less expensive turntables. The cartridge must be
correctly aligned and the tone arm weighted properly. Some cartridges or
tone arms come with an alignment tool, but they can be bought separately for
$5 to $275. Likewise, a stylus force gauge, which measures the pressure of
the needle on a record, can cost $25 for a weighted balance or $450 for a
precision digital model.

To check your work, there are test LPs that play a series of signals that
let you hear, for instance, whether both channels are equally loud. Such
recordings can cost from $30 to $100.

Of course, for a fee you can usually get the shop that sold you the
turntable to set it up.

Among the pleasures of turntables are the tasks and rituals that surround
preparing to play a record. That means cleaning off dirt and dust and
removing static. Mr. Walker said that nothing less than a machine that
vacuums a cleaning fluid from the record would remove the manufacturer¹s
release agent ‹ a lubricant that makes a record come out of a mold. ³It will
sound 30 to 50 percent better,² he said. ³It¹s a big difference.² Such
devices can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Others may be satisfied with an inexpensive carbon fiber brush or the
classic Discwasher cleaning fluid and pile brush for $20.

But Mr. Bowers warns against fixating on minute technical details. Better to
spend your time at thrift stores finding music that will never appear on a
CD. ³Playing records,² he said, ³should be fun.²


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