Returning to the Warm and Lovely Sound of Vinyl

Those under thirty or so perhaps won't understand. A few semi – 'Luddite' audiophiles just might. Call me crazy, sentimental, silly, whatever, but I've decided to return to the aural joys of vinyl. Yes, vinyl, as in long–playing records, turntables, phonographs, needles and grooves.

I thought I'd seen the last of the vinyl record with the determined push behind the compact disc (CD) in the late eighties. And how could one not convert? CDs were virtually unbreakable, one just stuck the shiny little disc onto the holder (or into the slot), and the machine did the rest. Any tweaking was done solely with the equalizer sliders (with snazzy little lighted columns of bars that rose and fell with the magnitude of sound), no need to bother with much else. One could go instantly to the desired track on a whim with the mere touch of a teeny button on the remote. And the sound was pristine – so clean and clear! The digital engineers did everything for you! You just had to worry about which drink and snack to get, and which comfortable chair to sink into as you settled back, and let the music fill the air.

Pure sentimentality may have inspired my return to the turntable, that low–tech piece of equipment that came with spinning platter, tone–arm, cartridge, stylus, and the vinyl record with its propensity for scratches—heard as crackles and pops on the stereo set. I would still argue, though, for a certain warmth to the sound of vinyl recordings that doesn't come through on compact discs. Nostalgia for certain beloved records of the classical, musical and pop genres may have stirred a renewed interest in the old phonograph, which had given many hours of listening pleasure a long while ago.

And so it was decided to resurrect the ancient technology.

After a few days' worth of online research, I'd settled on the Audio–Technica PL 120, a professional direct–drive turntable whose many features made it a favorite of deejays. I couldn't care less about the deejay–pleasing features, but this model had everything I sought in a good turntable. It weighed 25 pounds, which matters here because you want a sturdy and solid structure on which your records will spin. It sported four big, round, adjustable and flexible rubber feet, the better to dampen any unwelcome vibrations. The cast aluminum platter (the part upon which your records sit and spin) had a nice heft to it. Something I noticed, too, with this unit: contrary to the modern trend of miniaturization, all the control buttons on the PL 120 were sufficiently large and rectangular, so that even larger hands need not fumble with crowded little buttons here!

The PL 120 had three available speeds: 33 1/3, 45 and 78 rotations per minute (rpm). Why would I need the 78 rpm, you ask? Heavens, for those 78 rpm records in my parents' collection, of course! (A priceless, out–of–print Laurence Olivier album set was of special import in this respect!) The 33 1/3 and 45 rpm speeds were accessible through separate buttons near the left front end, and you set it to 78 rpm by pressing both buttons at the same time (makes sense: 33 + 45 = 78!). A nice, silver 45 rpm adapter came with the turntable.

The model had its own internal preamplifier, a virtual necessity these days, since most good amplifiers/receivers have, understandably, dispensed with the PHONO jack and preamplifier (for which the AUX jack is not a proper substitute). Sans the “preamp”, the sound won't even approach a single decibel through your PHONO–less receiver, since the signal from the stylus/cartridge needs a big boost to be heard. So if your receiver has a PHONO jack, you bypass the turntableÕs internal preamp and connect it directly to that input. Only when you wish to use the phonograph's internal preamplifier do you plug the unit into the AUX jack. Just make sure you match the correct preamp settings with the correct jacks!

The tone–arm (that part that pivots and holds the needle at its tip) is S–shaped, which I've read gives better true tracking along the grooves than straight arms do. There's a small plastic hook just behind the tone–arm rest that you flip to lock the tone–arm in place. Never having had experience in tampering with such, I balked at first at the need to adjust the tracking force and anti–skate settings on this turntable. Carrying out this task would become a simple process later on, when my dull mind finally grasped the principles behind them. (Physics was never a strength of mine.)

Additional features that completed my list of desirables were the tone–arm lift lever, which many similar professional–quality turntables didn't have––I didn't want to worry about scratching my precious vinyl records every time I set down or picked up the tone–arm; and the little pop–up stylus light that illuminates the record surface close to the stylus path, which would help immensely in cueing in dim settings. Start and stop buttons to get the platter going were convenient, too.

For deejays, especially, the unit allows one to adjust the pitch using a prominent slider on the right hand side, with a choice of pitch variation of either plus or minus 10 or 20 percent. When the slider hits exactly midway, a click is felt, and the quartz lock engages, indicated by the light next to the slider turning green: this means that the pitch will not vary as the speed will be held constant. At any other point along the slider scale, the light turns red (indicating the quartz lock is off), and pressing the lock button on the lower right–hand corner holds the setting and turns the light green. There's a neat feature that uses a stroboscopic light to correctly set the different platter speeds, and those rows of little raised silver dots running around the edge of the platter are not mere cosmetic whims! I shan't bother going into that here, since the manual gives a very clear explanation of the procedure.

