Turntable set-up for beginners
Turntables are funny things. If you have reached middle age, you may remember the turntable from your parental place…or not. The thing with turntables –and we agree; it is part of the attraction- is that you don’t just set-up a turntable with a click of a button. There’s actually quite a bit of tweaking and fiddling involved. If you are taking your first steps into vinyl heaven, it might be a pretty helpful if somebody just takes you through a few guideline as to how to approach your new passion.
We found out exactly that a couple of weeks ago, when Deano did the whole set-up for one of our customers. Passionate as he is about his precious vinyl, he felt inspired to pick up his pen.
Here’s what Deano has to say about how to approach a turntable set-up if you are new to the game.
1) It all starts with common sense: Level the turntable
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to get good performance from your turntable if it isn’t level. No rocket science there.
To level the table, you need a bullseye bubble level (like the one show below). It works a bit like a builder’s level, but it allows you to adjust in all directions. A builders level works too, but is a bit trickier to get right because you will have to go back and forth between all directions.
Place the bubble level on the platter, then adjust the turntable feet until its level. If your turntable doesn’t have adjustable feet, then place a shim under turntable’s feet until you get it level.
Take your time to get it right. Your turntable has to be totally level before you can move on to the next step.
Before we move on we have this to say: Not all turntables are the same, although to be fair, most of them are very similar. Chances are pretty good that our guidelines will apply to your turntable.
BUT, if the manual instructions differ from our guidelines, go with the manual. There will be a good reason why your manufacturer is telling you to do things in a certain way for your specific turntable.
So with this little side note, we dive in.
2) Get cracking with the fun stuff: Install the cartridge
Most turntables come with a cartridge included and especially the beginner turntables tend to have the cartridge already installed, almost ‘plug and play’. Although that’s not always the case.
But even if the cartridge is already installed, you may want to re-install yourself to make sure it is done properly. A lot of seasoned vinyl lovers will tell you never to trust a pre-installed cartridge. The call is yours.
So the first thing you may have to do, is get cracking with installing the cartridge. You’re going to need a bit of patience and lots of light in order to do it well.
Almost all good tonearms use a standard half-inch mount, which uses two (occasionally three) tiny bolts to secure the cartridge to the head shell at the end of the tonearm. Some cartridges have threaded holes for the bolts, and for these you just need a tiny screwdriver to mount the cartridge. Other cartridges mount with nuts and bolts, in which case you’ll need something to hold the nuts while you’re tightening. I use a tiny socket, holding it in my fingers instead of using a spanner, but you can also use needle nose pliers.
Tighten the bolts so that the cartridge is secure but can still slide around a bit on the head shell. Now carefully — very carefully — attach the color-coded tonearm wire leads to the corresponding pins on the cartridge. I prefer to do this with my fingers, to make sure I don’t break any of the fragile parts, but I sometimes need a pair of tweezers to get the wire terminals onto the pins. If the terminals won’t fit, use a toothpick to ease them — carefully — open just a tad.
3) Onto the other end: Set the vertical tracking force (VTF)
I know this part sounds pretty boring, but The Vinyl Factory claims this is the single most important adjustment you can make for your turntable. Better sit up straight.
Vertical tracking force (VTF) is the force of the stylus pressing against the record. You’ve figured by now that turntables are very sensitive instruments. Too little pressure and you’ll get distortion and/or skipping. Too much and you’ll prematurely wear out your stylus. So easy does it. The cartridge manual will tell you the proper tracking weight range for your cartridge. Go with that.
Before you set the tracking force, remove the stylus guard, make sure the turntable is turned off and the cue lever is down.
First thing we are going to do is balance the tonearm by adjusting the counterweight at the end of your tonearm. You “float” the tonearm by moving the actual counterweight at the rear of the arm until the arm and cartridge can float smoothly and nicely horizontal across the platter without touching it.
Some tonearms have a tracking force scale dial (front ring where the counterweight is), marked in grams; if yours does, you’ll want to make sure it’s set to zero when the arm is floated.
