Dustcover Blues

@mijosyn, 

LOL, they sure do. 

This excerpt from your statement is so true ""But, experience is always the best teacher." Excellent point. 

Speaking of dust covers, after our last move, my Denon dust cover ended up shattered, in pieces, and missing hinges. How that happened is just weird. I had to order a replacement dust cover from that company on e-bay who makes replacements for a variety of turntables, but, it did not have the mounting hardware to connect to the turntable hinges. It is a perfect match and has the hinge slots, just no hinge mounting hardware. So, now I have to lift the dust cover and set it down when changing out records in our living room system. I keep the dust cover on otherwise to control dust from settling and keeping the cleaning lady from polishing the wood veneer on the Denon. I have found the tonearm a few times moved to the center from its resting place. 

Nice finger joints.  Dogged determination, for sure.

@audioquest4life , you tossed the old hinge hardware? Sota uses some really nice hinges with adjustable friction. I'm sure Donna would sell you a pair. You can mention my name if you like. Having to lift the cover off al the time is a recipe for disaster.

@lewm , Thanks Lew. I'm not sure about "dogged determination." Setting up the jig is the hardest part. It takes a lot of test cutting to get the tolerances right, but once that is done you can knock these out all day long with minimal effort. Now hand cut dovetails is dogged determination. But, this is not a $10,000 coffee table and I'm not exactly getting paid for it. After all, it is just a turntable:)

Having read through this old thread, and as someone who listens infrequently to vinyl, I have the following question:

If I don't get an artifact such as the OP in this thread describes, what are the reasons one typicaly doesn't use a dust cover while playing the record?

  I recently picked up an lp of Julian Bream playing Spanish Guitar Music when I was visiting out of town.  It sounds great but for the first time since buying this turntable a few years ago I experimented with cover on/cover off and could detect no difference.  I'd always just imbibed the dogma that the cover should be off while playing.  I love this pristine and really quiet sounding lp and would like to prevent as much dust as possible and so I will continue to use the cover since I don't hear any difference at all.  Am I doing something that will effect the outcome of the election or contribute to Global Warming or committing some other unforgiveable sin?

@mahler123 Avoiding the dust cover is old audiophile dogma, the fear being that the dust cover resonates and affects sound quality. In some cases this might happen. Most people like yourself can not hear a difference. Dust covers that sit directly on the chassis that the plater and tonearm sit on might cause trouble. If they are not hinged taking them on and off during play can be dangerous. Ideally a dust cover should be hinged to the plinth of a suspended turntable. The dust cover does not have direct contact to the important chassis, it is isolated. A good example are the Heritage and Cosmos Sota tables. Using a dust cover that is hinged and isolated poses no danger and actually improves sound quality by attenuating sound around the cartridge by up to 10 dB at some frequencies. I have actually measured this. 

Dust is the enemy of records and fine mechanical devices. I will never use a turntable without an isolated dust cover in my system. I will never use a turntable that is not properly isolated by a tuned suspension.