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I just bought my first turntable (a 90's rega planar 3, it's in the post) from ebay. I have never owned or used a turntable before and as such have no idea how to make the sound come out of the wires etc. so here are some complete idiot questions I have.

Should I clean records every time before use?
How do you do this?
What's the best way to put a needle onto a record?
Do you put it on before or after it's moving?
How can I prevent damage to records?
Can you skip between tracks on a record? If so how do you do this?
Any recommendations for a good cheap preamp?
Are moving coil cartridges less damaging?

Buy a Discwasher record brush. Use it every time you play a side. Use the lever to raise and lower the tone arm until you get comfortable doing it by hand. If the tracking force and anti-skating force are set properly, you will not damage your records with either a moving-coil or moving-magnet cartridge. Radio Shack sells an add-on phono preamp that is perfectly useable, but you will probably want to get a nice preamp or integrated amp with a phono stage eventually.

the blank bits in the grooves are *usually* the end/start of a song. you skip tracks by placing the needle there.

Thanks very much

And now for part 2 of my vinyl for idiots thread...
I've been reading that vinyl records need to be sequenced in a certain way because the risk of distortion increased as the needle nears the inside of the disc. Presumably most albums released after 1990 were not sequenced with this technical restriction in mind. So should I avoid buying vinyl copies of loud records which were not sequenced for vinyl, or is this issue negligible?

Regarding preamps... Creek makes a line of very good preamps that can regularly be had used for <$200 on http://www.audiogon.com. I bought my Creek OBH-18 there. It's a great MM pre.

disinhibited wrote:I've been reading that vinyl records need to be sequenced in a certain way because the risk of distortion increased as the needle nears the inside of the disc. Presumably most albums released after 1990 were not sequenced with this technical restriction in mind. So should I avoid buying vinyl copies of loud records which were not sequenced for vinyl, or is this issue negligible?

Please link to where you read/heard this. I would be very interested to read about this as the only thing I've heard similar to this is in regard to a gradual build-up of inertia of the tonearm as it travels toward the center of the platter, causing it to ride heavily against one side of the groove.
Typically, a turntable will implement an anti-skating mechanism to remedy this. Anti-skating mechanisms vary in design but all share the common goal of applying a counter-force to the inertia, a counter-force that increases at the same rate as the inertia.

You shouldn't worry; the RB300 tonearm, stock on your turntable, is widely praised for its price/performance ratio.

Make sure you own a decent level, as a lot of friends of mine have asked me to "fix" their turntable (something I'm really not qualified to do) only to discover that once their turntable was properly levelled, it functioned fine.

Brinkman wrote:

disinhibited wrote:I've been reading that vinyl records need to be sequenced in a certain way because the risk of distortion increased as the needle nears the inside of the disc. Presumably most albums released after 1990 were not sequenced with this technical restriction in mind. So should I avoid buying vinyl copies of loud records which were not sequenced for vinyl, or is this issue negligible?

Please link to where you read/heard this. I would be very interested to read about this as the only thing I've heard similar to this is in regard to a gradual build-up of inertia of the tonearm as it travels toward the center of the platter, causing it to ride heavily against one side of the groove.
Typically, a turntable will implement an anti-skating mechanism to remedy this. Anti-skating mechanisms vary in design but all share the common goal of applying a counter-force to the inertia, a counter-force that increases at the same rate as the inertia.
[quote]

I've always been told that the grooves on a record get smaller as they get closer to the center.

This from gzvinyl.cz, on preparing a vinyl master

Try to place demanding, powerful and exposed tracks at the beginning of the required side and not towards the end of the record. The conditions for recording and subsequent reading of vinyl records get worse with the decreasing diameter towards the middle of the record (the label). The worst possible format with regards to quality is a 7" record at 33rpm

This is what I was talking about - I'm guessing most bands don't do this but keep their cd sequence on the vinyl print anyway?

it's funny because all the concern about the inner bands yet, no one talks about how even the most perfectly aligned cartridge is still eyeballed.

disinhibited wrote:This from gzvinyl.cz, on preparing a vinyl master

Try to place demanding, powerful and exposed tracks at the beginning of the required side and not towards the end of the record. The conditions for recording and subsequent reading of vinyl records get worse with the decreasing diameter towards the middle of the record (the label). The worst possible format with regards to quality is a 7" record at 33rpm

This is what I was talking about - I'm guessing most bands don't do this but keep their cd sequence on the vinyl print anyway?

don't worry about it. the increased amount of distortion is not at all audible, if the person cutting the master has any skill at all.

the only difference between the inner tracks and the outer tracks is that the record is moving a little more slowly in the inner tracks, and the groove spiral is tighter, placing a little more pressure on the outer wall of the groove as it moves the mass of the tonearm and stylus/cartridge assembly inward. The tonearm on the Rega 3 is perfectly able to handle this slight variation. A decent cartridge, and proper set up, and it will be fine.

search the internet on tips for setting up a turntable. or ask us.