All the tech/tracking advice is good. But . . . if most records sound good, and only a few "pop" records (metal bands in particular) sound awful, it is quite possible that the record itself is at fault. Many 'mass market" are made to sound loud and are quite distorted. A friend of mine brought over some records of rock/pop bands in the '80s (his favorites) and he was shocked at how terrible they sounded on a quality system. Happy Listening! (to good source material)records
New to vinyl question
I recently added a turntable to my system, mostly so I could play old records of my father's that formed my early introduction to music. I got what I think is a pretty good turntable, a Music Hall Stealth with an Ortofun Blue cartridge. I'm playing it through my Rogue Sphinx 2, hooked up to a Mytek Brooklyn Amp through Focal Aria 926 speakers. None of this equipment is the highest end available, but it's always sounded great when streaming from my BlueSound Node 2. When i first played some records, particularly jazz and classical, I really enjoyed the sound, though in not sure I prefer it to streaming digital in all contexts. I definitely think the vinyl sounds great for acoustic instruments and vocals, particularly female vocals. But after a little time playing some old Cream and Hendrix records (in new or like-new condition), I noticed pretty significant distortion particularly in the bass. I'm wondering if this is some issue of improper setup or just an artifact of analog reproduction. The sound I'm hearing on the bass lines in particular sounds like clipping i think. But I'm not playing at high volume and it doesn’t happen when I play the same track from a streamed source at the same volume. Any ideas for what I'm heading? I'm hesitant to expand my record collection until I get the issue figured out. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.