Would a better turntable fix wow/off center records?

Been looking to start saving for a new turntable after owning my vintage Yamaha YP-B2 for about a year.
In my collection I have a few records that are off center, some more noticeable than others.
I recently bought a record that is sadly a bit off in terms of pitch (The Queen is Dead, Rhino Reissue)
My question is if a better turntable, like an RP1 with a Rega white belt fix this in any way? That's what I'm looking to save up for, as well.

I know I can return the record which I might still, but I have a few more in my collection that are similar and far past returning

 

In my experience, a turntable with more accurate speed stability will make off-center pressings even more obvious.

The only cure is to have a vinyl record that can be centered properly. Either find another copy with the spindle hole in the correct spot, or widen the hole. The spindle hole can be (gently) widened with a file or a knife, and then the record can be placed on the turntable so it will play without noticeable wow. Understandably, many people would be cautious about such an operation. If done carefully, it does not visibly damage the record. I've successfully modified a number of records this way.


P.S. One other not so readily available option: Nakamichi made a special and very expensive turntable back in the 1980s, the Dragon CT. It was self centering, and would "fix" the playback of off-center records.

 

"In my experience, a turntable with more accurate speed stability with make off-center pressings even more obvious."
Damn, that hurts, some people just say get a better turntable when you're having off-center problems.
I swear I've read someone (on this forum too) say that they bought an RP1, then installed a white belt and said his pitch problems were gone..

I've actually tried what you suggest before, it ended with me scratching a bit of the record, but if I ever try it again I'll know not to use a knife..

 

Drill, baby, drill! Just kidding.

Actually there are a few older tables with a removable spindle and you could try to center it up on them, but it's a pain. I'm not sure if any new tables are readily available with this feature, since it was often just to allow a tall spindle for a record "changer" and a stack of records. My Empire 598 has a pop-up 45 spindle and I have left that in the down position to center a 45 single and avoid wow.

 

"Wow" is a defect in the turntable itself having to do with an off center inner pulley or some spindle or bearing issue.

An off center hole is a defect in the record. Drilling bigger only makes the problem worse unless you can establish a new center on the new hole and then you need to rebush or have a bigger spindle.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow_(recording)

 

Thank you.

"When playing gramophone records, wow is a once-per-revolution pitch variation which could result from warping of the record or from a pressing plate that was not precisely centered.

If the grooves are not centered exactly relative to the spindle hole, the linear velocity of the stylus, instead of dropping gradually as the groove spirals towards the center, varies every revolution to be too high (resulting in a higher pitch) when the stylus is further out, and too low when the stylus is further inwards (resulting in a lower pitch). The more eccentric the positioning, the greater the pitch variation.

The cause for "wow"-effects on a warped disc is basically the same; a variation in the linear velocity of the stylus relative to the disc. This can be by either radial warping (similar to the eccentric hole case) or by the disc warping out of its plane. This would mean that the stylus would have to travel faster over the warped section as it must displace both in and out of the plane of the disc."

 

If you are going to attempt the technique of widening spindle holes, I suggest practicing on junk records first. And note that the process does not involve removing very much vinyl to achieve results. Usually, it's less than a millimeter.

 

The audibility of 'wow' from off-center records depends on program material—it's much more noticeable with long held notes, such as those found in New Age, Sacred Choral and Classical music. Pop records with quicker tempos tend to be harder to notice. But it's a flaw that happens at the manufacturing stage for the LPs, something should never happen. A longer arm would help a little but not nearly as much as playing th CD instead.

 

Agreed.

For example, solo piano music is brutal and unlistenable to my ears unless the LP is centered dead on. On the other hand, music involving vocals, woodwinds and strings (violin family) has inherent pitch fluctuations, including intentional vibrato. Since those fluctuations are already there, it could fool one's ear into believing that wow from the playback is actually part of the performance, especially if the material does not contain long sustained tones.

 

Piano is probably the most revealing for hearing speed variations on a flawed record. Plucked, sustained guitar (or harp) notes are right up there also.

 

My very first Jazz LP was the Monk/'Trane record with Coleman Hawkins and Art Blakey. Originally on Riverside my copy was on an ABC reissue series. The final track on the last side, mostly solo Monk, was off-center exactly on the beat. Made the record sound like Monk had a whammy bar on his piano.

