Is there such thing as a "more musical" turntable than the others?

I love your post. That's exactly what I'm looking, a more "organic, less processed" sound. Alas, with my current analog set I HAVE NOT achieved that and only a MEDIOCRE alternative to my already good (but always perfectible) sound. My FEAR is to invest more money on a "solution" that would leave me with the same results!! Can you recommend me a turntable and cartridge that would sound "organic and less processed"? Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe what I think it's a mediocre attempt to sound as good as digital (my Orbit Plus + Ortofon 0M20) is how really vinyl sound and what others think as "organic"? Fortunately many people also think that the Ortofon cartridges sound "digital" too...

Thank you!

 

That Scout looks really promising. Now I only need to find out if that turntable is for beginners or if it need some advanced level... Thanks!

 

It's a great table for the price. The unipivot arm is a bit fiddly until you get the hang of it. In reality it's no harder to set up than any other arm. Don't be afraid to buy one used. I love mine.

 

Unfortunately more often than not term "musical" applies to gear which is poorly engineered and adds coloration and distortion.

 

In my experience, the better your turntable/tonearm gets the more it sounds like digital in the sense that there's lower noise, lower distortion, better clarity on loud ensemble passages, better control and extension at the frequency extremes. And the better your digital gets, the more it sounds like analog in term of soundstaging depth and width and a sense of space and spatial cohesiveness and a tactile, you are there quality.

But personally, I don't worry too much about playback format. I'm format agnostic. I listen to vinyl, I listen to CD, I stream, I download -- whatever format I need to choose to get to the music I want to hear. I still listen to vinyl because over the course of 50 years, I've amassed thousands and thousands of LPs and so I still play them and enjoy them and keep a good turntable to do so, but I don't buy new vinyl today and I haven't really for 20 or 25 years. I only buy vinyl now if there's no other format edition available. It's a last choice format for me at this point.

I'm not a big believer in the myth that vinyl and only vinyl possesses some kind of musical mojo that digital formats can never possess. And you can get a lot better sound a lot more cheaply with digital today than you can with LP.

There's a lot I find frustration about the LP format -- a really good sounding turntable/tonearm is expensive; there's inherently so much mechanical noise involved in LP playback that's not present in digital that it can be frustrating, especially if you listen, as I do, to music with lots of long, quiet passages; records themselves always have problems -- imperfect centering, groove echo. Records are big, heavy, a pain to store, they require cleaning, parts wear and require maintenance. That great sounding records sound as great as they do sometimes seems like a bit of a miracle. Good LP playback is a lot of effort .

But if you enjoy the whole tactile record thing. And you enjoy collecting LPs, it's definitely worth it to invest really good LP playback gear. Makes a big difference.

But I wouldn't dedicate any listening time myself to one format or another.

 

The first real HiFi turntable setup I ever heard was a friend's Scout through a tube preamp... never realized vinyl could sound like that. Of course the rest of his system wasn't shabby... not sure what the amp was- something solid state and speakers were Magnepans.

 

Yesterday for some reason I streamed movie "Currier" with Gary Oldman and Olga Kurylenko. An awful movie, I was able to watch only first 30-40 minutes and turned it off.
Anyway, apparently billionaire villain (played obviously by Oldman) was a music buff, and often portrayed listening to records in his extremely posh place. And he played it on some cheapo table with Ortofon OM5E (cartridge was shown many times full screen) ))). I think that what movie director (art director, etc) think about high-end vinyl reproduction ))).

Sorry for off.

 

yeah, i used to think that "getting out of the way of the recording" was kind of a cop out. but the issue is that recordings are all over the map- from thick and bass heavy to bright and thin. play a thick recording on an overly warm system and it sounds like mush. play a bright recording on a bright system and it sounds like a disaster.

 

Yes but "musical" to the "individual listener" seems open to interpretation. One person's definition will be different than another's. So if marketing (and reviews, let's be honest) says their product is "musical" sounding, everyone will love it. genius !

 

My turntables must not have a sound of their own. Nothing added or subtracted. And my turntables must meet or exceed the 1964 NAB standards in all areas (platter start up time optional on second or third turntables)

 

That what different cartridges, load and cap settings and eq curves are for ))). And some times absolute polarity switch (which my system lacking at the moment).

 

Yes, but same can be said for cartridges.

 

Very fluid ?

 

My lowly Rega produces music that's much more in the room, live than my Technics MK1200. Rega has a Nagaoka MP110 while the latter has a myriad of headshells with carts ready to launch including 3Mblue, Denon 110, Grado black 1, Shure 97 with the fine styli.

 

Absolute polarity is...how do I say this..."impossible". SO much you don't know, and only two possibilities. About 40 years back there was confusion as to which XLR pin was "high". That means on a mic, which pin had positive voltage with positive air pressure. And while studios would have been wired consistently, there was no standard for recording devices. Nothing that said which magnetic polarity resulted from which input voltage. Digital systems attempted standardization, but in the end, all that matters is consistency. You don't get unified polarity because the entire record/reproduce chain (you have to include speakers!) is out of control. Polarity also varies with frequency, caused by equalizers, crossovers, and acoustics. In the end, there is no "absolute" at all. There's only preference. And you can pick that preference anywhere in the system, flip polarity anywhere, the results are the same. Trying to apply "absolute polarity" to a cartridge is just grasping at straws.

But of course, how do you know what's "right"? You didn't hear the original, and lots has gone on between the original acoustic wave and what you're hearing. On most music signals there is little to no difference anyway, because the composite acoustic wave is symmetrical. You need a signal that's significantly asymmetrical before a polarity flip is even audible, then you get to pick your favorite, not what's "right".

 

You are correct, it is all about preference, not "right" which no one even knows what... Many years ago I had Mark Levinson pre I got for a (relatively) song, and it had it switch on remote. Sometimes results were remarkably audible, sometimes not at all... And then I mostly played CDs, stupid me ))).

 

Honestly, in your shoes I woud be on the hunt for a Morin modified AR XA. Simply wonderful and in your wheelhouse. The modified tonearm turns out with an effective mass right around 10g. Simple elegance. I've owned 4 or 5 AR's and I keep going back for more.

The Sota's in a different league all it own and can sound digital as all deck's can if that's the way you like it. We bought a Cosmos/Eclipse and used a Tri planer tonearm. It can sound sterile if cartridge loading is wrong.

 

Have you ever tried the Nagoka on the Technics? Just curious...

 

No, I've not though I've thought about it. Just checked, and I realized I have another MP110 cart which I'd totally forgotten about. I'll get to it at some point though.

 

I would add these Sumikos (Rainier, Olympia and Moonstone) to the list. I like my Grados a lot, but thought the Sumiko Rainier on my son's table was a bit fuller and had even more of what I like about the Grados. Olympia is said by some to be the sweet spot.

Oyster Series Archives - Sumiko Phono Cartridges

 

They must be O-Town fans.

 

Not stupid at all. The CD production chain has a far greater chance of at least preserving original symmetry.

If there is no "right" and only "preference", then there can be no "absolute".

 

I enjoyed this film a couple of days ago:

 

The following terms, listed in order of increasing magnitude, describe good treble performance: smooth, sweet, soft, silky, gentle, liquid, and lush. When the treble becomes overly smooth, we say it is romantic, rolled-off, or syrupy.

 

Musicality*=not dissecting the sound.

*The quality of having a pleasant sound; melodiousness