All about Turntables - Part 1

Scott Hull Of masterdisk and KJ of the band Odsys Discuss in-depth many of the issues any consumer faces with their Vinyl record player.  Listen to KJ's Q&A with Scott and learn a ton about turntable set up and quality control

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Music heard :
Artist - Freedy Johnston
Song -  Bad reputation 
listen to: Bad Reputation 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I know I got a bad reputation.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Hi everyone and welcome to Making Vinyl at MasterDisc. The podcast where we try to answer all of your questions about vinyl, making a vinyl, enjoyment of records, and all the fun stuff that goes round and round. I'm here again today with KJ of the Odyssey. Hello, hello. Hey man. And he tells me he's got a question for me.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Well, yeah, we've been talking about um the intricacies of the technical side of vinyl from your perspective, but what I'd love to know is a little bit about the consumer side, as I am a diehard vinyl convert and I love my turntable dearly, and I love buying new records. And I thought it'd be cool to hear your perspective on, you know, home use of vinyl and uh, you know, do's and don'ts, and you know, possibly even some, you know, good simple advice about how to get a you know, how to get good tones in my living room without spending my you know entire life savings, which is like 18 cents, you know, because I'm a musician.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Good luck. Well, that's great. That's a big topic. There's uh uh a lot to go over, and I'll start and probably finish with pretty much the same comment. My feeling is the best way to figure out what you need equipment-wise, is to develop and nurture a relationship with a professional maybe that's in your area, somebody that you could visit. Back in the day, uh when I was uh when I was an impressionable young lad, uh interested in making music at home, uh, there were a couple hi-fi shops within a short drive of where we lived. Um, my father brought me into one when we needed to get a uh a cassette machine um and when we needed to get something fixed. And uh and um of course there was a a demonstration room that was off limits to children, but that I had I I stuck my nose up against the glass and looked inside. And since it was a weekday uh afternoon and uh the store wasn't full of people, the salesman there opened the door and let me in. And just uh I wasn't that young, but he still told me not to touch anything anyway, um which was probably a good thing because I would have touched every knob and and pushed every button I could find. Damn right. Oh, I told you I push buttons. So that's seriously. But it was that experience that kind of opened the door to asking the question: can it be better? Can I get a better playback? Can I I hear more out of the speakers that I've got? Is my equipment working properly? Is it set up properly? So, as uh I'm gonna try to give some examples and try to give some good advice, but it really, really helps to have um a local person to give you uh to to actually ask you questions about the way you use your stereo system, the way you use your equipment, and find solutions for you. It's really tempting today to just go to the cheapest online marketer and pick up something that's got great reviews. You're likely to get something that's good. Whether you find something that fits your needs and fits your your particular interests, that's gonna be harder to to determine. Um and you might find yourself buying and selling equipment uh until you finally settle in on something. Everybody's got opinions. So literally every salesperson that you come up come in contact with, and every professional or basically anybody that you ask is gonna tell you what they think the answer is uh to the puzzle is. It's usually a combination of of uh some research, doing some edge, getting yourself educated as into the options, and then um, you know, letting somebody ask you the questions and and and help you help guide you.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Sure, gotcha. So um, you know, you were the one who helped me set up my deck at home and uh and you recommended a specific turntable. Um I guess my question, my first question is, is there one component that you should splurge on if you if you needed to decide on something? Is there one component where the rubber meets the road, or do you have to put together a system of sort of equally awesome components?

