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..

 

[keithc]

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

@jdmac welcome to WBF!

Your post deeply resonates with me. I saw all the hype about how vinyl > digital, and was very fortunate to inherit a sizeable record collection from my dad so I thought all I had to do was get a decent vinyl setup and then the clouds part and analog sunshine will bathe me forever..... but no. I was disappointed, it was messy and fickle, and I had no idea what I was doing. And if I asked 10 people here, I would get 11 different answers of what I needed to do despite their best intentions, and I wanted to give up.

BUT! Hope is not lost. I've spent the last 1-2 years trying to climb out of my vinyl despair, and earlier this week I listened to something on vinyl that I swear was substantially better than my digital! I do not have the experience to say which made the most difference, but I think all of these absolutely made my experience way better:

- I bought a Degritter vinyl cleaning system: This took all the BS of "Is it clean?" "Is it dry?" "Is it ready?" of my prior setup of hand-washing with a Spin-Clean, a Keith Monks RCM with some suds and hand brush, etc etc. This was HUGE and helped me to get a sense of what is dirty vs what is embedded noise in a recording, and figure out if copy A vs copy B of a pressing is good or not.

- I upgraded my TT/arm/cart setup: I was really not sure how much this would improve things, and it's such a pain to home audition any vinyl setup so this was a leap of faith. I had a Rega P8 w/ Apheta 3 cartridge, which some folks outside of WBF (since this group is rather esoteric) thought was excellent, but some others told me it's silly to expect a $$ vinyl system to perform at the level of a $$$$ digital system. So I went to my current Kuzma setup and have to say it was a HUGE improvement and it got much closer to the refinement that I was hoping for.

- I demystified the vinyl setup by doing the WAMEngineering thing: I was totally lost as to the whole tracking angle, skew, skate, azimuth, all that stuff, which despite reading I felt I still needed an experience guru to do (which I didn't have). Rega does it all, but not well. WAM turned it from a black box into a quantified method that makes sense to me, and afterwards I feel like now I got the majority of my setup dialed in in a logical way.

- I bought good quality pressings: This was another big one. There's just so many mediocre or bad pressings out there, and while annoying, the hunt for a good pressing makes it really special. It's like collecting that great baseball card or comic as a kid; once you have it, it's gold.

So all in all, my vinyl rig is probably only mid-fi for WBF, but I'm very happy now. Can it get way better? Of course. But I spent only maybe half of the cost in it compared to my digital and it no longer sucks... Eva Cassidy was bringing me to tears the other night, and when I played the same track on my Horizon it's like whoa, this sounds edgy in comparison! For me, that's a big milestone which I never imagined getting to when I was in your shoes just a few years ago.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[Ron Resnick]

Welcome to What's Best Forum, jdmac!

 

[SeagoatLeo]

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!!!

This maybe a little advanced by it is a durable and cost effective improvement. When your funds are available, I would advise purchasing a used VPI 19-4 turntable, a spring and rubber suspended turntable which has lasted me for 43 years, now used for 78s (with adapter). a used Jelco or other comparable used mid-weight arm and a Dynavector 20X2 H cartridge (high output moving coil, no MC adapter required). This will give you competition for digital. The most important factor is the LPs you'll be spinning. If they aren't well recorded, mastered and presented on a quiet vinyl pressing, then your sound won't compare. Also, the turntable MUST be set on a sturdy, non-vibration surface.

In my similarly expensive analog (LP) set-up, guests can't determine whether they are listening to digital or analog (so long as the LPs are quiet pressings).

Based on my half a century of cleaning records, I decided on a $1,000+ Kirmuss Ultrasonic record cleaning machine. I am lazy and with 31,300 LPs, I just use distilled water and dry using my 43 year old VPI 16.5 vacuum record cleaning machine. Fast and effective, even if imperfect.

