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?

[ViPER1313]

By: Pio2001 (Posted on May 6 2003 - 09:21 AM)

Harsh.mpc is completely worn out. I experienced this kind of sound in various situations

I think that I have come to this conclusion as well. I was listening to several other records last night, and none had that sort of problem - most sounded quite nice, except for the dust. As I said, I really had no history on that record - its strange though, because some tracks on it sound much better than others. I guess the person who owned it before had a set of favorite tracks .
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By: 2Bdecided (Posted on May 6 2003 - 10:24 AM)

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

Yes, you are quite right. I have not been 100% able to track down the source of this hum yet. It is a combination of 2 resisters inside the PM325 that were fried and replaced (I did this myself - I fried them by accident, and the resister bands were burned off, so I had to guess between 10ohm, 100ohm, or 1000ohm parts - 1000 was way to high, and to my knowledge 10 ohm is the correct value, which is what I put in IIRC, but it could need a 1 ohm part ) As it is now, the amp seems to be as good as new, although it lets out very small pop (like a piece of dust) about 2 sec after turning it off - this is obviously the capacitors draining through the resisters, because when using 1000 ohm parts, it was about a 10 second wait and the pop was much louder. The majority of the hum comes from the turntable itself, and increases as the tone arm moves towards the center of the album. The TT is grounded, but it is placed under an amplifier, and I think the arm is picking up some interference from the amp. Also, the connection from the amp to the sound card is analog and over 6 feet, obviously picking up interference along the way. I know how to fix all of this, its just not my top priority as of right now.
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By: 2Bdecided (Posted on May 6 2003 - 10:24 AM)

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.

By: Pio2001 (Posted on May 6 2003 - 09:21 AM)

Good.mpc sounds technically perfect, though I don't like the sound of the cartridge very much.
Dust.mpc is correct too.

This is most likely due to the equalization done by myself - I personally like a "bright" sound with my music. Bass was probably set to +0db, midrange was set to +2db and treble was probably set to about +8db on the PM325, so everyone who likes a neutral sound would probably be disgusted by my samples . It could be the cartridge though, as I am sure that it is by no means "high end," although it will fit my needs for the time being.
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By: Continuum (Posted on May 6 2003 - 01:56 AM)

What do you think about playing wet? I recall to hear that it may damage the records permanently but increase the quality while playing. Is it true?

I would like to hear more opinions about this as well - does anyone know if this can increase quality? I don't see myself trying to play dripping wet albums anytime soon though . A good suggestion never-the-less (if it proves to be valid.)

This post has been edited by ViPER1313: Mar 19 2004, 17:56