SPEAKER_02 4:29

I I think it's smarter to spread your money around in proportion. I I think it'd be pretty easy for people to see that it would be kind of a failure to spend uh you know two or three, four thousand dollars on a turntable, but have um, you know, the really cheap speakers, um or or have the system not set up um in a way where you can even you know easily hear the speakers, you know, if it's just just kind of a mess. So deciding what to spend on what is uh how much to spend on what is is actually an interesting question. Um on a future episode, I'm hoping to speak to a um a turntable and cartridge um manufacturer guru that's uh owner of the SoundSmith. And uh I want to ask him that exact same question. How do you determine when you're talking to uh um to a consumer, what percentage of your budget do you spend on each of the components? Is basically what it kind of comes down to. For our purposes, until until I get educated and pass that information on to the other listeners, I'll reflect on on what I do in the professional environment because it's probably a pretty good example.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

I want to know what the speakers are telling me. That's the very first thing I need to know. So uh in a home system, if you think you've got a problem with the speakers and their placement in the room, uh you definitely have a problem with the speakers and the placement in the room. It's only when you get to the point where you really can be convinced that everything's working great and you don't have any issues, that that's when you can kind of move on to uh the other components and start to isolate. It's like calibrating a monitor and a graphic design or um making sure your camera or microscope is in focus before you uh evaluate the frame. It's what everything is is based on. And I had an interesting thought today too, when we're uh as we're contemplating this topic, in disc cutting, it's interesting that I I c w we can't align a cutting lathe until we have an aligned playback system in place. And a turntable and a cartridge and a preamp that takes a test record, test tone, and plays that back in a prescribed way, in a very predictable sort of way. Once we have that established, then we can work backwards up the chain through the cutting amplifiers, through the lying drivers, through the D to A converters, and back through the console to figure out what other parts and components need to be aligned. So I've I've almost contradicted myself there with the two statements. I mean, but the reason I focus on the speakers is because you're not building a reference environment at home. You're trying to build an environment that sounds good. Um and it it doesn't really matter how uh I'm sorry, audiophiles, but for a lot of people it doesn't matter how your equipment measures, it matters how it sounds. And unfortunately, it's very hard to talk about uh how something sounds because we all hear things differently and we all have different priorities and um uh different things that are important to us. So we use specifications and and and measurements to try to supplement for our observations. But the truly um, you know, the the gifted ones, the the ones with golden ears, can tell whether something sounds good by listening to it.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Right, right. And it you know, it brings up an you bring up an interesting point because I, you know, as you were talking about that, I was sort of thinking in my mind, what is it that I want from my system at home? And I think that one of the things that I desire, especially as an artist and a producer of my own records, is to be reasonably confident that when I'm sitting and listening to a record on my stereo, I want to know that I'm getting what the artist intended for me to hear. The artist and the engineer and the producer, I want to know that I'm hearing what they wanted me to hear when they sent this thing to me in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah, very interesting. That it's probably everyone's um goal, but I witnessed many different times where people have setups that are skewed one way or another, a very base-heavy playback system or something that's uh you know brighter than might be ideal. But what each of those systems uh has is an individual listener that has adjusted their playback system for their own satisfaction. So it's kind of a chicken and egg problem for what you're talking about. Is like we'll start at the beginning, you want the component tree to componentry to be good enough to not be technically um overtaxed by the process of playing back the the audio. So you you need it to be competent. Well you there's really, really inexpensive entry-level systems for for vinyl playback that don't really meet this basic requirement. Um you know, it's it's for the enjoyment of being able to slap a record on and music comes out, and that's all well and good. But if you're if you're really trying to understand what the artist um I'm trying to make an I'm trying to think about maybe an analogy to um you know, seeing a reproduction of a piece of art uh in a magazine compared to the actual painting in person.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

