Vinyl Help - Turntable, Cartridge, Phono Stage? Help - My digital sounds WAY better than my Vinyl

[jdmac]

New to the forum. I am looking for a little help improving my vinyl setup.

My digital setup is Tidal (hi-fi) into a Musical Fidelity x10dac into a Musical Fidelity A5 integrated Amp. Speakers are Magnepan 1.6 (MG1.6QR). High-quality recordings sound magical—huge soundstage, detailed, but also with a lovely warmth, especially going through the tube stage on the x10dac.

I dipped my toes into vinyl with a Uturn Audio Orbit. I got it with the upgraded acrylic platter and a Grado Black1. I am disappointed with the sound quality,a and it's just not fun to play records when they sound like this. Perhaps the mistake was the Grado Black? Or perhaps I was expecting too much from vinyl?

Is this saveable with a better cartridge? Or maybe a phono preamp? Most think the phone stage on the A5 is solid. Perhaps a better turntable?

Part of me thinks I nailed it with putting together the digital setup and I may not be able to achieve the same with vinyl?? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all!!!

 

[Mike Lavigne]

New to the forum. I am looking for a little help improving my vinyl setup.

My digital setup is Tidal (hi-fi) into a Musical Fidelity x10dac into a Musical Fidelity A5 integrated Amp. Speakers are Magnepan 1.6 (MG1.6QR). High-quality recordings sound magical—huge soundstage, detailed, but also with a lovely warmth, especially going through the tube stage on the x10dac.

I dipped my toes into vinyl with a Uturn Audio Orbit. I got it with the upgraded acrylic platter and a Grado Black1. I am disappointed with the sound quality,a and it's just not fun to play records when they sound like this. Perhaps the mistake was the Grado Black? Or perhaps I was expecting too much from vinyl?

Is this saveable with a better cartridge? Or maybe a phono preamp? Most think the phone stage on the A5 is solid. Perhaps a better turntable?

Part of me thinks I nailed it with putting together the digital setup and I may not be able to achieve the same with vinyl??

welcome @jdmac, to What's Best Forum. congrats on enjoying your digital.

yes, you can achieve it, but it might take some effort.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all!!!

honestly i'm not familiar with your vinyl gear. so hard to make recommendations as to where to upgrade. but before you go and spend money on a better cartridge or turntable or arm or phono, make sure your set-up is optimal. if you are not knowledgeable about set-up then investigate that. and at least as significant as set-up, is the vinyl pressings you are playing. with vinyl much of the magic is in the media. vinyl based on digital sources many times will not really deliver much vinyl magic. some of it can be quite good too. so maybe tell us examples of the vinyl you are comparing to your digital. these days digital has really improved, so there is a level of gear and pressings it takes to separate it from good digital. you can't just throw anything out there and expect it to rise above digital. not to say it won't sound good.

and there are lots of threads here on how much you need to spend to get vinyl to sound better than digital, and other one's on how to get digital to sound better than vinyl. and all sorts of variables of that. so look around for those, use the 'search' function and dive in. lots of garbage to sift through to get to some answers, but they are there to find. if you need help to find those threads just ask.

good luck.

 

[mtemur]

That’s normal. Digital sounds better than vinyl in most home audio setups. Don’t get me wrong—when a vinyl setup is done properly, it can sound better than any digital source. But it requires a certain amount of knowledge, time and good equipment (turntable, tonearm, cartridge, phono stage, etc.) with proper alignment. Even then, you still need well-cut and well-pressed records. In the end total cost may be more than what you’re willing to spend. I’m afraid beating digital won’t happen with a U-Turn turntable.

You may receive responses arguing that vinyl can outperform digital even with the equipment you have right now, but I don’t think it’s true. I’m fully into vinyl and believe in its superiority in terms of sound quality, but I’m also aware what digital can offer. Knowledge is very important to make a vinyl setup sound good, even more so than the equipment itself.

 

[jdmac]

welcome @jdmac, to What's Best Forum. congrats on enjoying your digital.

yes, you can achieve it, but it might take some effort.

honestly i'm not familiar with your vinyl gear. so hard to make recommendations as to where to upgrade. but before you go and spend money on a better cartridge or turntable or arm or phono, make sure your set-up is optimal. if you are not knowledgeable about set-up then investigate that. and at least as significant as set-up, is the vinyl pressings you are playing. with vinyl much of the magic is in the media. vinyl based on digital sources many times will not really deliver much vinyl magic. some of it can be quite good too. so maybe tell us examples of the vinyl you are comparing to your digital. these days digital has really improved, so there is a level of gear and pressings it takes to separate it from good digital. you can't just throw anything out there and expect it to rise above digital. not to say it won't sound good.

and there are lots of threads here on how much you need to spend to get vinyl to sound better than digital, and other one's on how to get digital to sound better than vinyl. and all sorts of variables of that. so look around for those, use the 'search' function and dive in. lots of garbage to sift through to get to some answers, but they are there to find. if you need help to find those threads just ask.

good luck.

thanks for the input. much appreciated. i will do some homework on vinyl from analog sources and also will make sure my setup is dialed in. i know my setup is super low end compared to many, but was hopeful i could at least get close to my bang for buck digital setup without scrapping college for one of my four kids . I have some vinyl, and I at least want the sound to be tolerable as I study the cover art. Looks like Van Morrison Astral Weeks gets nice marks and is analog to vinyl. Can't hurt to pick up such a lovely album.

 

[PeterA]

jdmac, welcome to WBF. Do you have any friends who are into vinyl whom you can visit? How does their vinyl sound? I agree with those who have said that when it comes to vinyl, knowledge and experience are very important. I have an old Denon direct drive turntable that I lent to a couple friends for very long periods of time and they loved what they were hearing from their old records, so much so that they went and bought new turntables, arms, and cartridges. And they’re used to listening to Digital. I think you can start by picking a good vintage turntable and arm and cartridge on eBay, make sure it’s set up right, and simply enjoy. Maybe ask one of your vinyl friends to hook it all up and then start exploring and learning. Who knows where it will take you?