Oh, and the platter's direction of spin can be reversed via a button, for those who care about such weird things. (Or perhaps some may wish to uncover those evil and satanic messages hidden by back–masking.)

While the advantages of one over the other have been debated ad nauseum, I opted for the direct–drive instead of a belt–driven one, just by default on this unit. I would later find that the direct–drive could start and stop on a dime (thanks to the electronic brake), and without having to lift the tone–arm to get the platter spinning. Any noise transmitted from the platter did not exist to my ears, something belt–driven proponents claim makes their choice superior to the direct–drive ones. Pshaw! I say to that.

The unit I ordered online promptly arrived in the mail in a well–protected box. Assembling it took no more than fifteen or twenty minutes. You made sure to select the correct voltage via a switch accessible through a tiny hole on the aluminum platter, and the correct preamplifier setting through a second similar opening on the platter. You then slipped on the round black felt slip mat onto the aluminum platter. The unit came with its own cartridge and stylus (also known as the headshell), which was simple to attach to the tone–arm.

After attaching the headshell, setting the tracking force was simple enough (but again, not for a dumbo like me!), but a few preliminary adjustments needed to be made. The knob–like counterweight came unattached, and had to be screwed onto the back of the tone–arm before any other adjustments were done. After removing the little plastic stylus guard, one simply turned the counterweight on the back while supporting the headshell with your hand, holding it just a centimetre or two above the platter surface. (You need not have a record on for this step.) The trick here was to adjust the counterweight until the tone–arm was perfectly horizontal when viewed from the side (without any support from you), and when it floats like so in mid'air, it means it's balanced. Upon achieving this, you then turned the scale on the tone–arm to “ 0 ” (this scale moves freely, and one simply aligns the “ 0 ” with the white line below it on the arm). This is the balanced setting.

Next, adjusting the tracking force itself. What exactly is “tracking force”, you ask? Simply put, it's the downward force exerted by the needle upon the record groove. Different cartridges will have different recommended tracking forces. For the ATP – 2 cartridge that comes with this turntable, 3 to 5 grams is suitable. I set mine to 3.5 grams, just for the heck of it. (The scale doesn't go beyond “ 4 ”, which is the “ 0 ” setting in fact after one revolution, so if you go beyond “ 0 ” after the first round, you have to add 4 grams to the number on the scale.)

Then there's the matter of the anti–skate force. With the rotation of the platter, the tone–arm will tend to drift centrifugally, and this “skating” tendency needs to be countered through the anti–skate control. Here it's a small knob with numbers, that sits at the base of the tone–arm. Recommended setting is the same number as the tracking force, so in my case it was 3.5. I also found that the anti–skate force was crucial to obtaining a true stereophonic sound. Only when this parameter was correctly set were the right and left speaker sounds truly balanced. Easy enough, isn't it?

The height of the tone–arm can also be adjusted for older, thicker records, I suppose, through a large ridged dial at the base of the pivot point, scaled at 1–centimetre increments.

After setting all the necessary adjustments, you now had to slide the two black plastic cover hinges onto the slots in the back, and then slide the lightly tinted plastic dust cover onto the hinges, and you were now ready to go.

A few final words: when shutting down, I leave my lift lever in the “up” position, and always put on the needle using this lever. You'll appreciate its wonderful hydraulic damping feature that ever–so–lightly sets down the stylus onto the vinyl, reducing the chances of scratching your records or damaging the stylus in the process. Also note that this is a fully manual unit: when the needle reaches the center label, the tone–arm does not automatically lift and return itself to its rest; you'll have to do that yourself with help from the lift lever.

So now you're ready to play some discs, er, records! So turn on your receiver and select PHONO or AUX. Put a clean vinyl record on, turn on the power knob, press the start button to set the platter spinning, remove any record dust with a good anti–static microbristle brush, gently put the stylus on and—enter a new world of clean, warm, lovely sound! I swear, with a mint or near–mint record that dates from the stereophonic era, hooked up to a good amplifier/receiver and good speakers, the fullness, detail, airiness and warmth of the sound beats one from a compact disc any day!

Oh, but you say you have no vinyl records in your collection? Not a problem. Next stop: eBay!

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Miscellaneous notes:

I must admit to enjoying the whole rigmarole that goes with playing a record—the cleaning of the vinyl, the placing of the black disc onto the platter, the sheen created by the record spinning about, that magical moment when the stylus makes contact with the record and a slight scratchy sound comes on. . .the kind of (literally) personal touch required of one when putting on a phonograph record that the compact disc system dispenses with. . . .

I purchased my unit from J & R Music and Computer World via the amazon.com website. It cost just $219.88, and shipping was very quick ($21.70, including insurance). I received the unit four working days after I placed the order.

The turntable comes with a removable hinged dust cover, a slip mat, a headshell and cartridge (ATP – 2), an AC power cord, a 45 rpm silver adapter, and a very easy–to–follow user's manual.