@elliottbnewcombjr Apologies for not replying to your post. I had asked about the layout of your room. You were kind enough to answer in depth including photos of the space. At the time, I had a 2 week dose of coronavirus, and neglected to follow up due to the brain fog.
Some thoughts on dust covers
Over the course of time there have been many discussions concerning the subject of dust covers. They tend to revolve around the central question: Should the dust cover be down or up while playing records? Some of these discussions have been nasty, consequently I have refrained from participation. It is hoped that I can provide some common sense that was given to me by someone of unquestioned authority many years ago. During college and after, from 1970 to ~1980 I worked in HiFi retail, selling high end lines of audio equipment. One of these lines was Thorens. Sometime around 1977 or 1978, if memory serves, Thorens introduced their new TD126, as a top of the line TT with their own arm and I sold the first one at our store to very good customer. He came back very unhappy after the first night of frustration with it. The problem was that with the dust cover closed some of his favorite records were hitting tangentally on the very back were the platter came closest to the dust cover when it was in the closed position. I called the manufacturer's rep and he set up a three cornered phone call with himself, the Chief Engineer of Thorens at the time, and me. I don't recall the man's name, but it doesn't matter, it is what he said that matters, then and now. The Chief Engineer explained that the problem was caused because the hole in the offending records was slightly off center so there was an eccentricity as such a record rotates about the spindle. The solution was simplicity itself, the dust cover should be removed always when playing records. That the intent of the cover is to protect the turntable when not in use. I pointed out that we lived in a semi-arrid environment (San Diego, CA) which is dusty to which he replied that if the environment was too dusty for records it should also be considered unhealthy for people to be breathing the air. He recommended are filtration, not dust covers to address environmental concerns. The rep asked about air bourne feedback from speakers and the Thorens guy laughed and said that if that was a problem in a given system, relying of the dust cover was a very flimsy and ineffective solution and that proper measures should be instituted to provide meaningful distance and isolation to ameliorate the problem. So the often offered extremes: a) Always play your records with the dust cover down, or b) put the dust cover away in it's box and never use it, should both be recognized for what they are are - not solutions at all. First principles: Identify the problem(s), seek solutions and alternatives, prioritize.
123 responses Add your response
wonderful to learn the word, a bit more from AI (numbers didn’t copy properly) AI Overview An undecillion is a number that is written as 1 followed by 36 zeros in the United States and 66 zeros in Great Britain. It is a very large number, so it is not used often. Explanation
.
.
Examples
|
May I suggest that any cover can be easily and reversibly damped with self-stick paddleball weights. I have been using these successfully to damp the horns on my Cornwall 4’s on the outside surfaces because the black painted weights disappear on the black plastic horns, and you don’t get caught up in unscrewing and re-screwing the horns with the tuning process if you are damping from the inside of the horns. Of course, a TT dust cover can also be damped with weighted whatevers. The beauty of the paddleball weights though is that they are slim in profile, so they would not be interfering with the handling of the TT cover if it was an unhinged loose cover. |
dwettenice. I also found, the clearance between the top of the metal ring and the bottom of the cartridge body is an issue, my AT33PTGII, I had to skip the beginning of track 1, because the cartridge body rubbed on the metal ring. |
@elliottbnewcombjr I have never had such issues with the Clearaudio ring on my Clearaudio tables (Ovation, Innovation). I have used Clearaudio, Dynavector and Lyra cartridges. There is maybe a 1mm lip at the record's edge on the ring, but my cartridges all clear that just fine. |
noromance hope no lasting effects, thank goodness for the weaker strains and the vaccines, Donna and I just dodged Covid, stayed with my brother in Maine for 3 days, he found his ’cold’ was Covid, we both tested neg. We flew to Tampa in Oct., we were the ONLY people wearing masks in two large airports, and everywhere we went on the 5 day trip home. I keep hearing "there’s a lot" of Covid out there. |
Heh, I'm a bad boy! I've repurposed one of my WallyTools cartridge-alignment tools (which are essential IMHO) that is shaped like a quarter-inch-thick LP. It's a perfect fit on top of my platter. No need for a dust cover, although I realize that some tables and arms need to be completely covered. But if yours doesn't... |
Wow! Really $60! I posted earlier about an acrylic platter you can buy on Amazon for $20. It doesn't have fancy handles (I've never needed) but it does the job nicely. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAHMUFW You can treat me to a double IPA for that $40 I just saved you. :)
|
Hate to let facts get in the way of a good stouch, but if I may refer back to the excellent 192-page paper Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records PACVR-3rd-Edition, it references the ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation, 2015, which was commissioned by the Library of Congress. I quote:
We know a fair bit about wool fibres Down Under. They are indeed covered in a greasy coating of lanolin, which we extract and sell at inflated prices for cosmetics. The crimp (curliness) and thickness affect the prices fetched for wool, as do the impurities. Thickness is measured in microns and the finest wool gets down to about 12 microns which just happens to be a critical size for sub-microscopic dust particles trapped in a record groove!
|
