I'm hoping Alan, Ian, or any of you knowledgable fellas can help out here. I've recently blown the dust off my old turntable, after coming across plenty of cheap, well-cared for albums at local garage sales and flea markets. Here's the difficulty: I am noticing that any movement made by me during turntable use is instantly transferred through the floor, and directly to the speakers (M60s), and this is causing the woofers to to move in a most alarming fashion. I mean, these woofers are just flying; they look completely loose, and as though they are about to fall right out of the cabinets. I have noted that this doesn't happen when I'm using any other input (cd, dvd, tuner, etc.). For now, I've fixed the problem by sliding a placemat(!!) beneath my turntable, and this has provided adequate vibration insulation; no more flying woofers. Now I'm wondering if this type of excursion of the drivers could be harmful. Any info would be appreciated, gang. BTW, the turntable and M60s are connected to an old Marantz 2285, if it makes a difference. Cheers!

DS.

Hi Dave,

Ah, nostalgia for the days of vinyl and tweaking turntables! That's subsonic rumble and mechanical feedback that's causing your woofer "flap". No, it won't harm anything but it does waste lots of amplifier power that could be better used reproducing low bass frequencies. It also causes Doppler distortion of all frequencies reproduced by your woofer but there ain't space to explain that here....

Anyway, does your receiver/preamp have a (good) sharp rumble filter? That might entirely eliminate your problem. The offending subsonic garbage is typically between about 12 Hz and 20 Hz. If not, try mounting four old squishy tennis balls under the four corners of the turntable.

If the turntable has a floating, floppy sub-chassis suspension, like the old AR and Linn clone (Ariston and others used it as well), they were very susceptible to floor-conducted mechanical feedback in rooms with unsolid floors. You could try wall-mounting a shelf for the turntable to the wall studs. I've heard that is an effective solution. Never tried it myself.

There used to be dedicated silicone-type feet (maybe some discarded breast implants would work...) you could buy from Audio-Technica. Do a search for suppliers of turntable accessories. It's too early here for me to come up with the name of the outfit that supplies all that stuff. I'll post the name when I think of it.

Regards,

Here's an e-mail I sent Alan today about this problem:

Alan,

Regarding my post on the message board pertaining to subsonic rumble, here's a pic of my Marantz 2285. I've circled what I suspect may be the closest thing the unit has to the rumble filter you've suggested. In case the photo is not detailed enough, there are two filter buttons: one marked 30Hz, the other 9Khz. Below the two buttons, the marking reads "18db/OCT". Sure enough, the 30Hz filter assists greatly in taming the problem, but it doesn't eliminate it completely. I think I may simply stick with my decidedly low-tech placemat solution. Thanks for your help, sir, and for easing my mind, as well (watching those woofers flap made me feel quite uneasy, as you might imagine). Cheers!

Dave.

Hi Dave,
Excellent. That's a fairly sharp filter, but it never entirely eliminates the problem, plus the filter may also sharply attenuate low bass below 30 Hz (pipe organ, bass drum, etc) if your speakers are capable of response in that region. Although, except for special "audiophile" LPs that were half-speed mastered, not many vinyl discs contained musical content of import below 30 Hz. It was too difficult to cut and limited playback time of the LP because the groove excursions were so large. Besides, cheap phono cartridges couldn't track such grooves without major distortion.

Regards,

Thanks again for you help, Alan! Time to enjoy some vinyl. Cheers!

DS.

Alan, your a riot!

" (maybe some discarded breast implants would work...) "

Heh, Heh - Wish I would have said that!

Funny - now that turntables are virtually a thing of the past, the old low frequency rumble filters that were pretty standard on receivers are now gone (just like phono preamps are disappearing on receivers)

Progress.... Hmmmm.......

Randyman

Hi Randyman,

Thanks. Questionable taste, I know, but I just thought I should do my part in recycling--all that silicone going to waste. . .

Yes, it was fun tweaking those old turntables; sadly, there's nothing to tweak with CD players in the digital era. But I'm generally happy not having to deal with all those old bugbears of analog playback: audible flutter (even on the recordings!), rumble, whole percentage distortion from phono cartridges on loud passages (many generated 5 - 7% distortion on widely modulated loud passages), woofer flap, cartridge alignment, tonearm setup, meticulous cleaning and de-staticizing, the list goes on and on...

