Improving turntable sound quality

[benzo]

Greetings from the light side.

I recently bought a set of stanton t60 turntables with a behringer vmx100 mixer. Nothing serious, just something to play with. Anyway, the sound quality is not great. They sound fine, but I reckon they could sound better.

Any suggestions for improving sq?

I was thinking about uprgrading the stanton 500b cartridges to hi fi items. But can you scratch with hi fi carts?

I dont want to spend a fortune either.

Thanks.

[telecat]

Not sure you can. The Technics decks have been upgraded using the Rega RB250/RB300 arms and some cheap(ish) Audio Technica cartridges with good results. Some even use better cartridges but I'm not sure about the "scratching". The arm board did need adapting on the Technics as well to take the Rega Mount.

[benzo]

telecat said:

Not sure you can. The Technics decks have been upgraded using the Rega RB250/RB300 arms and some cheap(ish) Audio Technica cartridges with good results. Some even use better cartridges but I'm not sure about the "scratching". The arm board did need adapting on the Technics as well to take the Rega Mount.

Hi telecat.

I was thinking about lifting the tonearm from a goldring gr1.2 (similar tonearm to the rega rb250) and throwing in a few moving magnet goldring carts as well.

I'll ask the 'hip hop crew' at my local vinyl shop. If I can translate the grunts and innits then hopefully they can help as well.

Thanks for your time.

[scott.s]

Rega arms do fit to 1210 but it's a bit of work in terms of fitting, the plus side is better tracking when mixing (more weight to the arm can be gained from dare i say it putting a 5 pence with a little blue tack on the head shell) there you go i did say it.
as to the cartridge stick with the DJ ones.

A famous club in london does this.

[Ecurie Ecosse]

Do Ortofon still make the Nightclub cartridge? That would do the trick.

Also, is the turntable properly isolated? Sticking it on a Cyrus Isoplat would improve things.

[benzo]

The feet of the turntables are damped but the isolation does not appear to be great. Very faint knocks / taps on the plynth are projected through the speakers. Im quite new to vinyl so maybe thats normal though. The turntables sit on a heavy(ish) glass plynth.

I once knew a few turntabalists and they used to affix a 2p coin onto the headshell as well. Im thinking I need to set the tone arm up properly though, as its only set up to stop the arm from jumping when the vinyl is going back and forth. Hopefuly that will yield some results. Im fairly sure I will have to use Dj carts.

I spent the money for this adventure on DVD's and CD's last night (£150) anyway, so I will be postponing this until next month.

Thanks.

[900T-R]

Ecurie Ecosse said:

Also, is the turntable properly isolated? Sticking it on a Cyrus Isoplat would improve things.

Wow, do they still make these things? I remember them from the early/mid-'80s when they were still Mission Isoplats and Sorbothane was a Brave New World space age material...

[Ecurie Ecosse]

I'm not sure if they still make them. The one my Sondek sits on is 15 years old.

Here's one on ebay (not mine) for £16 including postage.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Cyrus-Isoplat-Isolation-plat...

[mrmarkyb]

Ecurie Ecosse said:

Do Ortofon still make the Nightclub cartridge? That would do the trick.

Yup

They still make em... http://ortofon.arkena.dk/disco/

For what it's worth though, better decks will make a fair difference to the sound quality too... As would going digital (sorry, couldn't resist! But I was a die hard vinyl DJ for 8 years, but since I made the switch to Pioneer CDJs 2 years ago, I've not looked back...)