Turntable hierachy? TT, arm, cart or phono?

What has the most effect on the sound quality?

I know its all about synergy but as a general rule, what are your thoughts?

How much should you spend on each component?

I personally have spent ABOUT 50% on the turntable, 20% on the arm, 20% on the phono and 10% on the cart.

I think I should have spent about 40% on tt and arm, 40% on phono and 20% on the cart, if I was to start over. These being the general ratios of importance/value for money.

What are your thoughts?

 

I maybe way off, but I built a Lenco turntuble, added an origin silver arm, and finished with a Soundsmith Aida cartridge. So I have everything backward. I love the sound and no regrets.

 

Oh, the phono stage is a ZP3 Decware, three times the price of rebuilding the Lenco.

 

You need a good foundation so I'd say that 50-60% should go towards the table itself. If you build on a weak foundation you're not getting all of the investment in a tonearm and cartridge returned.

 

In my opinion, the turntable itself affects pitch stability, quietness (more or less mechanical noise), isolation from external vibrations and tracking / groove distortion (overhang, VTF and anti-skate setup). But the sound quality (frequency response, stereo separation...) depends on the stylus / cartridge, phono stage and speakers (and the records, of course).

 

A biased point of view from Origin Live

http://www.originlive.com/system-philosophy-advice.html

So, about 1/3 on the turntable, 1/3 on arm and cartridge, and 1/3 on phono. Seems reasonable.

But they only allocate 15% on the amp and 15% on the speakers, with the other 70% on TT/ arm/cart/phono.

 

Difficult to say for vinyl. Best to find a setup you like than try and be prescriptive about what the proportion of the outlay is.

People have used Rega RB250 or RB300 arms to great success in much greater value decks than you'd expect. Some users think an AT-125 cartridge works a treat on an LP12. Whatever works ultimately. It's your decision not some arbitrary notion of what should be spent.

 

I'm not sure that kind of shopping, or thinking about budgeting -- X% on Y component; A% on B component -- is helpful. For one thing it presumes a tight correlation between price and sound quality, which isn't always the case, especially in the area of high end audio. Second, as you note, especially in the case of a mechanical playback system like vinyl, system matching -- the appropriate arm mass for the appropriate cartridge compliance; the appropriate platform for the tone arm (ie, not probably an air bearing arm on a sprung suspension table, etc) -- is everything. You can spend a mint on an arm and cartridge and have them sound horrible together.

I'd say, tonearms are the weakest links in the analog playback chain. All of them ring, masking detail and adding a sheen of mechanical noise to vinyl playback. Some do a better job damping or eliminating that ringing; some do a better job damping tonearm energy; etc. But none are perfect. And the best ones are very expensive. Anyone who is on a budget -- and I assume that's almost all of us, and it's certainly me -- not looking at a cost no object system, is going to have to live with some kind of ringing and sonic signature. It's easier to find a table that can spin a platter at a constant, proper speed; damp vinyl and motor resonances; and is isolated from external vibration -- than it is to find an arm that doesn't have a characteristic coloration or worse as a result of arm ringing. So, I'd say, if you want vinyl playback that's competitive with digital playback, you probably need to spend enough on the arm to get one that's relatively inert. Spend enough on the table to get one that's also inert, well-isolated, keeps it's own motor noise out of the playback system; and terminates vinyl resonances; and go cheap on the cartridge to start if you're on a budget. For one thing you're not going to play records with that cartridge for the rest of your life and it's the easiest component to upgrade. For another thing there are some really pretty good sounding budget cartridges out there -- not nearly so many good sounding budget tables and arms out there.