I love the nostalgia of the LP jackets and artwork, but I can do without all of the above, thank-you.

Regards,

Alan,
I agree 100%! It WAS a real hassle messing with all the variables on turntables - but what fun we had debating over (and messing with) direct drive, belt drive, tonearm shape and weight, base resonance, stylus design, MC vs MM cartridges, platter cushion, gel filled feet, dampening the LPs with weight, and remember ALL that gerat Discwasher stuff! anti-static coatings. Super high density antistatic album sleeves! Man I could go on!

But now we argue over things we have NO direct control of... jitter, DA/AD conversion rates, bitrates, bitstreaming, single vs dual (or triple) laser pickup, etc. etc. etc. At least in the (good?) old days we had a DIRECT influence on the sound (bad as that may have been) Oh well, its fun to remember all that, but I really prefer the ease of the CD too!

All the best

Randyman

Geez, the last record player i remember was one with a mickey mouse picture on the lid whose arm stuck out and you used his finger for the needle.
I don't think that player had any filter settings though, but the sound was pretty sweet.

I think i missed out.

Chess,

You are bustin my chops!!
Oh what memories! Can you sing the song? M I C K E Y... M O U S E!

Yeah if you are too young - you missed out on all the fun of cartridge alignment in the tone arm (amoung many other things) - so you havent really lived! Why, right now I have a really cool Sony flip lid cartridge head holder that holds 5 removeable tonearm heads - and I really have 5 heads in it! (with four different cartridges - Sony XL-15, AT-12s (accurate but unforgiving), Sure V15 type IV (warm smooth sound - but missing the brilliant high end), and an AT 30E) btw AT = Audio Techinica and they were/are pretty dang good cartridges! the s= as shibata stylus - which was state of the art at one time. (designed for 4 channel discrete records) Oh Man I feel old!! How about you Alan?

Wow - this is fun walking down memory lane. You young kids really missed some cool stuff!

Randyoldman

Hi Randyman,

Yes, you named lots more. Another basic appeal of that era was that analog vinyl playback was relatively easy to understand. Digital technology is technically dense--incredibly so--which is why a lot of high-end vinyl aficionados hate it. They just don't understand it, whereas low-frequency tonearm resonances you could see--watch that woofer flap!--and warp-wow as the warped LP caused your custom tonearm to cycle up and down.

Do you remember the Disctracker, from Discwasher? I still have one. It was this tiny air-damped shock absorber you attached to the headshell beside the cartridge. It did the same thing as the flip-down brush on the V-15 series cartridges. I had one installed on a second turntable for my moving-coil and Grado MM cartridges.

And Chesseroo, the discrete 4-channel format really advanced cartridge design. It was technically premature, because the record cutter had to record a 40,000-Hz carrier frequency to carry the extra two channels. So the cartridge had to effectively track the 40-kHz carrier. It's amazing that it even worked!

Regards,

I have to live vicariously through you for these experiences.
Please keep me enlightened.

Hey chess...
You want even more? I bet Alan and I could drive you to distraction with this stuff...

OK so here is something you may not have heard about...

Keeping a vinyl record clean (to minimize pops and ticks)was an ever consuming job. In addition to the disctracker device and brushes that were built into the cartridge (like the Sure V-15 and many Pickering models), several companies made tonearm like devices that attached to the turntable that had little brushes that tracked the grooves lust like the stylus. As the record went around, the brush was in the same location as the cartridge (but just 180 degrees opposite of the cartridge) This constantly cleaned the grooves at the same time as the music played - without causing any influence on the tonearm weight, mass, dampening, etc. and thus was a "different" approach to cleaning.

There was also a wet system developed for playback that involved a real committment! This system constantly spread a small amount of distilled water on the grooves being played (by a similar device as the dry dust cleaner). The advantage of this system (which btw I never used) was that it "suspended" dust and debris out of the bottom/sides of the record roove and provided "lubrication and cooling" between the diamond stylus and vinyl. The result was usually a remarkable reduction in the vinyl surface noise and pops/ticks. But it also resulted in a disc that forever had to be played "wet", or you wouldn't be able to stand the noise when played dry! Which is why I never used it. But I think a lot of DJs in night clubs did.

