PAY ATTENTION TO ATMASPHERE! He explained why my new phono preamp lowered (pretty much eliminated) LP playback noise.
In 2012 an audiobuddy sold me his MAGI (Massachusetts Audio Group, Inc.) line stage. MAGI is pretty much a one-man operation and they don’t come up for sale often. It made EVERYTHING sound better, because all components go through the line stage.
Two years later, he asked me if I’d be interested in MAGI’s matching phono stage, the aptly-named Phonomenal. Both components are handwired PTP with NOS tubes.I think I laid a strip of rubber from my driveway to his house. I gave the Phonomenal a careful listen and bought it on the spot.
When I got home, I started playing records through it and shook my head in disbelief at the absence of surface munge and ticks and pops.
I posted my experience to this forum to see how the lack of noise could be possible. Atmasphere responded and explained that many phono stages use *active* negative feedback to reduce measurable distortion, but as the signal is recycled through the feedback loop, it lengthens the duration of the ticks and pops, making them louder and longer than they occur on the record surface. Passive EQ passes the signals along without lengthening the noise.
It made sense to me, and five years later I am still enjoying the hell out of my vinyl rig, with mostly noise-free playback and none of the obsessive scrubbing and cleaning some of you describe.
AND! If you have a similar rig and REALLY want no-noise LP playback, get some mono albums and play them back through a mono cartridge.
Mono albums’ grooves modulate only side-to-side, meaning that true mono cartridges only respond to side-to-side groove modulations. I have gotten many used mono LPs that were too noisy to play with stereo cartridges, that were noise-free when played with mono cartridges. I have a relatively inexpensive Audio Technica HOMC mono cartridge that plays mono albums sweetly and noise-free, even 1969 albums plucked from the bins of thrift shops. My Beatles 2014 Mono LP remaster/reissues sound phenomenal with mono playback.
In 2012 an audiobuddy sold me his MAGI (Massachusetts Audio Group, Inc.) line stage. MAGI is pretty much a one-man operation and they don’t come up for sale often. It made EVERYTHING sound better, because all components go through the line stage.
Two years later, he asked me if I’d be interested in MAGI’s matching phono stage, the aptly-named Phonomenal. Both components are handwired PTP with NOS tubes.I think I laid a strip of rubber from my driveway to his house. I gave the Phonomenal a careful listen and bought it on the spot.
When I got home, I started playing records through it and shook my head in disbelief at the absence of surface munge and ticks and pops.
I posted my experience to this forum to see how the lack of noise could be possible. Atmasphere responded and explained that many phono stages use *active* negative feedback to reduce measurable distortion, but as the signal is recycled through the feedback loop, it lengthens the duration of the ticks and pops, making them louder and longer than they occur on the record surface. Passive EQ passes the signals along without lengthening the noise.
It made sense to me, and five years later I am still enjoying the hell out of my vinyl rig, with mostly noise-free playback and none of the obsessive scrubbing and cleaning some of you describe.
AND! If you have a similar rig and REALLY want no-noise LP playback, get some mono albums and play them back through a mono cartridge.
Mono albums’ grooves modulate only side-to-side, meaning that true mono cartridges only respond to side-to-side groove modulations. I have gotten many used mono LPs that were too noisy to play with stereo cartridges, that were noise-free when played with mono cartridges. I have a relatively inexpensive Audio Technica HOMC mono cartridge that plays mono albums sweetly and noise-free, even 1969 albums plucked from the bins of thrift shops. My Beatles 2014 Mono LP remaster/reissues sound phenomenal with mono playback.