You know, when you're looking at the reproduction, um many other factors go into play. The fact that it's flattened out onto you know, it's a photograph and it's a reproduction or a lithograph and it's got on you know different color balances and all other sorts of things aren't really what the artist intended, but maybe it's as close as they can get. But the point being you you create your own enjoyment, your own reality and enjoyment out of what you have available. So for suggestions, start with components that are fairly well matched. And again, I I'll mention at least once or twice more that um a high-five shop salesperson can help you do that. I mean, uh my concern would be, um used to be years ago, is that when you walked into a place like that, you just felt like you were going to spend way more money than you had intended. But I know there's very responsible people out there and and that are practical and understand that they're trying to build a relationship with a consumer for a longer period, much longer period of time. And instead of just convincing them to spend three times their budget and to the point where they have no money to buy media, you know, to buy records and and and other accessories, uh, they realize that you know they they can kind of empathize with the person and well, what would I do? You know, I've got all this knowledge, but let's say I I was I had only, you know, twelve hundred dollars. What would I do to set up a a sound system? I I I've got a really great parallel um experience recently. My uh daughter has gotten my 19-year-old daughter's gotten very into mountain biking, and she did a whole lot of online research and and uh learned all about the different types of setups and mountain bikes and fat tires and skinny tires and 26 and 29 inch and you know, uh suspension, non-suspension, front and you know, full suspension. And um was about ready to make a purchase, and I said, you know, go down to the bike shop. You know, they they of course they've got their own opinions and they're gonna want to sell you their brand, but um ask just tell them who you are, and they'll probably ask you some questions. And after they're done asking you questions, they're gonna point you to a bike that that they they probably think you're gonna have a good experience on, and then take it for a ride. And she did she did that and called me back and was like, oh my god, this was so amazing. They understood exactly what I was talking about, they ride the same trails that I've been on, that had so I had such a great time talking to them. The bike they put me on was amazing. It's a little more money than I was gonna spend, but oh my god, now I gotta think about it. So um finding the right consumer retail experience in vinyl is for both selecting vinyl um LPs to purchase and for putting a sound system together is really pretty vital. It's kind of old school. It's it's hard to get that experience unless you have um uh and you have uh some sage advice.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it's sort of uh the the parallel, the other parallel is to the the conversations that we've been having in previous episodes about how it's you know good to get somebody like yourself into the mix who can speak intelligently and with experience on the different facets of uh you know the different options you have in producing vinyl. So this is sort of the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

It is, and I'm uh overemphasizing it, but it is for a purpose. Um even though uh you can find great prices on equipment, and if you already know what you're looking for, or if you trust an individual um uh friend or something that was someone else has got a setup and you just want to duplicate the setup because you think it's gonna be a good place to start, that's that's fine. All all of all retail outlets are you know have their point and purpose, but when you get stuck or when something just doesn't sound right, or if you think something's not working right, you do need to get you needed to have some help. Um turntables do need uh uh some maintenance. Um it's it's not uh um it's not beyond the scope of of a home consumer to be able to do the basic maintenance that it needs, um, and then um know when it's time to reach out to a pro to to get the additional help that it needs. The corollary back with the mountain bike is perfect. I mean, there's all sorts of things that a consumer, a rider can do to to to keep the bike in good shape for cleaning the lube and and adjusting, but there are times when it just doesn't feel right and you need somebody to look at it and go like, yeah, this is this is wrong. For you, I kind of remember our conversation. Um, I I wanted to know how how in divinal you were and what kind of music you listened to. And we even talked about um how it integrated into your home theater, um, uh whether this was going to be something that there was gonna be enough shelf space to to put you know what what kind of equipment was going in and what speakers were you gonna put into the whole thing. So you know, asked me you asked me a pretty simple question about I I think I want to get a better turntable. What should I get? And it ends up being, you know, 20 questions.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Right, absolutely. So you you actually made a specific recommendation to me, and with the caveat to our listeners that you know that this podcast doesn't endorse any one particular solution, I'll tell you that the thing I ended up with was a turntable by project. Um, and it was based on your recommendation. And I went from that, I think you saw my original turntable with something that my buddy uh Nate lent me just to see if I liked um, you know, turn you know, uh like the vinyl experience. And it was one of those sort of automatic things.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

It went around and around, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

It went around and around, exactly. And but and then I fell in love with the whole vinyl experience, and I said, Scott, you know, what what should I get? And you told me this um this project, I think it's called the DC Carbon, or it was at the time. There were a lot of things different about this turntable versus the one that I had borrowed from my buddy. Um, it wasn't automatic, it did have weights, it it came with a nice cartridge with a you know with a diamond tip. And could you could you talk through a little uh a few of the things that um that compelled you to recommend this thing to me?

