Tracking and levelling

[mjbramham]

I've been leafing through old copies of Gramophone from the early 30s and have noticed a lot of emphasis on tracking and dynamic levelling to reduce noise and record wear.

The authors all seem to favour a method of jacking up one side of the machine to reduce the tendency of the needle to head west on a moving record. Do any of the board members give much attention to this, and if so I was wondering what you do? My attempts at making this work have certainly helped reduce fibre breakdown, but at the cost of a very drunk looking Gramophone!

[Brad]

I have never heard of this, however, I do pay attention to the swing of the tone arm and make sure that it is free and does not bind. The lateral movement of the tone arm/repro is slow enough that I wouldn't thing that inertia would come into play in record wear, but a binding swivel would. Tipping the machine would help mitigate this by introducing gravity into the force vector equations.

You say you have noticed a difference. How far do you have to tip you machines and does the tone arm bind? (i.e. when the repro is off the record, does it naturally swing to the center?

[Wolfe]

Considering the weight of those arms, I consider leveling important.

Witness all the 78's out there that have one side of the groove wall noticeably, even severely worn down, while the other side plays very clean. Something you notice when playing them on modern equipment. I attribute that at least in part to having been played on machines that weren't leveled.

[David Spanovich]

I think the importance of keeping the turntable level for proper tracking was known from the start.

Going back to the original owners manuals, I see that the Edison Diamond Disc manual ( http://www.nipperhead.com/old/ddisc02.htm ) states:

"The location of the phonograph, itself, in your home should be carefully selected.

"Again, care must be taken that the phonograph rests on a steady level surface.

"If the surface is not level or the phonograph is unsteady, it may cause the instrument to repeat notes or act in some other unsatisfactory manner."

A similar disclaimer appears in some of the Victor manuals -- "First--Instrument should be level..." -- http://www.nipperhead.com/old/vicvi08.htm

I've seen similar statements in other owners manuals, including those for portable machines.

DS

[Lenoirstreetguy]

What one is doing in this exercise is neutralizing the skating force which is inherent in the non Edison set up...up to this very day if you're playing LP's. It certainly makes a difference when one is using fibres or thorns: the points break down way less, and even with steel, the wear would be evenly distributed on each groove wall. The Edison machine, with it's semi linear mechanical tracking would be less prone to these problems..

J

[mjbramham]

Exactly, the problem is that reducing skating does necessitate using the weight of the tone arm and gravity to counter the tendency. I now have a considerable amount of cardboard wedged under the legs of the table my machine stands on, but can also play double the number of sides on one cutting of a fibre needle. I'm sure that this can only be helpful where groove wear is concerned, as the pressure on the inner groove wall is considerably reduced. One thing is for sure though, the disc surface itself is most definitely not level. You couldn't quite ski down it, but it's maybe 10 degrees off horizontal, leaning forward and right as you stand in front of it.

Here is a link to the original article:

http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/Ju ... eader-logo

To respond to Brad's question- I have free movement through the full range of the tonearm and can blow it from side to side when not in contact with a record surface. I also tend to leave the auto brake off to cut down drag that bit extra.

[Henry]

Some modern turntables have an anti-skating gismo built in to the tone arm; my Pioneer PL-112D has such an adjustment. In addition, it has a rather accurate tracking force adjustment built into the design of the tone arm. I suppose that a really complete machine would incorporate a bubble level, and have adjustable feet under the turntable case; mine has neither, but it's a fairly simple and easy task to make these adjustments by readily available means. In the so-called "microgroove" 33-⅓ rpm long-playing record, these adjustments are critical to good reproduction, but perhaps less so in our comparatively "crude" acoustic machines. But how much "less so" may be more a matter of hit-or-miss (trial-and-error) determination than of rigorous measurement. Certainly, I think all would agree that really gross deviations from the true and level are to be avoided; at the same time, there is probably a minimally acceptable standard floating around "out there" somewhere that most of us would be comfortable with, and in fact do strive to achieve.