How does a turntable work? - The base

How Does A Turntable Work?

There are several factors affecting the quality of sound a turntable can deliver, and it can be very, very good.  These factors are the base, the motor, the bearings, the tone arm, the cartridge, and the diamond needle.

Bit of background here. The turntable was invented by Thorens over 100 years ago to improve the sound of the cylinder technology at the time. But while the turntable is still going round, cassettes, 8-track, open reel tapes have disappeared, MP3’s and CD’s fading away.

But what magic is this? A needle scraping across the groove of a record, delivering beautiful and accurate sounds? We’ll get to that in another blog.

Let’s start with the base and motor of the turntable. First it must be heavy, to provide a steady platform for the record. Obviously it must be perfectly level so that the needle presses equally on both sides of the groove. A good brand will have adjustments for that. To make a record spin at 33rpm is easy enough, but any variations, called “wow & flatter” can be heard. “Wow is a relatively slow form of flutter (pitch variation) which can affect both gramophone records and tape recorders. In the latter, the collective expression wow and flutter is commonly used.” Imagine a single note of a piano varying in pitch as it fades away? Even tiny variations may not be obvious, but listeners will say they don’t like it. So the motor has to have rock solid accuracy, and no noise from the bearings, a fault known as “rumble,” and heard on all cheap turntables. To help the speed accuracy the platter material should be heavy. This inertia effect is like a car’s flywheel.

Looks solid? That's because it has to be. With turntables quality of materials and manufacture matter.

Driving the platter round and round can be done three ways. Originally a rubberised wheel pressed against the inside of the platter. This noisy arrangement was called “rim drive.” To stop all the mechanical noise a large rubber band was used for rotation, and is known as belt drive. It allows the heavy platter’ mass to be isolated from the motors tiny variations, as well as being noise free. This is now the most popular and common utilised by quality turntable manufacturers. Direct drive relies on electronics and the heavy platter, which becomes part of the “motor.” These dominated sales for years, and now are favoured by disc jockeys who abuse every known rule to make their distinctive scratching sounds.

My next blog will be on turntable tone arms.

Digby Paape is Wellington’s best known audio expert, and has been writing, commentating, and selling HiFi since 1972. He is the owner of Associated Audio Ltd.

Soundbar Solutions - What's that racket?

Soundbar Solution

In this series of blogs I am going to be looking at Soundbar options as a home entertainment system. I’ll explain my situation and why it seems to be the best solution followed by a few options and which best suits my environment.  I’ll try and talk you through it as best I can so you can apply it to your own situation.

What’s that racket?

I don’t know about you but my partner and I like different movies, also I stay up later and tend to watch the movies when she goes to bed and in our apartment the walls are not sound proof. She likes soppy dramas and romantic stuff, I’m more of an action man; you know big CGI, gunfights, loud noises but very quiet dialogue during the down time and there lies the rub.  

To hear the voices and small talk between the action scenes the volume needs to be cranked up, then when The Avengers ‘assemble' and head into battle the whole room starts to shake, my girlfriend comes storming out of the bedroom and I get in trouble.  

So I began looking for something that will decrease the discrepancies between the dialogue and action scenes providing an overall better sound as we all know the speakers facing out the back of the TV are made to be annoying and not productive as I don’t sit behind the TV....

The obvious solution would be a 5.1 home entertainment system with speakers around the room, but as we rent our apartment we can’t run cables through the walls or ceiling and I get a bad look with even the mention of cables lying around the room so the solution has to be very minimal.  

Which do you prefer? A Soundbar on the wall vs. a traditional speaker setup

In steps the Soundbar, which should in fact provide a surround sound atmosphere with fuller sound catering to all types of entertainment not just my movies, while having minimal cables floating around our lounge creating less clutter.  

So there you have it the Soundbar is the solution for me.

The next step is finding the right Soundbar........ Stay tuned!   

-DW

What is Wireless? Part 1: An introduction

What does wireless mean?

This is one of the most common, if not the most common question I get in the store. For some reason the person asking this question usually manages to look extremely sheepish. On the face of it, it appears simple and that’s probably why people expect to be embarrassed.

The issue is that it is not.

“Wireless” is a term that has come to mean any number of things in the last few years, and it’s difficult for even us to keep up, and working with Bose it consumes almost my entire existence.

Over the next few of my posts I hope to clear up the somewhat muddied waters of wireless technology by explaining the “big three”; the ones you are most likely to come into contact with when dealing with audio and Hi-Fi applications. These are only introductions, the nuts and bolts will follow soon.

Radio

The first, and up until recently, most common wireless transmission method is Radio frequency. This is what the majority of our customers are most familiar with. It’s what sends the signals to your FM and AM radios. The main benefit of radio is that it is effective over very long ranges and is able to transmit through walls. Bose takes advantage of this by making all of their Lifestyle remotes Radio frequency, not infra-red like the majority of remotes you’ll find. In a later post I will walk through the advantages and disadvantages of Radio signals in more detail.

Bluetooth 

Up next is Bluetooth. In a nutshell Bluetooth is what you will most commonly use for situations where you need short-range transmission, often to a portable device. What this means is that it’s perfect for portable speakers which will spend a lot of time travelling with you, but will never end up very far away. Bose cater to this market with the Soundlink range of speakers and headphones. Up until recently it was thought that Bluetooth would be the gold standard in wireless transmission into the foreseeable future. However it has been knocked off its throne by Wi-Fi. More on Bluetooth will follow later, for now hopefully this summary at least partly illuminates this area for you.

Wi-Fi

This is the state of the art, bleeding edge of wireless transmission. It has virtually unlimited transmission speed, allows you to stream music from one source to multiple devices and often allows more functionality with less strain on the processors in your phone or tablet. Really the only disadvantage is that Wi-Fi systems are only useful in your home because they have to be connected to a Wi-Fi network you have control over. Bose are backing Wi-FI in a big way, as are most of the industry, making most of our systems Wi-Fi capable, which means you can easily stream music from Pandora, Spotify, Deezer, Internet Radio, or the music library on your computer to every room in your house. There’s a lot to say about Wi-Fi so expect a long article about it in the near future.

Hopefully this has given you at least some indication of what you should be looking for. Check our Facebook page and this blog again later this week for the first in-depth explanation about one of these technologies. With advantages, disadvantages and the best solution for whatever you need your systems to do.

- Sean Stack

Welcome

Welcome to The Audio Blast, a new venture by Associated Audio aimed at providing a learning resource to both our customers and the general public.

Based in Wellington, New Zealand and specializing in Bose Home Theatre products, as well as Thorens turntables, Creek amplifiers, and Epos Hi-Fi speakers, our staff are able to answer just about any question you can think of. 

Technology is advancing rapidly and the home theatre sector moves faster than most. It pulls the latest innovations from a wide range of other areas and combines them in ways which are often novel or unexpected. This can mean that people are often left to make decisions without understanding what the options really are for them.

Hopefully you will find this blog interesting and informative. However there is no substitute for coming into the store and talking to us in person, but ideally this will give you a foundation to base your inquiries on.

Over the coming weeks we will have a series of posts from each of our staff members in their areas of expertise. Owner Digby Paape will be using his vast experience to demystify the arcane subject of turntables. Dylan Wakefield turns his mind to the topic of Soundbars, while I begin with answering an increasingly common question; what is wireless?

Feel free to use the comments section to let us know what you think we should be focusing on, or send us an email or give the store a call if you have further questions. We're here to help you get the best solution, whatever that is.


- Sean Stack