What is turntable “liveliness”.

All turntables make noise to varying degrees, and we can hear it. That noise, however small, excites the stylus.

How small in practical terms? Well, I can hear the bearings in my 1.8W precision AC motor, whether the motor is energized or not. That’s with a 45kg platter.

As I understand it, ’lively’ is the opposite of ’dead’. I hear ’dead’ as resonance free, dull, which is bad in a piano and good in a turntable, I hear turntable ’liveliness’ as accentuated high frequency which makes everything sound sharp, as in jagged.

Every time I’ve made a big jump, like conventional bearings to air, or MM to Koetsu, the most obvious thing is a ’loss’ of high frequency. Then I notice that voices sound more like people I know, piano concerti sound more like the piano upstairs, and so on. It sounds ’dead’ for a few hours, and then I realize that it’s more natural.

But then again, that’s just my usage of the term, which may be idiosyncratic.

@ghdprentice yep I am only a few years behind you. I bought my Linn Axis in the mid 80s in order to preserve my sizable investment in records at the time when CDs broke. I’ve bought many more albums since. They are fun to collect. In recent years I play a record once and convert to digital for my digital music library. I added Qobuz recently and have not played a record since, though I still have many records not available on Qobuz that will surely get played again. It’s all good. Who ever said what we do has to be rational? There is still no real substitute for being able to hold a record sleeve in your hand. 👍

@terry9 …”As I understand it, ’lively’ is the opposite of ’dead’. I hear ’dead’ as resonance free, dull, which is bad in a piano and good in a turntable, I hear turntable ’liveliness’ as accentuated high frequency which makes everything sound sharp, as in jagged.”

Thanks. That is what I was looking for… different perspectives so I can figure it out. That is good. I’ll need to think about that and see how it fits in to my experience… but, I think you are right. 

It is interesting to someone like me with no turntable since 45 years ago to read this thread...

I was irritated by my turntable and the bad vinyl album i was listening too 45 five years ago ...

I discarded my system till cd entered the place... And bad turntable in room with no acoustic was not better than cd primitive system when i begun...

Now reading this i am very pleased to not deal with the very complex problem created by vinyl and turntable...

I understand those who enjoy it for sure...There is a difference and i dont doubt it but not so great now with new tech......

I had so much hard time with room acoustic and how to figure it out ... But you can create a small room acoustic with no money... I dont think that a great turntable experience will be possible with no money to invest in vinyl albums and in turntable platter, cartridge and needle coontrol... this is why i am not interested personally...

Audiophile experience under 1000 bucks excluded turntable and vinyl albums for cost reason...

but few people here need and want a 1000 bucks audio system i think and even think that it is possible for one to be more than only good... 😊😁😉

And any "liveliness" experience , nevermind the gear is experienced through room acoustic if the room make it possible or not.... I imagine a 10,000 bucks turntable can do it better than a cheap one but in a bad room it will be not optimal at all...

Does a unmodulated groove or blank record make noise? Yes. It makes far more noise than any bearings on a decent turntable. In fact sounds like bearing noise. Or the ocean. The vinyl is never perfect. Then, is the album perfectly concentric? Is the hole precisely in the middle? It often isn’t. If not the speed is off.

In addition any small warpage of the vinyl causes sound changes.

I stand by my statement that any "turntable" (not the tone arm/cartridge which is light years more important to sound) that has a sound means that there is something wrong it.

In addition, between the imperfections of vinyl and the cutting etc the noise or sound of almost any decent turntable is not heard when the music is playing.

The placebo bias is strong with this turntable thing. The expensive ones sound better because we expect them to and they have great tone arms and cartridges.