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Um it's a turntable that we rely on in per in the professional environment to reflect um a consumer, a good consumer um uh system. But how it became that reference for us is a little more of the story. We cut a record, all right, and we put all of our love and sweat and technique and and expertise into it, but we we don't really know we don't really know how it sounds until we play it back on something. And if you play it back on a you know five or six hundred or five or six thousand dollar turntable, it might sound great, but if you play it back on a fifty dollar turntable, it might really suck. Um, and so I have to decide when creating the vinyl, kind of what echelon, what what sp strata of listener uh is likely to buy this record. I do this, you know, sometimes with the with the uh uh producer's input, but oftentimes just the style of music and the and the uh the way the the artist's um presentation kind of gives me a clue as whether this is something that a first-time you know um teenager, first-time record buyer is going to put this record on, or if this is something that um a serious audiophile is going to, you know, pay the extra money for this collection and and covet this but you know this remastering. And uh in in which case I'll I will cut the record differently based on on that um assumptions. And it's uh it's kind of interesting, but what we have to do is actually have multiple playback options available at the studio. And and I hesitate to use the really the most basic, an entry-level one, because uh today people it uh it's it's a significant investment, really significant investment for an artist to to make a record, even for a single um like the Odyssey did. It's it's a significant um uh chunk of money. And what that um what that means is I don't think we want to aim for the for the lowest common denominator. I don't think wanna think I don't think we want to put the bar too low. I think we want to make sure that people who are really into vinyl are going to get a great experience. I think we we you know have a uh uh responsibility even to the community to when whenever possible make a great sounding record. So that's that said, my consumer choice turntable um is not like an entry-level um uh best buy you know uh box product that's you know um in a stack by the register. It's one that's been selected for good specifications and has a cartridge on it that um I know and understand and kind of can kind of relate to. You know, we tried a variety of different things, um, but myself and the other engineers that I work with kind of settled in on this particular item because it uh Project has been able to um um put a pretty good, if not excellent, performance specs into a pretty affordable box, um, a turntable. So the the whole thing comes more or less ready to play out of the box, and it's got some uh got some really great stats. So that has become the standard that we use when evaluating our cuts. And uh when uh and I've recommended a similar turntable to uh to other consumers that have been really in that same ballpark as you. Like I I I I'm gonna know it when I hear it, but I really don't know what I'm shopping for. I mean I I'll be able to appreciate the the improvements, but I I really, you know, what you've uh uh despite what I said earlier, walking into a hi-fi store is just a a daunting and overwhelming task. And and so this recommendation um for about a you know $350 to $400 turntable worth of cartridge um uh uh is a pretty good a pretty good uh price point. I mean, I I would uh uh still recommend that to someone who doesn't know um whether this is going to be a lifelong um uh hobby um and uh you know a serial investment kind of thing. Um and even if they did really believe that um they they wanted to spend uh a certain amount of their disposable income on vinyl, um uh you you don't necessarily go out and and buy the most expensive thing available. Um because because frankly, some of the most expensive things are a little fragile. The more expensive cartridges uh have a stylus that can actually be damaged more easily. So it it's sensitivity, it's it's greater performance comes at the cost of it not being as durable. So what you have there in the project with the uh Audafon cartridge is a um, in this case, we I think we chose the red um It was the red, yeah. Which is a uh a nice little upgrade. I look at everything sort of backwards. I'm not actually looking for great playback stats, I'm looking for something to be a good tool. I want it to be able to reveal to me uh secrets about the groove, um, which coincidentally are in common when you want a really high-quality playback system, but I don't want something that's overly forgiving because it won't it won't highlight the problems. It's kind of like uh putting a pretty mask over top everything, and everything looks kind of um kind of warm and those colored glasses, yeah. Exactly. I I I want it, I want the unvarnished truth. Um, and in this case, I I I didn't want the unvarnished truth at uh at a $5,000 price point. I I needed it to be at a kind of a reasonable price point that your average record producer and maybe serious vinyl collector, you know, would step up to. And um, like I said, like $400 doesn't um it sounds like a ton if you've never spent more than a set, you know, have never bought more than a set of earbuds before. Um that's a ton of money, but it's not a lot to spend on a on a good turntable. It's a good balance.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

