A turntable is a rotating disc that has a motor and audio speakers on it. The audio signal from the turntable player, which is usually in the form of an LP record, CD, or cassette tape, is picked up by the stylus as it moves across the groove in the spinning disc.
This information gets translated into an electrical signal by a cartridge at high enough voltage to power low-impedance headphones or amplifier inputs for loudspeakers.
The amplifier boosts this signal until it reaches its maximum amplitude limit determined by electronic limitations set forth by either itself or your receiver’s specifications.
There are many types of turntables on the market and quite often, it can be difficult picking the right option that will meet your needs. You can shop @ 1byone for modern as well as turntable stereo designs.
However, before you part with your money, there are several things you need to know. This article will discuss three of the most important features for purchasing a turntable: speed control, tonearm type, and belt drive vs direct drive.
A good turntable should have Low vibration chassis as well as motor
A good turntable should have a low vibration chassis and motor. This is because vibrations can cause audible noise that will affect the music, causing it to sound different than what was originally intended.
The grooves in the record are super tiny, so it’s important for your needle and cartridge (the parts that make contact) to be designed well enough to register and transform these small movements into music instead of unwanted distortions and noises.
The best turntables are designed to minimize the vibrations that they produce. This includes using low-vibration materials and techniques and motors with no shaking components such as bearings or drives.
In a nutshell, the most important thing when looking at a new record player design is how much noise it produces. It can often give away useful information on what type or brand gear might work better than others.
A good turntable motor should have minimal noise and stable speed
Turntables are often called record players and for a good reason. Our ears are extremely sensitive to changes in frequency due to speed variations. Typically, this is also known as flutters and can be annoying at times.
This means slow speeds will cause long durations of sound waves to be played back at different volumes than they were originally recorded. Subsequently, this affects how much doppler shift occurs when a singer changes their pitch on an instrument like guitar or violin.
It can also cause some distortion, and if not careful, it can affect your ears, and you’ll not enjoy listening to the music.
The resonances tonearm should be low
A high-quality tonearm is critical to get the best possible sound quality out of your vinyl records. Good ones have very little resonance and move freely in all directions.
Therefore, this helps create a stable environment for cartridges that are crucial when playing music.
It’s also useful if you are using turntables as an audio source on any device with built-in speakers like home computers where you can listen without headphones if desired.
Thus, you can get better clarity compared to listening through CD players only because there won’t be any background noise from other sources interfering during playback.
Top-notch quality phono cartridge
It’s not all about the vinyl but, the phono cartridge is what transforms your records and turns them into an electrical signal for playing on a turntable, which means it has to do some heavy-duty work.
A good quality one will reproduce sound with higher fidelity than less expensive models; it can also separate channels better due to its purity of tone (less distortion) as well as dynamics – especially when you’re listening to high-quality beats.
Are expensive turntables better?
Expensive turntables are made of high-quality materials and have complex designs. This causes them to be more expensive, with better sound quality than those that cost less money.
Expensive turntablists spend hours tweaking their tools for optimal performance because they know it makes all the difference in hearing perfect recordings on vinyl or CDs alike.
As an example, we can look at Rega’s 35-year history of continuous improvement, which has seen them spend many weeks testing out different tonearms. After that, they have one suited ideally to each cartridge or stylus type – a feat not even accomplished by some well-established companies.
Conclusion
Music is a universal language that can bring people together. And while it’s not necessary to enjoy the sounds of music if you want to listen to your favorite records or albums without any limitations on what gear you have access to, then buying a good turntable should be at the top of your list.
We hope this post has sparked some interest in finding out more about which features are important for different sound systems.