Snap crackle and pop

I won't be playing 78s.
Absolutely positively no 78s.
I'll be listening to new MoFi audiophile pressings, perhaps new FTD pressings, Capitol LP's of the 1950s, Reprise 1960s. Sinatra, mainly.

I have a new Audio Technica turntable recently unboxed, balanced and calibrated -- a mid-range model, not a high-priced audiophile model -- with some kind of Audi Technica cartridge stylus in place fed into The Fisher receiver. I have specific speakers in mind, and while I look for those, it's either headphones or bookshelf speakers. Ultimately I'm after tube warmth, presence and clarity. With precision.

Since the turntable is an AT, I should probably stick with the same brand cartridge stylus.

Ideally, I would like to unsnap the old and snap into place the new without having to completely recalibrate.

 

Maybe not a pop, b-b-b-b-b-ut-t-t-t-t-t-t sk-k-k-k-k-kip-p-p-p-ps? Yes.

 

I probably should have clarified...some are very clearly brickwalled. My assumption was those could be using CD masters. Either way, they sound awful. I'm glad I don't seem to run into that much.

 

Pretty much what I mean't above, but better said...thanks...that was exactly what I mean't.

 

Buying the same brand doesn't guarantee you won't have to recalibrate. In all likelihood you will and you should.

 

There are 3 decent AT turntables, the AT-LP120-USB, the AT-LP1240 and the AT-LP5. The LP120 and LP5 come with pre-mounted AT cartridges. Any AT turntable other than these 3 are junk.
Because the AT cartridge which came in my first LP120 destroyed 2 of my rare valuable records and the replacement stylus which AT sent me directly, the point was embedded in the clear hard plastic cover, I tossed it and the AT cartridge in the trash. With my second LP120, I immediately removed the AT cartridge from the headshell and threw it in the trash before it touched one of my records. The LP5 comes with a special, exclusive stylus and I would be willing to give it a try.
AT cartridges today are not as good as they were in the 70's, their heyday. They had the corner on the quadraphonic market with their Shibata stylus. I had no complaints about their ellipticals back then.
There are models of cartridges out there where you can just swap out the stylii to match the type of records you are going to play. For most Lp's into the 70's, a conical is the stylus of choice. For the newer LP's, like the Mofi's, you want an elliptical stylus.

 

Surface noise is one of many reasons why I quit getting LPs. It's a shame because records can sound so much better then anything else.

 

Any guidance on stuck grooves? I seem to be experiencing a few more of them lately, even on new vinyl and records that have played OK in the past.
Thanks

 

Mine is the AT-LP120 USB direct-drive. So there. The lowest priced of those you mentioned. It comes with an elliptical stylus. It hasn't played any records yet except briefly on a Michael Jackson piece of junk that I used to set up with. I haven't found the right stylus yet, but I've decided to keep a couple of headshells with the different styluses already mounted. Unplug one headshell, then plug in the other depending on the need. Makes my life easier.

I don't have a quad system so it's pointless to think in terms of quad. I have a very sexy tube amp / receiver in The Fisher that sounds orgasmic in either mono or stereo, as well as a high-end Onkyo digital amp / receiver that does everything except bring my coffee in the morning. The AT-LP120 is a good man to both women. It can service my PC and smart TV as well but that's not what I want it for.

I have noted your advice that a conical is preferred for LPs up through the 1970s and an elliptical for the MoFi's and more recent vinyl. I don't get why this is the practice, but I will keep both at hand once I figure out which ones to buy.

Thanks for your input. It is appreciated.

True.
You gotta be a housekeeper and a maid and a fussy-wussy and an engineer to play vinyl without dirt noise and deterioration. It's do-able but it's a lot of damned distracting work.

 

Yeah, I don't have the time, space, or funds for it unfortunately.

 

Me neither.
I must be out of my mind, to collect vinyl again.
I excuse myself by maintaining very narrow interests. Some Dylan, some Sinatra, some Elvis, a few others, that's it.
All this work and expense for less than 50 records.

 

I am a CD man myself after years of vinyl up to the 1980's and being fed up with snap, crackle, pop, warp etc etc. I guess if you want good vinyl copies you may have to buy more than one - I have an original 10 inch of Sinatra's "Swing Easy" bought second hand and it sounds great. I just got lucky on the day. Keep searching - there are good copies out there.