No, and I I gotta I gotta say that you know it w it was yeah it um it hurt a little bit you know to drop I think uh you know I think the model that we got you know four or five hundred dollars like you said but you know the the the difference was just I mean I I put a record on that I was previously listening to on this sort of you know cheap whatever it was the automatic system uh and you know no anti-skate no you know no nothing interesting cartridge wise no you know I don't even know if it was actually spinning at 33 in an R a third RPM I'm pretty sure it I'm pretty sure it wasn't. It probably wasn't and I I you know we hooked up this thing and put on one of my favorite records, Steely Dan Asia, um, you know, which is such the you know the perfectly mixed um you know record to to test out a system on and uh you know my ears damn near fell off my head. Like I I couldn't believe how well you know what a difference uh you know spending a couple bucks on some nice gear made.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Well, there's a lot there's a lot going on there with the comparison. The older um turntables that you would find off at eBay um might you know look like a good and well-reviewed turntable, but you're gonna almost certainly have maintenance issues that you've gonna have to factor into the equation. So if you're gonna buy get a you know $100 turntable or something, uh older techniques or a Girard or a dual uh turntable, it was we're good workhorses at the time. It probably needs two or three hundred dollars worth of repairs and probably a new cartridge just to get it up to service specs from when it was when it was uh last used, you know, two decades ago. So watch out for the false economy of getting you know the secondhand stuff unless it's been set up and unless it's really been certified by some means, and that's very hard off of eBay. Um almost anything that uh you buy through a um local dealer that's a used or refurbished will probably be pretty expensive because someone's uh devoted enough time to the maintenance on it that they're gonna uh warranty the you know the unit. Like the dealer, even if he sells you a used piece, he's gonna, you know, try to put us we're gonna want to put a six months or a year uh warranty on it. So that means they're gonna have to replace a lot of parts that um would would wear out. Now, there's not a lot of parts in a turntable, but um the cartridge itself is made up of moving parts, uh the suspension and the needle and the cantilever and the the little coils inside the thing. And they're it's put together with plastics and adhesives and um and things that are supposed to wiggle back and forth, but over age they get stiffer and stiffer and stiffer and eventually stop moving altogether. You'll still hear a sound out of them, but it it sounds like it's completely um uh inept at handling the the groove. It that sneaks up on you. Uh, even if you've had a turntable and been enjoying uh records for the past ten years, you won't know what you're missing, or you won't really realize what you're missing until you make that change and and you have that aha moment when you realize that your cartridge was actually further along in age than you had given it credit for.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Now that you've said that, I feel like you now I'm wondering what I'm hearing. So how long would you expect a cartridge like this to last?

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Years is uh years is is fine. I mean, the um the very most expensive uh cartridge and stylus um manufacturers recommended um changing the stylus every couple years or sooner uh if they start to notice performance flaws, but that's way, way, way um uh more precise, more precision and more, more um um more acuity than your your average consumer needs. Um to be honest, it's it's not it's not that they're better, uh it's just that they're putting all of their focus on to the to the performance of this um device and are spending a lot of money on it. So it's it's they they want the ultimate. They just uh how about a sports car analogy with with you know three-quartered worn-out tires? You know, it'll still pass inspection, but it's not gonna perform the way that you it won't corner like you want it to, yeah. Not not the way it did when when you know when it was first set up or first brand new.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes sense. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

But then I have to also say a it's possible to damage the the needle, um, both the actual tip and the suspension system for the needle. And so if it's been mishandled, I mean i it might only be four or five days old and it might be damaged if it's been if it's been mishandled. And um, you know, many people my age will remember um um being sort of harshly reprimanded by our parents for uh for um uh touching or mishandling the turning table or the tone arm. Um if you've ever heard anybody scratch the tone arm across the record, um that horrific sound is um you know dramatic, but it's also very uh uh on a very on an expensive cartridge, it's very easy to do damage.

