Vinyl wow


Record wow has kept me from truly enjoying analog ever since I first owned a turntable. To me, nothing says fake louder than that old sing-song effect that taints even the best records I own. I can't hear past it. Does it bother all enthusiasts? Does it bother some more than others? My wife claims she can't hear it, but she also runs screaming from the room whenever I play Stravinsky. Should I just learn to love digital?
hodie
Hodie,

Thanks for the post because I too hear it sometimes.

I attribute it to the spindle hole not being perfectly center on some recordings and the platter having a slight wobble (up & down by a 1/32") every rotation thus affecting the tracking force.

Take a close look at the headshell & see if it remains perfectly level for each rotation.

Just a hunch.

Steve
Yep! I totally understand EXACTLY what you're saying! Occasionally I will put on a record without checking for off-center and upon listening, I can clearly notice the problem. This is due to the center hole not being exactly centered (if you want to hear a perfect example of wow, use a junk turntable and junk 45, remove the 45 center, and purposely off-center the record, then place the stylus on the record and listen - this may be an extreme example, but it'll give you an idea). So what do I do about this problem?
(Short of trying to find a rare used Nakamichi turntable, which centers the off-centered record) What one can do is simply find where the groove "run out" is at it's extreme, then inconspicuously mark the label at that point, then carefully file that edge of the center hole until it rests against the spindle and allows the record to be centered. This takes trial and error but it's totally well worth the effort for the listening experience, no matter what. In my view, the record, no matter how valuable price-wise, is totally worthless if one can't actually listen to it just because of an off-centered hole.
Perhaps this is only one of several reasons (and I often say) CDs were immediately embraced by the "mainstream press and public" (if only they had real analog systems to listen to, then the industry would've been forced to refine the CD invention further before releasing it to the public market - unfortunately the industry brainwashed us that the 16bit 44.1k format was it! ....even then I asked myself, if CD was so "perfect" as they said, then why'd we need 8 times oversampling, etc etc? - but I guess I'm getting into another subject matter altogether so I'll end it here).
My thoughts.
......Paul
To Fxsuperglide

Thanks for your helpful posting and for your email. I'll give it a try.