Are Dust Covers a MUST

A Linn dealer (warning warning) once told me that the dust cover blocked vibrations for ambient sound waves and thus helped isolate the cartridge.

Sounds counterintuitive to me, always did.

i had a vpi hrx which i bought a dust cover for. the only time i used the cover was when i did not use the tt for a long period of time. although i did not always no when that would be. other then that it sat on the floor and was something else to keep clean. i actually came close to damaging my tt while removing the dust cover a few times. to me a non-must!

I'm in the blocks airborne vibrations camp. Maybe it all depends where you keep the table in relation to that crep you're playing too loud, haha.

intuitively i would think the dust cover acts like a microphone and receives air borne vibrations. it would requite some pretty fancy vibrational analysis to design a dust cover that attenuates or drains vibration. which is in itself a tricky subject in that if you drain too much,... the music becomes lifeless.

Dustcovers that remain attached to the table usually do affect the sound detrimentally, whether played with the cover up or down. I have one that fits over my Basis table, so it must be removed completely to put on a record. I no longer use it at all because of the incovenience.

To keep the platter from collecting dust (which would then contaminate a record), I use a "sacrificial" record as a platter dust cover (a Charlie Rich record someone gave me). The rest of the table gets dusty, but, that can be cleaned off occasionally. When I was actually using the cover, a lot of dust still managed to collect on the platter, so, the record-as-dust-cover was still a good way to reduce dust build up.

I use a microfiber dustcloth to wipe down the platter once in a while. I keep the platter very clean because my table uses a vacuum clamp that firmly pulls the record surface into contact with the platter surface.