unknown 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Permanent permanent damage. It can be repaired, the stylus can be replaced, the suspension can be fixed. Um, but it's um, you know, if your depression era uh parents had had invested uh uh several months worth of uh uh disposable income on a stereo system, um they didn't want Junior, you know, uh damaging it while trying to play a Beatles record. Well, well you we've got to get you trained properly, but uh one day. It's um I find myself even today um getting uh uh forgetting to be you know gentle with it. Um uh because I'm I'm in the process of using these things like you know tools every day, uh throwing a record on, putting it down in the groove. You know, it's it's it's it's yeah, it the roughness does add up. Um a a a well-mannered um home audiophile vinyl um collector and uh and turntable enthusiast will spend the time to make sure the stylus is clean and the record is clean and and um and then we'll somehow deal with the shakes that they have uh to set the needle down in the groove the properly.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

What about um what about balancing the tone arm? You know, when we got this thing and took it out of the box, we we literally had to watch YouTube videos to figure out you know the the the the incredible acrobatics are required to to balance this thing. There's there's a piece on the end that you screw in or out, and there's uh a little there literally a little counterweight attached to a little piece of fishing line that's attached to something else. It's like it's it's it's insane. It's like um, you know, one of the one of those machines that uh anyway. Uh my question is, is this something that you absolutely have to look for? And uh, you know, and and why is this so important?

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Well, it's important because it represents quality. To state it quite simply, the um the counterweight adjustment um uh needs to be set accurately or the cartridge uh that you have attached won't perform the way it's supposed to. And the little counterweight with the fishing line is called an anti-skate uh uh device or an anti-anti-skate weight. And if that's not installed, or if it's not installed or balanced properly, you'll have a tendency to skip um either towards the label or away from the label, even when the records aren't effective. So um um it's important in the sense that you might buy a record, bring it home, and it sounds like it's skipping or it is skipping. But um it it might not be the record's fault. The record might actually be perfectly um produced. Um your tone arm may not be set up properly to handle the maneuvers that it's having to maneuver. And since I love car analogies, it's like it not having you know a good set of shocks on the car. Right. It's um it it the suspension system and the weighting or the preload on the cartridge determines how it handles the bumps of the record, um, just like the bumps in the road. So you want the stylus to remain in contact with the turn with the the record so that it traces exactly the music that was encoded. Um, but you don't want it to be so stiff or so overladen um that it um you loses lose the uh subtleties. It used to be a a bad it was always a bad technique, and it still was a very bad technique to just add extra weight when you found a a record that's skipped, and um that prematurely wears out the stylus and it can can damage the cartridge. So um it's really a bad idea to you know to throw a uh a dime or a penny, you know, on the the shell of the cartridge so that it plays across the record. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