That's probably the opposite of conventional wisdom which is more likely to say: get an inexpensive used '80s Japanese mass market deck and slap the best cartridge on it that you can afford. I kind of think that's a little bit like slapping racing tires on a pre-owned Yugo, but I'm sure it works for some people. To me the biggest problem in vinyl playback is noise -- specifically the system's own mechanical noise, acoustic breakthrough, and then surface noise and vinyl whoosh. To minimize those noises in the system you need an arm that's well damped and that can handle any energy the cartridge is going to push into it; and you need a table that can terminate vinyl resonances and keep motor noise and environmental noise out of the signal. If you focus on those attributes first, you'll get the best out of whatever matching cartridge you put on the deck.

 

Right on. Great advice.
Get a good foundation/turntable and combine it with the best tonearm you can afford.

 

Same importance. But if I have to choose :

1 TT
2 cartridge
3 Phono
4 Tonearm

 

That's something that many of the so-called "audiophiles" don't seem to understand. Recently, someone was asking for a recommendation between three different versions of the same album, and someone told him to choose the cheapest one, since all of them were the same mastering. Almost immediately, someone else "fixed" the recommendation telling the OP he should (or was supposed to) pick the most expensive one just because this is an audiophile forum. And he didn't sound like kidding.

 

I’m with chervokas, A while back, I purchased the best table I could afford, the VPI Scout and went cheap on the cartridge
and phono pre. The cartridge was the Shure M97xe paired with Graham Slee Special Edition Amp 2 phono pre, the Scout
made that cartridge sound pretty darn good. I upgraded the cartridge and phono pre when funds became available.

 

Thanks for that considered reply Chervokas.

I use price as an initial starting point to determine if its worthwhile investigating further. No point in looking at a $100 phono stage when the turntable and arm are 50x that cost, as a GENERAL rule.
There are so many choices out there to consider that in order to get the most benefit out of your system, some weeding has to take place. One of the most important for me anyway, is price (either too low or too high).

I agree that the foundation is most important.
1. TT
2. Arm
3. Phono stage
4. Cartridge

In my youth, I thought that the cartridge had the most effect on sound quality.

Does anyone still think this way?

 

I've always thought that the transducers in a system have the most effect, i.e., cartridges and loudspeakers. But you have to have at least a competent design of the other components, and sufficient gain (phono) and power for a given speaker efficiency and room size to extract the quality and full dynamics. Since the cartridge and the tonearm work together as a mechanical system, a good matchup here is crucial.

 

Somebody HERE said that? That's crazy talk!

Anyway, I'd say the turntable is first in the hierarchy, since the things it can do wrong (wow, flutter, hum) can affect sound reproduction to a high degree, next the cartridge since the stylus shape and other attributes of the cartridge determine resistance to surface noise and tonal character, then phono preamp, and then tonearm.

 

That's my take too. And depending on the deck, I'd bump the tonearm up before the phono stage.

 

Actually I'm generally in agreement with SoundQman -- that transducers have the most substantial impact on system tone, and are the components that often have the greatest departure from linearity.

If you want to make a change in the tone of your system, the biggest changes, and the biggest changes for the buck come from changes to the speakers, cartridge, (microphone if you're recording), though I'm not sure about DAC chips -- I don't have experience listening to lots of different DAC chips in otherwise identical circuits (to the extent that's possible) to b able to know. I think the sonic differences between, say, bottom of the line MM Shure and a top of the line LOMC AT, for example, are pretty enormous.

But I think with vinyl playback mechanical noise is such a substantial contributor to a system's some -- not just obvious noise like vinyl whoosh, surface noise and rumbling but the kinds of ringing and resonances of tonearms, motors, platter/record interactions, that modulate the signal and result in time smearing bloated upper bass/lower midrange, masking of inner detail etc. -- that it's the most significant contributor to the sound of one's vinyl rig, and reducing that noise is mostly done with turntable and tonearm design and component matching (though cartridge suspension and stylus shape are a big part as well).

