The Mood Was Ruined
I recently bought an analog set up and a few lps. I have always been militantly pro digital. I’m trying not to accumulate lps and trying to limit purchases to interesting stuff that may not be available digitally. I have my lps cleaned ultrasonically. My tastes are generally confined to Classical Music.
Today I was playing a Columbia lp that had just been cleaned of Charles Rosen playing late Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Specifically I was listening to Beethoven’s last Sonata, Op.111. The second and final movement has very long trills, great arcing trills that tend to dissolve into arpeggiated chords in the highest octaves and played at various shadings of the pppp range. A great performance and recording can make you afraid to breathe because you don’t want to break the spell, and Rosen ( a noted scholar and author of the Classical period besides being a great musician ) had me transported there.
And then it happened. With perhaps a minute to go, as I was in rapture, a loud POP! and then the music stopped. Apparently my turntable, a Technics direct drive, when it can’t track a divot in a groove, stops playing and the tone arm lifts up. I grabbed a magnifying glass and there is a visible interruption of the vinyl surface.
It was every thing that I have ever hated about vinyl crystallized in a moment.
This record was as presumably clean as it will ever get. I just picked it up from the business that cleans it, and provided a new MoFi inner sleeve as part of the service . I am not blaming the service. I had never played the lp before getting it cleaned, but the other lps that I had cleaned the same day came back in great shape.
I will never probably play this lp again. It was like having great sex and then having the husband knock on the bedroom door with the stock of his shotgun.
I am now listening to a CD of Jonathan Biss playing Op.111, but the magic of the moment is gone
pinwa I keep the mirror on the deck, and lift the arm up, then angle the mirror this way and that, below the cartridge. Stylus never too near the mirror, never touches anything. I have a light from the side, so plenty of light is reflected to the bottom of the cartridge as you angle the mirror. You can see anything on the stylus tip, cantilever, and at the end of the cantilever where it joins the cartridge body. and it’s magnified. |
@ghdprentice I appreciate the attempt to be helpful, but I really think that the issue of how a tone arm and cartridge navigate an lp has nothing to do with phono preamp, etc. I wasn’t complaining about the quality of the sound; in fact I was intensely enjoying it when it was so rudely interrupted . I had intended the turntable to be in my main 2 channel system, but I might just leave it where it is. I am really impressed with how it resolved the differences between the two hands. I could clearly hear the gentle growl of the bass clef and every subtle pedal effect with the many grades of pppp that Beethoven asks for. The caveat is that I have never heard a digital version of this recording. Instead of trying to collect multiple copies of a hard to obtain decades old lp, all of which may contain flaws (Columbia pressings of this period were decidedly not known for pristine vinyl and quality control, and this was probably a budget collection 3 lp set at the time) I will try to get a digital copy if for no other reason to be able to compare. |
It happens, it sucks, but it happens, fortunately not often. And yes, it ruins the whole album. My copy of Dire Straits On Every Street has a different issue - "static" sounding - the whole album. Took it into my deal who has an Audio Desk - helped a little but still unplayable. Digital is handy in these moments...
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Increase the tracking force slightly and play it again. The stylus may actually remove the debri. Otherwise get a good light on the lp and a high magnification glass and see if the obstruction is visible. If so, it is possible to remove it with a toothpick. If however it is a deep scratch, disregard previous.... |
