Vinyl Care & Dust Removal, How to make vinyl sound good?? Options

[ViPER1313]

After reading the thread found here [ http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....t=7953&hl=vinyl ] I was blown away by the recording quality of the sandra.mpc sample. How do you get vinyl to sound so dust free and rich? All the vinyl that I have recorded has at least some dust crackling in the background, and some recordings sound extremely harsh (especially in the vocals - almost like clipping except there is no clipping going on.....) Do you use digital correction? Filtering? I use the following equipment -

Marantz TT1060 Turntable w/ unknown cartridge/needle (the cartridge/needle are replacements, less than 6 months old - I have no idea what brand / model they are, but they seem to be of decent quality.)

Marantz PM325 Receiver

SB-Live soundcard fed from phono -> receiver -> line-in (This is not the weak link I am concerned over - I know it has crappy quality recording, but I am worried about the record playback quality itself . I have also tried phono -> line-in directly and was not impressed with the quality at all.)

The cartridge seems to have good frequency response and be of decent quality, but I can not get rid of dust no matter what I try - I have a diskwasher and have tried a 1:5 alcohol/water solution, but the dust persists. Any tips?

[2Bdecided]

1 thing to add: dust.mpc has a loud LF tone/noise throughout, especially at the start.

Remember that 1 play on a really crappy record player will cause more damage or wear than 50 plays on a half-decent deck. Really. Why do you think there are so many 1950s and 1960s 45s which are grey/gray instead of black?

There is probably too little audio to judge, but your cartridge does sound rather bright. However, there are also cartridge/lead/amplifier interactions that can change the frequency response, so it might not be "just" the cartridge, especially if you've changed the leads for some reason. Whatever - don't be affraid to turn the tone control down or adjust the EQ if it persistently sounds wrong. Despite the purist claims, there's nothing wrong with using EQ to correct for poor equipment or recordings - it's using it to match poor taste that causes a problem. Of course, it's better to avoid poor equipment, records, and EQ - but sometimes you have no choice.


You've probably said (and I've probably asked) before, but what equipment to you use Pio?

I was comparing a Linn LP12 Sondek with a Sansui deck at the weekend (£100 vs £25 cartridges - I forget what they actually were); the Linn through a decent pre-amp, the Sansui through a very cheap DJ mixer. I was shocked at how little difference there was between them! Sure, the goopd pre-amp has much less BG noise, and the Linn produced a more solid central image. There were other small differences, but it took a very good record to reveal them. The Sansui cost <10% of the price (I guess), yet gave ~75% of the quality. Put a good record on the Linn, and an excellent record on the Sansui, and you could easily believe that the Sansui was the better deck!

I bought the Sansui years ago because I saw it in a junk shop, and it looked exceptionaly well made. £30 for the deck, £25 for a new cartridge. I'm very happy!

Cheers,
David.