Which component contributes most to the final sound is also a different question from how much to spend on each component. You can find good sounding cartridges more cheaply than you can find good sounding tonearms and tables cheaply. If you spend $300 on a phono cart you can get a pretty nice cart and for significantly less than that you can get a decent one. If you spend $300 on a tone arm or $300 on a turntable, you'll probably barely be scratching the surface of decent performance (new prices of course), so that's why, in the context of the original question, I'd say spend more on the table and arm, less on the cart, not because a cart doesn't have a huge impact on sound.

Phono stages would be at the bottom of my hierarchy because you can get a decent RIAA accurate, low noise, phono stage with sufficient gain and proper R & C loading for one's cart at a relatively inexpensive price and further sonic improvements as you go up the chain are less gross than changes you get with mechanical changes to the system or changes to the cart.

 

1.) Cartridge; 2.) Phono Stage; 3.) Arm; 4.) Amplification; 5.) Table/Platter/Motor/Bearing
This is all assuming that the amp you are using is of very good quality. The reality is it all matters.

 

IMO it´s always much SQ-wise better to have at least one or two, of the components used, of really great quality. Preferably all of course, but if money should be wisely spent choose a top notch arm, including arm damping. It´s not so that it´s any advantage, for any component, to be of a lower quality, matching components cost-wise cannot hold any water at all, as I see it.

 

Very good advice. Here's my experience. Have owned a lot of AR XA turntables. The arm lets them down, replaced the stock arm with a Grace 707 twice, once with Merrill mods [motor, sub chassis, other parts] and getting close to the qualities of a Linn Sondek for sound quality. I've owned various cartridges, generally favoring Shure cartridges for lack of 'nasties'. Had a Linn Sondek LP-12/Ittok arm, high-output moving coil cartridge from Audio Technica, very nice. What I am fortunate enough to own right now is a Strathclyde 305-m, SME III arm, Shure 97xe cartridge. The Shure 97 and the SME III were made for each other, most of the pictures I've seen of the Strathclyde are with the SME, doubtless because the sprung suspension of the 'table mates well with the SME. Synergy is required for a turntable to sound its best, the issue is not dollars spent but system synergy. My turntable system will not work well with cartridges having stiffer suspensions, part of the reason it was gifted to me. Spending oodles of money on the "Best" cartridge would make it sound worse. On the other hand, spending more money on a better phono stage would improve the sound and that's probably going to be my next move.

 

Even though the carts change the sound of a TT the most it is the TT itself, that must be running at a correct speed without any noise coming from the motor, pulley, bearings etc. Next is the tonearm. Slapping a great cart on a mediocre or weak tonearm will reduce the carts abilities, so the old school of TT, TA and last the cart remains true.

 

I tend to agree with you Baron.

What I don't see consensus on is the role of the phono stage.

Unlike Chervokas, I now think that the phono stage plays a much more important role.
e.g A $200 phono will equalise any changes in cartridge, a $500 phono less so, etc

While a cart can make the most difference to the sound, its all lost if the phono isn't up to it.

 

There is never a consensus on anything in audio, really. Besides that the different components importance in terms of price, is a really odd discussion, to put it mildly. If we just would take into account each component´s effect on distortion, what would be that matters, it would still be very odd, and rather complicated at that, also to put it mildly.

 

In my opinion the cartridge (and phono stage interaction) will be the biggest determinant on sound quality assuming the turntable is competent and tonearm is matched well with the cartridge.

I've heard huge variations in cartridges, from frequency response, tracking error, tracking distortion, imaging and realism. The last one is particularly important. I've never experienced those sort of gross variations between turntables and tonearms.

To use an extreme example I'd much rather have a Zyx UNIverse (one of my favorites) on a VPI Scout than an entry level cartridge on a VPI direct drive.

I know this pains some people to hear since the cartridge will wear out, and is probably one of the more costly things to maintain in a good hifi system.

If we are counting the rest of the equipment I'd spend the most on the speakers and room.

 

I know the "cart" section includes the stylus, but I think it should be it's own category.

In my, admittedly limited, experience a good stylus IS critical to getting good sound. If the stylus sucks or isn't up to par nothing else really matters.