Rediscovered in the back of the closets, where they had ended up with the appearance of CDs, or discovered by the youngest, who, with their sleeves rolled up, propose to take away all the information they have, and that's all, vinyl records wake up from a long night of nightmare, with his head held high, showing us his origins: (decca, columbia, odeon, rca victor, parlopnon, cbs, thorens, capitol, his master's voice, brunswick, vogue), a true parade of coats of arms,                                        quality assurance, which gives them full right to occupy  a top place, in all collections, they will even be absolute kings; and with their colorful covers, some very beautiful ones - an authentic work of art - exert enormous fascination, and an irresistible temptation to have them by our side.

    Unfortunately for some, it is still a somewhat mysterious world that, combined with a lack of experience, leads to unsatisfactory results, with a consequent decrease in interest, and finally to abandonment. For these,  ready to take the first steps is dedicated this page, assuring from now that with a minimum of effort and knowledge, the result can even be brilliant; the discs just wait to be placed on a real plate, perfectly controlled, and if in their long life they have not been badly treated, they will certainly continue to spin for many years and will give us beautiful and unforgettable moments of pleasure; and this is what we are going to deal with:

     A turntable can then be divided into three main parts: cymbal, arm and head, and the degree of importance is not equal between these, but obeys a certain order, precisely that described above, and which must be taken into account. from now on.

    First decision: new or used? Used, in my opinion, it is very good, the vintage of both fits perfectly and they are more economical, they are bought for a few tens of euros, the offer is great, provided that we are quite demanding in our choice, because certainly most of them will not meet the desired requirements and we will have to ignore them. We are therefore interested in a beautiful, robust and heavy plate, if in a better wooden box, from a proven brand; emt, garard,  lenco, technics, thorens, dual, etc...,(a real luxury!!!) with three speeds, 33, 45 and 78, the last one having to be varied between 74 and 82 rpm, (78rpm discs were recorded at different speeds, normally between these values), with belt traction will be advised, but I must say that some direct traction are extremely silent, (the noise that the coupling  the motor to the plate introduces is really very low and in the best ones the rotor and the plate are built in one piece so the plate becomes an integral part of the motor, avoiding this connection that would introduce vibrations, and the starting torque of a motor in direct current is huge, which is an advantage ), like marantz or technics, two electronics conductors, and thorens with double pulley/belt coupling, with speed variation by magnetic field - what a device!!! - are to be bought with closed eyes.

    The main care is to verify that the disk rotates perfectly on its axis, it must absolutely describe a single perfect circumference, presenting itself to our eyes as if it were still, without lateral displacements; the same for the arm that if it is fixed, any type of undue oscillation automatically eliminates it, (remember that the only oscillation that interests us is the one caused by the normal reading of the needle on the record, which will be transmitted to the head), because it works as a source noise, which will be strongly amplified; if it is replaceable, the problem is less because at any time we can exchange it, even doing an upgrade; the testine must be of the moving magnet type, with an output signal ten times higher than moving coils, and if it is slightly lower in frequency response, its output signal is much easier to amplify, (it will need to be amplified by an amplification factor of 100, while with the mcs  the factor will be 1000, to reach a sufficient signal level to give input to the amplifier, which for the same noise level at the input, in the latter it will be ten times higher at the output), universal/standard mount format, for easy replacement  probably for a higher quality one,  but paying close attention  with your assembly  because it requires special care in alignment, and this process, let's say a little critical, truly gets to the heart of the system, and our intervention can make the difference, between a good or bad end result:

     Adjust the back of the arm until it is in a horizontal position; adjust the weight of the head to the one indicated by the manufacturer, normally between 3 and 5g and in case of doubt, remember that a slightly light arm is more harmful to a disc than the opposite; set the anti-skating to the same value; in place of the disc, place a small mirror and gently place the needle on top, with the real and virtual head being perfectly aligned, otherwise proceed with the alignment; on graph paper draw a rectangle approximately 18cm by 4cm; draw a center line lengthwise; on this line, trace 3 points, A, B and C, at distances of 2cm, 8.6cm and 14.4cm respectively; at point A make a small hole and insert it on the axis of the platter on top of the disc; manually move the arm and the paper and place the needle over point C, with the head being strictly parallel to the vertical lines of the squares, if this does not happen, adjust the position of the head and perform the same operation in relation to point B; Also remember that you cannot use the needles of 33/45 rpm records on the 78, they are useless, they are completely different and destroy them.

