Tips for the vinyl newbie

[jeffrey88]

Hello everyone,

Well like many people recently, I have gotten myself into the world of vinyl. I did plenty of research before plunging and I am very happy I did so.

As a beginner, I have some questions and I'm sure I could get the best answer here.

The first question I have is in regards to my turntable. I own a Luxman PD-264 that I managed to find in excellent shape. It came with its original box, warranty card, overhang guide, manual.. everything. One thing I am disappointed to find out about it is the cartridge. It has a working cartridge, a Sumiko Pearl which I understand is quite good in its price range, however the original was an Audio Technica AT160ML. I understand this cartridge to be of something quite special - MSRP was $400 when it was sold new, and is also the last of the Beryllium Gold Plated MM cartridges. Anyway, being such a gem I wanted to know, is it worthwhile getting this repaired somehow? My current understanding is that when a cartridge dies there isn't much you can do about it. However, this one is such an awesome piece I thought maybe it's worthwhile to get fixed considering the seller included it for free.

The next question I have is about buying vinyl. What to really watch out for? I read an article about vinyl that says you should have the shop let you listen to the record before you buy it, but unfortunately the shop I go to does not allow this (they actually do not have a vinyl player set-up). So any pointers for what to watch out for, and perhaps any tips on how to clean up some dirty vinyl might be nice. I do have a cleaning kit I put together, which is the following:

I use a spray bottle that includes: distilled water, isopropyl alcohol (25%) and then I add some drops of a rinsing agent. Basically I spray down the side, use a soft bristled paint pad to get into the grooves and then wipe it off using a microfiber towel. The one thing I'm not sure of is how long to let these puppies dry for before putting them away, because I know oxidization is a bad thing with records. Or do I not have to worry about this if they only need say, an hour, to dry?

Finally, the last thing I am curious about is tuning the tone-arm of my Luxman. I understand the weight and anti-skate adjustment but it also as a stylus-height adjustment which I'm not sure how to set-up and use. Any tips here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any and all help. I'll get some pictures up of the gear when I have a chance.

[KenCalgary]

I can, perhaps, provide a few tips on buying vinyl records from my experience over the past few years. First, there are two factors that I consider: the quality of the sound (i.e., how the music was recorded, mastered and pressed) and the performance itself. One resource that I look at is Arthur Salvatore's site where he rates the sound quality of mainly classical records(http://www.high-endaudio.com/supreme.html). The focus here is not necessarily the performance but rather the sound quality. The second consideration is the performance: If you like the music then buy the record keeping in mind that there were probably several versions (pressings) of popular records.

With that in mind I generally - but not always - try to find a pressing made in the country where the music was recorded. The original tapes are nearly always kept in the home country so the final product should be better than those made from copies of the tape (and for very popular records some of the copies may be many generations and years after the original). In recent years there have been reissues of many famous records. In some cases they use original tapes (but these may have deteriorated over the years) and have been re-mastered. They can be good but MAY not be as good as an original and they are generally more expensive. However, the vinyl may be better and thus less noisy. Records made in the 1980-1990 period, especially in the USA, can be very poor as the oil crisis led to cutbacks in vinyl quality and weight.

I clean all my records before use - new and old - and in my climate (very dry) I don't generally don't need to let them dry for more than about fifteen minutes.

[jeffrey88]

Hey Ken thanks for your valuable input, that helps a lot and actually gives me some good insight into records.

Funnily enough I don't live too far from you - I'm in Edmonton myself, so I have the same dry climate. I did notice the discs dry rather quickly I just didn't want to chance it. Of course like I said I do want to keep the amount they are in open air to a minimum so I will try 15 minutes next time to see how that works out.

I think I will re-post my question in regards to the cartridge in the cartridge forum - as silly me didn't do enough looking and I didn't notice the other forum available. Sorry for that. If a moderator could edit that paragraph out of the above post that would be nice.

However to stay on topic (and in forum) I am still looking for an answer to the stylus height adjustment on the Luxman PD-264, so if anyone has some insight there that would be much appreciated.

Thanks again!