While vinyl players seem to be easy at first glance, they require exceptional precision in the design and assembly of each of the components in order to deliver true sound quality from the record. There are no small things here, as you can see by reading this article further
The main elements that make up the record player (or LP-player) are the fixed chassis or base, the driving mechanisms, the tonearm, and the pickup head.
The chassis of the player is a fixed base on which all its components are mounted. There are a lot of base structures, and each of the manufacturers gives a strong argument for the use of its own design, and not any other.
Moving mechanisms include the disc itself, on which the gramophone plate is placed, the disc drive, which informs it of the rotational movement, as well as the bearing, on which the actual rotation of the disc takes place.
The tonearm is a device for positioning the needle of the cartridge in relation to the soundtrack. Tonearms are available in a variety of designs, but within the scope of this material, we will focus only on the most common rotary design.
Finally, the pickup head consists of a needle, a needle holder and a voice coil, which actually converts mechanical vibrations into electrical impulses that are then transmitted to the phono corrector for correct preamplification.
Let's consider the constituent elements of LP-players in more detail.
The chassis of a vinyl player is, in fact, the basis on which all its components and parts are attached. At first glance, there can be nothing complicated in its design - a stand and a stand, but in fact, it is not. Those of you who are seriously interested in quality sound reproduction is well aware of the position of professionals (especially those who produce or sell AV furniture, accessories and vibration insulating materials) that audio equipment should be carefully isolated from external vibrations.
The importance of vibration isolation, in my opinion, is somewhat exaggerated, but not in the case of vinyl technology. As already written above, the needle of the pickup, when reading information from the sound groove, experiences literally microscopic movements, which, however, contain all the information about the recorded sound. If a record or tonearm is vibrating, there is no way for the cartridge to separate it from the useful sound signal. The needle moves under the influence of vibration, and therefore these movements will generate an electrical signal in the coil of the cartridge, which will be amplified and reproduced as audible noise.
In addition to the actual frequency distortion, vibration causes another unpleasant moment. When playing back a stereo recording, the needle should be in constant contact with both sides of the audio track, because each of them carries information about the sound in the appropriate channel. Vibration leads to the fact that the needle contact with one of the walls will be broken or will occur in the wrong place. As a result, there will be a mismatch between the sound of the right and left channels, which will lead to the disruption of the phase characteristics of the sound being reproduced and will inevitably worsen the spatial picture of the piece of music. All of the above is well understood by manufacturers who want to protect their players from vibrations with all their might.
Vibration sources can be divided into four types. First, there are the external vibrations transmitted to the player's body from the floor of the listening room. Secondly, it is the vibrations caused by the movement of the needle on the surface of the gramophone record. Third, it is the player's own vibrations caused by moving parts such as the electric motor and the support disc mounted on the bearing. Finally, the vibration caused by the sound itself should not be forgotten. The player is usually installed in the same room as the loudspeakers, so the sound waves they emit have a mechanical effect on it. This effect is called acoustic feedback. Indeed, imagine that the player experiences a mechanical effect caused by the sound produced by a loudspeaker and does not have a satisfactory means of protection against vibration. In this variant, sound vibrations transmitted to the cabinet will cause the needle to vibrate parasitically, and therefore to pick up a parasitic electrical signal in the voice coil. This signal will be amplified and reproduced by the loudspeakers in the form of noise, which will again affect the body of the player and cause parasitic fluctuations of the needle, i.e. the process will be repeated. At a sufficiently high volume level, this process becomes uncontrollable and leads to a rapid increase in the volume of the interference. It is perceived as a rapidly growing howl and is well known to sound directors, for example, for setting the microphone volume level.