Music/HiFi history.... ain't it fun?

Got any more good ones for us Alan?

Randyman

That is good stuff.
I remember i had a nice red brush for my mickey mouse LP player. I also remember it was pretty plush. That's about all i remember.

Hi,

As Randyman noted, the task of keeping vinyl clean was indeed never-ending. The tracking brush I eventually used was the Decca Record Brush, but there was a much earlier one, also from England, with a Cecil Watts brand name. I recall having that installed on my AR turntable in the early '60s, when I was in college.

Even the Decca was a mixed bag. The friction of the carbon-fibre bristles agains the vinyl increased the static charge (although it was supposed to dissipate the charge, but it didn't) until I installed a ground wire from the arm that held the tracking brush. That helped.

But among my friends and reviewers, the true badge of a serious vinyl collector was whether or not you owned the Nitty Gritty Record Cleaning Machine--I think VPI also make them--which applied a mix of distilled water and alcolhol, rotated the disc, and vacuumed up the residue. The two friends of mine who own record-cleaning machines, and swear by them, have, respectively, collections of 13,000 and about 10,000 vinyl albums, which include multiple international pressings of the same album.

I could never quite justify getting one. Now, I play vinyl so seldom that I wouldn't consider it. Still, they are neat machines.

Re the "wet playing": a marvelous host of a CBC national classical FM program ("Off the Record") in Canada, Bob Kerr, used to occasionally use wet playback on air for rare pressings from his own collection. It worked extremely well, but Randyman is right. The wet playback leeched out the chemical vinyl stabilizers, so the disc would become unlistenably noise except with wet playback.

Regards,

Alan,

GREAT STUFF!

I knew you could jog my memory even more. I remember all those brands/devices - but I never owned the NGRCM either. I did use the discwasher system almost religously - walnut handle, red plush material and the "secret formula" discwasher cleaning fluid, ion generator anti-static gun, stylus cleaning brush and fluid. (All in a sweet case with wood base) Why I even used the Stanton permanent anti-static spray-on system. Man, would I ever like to have all the $ back that I spent on that stuff!

Thanks again Alan. I think it helps when the "younger" generation know and (hopefully) understands some the history of audio/HI-FI gear.

Randyman

Randyman and Alan,

Ah, yes. The added steps to listening to vinyl was a pain, but worth it in the end if you had a good setup. I love the clear sound of CDs, but thought something was missing until SACDs and DVD-Audio came out.

BTW, I'm surprised neither of you mentioned the ZeroStat Gun.

David

davehead

You are right - it was a pain - albeit a necessary one!

I didn't mention the Zerostat gun by name (I didn't want to over do the advertising for discwasher inc. HA!) - but that is what I was describing when I mentioned the "ion generator anti-static gun". (It actually produces positive charges that neutralize the negative static charge on vinyl - at least in theory). And if you wanted, it was a pretty cool "weapon" to ZAP an unspecting critic of your chosen music! heh heh! (btw - great photo/link - but my gun is white) But I do have an error. Discwasher actually called it a "pistol" and not a gun)

Randyman

Randyman,

I missed your discription when I was reading the thread.

I took the picture and still own those items. The Discwasher even still has fluid left! I figure they will be collectables before too long...

David

Davehead, Randyman,

I still have and use the walnut-handled Discwasher. That Cecil Watts tracking cleaner I mentioned was the "Dust Bug"!

And my Zerostat is white--I always wanted the red one! However, even better is my "National" (that's the Panasonic brand name in Japan) anti-static gun that I was given on a press trip to Japan. I don't know why they never marketed the gun here--audiophiles would have loved it.

Get this: it has a built-in meter that measures the static charge present, and it really works! You can even measure the static charge on your body, or any other object, in dry weather! Then you squeeze a trigger to zap the disc, and check the meter to ensure the static charge is neutralized. Disadvantage is that it's powered (four AA batteries). Mine still has the Japanese characters on it so I have no idea what model it was. Maybe Panasonic sold it in the U.S. but Matsushita in Canada never imported it.

