You can hear the metallic crunching noises of a brand-new, perfect bearings! Nothing you want in the sound of your turntable system.įor example, turn the vertical axisof an old tonearm and you’ll know what I’m talking about. When turned close to the ear, cheap bearings generate noise. It is possible to buy bearings that look very similar for a small price, but the low quality can be heard directly. The low tolerance of the polished raceways and balls as well as a synthetic lubricant ensure the lowest possible running noise. In the form of resonances, they also contribute to the loss of information.
This low tolerance has other properties that are advantageous when building the tonearm: Low running noise. Leaving enough ‘air’ of course to rotate freely.
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This principle results in a connection that is practically free of play. However, there are many balls in the bearing, so the probability that several deviations form this 7 µm clearance at the same time is very low. This means that there may only be a maximum of 7 µm small ‘holes’ in each ball respectively to its race. The bearings in the Schick arms have a 0 µm positive tolerance and 7 µm negative tolerance. Today, high-tech manufacturing processes allow bearings with very low tolerances. A movement that cannot lead to correct tracking.īall bearings are very popular in tonearm design and are used quite often. Even a theoretically smooth knife edge still has upward play and can move accordingly in this direction. The knife edge wears out quickly and then presents a rough, uneven surface in comparison to the modulations of the plate groove. You can dampen this with viscous liquids, but then you have an arm that doesn’t turn particularly easy.ĭue to the design, a knife bearing has play. The problem with the single point arms is that they tumble around the bearing point. The advantage here is first of all in the inexpensive production. So the play in knife or single point bearings can hardly be a good thing. If the structure of the arm works against these finest movements or gives way, the corresponding detail cannot be tracked by the needle or the movement is not correctly converted into an electrical signal.
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The needle is supposed to scan all details and act as a generator to convert them into electrical signals. If the tonearm has play here, all fine details are lost. In many models, steel balls are simply placed between the tonearm parts.Įven if you think of the rest of the tonearm as mechanically absolutely stable, the bearings are the limiting factor. Forty years ago the quality of the bearings was not as good as it is today. Loose or worn bearings are the worst prerequisite for good sound and also damage the records and wear the needle faster.Įven in the best condition, the classic bearings leave a lot to be desired. Most of the time the tonearms are in very bad condition, just consider the 40 years of operation. These arms can produce a nice sound, but the resolution of detail is limited,even with various upgrades. Many audiophiles around the world like old 12 inch tonearms from manufacturers such as Ortofon or SME. The detailed ideal often has a bright, unnatural touch. The pleasant sound is often perceived as dull, two-dimensional and not very vivid. Usually both types are bought with serious compromises. (Of course the boundaries are fluid, only the extremes are listed here) On the other hand, there is the ‘lover of detail’, here there must be a clinically clean resolution of the sound, even if the naturalness is lost. The tone color is important here, frequency range or colorations are accepted as long as nothing ‘annoying’ appears in the sound image. First there is the sound lover who prefers a ‘warm, romantic, pleasant’ reproduction. Two main ideals of sound seem to have become established.
First I thought about general sound ideals. A reason for me to start my own development. In the case of tonearms, old copies are often afflicted with considerable defects, as I unfortunately had to find out myself. These old devices are still in use today because of their outstanding sound quality, which even today is only achieved by a few devices. It is astonishing that many turntables from the 1960s, or even older ones, are still the first choice for high quality record playback today. For whatever reasons the vinyl LP is so popular, if you’re reading this it seems like being a topic for you. Vinyl records are still very popular as a sound source, although there are several digital formats that claim to deliver the ultimate sound, whatever that is.