 

[cfgardei1]

Vinyl had (past tense) a HUGE advantage over digital in that there's no D/A or A/D losses or conversion errors. We record into microphones in analog, our amplifiers amplify in analog and we listen to speakers projecting analog, so shouldn't our storage medium also be analog? Hell, I even owned and held tightly some 60ips master tapes that I had acquired at great expense.

BUT, digital had (past tense) - for all its problems - some HUGE advantages over analog: no scratches in vinyl, no dropouts in tape (or tape getting eaten!). In short: (theoretically) no loss of fidelity no matter how many times listened to.

Present tense: digital has gotten so good that even streaming audio (and video) is hard (near impossible) to beat. In fact: it's somewhat amusing to me the tens - or hundreds - of thousands of dollars that must be spent on analog equipment to EQUAL the quality of Tidal being streamed through a Bluesound node. Tidal is $20-40/month (depending on market) and the node is $700:- less than the cost of a decent cartridge, let alone turntable, tonearm, pre-amp --- and the vinyl itself.

Ergo: The question that I have to ask is: why bother? Unless you love spending money and have unlimited free time, why not just enjoy the music?? (SeagoatLeo gets a pass on this, because of his huge library - but i suggest he begins archiving to digital)

I'll probably get a mild version of hate mail for this (though my intentions are good) --- so, let me fuel the fire by saying that I love my 3: Parasound JC5 amplifiers (2 bridged; 1 stereo) driving my 30.7's (I'm a SOLID STATE HERETIC!)

 

[Kingrex]

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.

What tools did you use. I had 2 pro come to my house and set my TT up. Both failed at doing it correctly. Its very hard to do. I thought my futtzing around with the setup was accurate. I was way off myself. Eventually JR with Wallytools came to my house and showed me how to use the tools. How to see what the tools were telling me. And how to use my hands and eyes to adjust the cartridge. When JR was done, the TT performance was far better.

Having said all that, I went through a phase where my digital was better, then the vinyl, then the digital, then the vinyl etc etc. It was all about where you place your money and efforts.
Everyone else is correct in what they say. In the end, it boils down to, good vinyl playback is very difficult to achieve. It takes a serious investment of learning, skill, patience and to some degree, Money.
FWIW, only about 20% of all my records are quality enough to surpass my digital. The rest are maybe equal or different. Many are just worse. Digital is a darn good way to go. Its far more easy to setup. If you invest you efforts into vinyl, you will eventually surpass your digital. But if you then go back to your digital and get a good network switch as well as a separate modem and router, your digital will probably outclass your vinyl. Then you will put more time and money into the vinyl and you will get some records to outclass your digital. But then you upgrade your server or DAC and your digital outclasses your vinyl. Its a never ending chase your tail. If you like records and enjoy the challenge of vinyl, keep at it. Enjoy the process. If the process bothers you, then put more money and effort into digital. You have a long way to go there. Your only at the beginning of good digital playback.

 

[SeagoatLeo]

Vinyl had (past tense) a HUGE advantage over digital in that there's no D/A or A/D losses or conversion errors. We record into microphones in analog, our amplifiers amplify in analog and we listen to speakers projecting analog, so shouldn't our storage medium also be analog? Hell, I even owned and held tightly some 60ips master tapes that I had acquired at great expense.

BUT, digital had (past tense) - for all its problems - some HUGE advantages over analog: no scratches in vinyl, no dropouts in tape (or tape getting eaten!). In short: (theoretically) no loss of fidelity no matter how many times listened to.

Present tense: digital has gotten so good that even streaming audio (and video) is hard (near impossible) to beat. In fact: it's somewhat amusing to me the tens - or hundreds - of thousands of dollars that must be spent on analog equipment to EQUAL the quality of Tidal being streamed through a Bluesound node. Tidal is $20-40/month (depending on market) and the node is $700:- less than the cost of a decent cartridge, let alone turntable, tonearm, pre-amp --- and the vinyl itself.

