Rumble - turntable or background noise DG LP


Context: Not really audiophile guy. Set up: AXR 100, Debut Carbon w/Ortofon Blue, KEF LS 50, BW ASW 8 Sub. I am a subscriber to LA Phil so I know what things should sound like. 

I notice a fair amount of what I would call background noise and sub flutter or pulsing when I play Dvorak New World - Berliner/Kubelik and Beethoven 6 Wiener/Bohm. Both are new DG and "remastered". The sound otherwise is very good but the background noise is annoying. When I play C Botti Vol 1 on Blue Note, or one of the 45 RPM  like Brubek or D. Krall they are really quiet. You have to want to find the noise. I have double checked the stylus for proper set up. 1.8 on the nose by measurement. Any idea on why the DG's would be so much worse? I have compared the DG vinyl with the same DG CD's and well, for reasons the defy explanation, I like the sound of the vinyl much better except for the background noise.

Thanks

sbsail9

Hello - all good information and thank you.

What I do not understand is why  it is more present with the DG and not on the other vinyl. It would seem to me that if it is sound and vibration causing a feedback through the turntable system it would be noticeable regardless of the vinyl being played. The 45's seem to have a very wide dynamic range. I also do not hear it when I play the Ortofon test record. The disturbance has to start somewhere. I am going to further isolate the TT. TT now sits on a 20x15x1.25 wooden cutting board which is on top of a 60x17 buffet style wooden piece. I use some small felt rounds to level.

@sbsail9 - not all vinyl is equal - for example

  • I have several albums from the TACET label
  • TACET goes to a lot of trouble with the recordig of the music - superb
    • but they fail with cutting the master
      • the grroves are too close together
    • when I play quiet passages I can faintly hear the sound from the cutting of the adjacent groove.
    • it happens with every TACET album I have.
    • it is extremely frustrating to have paid top dollar for an excellent recording, onlt to have the cutting process mess things up
  • It does not happen with most other 150gm and 180gm pressings I have and I have never observed this with any of my standard weight pressings

I cannot say for certain that this is your problem, but since you are experiencing this with the DG I would suspect this to be the case.

On another topic - TT isolation is very important and the following approach is pretty easy and affordable to try/implement

  1. get two cereamic tiles large enough for the TT to sit on
  2. get some felt feet from the dollar store and apply them randomly to the bottom of one tile
  3. Sit this tile on the rack/or shelf/or cabinet
  4. get some Rubber drawer liner from the Dollar Store
  5. cut to the size of the tile and lay on the first tile
  6. place the second tile on the rubber
  7. place the TT on top of this "Tile Sandwhich"

The felt feet does a pretty good jop of isolation, but the drawer liner does the rest and stops the two tiles from vibrating sympathetically with any airborne vibrations

The thicker the tiles the better - on my previous TT I used 10mm granite tiles

My current TT uses 8mm ceramic tiles and it working just fine sitting on top of a cabinet.

I have tried many approaches, including the cutting block, but I find this approach to work the best with the TT’s I have owned

Regards - Steve

 

Evidence points to surface noise from the LP pressing. I did not notice that problem on old DG and Philips pressings.

Thank you all - again. I think I will write to DG. This was my second copy of the Pastoral - ordered directly from Germany. The first one had a bump at that was hard to detect visually in the first 2-3 min. Unplayable with the thump. They sent another immediatly. I should check the first one to see if it exhibits the same surface noise. Just thought of that!

I have Philips recording (digital) of Bach Toccata & Fuge in D by Daniel Chorzempa both on vinyl and CD and both have very noticeable and annoying rumble. It must be the recording itself then. However the performance and, except for that rumble, the recording are great.

sbsail9 you do not have those noises, present on vinyl, present on CD? If so, that would be the vinyl pressing issue. I guess.