 

Yep. I love the AT-LP120-USB. There are many detractors though and many have no hands-on experience with it. I Attribute this to buyer's remorse for buying a frankenstein-like turntable which didn't make the music come alive as they had hoped. These people consider the AT turntables all junk, b ut then they rave about the AT 440 and 150 cartridges. Go figure. The current AT 120's come with an AT95e cartridge, which is about the entriest-level cart you can buy. It might just be an OK cartridge and very usable. To upgrade your AT cartridge, you might try getting a replacement stylus for the AT95ex.
OK. From the inception of the microgroove record, the record companies had no concept of an elliptical stylus, therefore they mastered the records for the most common stylus, conical. Into the 60's, RCA Victor came out with their "DynaGroove" process, specifically for playing with a conical stylus. Still a 45 degree cut, but more rounded. A groove like this when played with an elliptical stylus will bottom out picking up more surface noise, especially for a mono record cut for 1 mil and played with a .7 mil stylus. A conical .7 mil stylus shouldn't bottom out.
With the newer "audiophile" records, like what Mofi is famous for, much more attention is given to the actual groove structure. They realize that the consumer wants to get the most sound out of their records, the least amount of unwanted sound and that most "audiophiles" use an elliptical or better stylus. Mofi has exclusively used Record Technology, Inc. (RTI) in L.A. to press their records. Because 200g are problematic, RTI will not press records over 180g. With a 200g record, to sound the best, they have to run at 45 rpm. Years ago, there was a company called Classic Records. They put out comparison LP's in both 200g and 180g with the same song on both sides, but at 33 1/3 and 45 rpm. The 45 rpm sides always won out and the difference was like night and day.
Fortunately, the 3 upper AT turntables use an interchangeable universal headshells, so once set up, with different cartridges in them, all you have to do is to rebalance the tone arm when you swap headshells. I use multiple headshells with different cartridges mounted in them. Although it is no longer available, for my conical stylus, I use a Pickering NP/AC(which became the Stanton 400). For my elliptical stylus, I use a Shure M97xe. For my quadraphonic stylus, which is mounted in a black Technics 1200 headshell for easy I.D., I use a Shure M24H. As I learned the hard way back in the 70's, you don't play a stereo or mono record with a Shibata or linear stylus. You get too much annoying sound out of it.
The plan of the record companies used to be

 

Don't leave us in suspense! I wanna know!

 

The plan of the record companies was to sell as many records as they could and make a profit. Profits were maximized by spending as little as they could on production costs all the way from recording to manufacturing.
As Howard Kaylan of The Turtles said, their record label, White Whale, was so cheap that they made the group play their own instruments rather than hiring the Wrecking Crew like most other producers did. Sonny Bono was also a cheapskate hiring secondary musicians to play on his Sonny & Cher records, rather than hiring the top-notch musicians from the Wrecking Crew like they did when Sonny worked for Phil Spector.

 

Why the Shure M97xe ?
does it sound different somehow or better than other styluses?
did you buy it in the headshell or fit the cartridge into the AudioTechnica headshell?
did the Shure headshell fit the tone arm connection? did it need much recalibration?

 

How to listen to vintage vinyl:

This is not rocket science. Get a clean copy. With minimal or no scratches. Then clean it at home with a good cleaning machine like VPI. If you have a hard time finding a clean copy, either wait until you do or be happy with what you can get. I always wait until I can get a fairly clean one. Or listen to the ones I bought back in the day most of which are NM.

For mono, get a decent mono cartridge.

I've got hundreds of vintage LPs that sound fantastic with minimal or no noise.

 

I am speaking of CDs I own which have some delightful pops and clicks . I should edit my statement as "many in my collection". Many being more than 10 less than 1000.

Unless the album master has these noises I assume they are needle drops.

 

Snack, Crackle, Pop

 

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If what you're saying is that the groove is suddenly repeating, when it wasn't before, it may be that the tracking is off. Try resetting the tracking force, but make sure your table is level first by using a leveler (the one with the bubble inside). If that doesn't work, it could be a number of things, like lubrification (if it's an old turntable), etc.

 

Thanks very much for the advice. To cut a very long story short I took possession of a new replacement turntable only yesterday after it was diagnosed that I had bearing problems on my still under warranty unit. The manufacturer had me check the tracking force and the table being level first exactly as you have suggested.

 

I buy the copy with the best looking cover I can find and all the liner notes...and the cd. Then I sit down at my stereo play the cd and look at the cover and read the liner notes... while listening to the cd Joke.. sort of.

On a record that old I would cut some slack, but in most cases i can't deal with surface noise.

I bought this thing called "the Groove master". It's a label protector gadget. Not cheap, but works really well. I flush the bejesus out of the record under the bathtub spigot on full blast, then give it a flush in distilled water with a splash of Isopropanol mixed in the jug to wet it out a bit. 10% would be plenty.
You don't have to get crazy, maybe a quarter jug of water cascading over the record just flush off any water that might leave mineral deposits.
Then close the shower curtain and let it dry out. I used to dry film this way, there is little to no dust in the bathroom.
It's remarkable how nice the records dry up.
I also messed with all the internet fixes, scrubbing bubbles , glue etc. just for fun. They all seem to work. Glue in winter where i live introduces an uncanny amount of static. But it's fun as hell just to try.

