Sound Quality Issues - new to turntables

[JZ122]

Hi All. Turntable newbie here so please be gentle. My experience with turntables has a gap of ~30 years. I grew up with my parents always having one and playing records around the house all the time. They gave me their receiver (a Sony STR-DE185) and a pair of bookshelf speakers (KLH). Nothing fancy. I found a cheap AT-LP60 someone was selling on-line which also came with a Rolls VP29 pre-amp (I know its not needed) and bought it, replaced the cartridge/stylus and belt. Hooked everything up and the sound just sounds.......weird. Almost sounds like the speakers are blown out but I borrowed another pair of speakers and tried them and the same sound quality. Thought maybe it was the speaker wires so I hooked up headphones and same sound quality. RCA from turntable is connected to the Rolls pre-amp, RCA out from the pre-amp is connected to the CD input on the receiver.


The best way I can explain it is it sounds fuzzy and slightly static-y. Anything else I should be checking? I know the turntable quality is garbage but I can't really afford to spend $300-400 on a turntable right now. Although I didn't think the sound quality of a low-budget turntable would be quite this bad. Is there an issue with my setup or compatability of receiver/speakers/turntable? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[audio.bill]

Hi All. Turntable newbie here so please be gentle. My experience with turntables has a gap of ~30 years. I grew up with my parents always having one and playing records around the house all the time. They gave me their receiver (a Sony STR-DE185) and a pair of bookshelf speakers (KLH). Nothing fancy. I found a cheap AT-LP60 someone was selling on-line which also came with a Rolls VP29 pre-amp (I know its not needed) and bought it, replaced the cartridge/stylus and belt. Hooked everything up and the sound just sounds.......weird. Almost sounds like the speakers are blown out but I borrowed another pair of speakers and tried them and the same sound quality. Thought maybe it was the speaker wires so I hooked up headphones and same sound quality. RCA from turntable is connected to the Rolls pre-amp, RCA out from the pre-amp is connected to the CD input on the receiver.


The best way I can explain it is it sounds fuzzy and slightly static-y. Anything else I should be checking? I know the turntable quality is garbage but I can't really afford to spend $300-400 on a turntable right now. Although I didn't think the sound quality of a low-budget turntable would be quite this bad. Is there an issue with my setup or compatability of receiver/speakers/turntable? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

That AT table has a switch selectable built in phono preamp, so if you're feeding the Rolls phono preamp check to ensure that the AT has its output set to PHONO. Alternately you can set it to LINE and connect its output directly into the CD or other line level input of the receiver. Hope that helps!

 

[JZ122]

That AT table has a switch selectable built in phono preamp, so if you're feeding the Rolls phono preamp check to ensure that the AT has its output set to PHONO. Alternately you can set it to LINE and connect its output directly into the CD or other line level input of the receiver. Hope that helps!

Thank you so much. I had tried this before but stupidly didn’t put the volume up more when I switched the output to PHONO. Works great now. Thank you a ton.