And that expensive Discwasher "secret" fluid must have made millionaires of its inventors. I think it was just distilled water. Oh well, great fun.

Regards,

I think that the fluid actually was distilled water with a tiny amount of a photo finishing solution to break the surface tension. The funny thing is that I still listen and love my records. The ones in good shape still sound great. If anyone wants to sell their anti-static gun just let me know.

Hey guys,

I still have some of the discwasher record cleaning and stylus cleaning fluid. And yes, I still use them too!

Alan, I am pretty sure the "dust bug" is the old tracking cleaner I had as well. Did it have a flat, clear plexiglas arm with a round red plush brush that was on the record surface? (at least whatever brand I had looked like that).

One other cool record cleaner I got my hands on (and still have it) was also a "National" battery powered hand held device. It had a rotating brush made of very fine bristles that were supposed to be made of the same vinyl as records. (Thus it was not supposed to cause any static build-up) It has two small swing open doors that were covered with a very fine cloth/mesh that acted as a filter. Thus the dust was swept up off the surface and was caught in the filters. Personally I don't think it worked all that well - but it is pretty cool. I don't think it was ever sold in the US, as I got it from a Technics/Panasonic representative when I worked for Sony in Germany. (we reps. traded stuff with each other all the time - man, I even used to collect speaker drivers and crossovers, in hopes of one day building my own "super speakers" - but alas, I never did)

To all - I hope all this doesn't sound like any sort of one-upmanship - cause believe me it isn't! I just LOVE hearing about this kind of stuff from others, and I like sharing my experiences as well. Earlier, Alan mentioned his old Grado phono cartidge. I never had one, but always wanted one - but they always seemed out of my price range at the time. Oh well......

All the best - and keep the good stuff coming!

Randyman

Yes Randey, what you describe is the Cecil Watts "DustBug" which I used in the old snap, crackle and pop days. It was also available in a version which clipped directly onto the cartridge shell instead of riding the separate plastic arm. Also used their "Parostatik Disc Preener" which was a black plush cylinder about 4 inches long and an inch in diameter. It had an internal wick which you moistened with water and then pressed the cylinder against the rotating record for 2 or 3 revolutions to collect the dust.

JohnK

Criminey!

I remember that too! But I never owned that one. This is terrific. So many trips down memory lane in such a short span of time. So now I am racking my brain to try to remember even other (more obscure) stuff as well.

Somewhere (in the back of my crowded mind) I remember some Recoton (spelling?) stuff for disc cleaning - but nothing particular comes to mind. I know it was cheap semi-serious stuff, but again I didn't have any of it.

Hey, btw - I see you read my other post on message board names. Thanks! You got it right!

Randyman

Well geez randyman, if you want to continue down memory lane, startup a topic on reel to reel players.
I used to have one of those when i was a kid too. My father still does.

Randyman

Recoton cleaning stuff! i remember that stuff. they also had stuff to clean cassette players.

well, chesseroo..

I guess I/we could... I have a Sony 10.5" reel to reel (but it's in storage back in VA) I always LOVED playing with reel tape. That was better than vinyl (IMHO). You really felt like you were in the professional league with those BIG reels (right Alan?) AND here is something I bet you never heard of.. I have two Sony Elcasette machines. An El-7 and an EL-5. Anybody wanna discuss those dinosaurs?

Randyman

Stop it!!!!! You guys are starting my midlife crisis discussing all this venerable gear from my early days!!!!!

BBIBH,

Thanks for bringing this post to a close, although it may not deter Randyman from a discussion of open-reel machines and the Elcassette (!). Tempted though I am, when I found myself rummaging through a carton in the closet to find my Watts Parostatik Disc Cleaner (chrome handle, brush sandwiched between plush green velvet), I thought "this is getting out of hand!". (I found the Watts). Besides, the walnut-handled Discwasher always worked better.

Enough, already!

Regards,

OK

AMEN!

Case (thread) closed!

Rman