With this done, your tonearm is balanced.
Now we are going to tackle the actual VTF.
You use the manufacturer’s guidelines for the tracking force. Usually a range is recommended like say between 1.5 and 2.5 grams. We say aim for the middle of the range your manufacturer recommends; in this case 2 gram.
Many counterweights adjust by twisting around the tonearm. Readjust the counterweight until it’s within the specified range. If your tonearm has scale markings for tracking force, you can use them to guide you to set VTF (don’t touch the tracking force scale dial (front ring) itself as this is already calibrated), Personally I like to use a stylus gauge like shown in the image below. I find it just a lot more accurate.
If you want to use a gauge like I do, place the gauge on the surface of the platter (without a record on it) and gently increase tracking force by moving the counterweight slightly towards the cartridge until you are at the force you are wanting.
4) There and back again: Align the cartridge
Back to the cartridge.
Here’s how you get it aligned.
If your tonearm has a standard cartridge mount, you can move the cartridge around under the head shell. This allows you to align the cartridge. Think of it in the same way of the wheel alignments of your car. It can be extremely off-putting if not done correctly.
What you’ll need to align your cartridge is a protractor. Many turntables include one, and you can also download one for free from vinylengine.com and print it out.
Our favorite is the Kearns protractor it is very easy to use with full instructions provided
You align it at two points, moving it around slightly until you get the best compromise alignment.
If you downloaded and printed your protractor make sure it is printed to the right size. Place the protractor over the spindle. You’ll see two targets on the protractor, surrounded by lines or grids. Position the tonearm and cartridge over one of the targets. Now gently move the cartridge around until the stylus touches down right on the target and the cartridge body aligns with the lines on the protractor. (Obviuosly, while doing this, you want to be careful not to drag the stylus along the protactor or the platter to avoid any damage to the stylus.)
Move the tonearm and cartridge to the second target and see if the stylus hits the target and lines up with the protractor grid or lines. If it does, tighten the cartridge bolts slowly, gently, and firmly, being careful not to move the cartridge while you’re tightening. Get the bolts tight, but don’t crank down too hard on them or you could break the head shell or the cartridge.
If the stylus doesn’t align on the second target, try slightly different positions with the cartridge until you find one that gives the best possible alignment on both targets.
It’s not hard, it just takes some patience to get it perfect.
5) Set the anti-skating force
By nature, your stylus has a tendency to go to the center of the platter. The counter-action to that is the anti-skate.
Put a vinyl record on and the Anti-skating force also keeps the stylus from pressing unevenly on the inside half of the groove. If the stylus presses unevenly, it will cause distortions especially in the upper ranges.
On many tonearms, this is nonadjustable, or the adjustment is primitive (sometimes consisting of a string, pulley, or weight). But if your turntable has an anti-skating adjustment, it should generally be about the same as the tracking force. So if your tracking force is set at 2, set your anti-skate dial also at 2.
Some test records include an anti-skating test tone that lets you verify this adjustment by ear.
6) Recheck the VTF
This one’s simple: Because you have moved the location of your cartridge, this will have changed the balance of your tonearm as well. Therefore, you have to go back to Step 3 and check to make sure your adjustments didn’t throw off the VTF, and readjust if necessary.
7) Play, tweak, repeat
Where you take your turntable setup from here is up to you. There is definetly something to be said for also checking azimuth and vertical tracking angle (also called VTA). If you want to start playing and tweaking, VTA is a great place to start: raising the back of the tonearm slightly will tilt the tonal balance toward the treble, and lowering it will boost the bass.
Or you can do what I usually do: Get the adjustment within safe and sane norms, pour yourself a glass of bourbon, and then get those records out.
Rapallo offers the following brands in turntables: ELAC Miracord, Clearaudio and Edwards Audio.
Source (including photos): Uturn Audio, Formatoanalogo, WhatHifi, HudsonHifi, Vinyl Engine, Musehelix, Clearaudio, Edwards Audio, Elac Miracord