Rumble - turntable or background noise DG LP

@richardbrand has a good suggestion. The OP should get their own system out of the equation if they think the records have an issue (and I have already commented the DG TOS reissue doesn't have that issue here). Play them on a known good system before putting it all on the pressings is not a bad idea.

I still say issues like these are often down to inadequate isolation more than anything.

Suggest you take a 'good' record and a 'bad' record to your local HiFi dealer.  Explain that you'd like to listen on a good turntable to see where the rumble might be coming from.  There is the chance of a turntable sale if it is not on the record!

Sometimes traffic noise makes its way into a recording, or even the sound of the air-conditioning at the recording venue.  Or it could be a bad batch of vinyl.

@knock1 seems to me you haven't actually been there but if you say so.

Again,  "groove roar is actually rumble from the poorly machined bearings" would be heard on ALL albums played on this turntable. Is it that complicated?

@knock1 the symptoms can still vary from record to record and is much less prevalent with precision main bearings. 

@mulveling makes some very important points which brings to mind the location of the sub and the KEFs in relation to the turntable and another thought about the tonearm set up and whether or not the op verified the tracking weight, excessive VTF could also be a factor.  Inexpensive phono stages as others have mentioned can be all or nothing but usually are deliberately rolled off starting at like a 100Hz or so at a few decibels per octave to protect the amplifier and the speakers its connected to just in this type of situation.  One of these or other factors must have been overlooked to experience "sub flutter or pulsing" as the op states which is being amplified by the subs internal amp.

According to OP the rumble is present playing this particular album, no issues with other albums. Why is it supposed to be the turntable problem?  "groove roar is actually rumble from the poorly machined bearings" manifest itself only on one DG recording?! Interesting.

The main bearings in low priced turntables often require compromise to meet a price point as well as everything else about them.  What you might interpret as groove roar is actually rumble from the poorly machined bearings.  As you go up the price ladder manufacture's pay more attention to these things and you will find that the noise floor in higher priced decks drop to imperceptible levels which at comfortable volume levels rivals that of digital formats.  Say if you suddenly jump from a Rega Planar 3 to a Planar 8 the difference is dramatic!  

Thank you all for your info. I am going to reach out to DG. I'll let you know if they have any comments.

bad pressing

@sbsail9 The Original Source series Pastoral sounds just fine on my system. Maybe what you need is better turntable isolation. That can make a very significant  difference and solve a lot of problems with vinyl playback.

dwette -

The Pastoral is, the Dvroak is an earlier version. As of now it is a mystery. I played the first Pastoral (the one with the bump in the intro) and it sounds like the replacement, same rumbly sounds in places. Again,  I get very little surface noise sound from most - and with the high end (45 RPM) or other 180g recordings it is hard to hear if present at all. At this point I think I will re-jigger the TT placement just as I probably need to anyway and move on. If I had a $5K TT and $30K electronics and speakers it would be different. Life is too short to spend time chasing this. I'll just wait for Dudamel to do his next Mahler. The 7th was mind blowing!

If the DG recordings referred to are the new reissues in the DG Classics The Original Source series, I have them all. I have no issues with surface noise on any of them. These are quiet pressings. Optimal has challenges with pressing defects but excessive surface noise isn't one of them.

I have Philips recording (digital) of Bach Toccata & Fuge in D by Daniel Chorzempa both on vinyl and CD and both have very noticeable and annoying rumble. It must be the recording itself then. However the performance and, except for that rumble, the recording are great.

sbsail9 you do not have those noises, present on vinyl, present on CD? If so, that would be the vinyl pressing issue. I guess.

Thank you all - again. I think I will write to DG. This was my second copy of the Pastoral - ordered directly from Germany. The first one had a bump at that was hard to detect visually in the first 2-3 min. Unplayable with the thump. They sent another immediatly. I should check the first one to see if it exhibits the same surface noise. Just thought of that!

Evidence points to surface noise from the LP pressing. I did not notice that problem on old DG and Philips pressings.

@sbsail9 - not all vinyl is equal - for example

• I have several albums from the TACET label
• TACET goes to a lot of trouble with the recordig of the music - superb
  • but they fail with cutting the master
    • the grroves are too close together
  • when I play quiet passages I can faintly hear the sound from the cutting of the adjacent groove.
  • it happens with every TACET album I have.
  • it is extremely frustrating to have paid top dollar for an excellent recording, onlt to have the cutting process mess things up
• It does not happen with most other 150gm and 180gm pressings I have and I have never observed this with any of my standard weight pressings

I cannot say for certain that this is your problem, but since you are experiencing this with the DG I would suspect this to be the case.

On another topic - TT isolation is very important and the following approach is pretty easy and affordable to try/implement

1. get two cereamic tiles large enough for the TT to sit on
2. get some felt feet from the dollar store and apply them randomly to the bottom of one tile
3. Sit this tile on the rack/or shelf/or cabinet
4. get some Rubber drawer liner from the Dollar Store
5. cut to the size of the tile and lay on the first tile
6. place the second tile on the rubber
7. place the TT on top of this "Tile Sandwhich"

The felt feet does a pretty good jop of isolation, but the drawer liner does the rest and stops the two tiles from vibrating sympathetically with any airborne vibrations

The thicker the tiles the better - on my previous TT I used 10mm granite tiles

My current TT uses 8mm ceramic tiles and it working just fine sitting on top of a cabinet.

I have tried many approaches, including the cutting block, but I find this approach to work the best with the TT’s I have owned

Regards - Steve

Hello - all good information and thank you.

What I do not understand is why  it is more present with the DG and not on the other vinyl. It would seem to me that if it is sound and vibration causing a feedback through the turntable system it would be noticeable regardless of the vinyl being played. The 45's seem to have a very wide dynamic range. I also do not hear it when I play the Ortofon test record. The disturbance has to start somewhere. I am going to further isolate the TT. TT now sits on a 20x15x1.25 wooden cutting board which is on top of a 60x17 buffet style wooden piece. I use some small felt rounds to level.

Rumble filter is a good idea. The ones built into phono stages generally range from mild to "really mild" and often won't save you in situations like this. KAB's standalone rumble filter is much much stronger, and can help a lot. But the fact that OP can hear the noise means it's at least partly above 20Hz, which is above the range of these filters. 

You can try a phono stage with a subsonic filter if your present one lacks it. 

It’s possible the rumble and flutter are being amplified from feedback. Especially with a sub, it can push out a lot of energy to excite resonances on your rack, plinth, tonearm, etc. If that’s the case, better isolation will help a ton. You can "easily" test if this is the problem - by listening through headphones (speakers off, subs off) and seeing if you enjoy much better signal-to-noise ratio.

I’ve heard inadequate isolation manifest as a rumble sound, and as a hum that sounds much like a ground loop. These types of feedback are particularly insidious because they can get to a point where they runaway (keep increasing), which is dangerous.

Also dangerous is woofer flapping (subsonic energy), ESPECIALLY on those KEF’s! Unlike per cones, those drivers cannot tolerate excursion at all past their limits (search for ample photo evidence of busted KEF drivers). Thankfully you’re protecting them with a sub (assuming you run a high-pass filter on the KEF’s - if not you need one or you run risk of breaking the drivers), but too much energy isn’t good for the sub either and it will contribute greatly to feedback into the table.

The copies I have are quiet. You may want to try US cleaning one and see if that helps. 

These new DGs are all pressed by Optimal in Germany. Pallas would have been a better choice IMO.