It's it's not it's not weight, it's balance that's the key here, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Well, ultimately we are we are concerned with the force, the downward force of the tip of the stylus on the record. And so the way we measure that, since most people don't have a stylus force gauge, you can get them. They're they're not terribly expensive. I have a little digital one that was, you know, a few bucks. Um, but it it uh uh most uh turntable manufacturers don't assume that you have an accurate stylus force gauge, so they set up a balancing system uh so that in the fields you could know what you're doing. And and that's what the marks on the on the uh counterweight are for. The the procedure generally goes something like this you put on your cartridge and you take the tone arm off of the rest, and uh you're trying to initially get the tone arm to balance um horizontally, not leaning down on the record, not lifting up in the air, but to get it to be horizontally level, and you just keep fiddling with that uh counterweight in the back until you get that point where it's level, and then there's usually some method of of locking that in place. And then there's another ring that gives you calibrated um um counterweight measurements, and so after once you've got the tone arm in balance, then you want to add a gram or add a gram and a half or add uh a gram and three quarters. Um and that number you find um in in the box or in the specifications uh for your particular cartridge. If you picked up one used or picked up a turntable used, you might not know what the um stylus force is supposed to be. And you might have to set it by ear. Um it's pretty tricky. Um you would would need to have some experience of knowing what it's supposed what the turntable is supposed to be doing. Uh most people tend to uh set the stylus force too too heavy uh if they do it by eye or by by feel. So that's what that that's what that mechanism is for. If you had a stylus force gauge, you could do it the same way by just by literally laying the cartridge needle on the stylus force gauge and adjusting the counterbalance and the counterweight until you achieve the desired um down force. This is significant because the materials that make up the cartridge have some compliance of the of their own. Um like I said, there's there's glues and there's suspension pieces and there's you know pieces that vibrate back and forth and need to move in and out, but it needs to be preloaded in such a way so that it will track the groove uh reliably. And and I would really suggest not airing on the side of too light, uh thinking that you might be saving your records from excessive wear, or um uh err on the side of being too heavy, figuring, well, heavier will mean it won't skip. You you're um both of those uh conditions don't produce optimal results. The cartridge manufacturer and and we rarely deviate from this. The cartridge, you know, the engineers that make that cartridge know what weight that thing is supposed to be at when uh um it knows how much force it takes to act activate that cartridge so that it's got its uh um for optimal performance. Thank you for the words I couldn't so two things occur to me at this point.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Um, the first one is that I know what I'm doing tonight. I think I'm taking a long, hard look at the balance of my tone arm and my cartridge because it's been a little while and I all of a sudden have this new feel for how important, you know, the right balance is. The second is that this is a juicy enough topic that it's gonna spill over into another couple episodes because we haven't even talked about speakers um or uh and I've uh or the you know the receiver and I have a million other questions. So I suggest that we stick a fork in it and jump into you know the rest of it in the next episode.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Sure. Let's uh let's go listen to some records and uh come back next time. I I would agree that you should look at the balance and the the stylus force of uh uh and the balance of your tone arm because these components do tend to move, um, even though they they can be kind of locked down. Um and the project's pretty good about keeping them in place, but uh you know it gets bumped. Um I was oh I I remember uh seeing your setup and being curious, okay, so is the cat gonna come into play? Oh man, I was just gonna talk about Tinkerbell.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Shoot who who likes to sit on top of the damn thing. Who knows what kind of damage the the fur alone? I can't believe the thing's even still spinning.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

So um, well, keep an ear on it and keep an eye on it. Um, you know, it it might need to be um, you know, you might need a little proactive uh uh care. It's a simple carry in to uh to shop and have it taken apart and cleaned carefully and maybe a little lubrication and put back together. But your your particular rig's new enough. I I don't think you've got to worry about it. But um it did concern it to concern me because if the cat got playful with the cartridge while it was playing, that was really gonna that was gonna throw off your alignment pretty pretty badly.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Playful is a nice nice euphemism for what Tinkerbell does to my to the to the things I spend money on. Um all right, so um I'll just say then that uh yeah, we're gonna this is gonna spill over into another couple episodes. But in the meantime, if you guys have questions or thoughts or if there's something specific you want um Scott to talk about, hit up Scott and the MasterDisc team on on social, hit them up on Facebook and uh Twitter and Instagram, ask your questions, um, masterdisc.com if you want to do it the old-fashioned way, just uh you know fill out a request form for some info and tell us what you want to know about. And um we'll ask Scott next time.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Very cool. Yeah, I encourage everyone to reach out. We're um we're big and busy, but we do take time to answer questions.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Yes, indeed. And this is important stuff, damn it.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Yeah, yeah, we're we're uh there's some education, re-education necessary because a lot of people are getting into this uh without having um um you know watch their parents do it.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Absolutely. All right.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Well, with that, I'll sign off. This has been Making Vinyl at Master Disc, and thanks again to KJ from the Odyssey, and uh we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Yes, sir. Goodbye, everybody. Bye-bye.