 

[Balle Clorin]

Try another cartridge, AudioTechnica will sound very different from your Grado, I had the same cartridge as you once. Grado sound warm some will say, I call it dull. I was also unimpressed by vinyl as long as I used it. Remember to raise the volume of vinyl when comparing with CD, vinyl signal will be weaker and need volume adjustment when compared.

 

[jdmac]

Try another cartridge, AudioTechnica will sound very different from your Grado, I had the same cartridge as you once. Grado sound warm some will say, I call it dull. I was also unimpressed by vinyl as long as I used it. Remember to raise the volume of vinyl when comparing with CD, vinyl signal will be weaker and need volume adjustment when compared.

Thank you for the input. I will give another cartridge a go. I did a bunch of homework on setup and made sure the setup was dialed. When I A/B, I do raise the volume level of the record. It just sounds muddy to me, or less detailed, so "dull" sounds right to me. Appreciate the thoughts.

 

[Balle Clorin]

A simple VM95E will do. Allows stylus upgrade, for even better performance you have the new VMx series from Audio-Technica.
90% of the sound is determined by the cartridge….a turntable itself does not make a good cartridge sound bad, and cannot improve a bad cartridge

 

[PeterA]

A simple VM95E will do. Allows stylus upgrade, for even better performance you have the new VMx series from Audio-Technica.
90% of the sound is determined by the cartridge….a turntable itself does not make a good cartridge sound bad, and cannot improve a bad cartridge

Do you think the turntable, tonearm, and phono stage together are responsible for only 10% of the vinyl front end sound?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

the source of vinyl performance is a ratcheting thing. in other words, the influence of each piece of the process, especially the actual pressing and it's condition, varies depending on the whole chain. at the very bottom end of the gear quality, the actual speed steady ness of the platter is dominant. if it ain't steady, no cartridge/stylus/phono stage/pressing will fix that. it will sound cheap and make you listen to digital. most quality entry level turntables in reasonable condition are acceptably steady, so mostly that is handled.

under a certain quality level of turntables, the arm and cartridge will determine the performance, and agree the cartridge is more significant. then moving forward to find more performance the drive quality of the platter either takes things to another level or holds things back. so as you rise in overall performance the separator becomes the spinning performance. then at another point the arms separate performance, or become a matter of preference.

also; past a certain quality point it becomes levels of better, where the overall gear quality is good enough to allow improvements of any particular piece to be appreciated. most of us who are serious about vinyl are here. there is no one gear piece more or less significant.

overall.......past that 'levels of better' point the pressing becomes most dominant. and a great pressing on a competent but mundane level turntable/arm/cartridge will sound better than a much better turntable/arm/cart with a ordinary pressing. past a certain point the media dominates. another way to put it is that past a certain gear point the pressing quality is 75%+ of the sound.....or something like that. which is why many focus on quality vinyl collecting and not chasing gear lust. best, of course, is doing both if you can.

so it's a mess really, and you cannot make any absolute hierarchy points that apply to every level.

 

[tima]

under a certain quality level of turntables, the arm and cartridge will determine the performance, and agree the cartridge is more significant. then moving forward to find more performance the drive quality of the platter either takes things to another level or holds things back. so as you rise in overall performance the separator becomes the spinning performance. then at another point the arms separate performance, or become a matter of preference.

The turntable is the system's clock. The amplitude portion of the musical waveform comes from the cartridge, but the frequency portion, the time element of that waveform, comes from the turntable.

I find your 'over-under' levels of quality correlation with relative component impact a very interesting way to think about this, especially in terms of 'where do I put my money.' All of it is important but maybe not equally proportionate.

I do believe the fundament, the ground on which everything else rests, is the turntable. It's key attributes are stable speed accuracy and low noise/vibration.

 

[Balle Clorin]

Do you think the turntable, tonearm, and phono stage together are responsible for only 10% of the vinyl front end sound?

The sound is generated by the cartridge right? The other parts can add faults and distortion and noise to it , but the main character stems from the cartridge. If you do not like the sound the most probable cause is the cartridge . That should be obvious. We are probably not talking about a Crosley or Lego turntable here. The cartridge the original poster use has a dull and muffled sound, I know I had Grado and listened to it and measured it. It is not a good cartridge if you compare it to others or digital . The Grado may tame and fit certain speakers with an aggressive presence area, or suit people sensitive to “details” that prefer a laidback more distant sound.

@Mike Lavigne has a good point about pressing quality, some recording or pressings are just bad, but probably not the cause considering the system played on here. The speed stability reviewed below is OK.I have auditioned TT costing 10k and 100k that have worse speed values.

I am quite sure the problem lies in the cartridge choice. Maybe try a 2M blue? If AT is too bright Blue will be flatter than AT below 10k , but add more distortion ( maybe not audible) and maybe not so good crosstalk as an AT.

SoundStage! Access | SoundStageAccess.com (GoodSound.com) - U-Turn Audio Orbit Theory Turntable with Ortofon 2M Blue Cartridge

This site has both music recordings and test sweeps that allow cartridge comparison
Did not see any Grados

Tonabnehmer MM – LowBeats

www.lowbeats.de

This is a Grado Blue, the most important range is below 10km the 2db drop at 5k will make it sound laid back and wormer than many other cartridges, add the bass rise and you have a very different reproduction computed to digital. A warm or dull cartridge, depending on you age and preference.( younger people will probably notice the peak more than older)

Another one one channel almost 5db down at 5khz,, this will affect the sound..