Wouter's page : Vinyl

So you're wondering what the fuss is all about. We have CDs, they're a million times better than records, why are these audio types insisting on this really ancient technology?

<rant>
Here in South Africa, we grew up with EMI / MFP records. They were bad enough to put anyone off vinyl for life. Yes, that bad. Paper-thin discs that would buckle if you looked at them, with off-centre holes. These things got scratched by the protective sleeve. If you didn't tape it the first time and listened to the tape, the record would be worn out within a week. I still have my copy of The Wall, which jumped the track in one place when it was brand new. I taped it, played the tape to bits, and repeated the operation a few times. The record itself's been played somewhere around 50 times. OK, maybe a hundred And it is shot. Compact Disks are an incredible advance on this "technology". No matter how badly they were pressed, if they play at all they sound good.
</rant>

But, times change, and I found this really cheap Thorens TD160 (R35 at Cash Converters). Played a few records, yup, better than I remembered, but still not as good as CDs. And then I discovered the recording that did it. A Teldec. Johnnie "Guitar" Watson. It sounded incredible. And I discovered that good vinyl is better than good CDs, just like bad vinyl is worse than bad CDs. So there's definitely a place for vinyl in my life.

I bought an SME 3009 tonearm. (I'm an engineer, fascinated by gadgets, and little weights on strings just *so* do it for me :-) I also found a relatively cheap Ortofon MC10 cartridge, which I hope is still OK. But, I need a platter for this. So I bought a Technics SL-D2 turntable (Cape Ads, 2001-12-27, R250) and stripped out the mechanism, which I plan to use with a homebrew plinth. I might even end up calling it the dW "sandbender".

I have heard that the SME 3009 is not a good match for a moving coil cartridge, so I did the maths relating to the compliance and effective mass, and this shows that there won't be any problems with the resonant frequency. On the other hand, a low compliance cartridge may feed more energy into the bearings than it can handle. I'll have to try it and see.

My future plans are:

• W. Marshall Leach, Jr moving coil head amp.

Notes:

• Matching your cartridge and tone arm.

Links

• Vinyl SA forum
• UHF magazine is on the web, on the ball, and alltogether pretty well jacked up. I sent in my subscription the same day I discovered their web site. They sell CDs and records and ship all over the world.
• Enjoy The Music has a protractor image that you can use to align your turntable cartridge.
• 78rpm.com has a program to print out stroboscopic patterns to help you set your turntable speed.
• Bluehaze is a big fan of Ortofon moving coil cartriges and the Technics SL-D2 turntable.
• The SME Club.