Crosley Revolution portable record player - magnetic cartridge!

The problem is that the cartridge is mounted at the end of a tonearm that lacks adjustable anti-skate to begin with. Worse, the tonearm's pivoting movement is rather stiff. Those two can (and do) increase the potential for premature record wear.

 

If the tracking force is under 2 grams, how could the vinyl be damaged? I'd buy "improper cartridge alignment" or "no anti-skating" if that's what you mean. Is there anything else?

 

I can't argue with no anti-skate. This is the first time "stiff tonearm pivot" has been brought up in this thread. How significant are those two issues compared to high VTF?

 

I'm loving this discussion, y'all.

As a consumer I very much take the caveat emptor approach to Crosley turntables. They've built a big reputation on toy-grade turntables, now available at urban outfitters (to play the $40 Neil Young and Pink Floyd reissue LPs they sell!!?).

To make a real jump up to a quality portable at this point would be a real shift in manufacturing and presumably marketing. I'm happy to see some forum obsessives following this development closely. Thanks guys!

 

I'm not saying it's quality, I'm just saying it's highly portable and non-damaging to vinyl. A lot of people online say it sounds good too.

 

We all know it's portable. That's the only reason we're having the discussion, I would think. The question is always how great are the costs to vinyl care and sound quality. I don't mean to compare it to a Linn LP12 or anything. It'd be interesting to hear more on differences with now-hallowed Soundburger...

 

Buy it from amazon. Check it out. And if you don't like it, retutprn it! Are you going to use headphones or the built in speaker?

 

There's a line-out too besides the headphone-out and that's what I'll be using along with one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Soundmatters-foxLv2-Pocket-sized-Loudspeaker-Non-Bluetooth/dp/B0030XNBHS

 

I've had the Revolution for about a week. It sounds great on headphones. The internal speaker is small and crappy. The line-out sounds OK at best on my portable speaker but I think that is due in no small part to the bottom-of-the-line 3.5mm cable I'm using between them. I'll have a $250 Nordost iKable today or tomorrow which should straighten that out:

http://www.analogueseduction.net/no...t-heimdall-ikable-mini-jack-interconnect.html

Yes, it's overkill for the Crosley but I'll be using it with my Wavelength Proton USB DAC too. I know there's no problem with the speaker because it sounds great with the Proton and a Cardas Fat Pipe 3.5mm/RCA cable I have.

I noticed vinyl sounds a little better on this thing when I put an upside-down glass cup over the record label. I don't like having the extra weight on the (surely ultra-cheap) motor and I'm hoping the performance increase is not due to the extra weight so I've ordered a Clearaudio Clever Clamp:

http://www.analogueseduction.net/clearaudio-upgrades-parts-accessories/clearaudio-clever-clamp.html

I also ordered a tracking force gauge so we'll know once and for all what the tracking force of this thing is:

http://www.analogueseduction.net/st...ges/precision-digital-stylus-force-gauge.html

I have Blu-Tack waiting in case it's tracking higher than the 1-3g specified by replacement styli.

One thing that's a little disconcerting is how much the platter wobbles as it spins. It's quite visibly noticeable. I would think this varies from unit to unit. Is there any way to fix that?

I should also mention that I only own 7" vinyl so that's all I've tried.

 

The Nordost cable improved output to my powered speaker drastically. It sounds good enough to enjoy now.

The Clever Clamp is a small improvement over no clamp, but I'm not sure if it sounds better than a heavy upside-down glass. The spindle is too small to work properly with the clamp, but I used a cheap 38mm clip to cinch it down and now it grips the spindle.

My digital tracking force scale says 4.65g but I have it down to 2.75g with Blu-Tack. Much lower than that and the sound starts to get a little weird. I had to remove the cover to make room for the Blu-Tack, but it's easy to take off and on.

BTW, I have the whole thing on Herbie's Baby Booties which helps quite a bit.

It's also worth mentioning that I switched from Panasonic AA batteries to more-expensive Sony ones and it seemed to improve the sound a little. I'm also going to try Eneloop rechargeables.

What do you think fellas?

 

I think you are destroying every record you play on that piece of junk.

But if you dont care about your records, then it doesnt matter.

 

Care to tell me why? 2.75g too much? No anti-skate?

