Linn Bedrok LP12 Plinth Upgrade

@mylogic  Your friend was 100% correct. Noise generated from the table is not beneficial. Which is one of the reasons why Linn has gone to significant effort to minimize the input from the table to the upstream components. For example, the new Karousel bearing is certainly a lot more accurate than the very good Cirkus bearing. Accurate and quiet. With my set up, I can put the stylus into the lead in groove and there is still dead silence until the music starts to play. It's a bit unnerving when you first hear this, as one thinks there must be something wrong with the system, but that S/N ratio is important..as your friend was alluding to.

Noise once you lower the cartridge onto the LP surface is going to be primarily do to the quality of the pressing and any defects in the stylus shape or tracking, surely not due to the bearing assembly, which noise ought to be way below the threshold set for noise by the stylus and the vinyl. Doncha think? That said, I guess it might be possible to perceive that the noise floor is lowered independently of "groove" noise even though that latter is dominant by measurement. It's actually a complex question.

@lewm

@daveyf

Is it noise or is it really there?

Not talking about noise from the turntable but from the mechanics of ‘cutting’ a record.

Do you find it interesting to hear things between the tracks?

l had never noticed there was ‘information’ buried between tracks until l bought my Logic DM100. It was definitely more obvious and there after l upgraded the arm to a Syrinx PU3 and a hyper-compliance Goldring G900IGC.

Out of interest is there anyone who has detected this phenomena?

l can only describe it as a very faint subsonic ‘nub’ sound right in the middle of the few seconds gaps between tracks. It’s not on all records but more often found on 60s and 70s pressings. I can only deduce that the cutting engineer physically stopped the turntable at these points (maybe to cue tapes) leaving a short modulation when restarting the cutter. Or maybe he had to lift the cutter and drop it again when starting the next track? That’s the only explanation l can think of.

Interesting l have only noticed this more recently with much older battered ears!

AFTER THOUGHT.

Could it be master tape edits (splices) if whole albums were assembled this way?

Any old cutting engineers out there? The noise is similar to the resulting splices when made to the optical soundtracks on 35mm film which l noticed during my cinema projection years.

@lewm Obviously if the record has pressing defects or scratches etc., it will sound. I am talking about a clean pressing that does not have these issues. 

The bearing of the Linn ( and I think in reality, all turntables) is probably the most important aspect of the whole affair. There is where I now believe one gets the biggest benefit to the SQ. Hard to know this ( hear this?) when so many table manufacturer's are not really concentrating on this aspect. Linn is..and the results are clearly audible.

Davey, You said you can put your stylus into the lead in groove and there is dead silence.  All I am saying is that should be the case for any decent turntable at normal listening levels, because one ought not to hear bearing noise (even though bearing noise is undoubtedly present at some very low level below the signal) with any decent turntable. And of course the Linn is much better than "decent". 

In regard to Mylogic's subsequent comment, some LPs and some cartridges are more prone than others to pick up what some call "pre-groove echo".  Pre-groove echo is often audible at a very low level when the stylus is seemingly between cuts but is really entering into the grooves for the next cut.  So that could seem like you are hearing "information" between grooves.