     THE  connection to the amplifier part, passes through a pre-amplifier, and here you must choose active or passive, either of them with its advantages and disadvantages, always with a built-in riaa equalizer, this last part being absolutely indispensable, since for technical and practical reasons , during the recording of the incision the low frequencies are purposely compressed and the highs accentuated, so when reading the inverse will have to be done, thus allowing the sound to return to its original characteristics, and here there can be no compromises: if it is active, either the amplifier has a phono input, and the brand of the device gives us full quality assurance, or you will have to buy it separately, and here too, quality is really important: receiving an input signal of about 5 millivolts to amplify it  to 500 - we are dealing with extremely low signals, - the introduction of noise becomes inevitable -, and the worst thing is that it will be greatly amplified next to the signal and only a good preamp is able to reject it and keep the noise inherent to the its functioning at extremely low levels, which is not within the reach of the weakest;  on the other hand, the input impedance must be the same as the output of the turntable, otherwise there are great signal losses, so we can only choose one of superior quality, and devices of 30/40 euros will not be taken into account. consideration; if you have a good amplifier with good speakers, (they must have high sensitivities) you can opt for a passive preamp, with a high input impedance, around 10kmhs, so as not to overload the source, and a low output impedance, close to zero, (remember that this impedance, together with the intrinsic capacity of the connecting cables, makes a low pass filter with its cutoff frequency which must not be in the audio frequency range, otherwise it will attenuate the high frequencies), in this case you will not have signal gain, just impedance optimization, but the good quality amp/speakers, overcome that low input signal, and reproduce the sound more faithfully, you just need to position the volume controller higher, but anyway never you will have distortion at the output, and with much more guarantee that the output signal is identical to the input, without any kind of coloring; on 78 rpm discs there is still a problem: the riaa equalization is different from other discs, and even worse, it varies from brand to brand, so we must be able to control it, through different frequency adjustments; the cables connecting the turntable to the preamp must be of good quality and short, reducing the capacitive effect, which modifies the output impedance, unbalancing it with the input of the preamp;

    If the cymbal is in a wooden box, and being the most important part of the system, do not rule out the possibility of building another one, better attenuating vibrations or resonances;  in case of hum, the masses of the turntable and the preamp will be placed at the same potential, with a connecting wire, eliminating the hum; in the case of Rumble, (low frequencies caused by vibrations in transmission systems and bearings that reach the platter and from there to the speakers - remember the imperative need to check any lateral displacement, normally caused by wear and tear, when purchasing the turntable on the central shaft or bearing, or poor quality of materials?), can be alleviated by oiling the bearings with high quality oil. A very solid base under the turntable and moving the speakers a little further away from the turntable, can only bring benefits... A little attention can still be paid to the always discussed and almost always ignored  advantage of improving or not the quality of the power cord and its plug; if the turntable has a powerful motor and if it also works at 78rpm, I believe it can only bring advantages, (  at  disk rotation  the motor has no current consumption  constant, varies with the friction existing at each point, which is not always equal due to the tolerance of the materials ), instantly providing the requested current, avoiding, as it were, increasing the so harmful and always present wow and flutter  ; in the case of the amplifier, this improvement may be more than necessary and evident... as the speakers constantly and extremely quickly vary the supplied current...

    The care to be taken with discs usually refers to three different situations:

    A) risks, the worst situation, for which there is no solution, and they can only be avoided by perfectly controlling the lowering and raising of the needle, trying to do it in spaces without engraving, and even worse, absolutely avoiding any inappropriate transverse movement, normally caused by poor needle weight adjustment, anti-skating or any external vibration that hits the turntable.

    B) dirt that appears over time, but a good wash in warm water with neutral soap and a soft cloth can perfectly resolve.

    C) undulations (warping), usually caused by poor storage or temperature variations; with my shelacs, and I have a few hundred, I place one on top of a glass plate inside the oven at home, as far away from the heat source as possible, at the minimum temperature (at any time the hand should be able to get inside without burn) for fifteen to twenty minutes, I remove it and place it on a marble stone with the glass plate on top, and on top of this something very heavy. I usually do it at the end of the day, for practical reasons, taking advantage of the drop in temperature at night, avoiding being tempted to see the result before the due time, and in the morning it's flat like Euclid's!!! With LP, the procedure is identical, but as they are manufactured in different weights, it requires additional care, in terms of time/temperature. With my Hotel California, very wavy, (photo 1),                                   only for the third time it returned to its original characteristics (photo 4) but it was with great pleasure to return to  hear the guitars of Felder and Walsh excellent as always, a true anthem of rock music. Maybe you should try it out first with a worthless disc...

    PS - Visit the excellent site  gives              , lose yourself in the immense discography of thousands of artists and take the opportunity to catalog your entire new collection of records for free, maybe even buy or sell, there is no better.         

     In mouth al lupo!!!

    ...and buon ascolto!!!

                                                       Saluti, of the saints