 

GG.....record wear is a combo of many things.Stylus type, stylus condition, tracking force, tracking angle, Tone arm compliance, anti skate, tone arm reasonant response to the groove, etc. The cheaper the arm, the worse the compatibility is, the more wear to the disk.....and the arm in that crosley is the cheapest of the cheap. Its a stick of tin, basically.

In fact, many popular consumer Tuntables of the 50s and 60s have the same problem.
They were designed to track the groove heavily to stop skip. Low record wear wasnt on their engineering list, because THAT wasnt their problem. I have a Garrard Type A from 1960 that was a top turntable in its day. Sounds ok....but KILLS LPs. I no longer use it for that reason even on beat records. The Crosley is likely worse than that.

Truly, the crosley is not a TT, it's a toy and if you value your records at all, I'd get rid of it, or use if just for records that are hopeless.

Not trying to rain on your parade, really. But treating the Crosley like its a real turntable with expensive cabling, records clamps, etc, is, in my opinion, a waste.

 

Stylus type is a diamond on a magnetic cartridge, stylus condition is brand new, tracking force is down to 2.0g now. At 2.0g, sibilance is worse and a strange sort of slight vibrating sound is introduced on headphones during loud passages, but it is listenable and enjoyable. I actually think reducing the tracking force increased sound quality overall.

The others are tracking angle, tonearm compliance, anti-skate, and tone arm reasonant response to the groove. Are these characteristics alone likely to damage my vinyl in this case?

 

Sibilance due to low tracking weight=bad. That is the stylus bouncing around the groove and shaving bits off. Avoid!

 

I get sibilance even with the full 4.65g of tracking force, it's just worse at 2.0g. Surely the tracking weight isn't too low at 4.65g, so the sibilance must be due to something else?

Is there any way to figure out whether or not I'm damaging my vinyl with this thing? The safe thing to do would be to not play any of the vinyl I get during my travels until I get home, but it's sooooo much fun to play local music in its natural habitat.

What about the Sound Burger? Nobody accuses it of damaging vinyl on the grounds that it has a magnetic cartridge and low tracking force. Its tonearm looks about the same as the one on the Crosley.

 

Sure there is a way:

Go to a record store. Buy a NEW, sealed record (doesnt matter what kind of music, buy something very cheap). Play this record , both sides, 10 times in a row on your crosley.

Then take this record and play it on a high quality turntable and listen closely. Do you hear groove noise? If you do (and I think you would) you have the answer to your question.

 

What I want to know is why does it track at 4.65g by default? That means either the cartridge is extremely poor and they think it needs to track that heavily, or it it was not designed that way, but their tolerances are EXTREMELY bad. Either way, I wouldn't be using it on my vinyl.

Don't know about the Sound Burger, but if it is designed to track at, say, 2 grams, that is a lot different to bodging something designed to track at 4.65 grams, to track at 2 grams. Just because they look similar, doesn't necessarily mean they ARE similar, and any time you have to resort to blu-tack and pennies to alter the tracking, alarm bells should be ringing, IMO.

The test outlined above might help you determine what is going on though..:

 

Seriously?

 

That makes sense. So the damage done by crappy equipment manifests itself in the form of groove noise? What does that sound like? Is it pops and clicks?

I can tell you that the NP4 replacement stylus has a recommended VTF of 1-3g which I suppose indicates bad tolerances:

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/crosley-np4-replacement-stylus/453609-01/

I mean, it's a piece of crap, nobody will argue with that, but it's portable. It fits in the *small* pocket of my laptop bag. It drastically increases my enjoyment of vinyl on the road (up from zero) and I'm just trying to prevent it from decreasing my enjoyment of that vinyl when I get home.

 

Is this thread a joke? Seriously, people on an audiophile forum going on about wanting to play vinyl on cheap plastic toys?

 

Your snobbery knows no bounds.

 

Why didn't you just buy a decent cable for $20-30 and use the balance that you paid for the Nordost to buy a turntable that doesn't eat your records? If you wanted something portable, there are myriad inexpensive ways to get your vinyl onto a portable digital player that don't involve carting around that toy and risking the chance of breaking your precious vinyl.

 

The only snobbery I see is people going on about "your precious vinyl".

I'm sorry, the compromises you're having to make to listen to vinyl "on the go" are the prime reason why CD's and DAP's were invented. I'd wager even a 160kbps MP3 would sound better than what you are describing with this rigged setup.

 

Probably. These cheap-azz record players are not aimed at you and me, they target grandma and grandpa who just want to hear their old Andy Williams and Ray Conniff records.