Ergo: The question that I have to ask is: why bother? Unless you love spending money and have unlimited free time, why not just enjoy the music?? (SeagoatLeo gets a pass on this, because of his huge library - but i suggest he begins archiving to digital)

I'll probably get a mild version of hate mail for this (though my intentions are good) --- so, let me fuel the fire by saying that I love my 3: Parasound JC5 amplifiers (2 bridged; 1 stereo) driving my 30.7's (I'm a SOLID STATE HERETIC!)

Streaming is really easy to beat. A Shanling ET3 and a decent inexpensive DAC will beat it at low cost. Archiving my LPs to digital, that's plain silly except for my rare LPs which will never be available again in any format (especially my ethnic and comedy collections-3,000+ LPs/1000 LPs).

My problem with playing CDs to the highest level has not been the DAC or transport (or CD player). I recognized years ago that the CD is more susceptible to static charge than vinyl interfering with it's play. I've used myriad destatisizers and demagnetizers. I've recently found that the Furutech Destat III I stopped using was due to incorrect use. I was holding it 1 to 2 inches from the CD. I decided to try holding it 4+ inches away and voila, the brightness dissipated into a smoother, warmer sound. Not subtle at all. An A.I. search confirmed my suspicions and even provided more instruction on it's use on the label side and even more surprisingly the edge side of the CD where the highest static accumulation exists during play.

For someone who has inherited a large record collection, please take my advice, purchase a durable, simple turntable and a cartridge with a flat frequency response, preferably high output known for it's musical sound. My recommendations also include a simpler turntable and arm such as a Technics. It depends on your funds and the amount of work one wants to put into extracting the beauty of good records. Even record cleaning is a breeze with low cost ultrasonic cleaners.

I've discarded/tossed so many records (and CDs) over 50 years that actually could have provided ample sonic pleasure but for the inability to extract that potential with inadequate equipment and cabling. I'm at a point now that only a really compressed or poorly recorded or mastered CD or record ruins my pleasure. Pop/rock unfortunately has the worst reputation as they were generally mastered for radio station play and not for high fidelity sound. On top of that, streamed pop and rock generally is much worse than jazz or classical streamed music. My wife is a rocker and hates hearing compressed music on our audio systems. We have less than 1000 rock albums and CDs. At least they are the ones that give her pleasure. She appreciates open, uncompressed (well, not very compressed) alternative music from classical to jazz, the bulk of my collection.

 

[keithc]

Streaming is really easy to beat. A Shanling ET3 and a decent inexpensive DAC will beat it at low cost.

Bingo.

I think we can all agree that, in the pursuit of anything when going from mainstream into the stratospheric upper echelon, has an exponential relationship between cost & effort vs performance gain. The variable factor is at which point we all choose 'this is good enough' and stop going further down the rabbit hole. Digital and analog playback both can be excellent when pursued to the uber high end, and I'd surmise that up to a certain point it's much easier or reliable to get good sound from digital than analog.

But if one's pursuit is all about the ultimate performance regardless of effort, then in my opinion analog can surpass digital.

 

[SeagoatLeo]

Bingo.

I think we can all agree that, in the pursuit of anything when going from mainstream into the stratospheric upper echelon, has an exponential relationship between cost & effort vs performance gain. The variable factor is at which point we all choose 'this is good enough' and stop going further down the rabbit hole. Digital and analog playback both can be excellent when pursued to the uber high end, and I'd surmise that up to a certain point it's much easier or reliable to get good sound from digital than analog.

But if one's pursuit is all about the ultimate performance regardless of effort, then in my opinion analog can surpass digital.

Of course, if your opinion the analog can surpass digital, one had better play a superior quality LP, from recording to mastering to plating to pressing and originated as an analog recording.

Mastering engineer Bernie Grundman once indicated that analog recordings sound best when played back in the analog realm and digital recordings sound best played back in the digital realm. With my extensive collection and experience, I agree. So, ultimate performance of a digital recording generally sounds best played back digitally (blu-ray, SACD, CD, server and rarely on high res streaming).

I get a thrill in hearing music in either analog and digital format dependent on multiple factors, especially the music.