 

My story is, when I got my first AT 120, the pre-mounted AT cartridge/stylus was evidently bad from the start and had destroyed 2 valuable rare records before I discovered that there was something wrong. Having had many different cartridges in the past, and keeping most of them, I pulled an old Radio Shack version of the Shure V15 and installed it in the AT headshell. This old cartridge I have kept as a standby because comparing to all my other cartridges, AT's from the 70's, Grado, Stanton, Pickering, etc., I found it to have the best sound. I immediately contacted AT and they sent me a new stylus, plus they let me buy a couple more AT headshells. When the new replacement stylus arrived, it had come loose in the plastic box it came in and the stylus had obviously hit around inside the box leaving marks. I wasn't about to use it, so I decided to buy another Shure cartridge, because I liked them so well. I found that the Shure V15 had been discontinued but it's replacement was the M97xe, so I bought one. The sound and tracking was impressive as was my old Shure. I have several different brands of turntables with removable headshells and they are all compatible with the AT headshell, as it is considered universal. When I was building up my quadraphonic system, I couldn't locate my old AT12S cartridge for playing CD-4 discrete quad records, so I started looking around. I found Shure's version of a CD-4 compatible cartridge, the M24H. It was also an obsolete cartridge and I figured I better find and buy a couple of replacement styli. The place where I found them also had some headshells for the Technics SL 1200. Those are also universal headshells. They were black in color so I thought that would be a good idea to mount the quad cartridge in a different colored headshell. The setup worked great so I found another M24H cartridge and bought it for a spare. For a conical stylus, I have a Pickering NP/AC(also known as Stanton 400) mounted in another AT headshell, which has a .7mil tip and works best playing 45's plus stereo and mono LP's from the 50's and 60's. For 78's, I chose the Shure M78S and it is mounted in another AT headshell. That Shure was a good choice because of it's 2.7mil conical stylus which rides just below the surface scratches of the 78's 3mil groove. Of AT's 3 best turntables, the AT 120LP-USB, the AT 1240 and the AT LP5, all use interchangeable headshells which also work in the Technics SL's and Pioneer turntables.
Do to their different construction, all the different cartridges have different weights. After being set up in each different headshell, all you have to do is to re-balance the tone arm when you swap them out and also reset the anti-skate. It's no big deal, but it is a certain luxury compared to other 'Frankensten' high-dollar turntables which don't even give you an adjustable anti-skate or removable headshell.
Most any turntable with a tubular shaft tone arm and removable headshell is compatible with each other. It may take up to 30 seconds to rebalance the tone arm with each different cartridge, so for me, it's not a problem. I don't know if there is a Shure brand headshell, but I use AT and Technics plus on my radio station turntable, it has what I think is a Rek-O-Kut tone arm and the that headshell will swap with the others. Ortofon sells several of their cartridges pre-mounted in their headshells and those will swap out also. It's no hassle what so ever and interchangeable headshells are a blessing, along with the variable pitch speed control.

 

To tell you the truth, I've never heard pops and clicks on a CD. The unusual noises I heard I attributed to the CD player. My first CD player was the first one that Sony imported into the U.S. and when I bought it, the price had gone down to $1,000. It weighed a ton and I would occasionally hear pops, ticks and it would skip. I had many of the earliest CD's, back when all available CD's fit in one rack and cost $20. to $30. When cheap CD's started flowing in from China, they were obviously made from records and the overall sound quality was generations away(worse) than my Toshiba copy of The Beatles "Abbey Road". When I got my next Sony CD player, which was a couple generations newer, I never heard a tick or pop since, even with the same CD's. The Collectables label was famous for using records as their source for CD's and Rhino would pull that one too. Those were obvious. Sometimes a legit CD company would list that the CD was made from a record. I've heard that the CD from Tower Of Power's "East Bay Grease" was made from a record, but I can't tell it. It sure sounds better than my LP.
My favorite story was that Rhino put out a series of folk troubadours. One track, "The Banana Boat Song(Day-O)" by The Tarriers, they couldn't locate the master tape. They had already printed everything up and they needed that track. They got ahold of Dr. Demento(Barry Hansen) who loaned them a record. That record was cue-burned at the beginning and had a scratch. You could tell that it was a 45 because that scratch made a click at the same place on a record playing at 45 rpm. I was really ticked off and wrote a letter of dissatisfaction to Rhino Records. Well, a few days later my phone rings. It was Bill Inglot calling me from Rhino. He explained what happened and I told him that I had an original 78, with a crack in it, that sounded better than the 45 they used. Also, I think he told me that they used records as sources on their CD of "The Turtles 20 Greatest Hits". That seems funny to me now because The Turtles(Howard Kaylan, etc.) had their own master tapes. Bill Inglot was to Rhino what Steve Hoffman was to Dunhill Compact Classics. They put out a heck of a lot of great CD's.

 

You scaring me.