Soundesign 8 track player update

On 28 Dec 2005 13:31:12 -0800, "rusty" wrote:

"Light tracking force is a benefit, not a detriment, as long as the
tonearm and cartridge are of the proper compliance."

From what I've heard is that light tracking force is worse than heavier
tracking forces. snip

You're confusing "light" with "too light." If a stiff cartridge with
a heavy arm is tracked too lightly, say around .5 grams for a junky
Shure or Stanton 500E, you will get high frequency mistracking, which
will tend to damage the peaks of the waveform analog molded into the
grooves as the tight suspensions isn't counteracted enough by vertical
tracking force to stay completely in the groove at all times.

typically, the tracking force should be set at 3-5
grams to play LP's and 45's any thing heavier was designed to play
78's. snip

Wrong again. 3-5 grams is QUITE heavy, even for the stiff moving coil
cartridges of the day. Moving magnets from the golden age of stereo
require even less. For example, the various versions of the Shure
V-15 only require .7 gram to successfully track any LP. My various
MicroAcoustics, the 630mp and the 830csa, require 1.25, tops. Cheaper
moving magnets, like low end Grados, Stantons, Shure M7Ds and the
like, may have required 2 grams or over, because of their inherent
suspension stiffness.

2 grams is not enough to play a used record without skipping or
repeating. I received one of these nostalgic turntables as a gift, it
couldnt play one of my Nazareth albums that had small hairline
scratches which is often your best case scenario with used records.
these are only useful for playing brand new shrink-wrapped records. snip

That's a "junk" turntable....JUNK. We're talking reasonably good
equipment here...SME, Dyanvector, Grado arms; Thorens, Technics (the
earlier, better ones), Dynavector, etc. turntables. Most "junk"
turntables that come with "all-in-ones" and consoles and the like are
garbage with poorly designed, cheaply made tonearms that cannot track
at proper tracking forces due to their geometric and mass problems. I
suspect this "nostalgia" table is in that class. I won't even play my
garbage LPs on such a mess. A lot of the cheap turntables being made
in China for the pieces of crap like the "Crosley" (what an insult to
that vaunted radio and appliance name) are record destroyers.

For 78s, I used to use an old belt drive Empire modified with an SME
3009 Type II transcription arm with a Grado M3E+ fitted with various
styli to track regular 78s as well as Western Electric-style vertical
modulated grooves on 16" transcriptions. I never used more than 1.75
grams to track anything with this arm/cartridge combination. Tracking
force is the most direct factor in vinyl or shellac wear. Now, if you
have a junk tonearm on a junk turntable, the skating force of the
misaligned tonearm and cartridge might indeed require too heavy a
tracking force just to stay in the groove. Many of these junkers had
spring-loaded tonearms...the worst way to counterbalance arm
mass...and thus had horrendous skating forces at work when on a disc.

I'm afraid you need to do more research into high quality record
reproduction. Tracking any disc at 3-5 grams, whether vinyl,
polyester (45s) or shellac (commercial 78s) will wear it out in short
order. If you need that much vertical tracking force (VTF, for short)
you have a really hosed up arm, cartridge, stylus, or combination of
the aforementioned. I'd suggest that some of the high fidelity or pro
audio newsgroups on Usenet may be of help, but there are many sites on
the 'Net you could visit, as well. Suffice it to say, your
information is incorrect.

One thing's for sure, now that LPs have been obsolete for a
generation...there is a TREMENDOUS amount of misinformation out there,
as people now have no clue as how the entire system of phonographic
reproduction works. I'm from the earlier era, when it was a science.

dB

thanks for the corrections db

Rusty

db,

heres a link for the nostalgia turntable I have

http://cgi.ebay.com/EMERSON-SYSTEM-T...c mdZViewItem


Rusty

ps i'm listining to that emerson stereo (it is just painful to listen
to) until my beloved (just kidding) soundesign turntable 8 track
receiver gets out of the shop with the test tape lynyrd skynyrd street
surviors with the flames cover (I have two copies anyway). I hear this
tape is pretty valuable among collectors. is this true?

Rusty

Wasn't 3-5 grams recommended for mono cartridges pre-1968-ish? It's no
wonder then that 80% or so of the mono LPs I've had over the years
mistracked *horribly* on the inner grooves.

On 28 Dec 2005 14:44:44 -0800, "rusty" wrote:

db,

heres a link for the nostalgia turntable I have

http://cgi.ebay.com/EMERSON-SYSTEM-T...c mdZViewItem
snip

Emerson isn't really "Emerson" anymore...hasn't been for years. The
Chinese bought the name of Emerson Electric's consumer electronics
group some years back and has been churning out tons of really bad
crap since then. The "real" Emerson Electric is still very much
alive, making industrial electric motors and power tools, mostly for
Sears under the Craftsman brand, However, of late, Sears has been
moving a lot of this work (like everything else in this declining,
depressed country called the US) to China. Caveat emptor.

dB

On 28 Dec 2005 15:51:31 -0800, wrote:

Wasn't 3-5 grams recommended for mono cartridges pre-1968-ish? It's no
wonder then that 80% or so of the mono LPs I've had over the years
mistracked *horribly* on the inner grooves. snip

3-5 grams was the proper VTF for cheap turntables, like those in
portables and "all in ones" using Sonotone (or other) ceramic
cartridges. Sonotone came out with ceramic stereo cartridges about
the same time as everyone else to meet the bottom end of the market.
3-5 grams VTF was obsolete for high fidelity use by the mid 1950s,
although most AM radio stations, who didn't care about record life
since they got new ones all the time, routinely tracked those old
Gates turntables from the '40s even heavier than that. Many stations
ran Stanton 500Es, mostly using Rek-O-Kut or QRK tables and arms, at
those pressures. They'd easily wear out a polystyrene 45 in about 6
months or regular rotation play.

Inner groove wear is almost always caused by mistracking on a very
cheap turntable with a severely misaligned cartridge/tonearm. Most of
the cheapos sported very short tonearms, and the skating forces,
coupled with the mechanical trip mechanism in changers, would conspire
to reak havoc on the outer groove wall surface of the innermost bands
of an LP, or an entire 45. Distortion would also be highest in this
area, due to overhang misalignment caused by the short tonearm length.
"Overhang" is best measured with a special protractor made for the
purpose. High quality arms, which by necessity have to have an
effective pivot-to-stylus length of around 11" to minimize azimuth
mistracking, have adjustable pivots to vary the effective distance of
the pivot to the center spindle. A properly aligned tonearm/cartridge
will not produce any distortion in the inner part of a disc, nor will
it excessively wear that area, because most (if not all) were equipped
with an anti-skating spring or weight. Anti-skating measures aren't
necessary on tonearms longer than 16" from stylus to pivot point..

dB

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:28:10 -0800, DeserTBoB
wrote:

http://cgi.ebay.com/EMERSON-SYSTEM-T...c mdZViewItem
snip

OMG..."full range 3" speakers!" This turntable is something I haven't
had to deal with before, but the tonearm's length and overhang setup
looks abyssmal, even in that bad pic. I wouldn't put any of my discs
on that thing...ever.

dB

SAD.

Our Shack employees are actually pretty good. The repair service is
the ONLY one where you get the estimate UP FRONT, before the item is
fixed- and you give them permission or not- it's up to you. I highly
recommend it- here that is.

said the uneducated liberal to the educated conservative with 2 degrees
on the wall...