 

Off-center records have never been a problem for me, since I'm not picky about widening the spindle hole and drawing a couple arrows on the label.

 

I prefer not to write on the record labels, and in fact, endeavor to make the hole widening operation not noticeable.

Instead, I write centering notes on a new generic inner sleeve which the record goes in after cleaning. That way, the original package and cosmetics remain intact.



This Concord Big Star reissue is notorious for being off-center on side one. My copy went from unlistenable to very nice just by removing a tiny bit of vinyl from one side of the spindle hole, which I did last week. I follow the centering notes on the inner sleeve, and everything now sounds hunky dory...

 

Hi,

How about a Nakamichi !

https://www.google.ca/search?q=nakamichi+turntable&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch

The Nakamichi Dragon CT was there lower cost version

And the TX-1000

Expensive

Thanks

 

Eccentricity is typically by far the largest contributor to speed variation in a healthy TT IME. I literally spent years developing tools for my own use to analyse pitch variation/speed stability. My avatar shows 2 successive revolutions of a platter (red/blue) for a synthetic calibration test tone - once around the circle is one revolution of a platter, and radius is 'instantaneous pitch'. I record a short 3kHz test tone, and I get a very visual plot of pitch variation around the platter.

Eccentricity presents as a significant repeatable 'once per platter' smooth pitch variation, and is virtually always present because of two factors : vinyl pressing accuracy/hole punching, and spindle straightness/vertical alignment. The latter is quite common IME, to an extent - as is the former for that matter.

Spindle not only has to be in the correct place to a very tight tolerance, it has to be dead straight (not bent) and dead vertical. The sort of accuracy required to get to near inaudible is about 100 parts in 1 million IME.

Record pressing accuracy, one might as well forget 100 parts in 1 million ! It's typically all over the place IME, and the hole size itself varies! A slightly undersize spindle at least allows for some visual adjustment, which is what I do these days. Have a physical marker to visually check against a track lead-in from above, and adjust manually. Takes about 15s, and is the best practical approach IME.

 

I've done this. it never really gets it right, it just gets it closer. If there is an argument for CDs then you're looking at it.

 

Yup, seems very odd to me that for all the passionate discussion of the finest nuance in vinyl playback, something as big, ugly and prevalent as pitch shift due to eccentricity gets very little airtime.......!

 

I am lucky and a small amount of wow does not drive me insane.
For the few records which annoy me... i get rid of them. No record is so valuable (to me anyway)
Generally only a piano solo would drive me to the brink if it heavily wavered in pitch. If it was bad/really annoying I would destroy it.
I have CDs with piano wavering pitch... Had to come from the source tape....

 

Nice!

 

I fix the problem by using the Dual 1229 with no spindle.

In my experience, piano is the worst, and the wow gets worse as you approach the label.

 

An easy way to enlarge the spindle hole is with a reamer tool. A drill is risky, since the bit can drift off center and bins which can crack the vinyl. A knife can slip, so steady hands are a must. So try the reamer tool. It does a very clean job, no burrs or frazed edges.

The other solution is to invest in a turntable with a removable spindle, such as the Dual 1200 series.

http://www.dansdata.com/images/tools/reamer500.jpg

 

Wondering when someone would mention the Nak tables

 

My solution, and it has worked well for me, is to have a turntable with a short spindle and adjustable tonearm height. My Technics SL-1200 has both. I use two of the thick Technics turntable mats stacked on top of each other. This puts the record high enough to allow the hole in the vinyl to sit just above the top of the spindle. Accordingly, I adjust the tonearm height since the record now sits a little higher. I put the record on to spin - but NOT playing it with the tonearm - and look at the grooves and slightly tap the record on the side as it spins, which moves it a bit until the grooves look like they are not swaying back, and forth and then move the tonearm from where it rests play the record. The benefit of this is that you don't have to cut away at a record's hole to make it bigger so that you can move it in one direction or another. The other NICE benefit is that the record is no longer touching the spindle and doesn't pick up any irregularities from it.

 

Thanks for all the replies everyone
I actually managed to fix the problem simply by putting a pencil through the hole and widening it a bit which I didn't expect to work considering I had tried the same method before.
Still off center records are a pretty serious problem, but I'm glad I fixed it in this case