are inaudible with 100 dB of amplifica
tion. In other words the best turntable,
like any piece of high fidelity equip
ment, is one you cannot hear
The test for gruss faults in an older
phonograph is listening for obvious
sounds that, like the ticking of a
timebomb, say something is amiss and
may soon get out of hand. Merely turn
off the rest of your stereo and listen
carefully to the spinning turntable Any
noise besides a faint hum from the
motor — grinding, rasping or clicking
— is too much
Such noises indicate something is
maladjusted or wearing out, like bear
ings in need of lubrication. That same
mechanical noise easily finds its way
through your amplifier to pollute
whatever music you want to enjoy
Although a good cleaning and lubri
cation can usually relieve such ail
ments, the doctor's bill from the repair
shop may total $25 to $40, probably
more than your little mechanical en
gineer's nightmare is worth
The test is to listen through your
complete system for the shortcomings
of all record spinning devices, turnta
bles and changers alike. These can be
classified as either rumble, wow and
flutter, or speed variations.
Essentially rumble is a minor earth
quake, vertical movement of the re
cord surface, arising from assorted
sources.
An easy test can be conducted by
switching your receiver to ''mono"
while listening to a good quality re
cord pressing When you flick the
switch you cancel all vertical informa
tion your cartridge is picking up, in
cluding most rumble
may hear a pervasive back
ground sound vanish (Should you
use a mono record, if you can find
one, the disappearance of rumble
won't be confused by die change in
stereo perspective )
Wow and flutter are short term
speed variations dial are most appar
ent as changes in musical pitch or vib
rato on sustained notes
Any recording with an extended
single note, such as the last sustained
plunk of a piano piece, is an excellent
flutter test Pitch should be unwaver
ing. Should you hear a tinge of vibrato,
try another record to be sure.
Wow and long term speed varia
tions, which sound similar to an off
center record, can be determined by
the same test
Of course the spinning platter is
only pan of the record playing system.
Old tone arms not only impair fidelity,
an inferior arm can also slowly ruin
records. Typical aging tone arms may
suffer from tight bearings, mechanical
connections to trigger a trip cycle or
just massive, batdeship-style construc
tion.
The grossest problems can lie lo
cated by merely guiding the arm with
your finger across the arc it would
trace on a record. Any resistance, par
ticularly not chi ness, is too much.
Arm geometry and mass problems
can be found by ear Since all tone
arm deficiencies create tracking dif- (
faculties, they show up first as distor-'
tion on low frequency passages when j
using high compliance cartridges. If
you don't know what to listen for, re
duce tracking force below that which
your cartridge's manufacturer recom
mends and play an unworn record.
You should hear obvious mistracking
and bass distortion In quarter or half
gram steps increase stylus pressure. As
you do the problem should reduce. If
it does not go away completely by the
time you've reached the upper extent
of the recommended tracking force,
your cartridge/arm combination is hi
from optimum.
The best strategy is to replace the
arm or arm/turntable combination be
cause adding a lower compliance car
tridge would be taking a big step
backwards.
Judging the adequacy of a cartridge
alone is a tricky business because
there is no good home standard of
comparison
My recommended procedure begins
by first checking your stylus for wear
using the microscope most local .hi-fi
emporia reserve for that purpose.
Next, comparison shop for a car
tridge with sound that pleases you. Try
coercing your dealer into using the
same model cartridge that you want to
replace as the basis of the comparison.
If you invade the store during a non
peak shopping hour (say 10 a.m.)
you may be able to get a friendly
salesman to mount your cartridge
to use as the reference standard.
Then you can be absolutely
y sure of your comparison
\
y listening test
for tape units,
be they open
reel or cassette, is the
' simple A-B or source
to tape comparison If
you hear any difference
between a source and a re
cording of that source, your
machine is simply not state of
the art!
Although sorting a live per
formance from a tape may be an
easy chore for anyone but Chuck
Mangione and Ella Fitzgerald, most
better cassette decks in top form
make copies that are indistinguishable
from an original broadcast or disc
pressing at normal listening levels.
Make sure that your recorder is set
up properly for the brand and type of
tape you are using by adjusting the
'bias" and "equalization" (or com
bined, all-in-one tape') selector
switches
If you're too attached to deep-six
your vintage recorder, you might
boost its quality nearer acceptability by
using premium "ferric” (low bias, 120
microsec.) tape.
Probably, though, an older machine
is devoid of that high fidelity necessity,
the ubiquitous Dolby (or other noise
reduction system). When conducting
the A B comparison the need for
Dolby becomes obvious because hiss
is the primary pollution cassettes add
to music. At moderate listening levels
with Dolby on, you shouldn't hear any
hissing tape noise — it should be as far
or farther in the background as the
background noises you expect from
phonograph records.
Next in the comparison, concentrate
on the sibilant in voices or cymbal
crashes In the original of what is
being recorded, they will probably
have a sharp --US&
edge. If the copy sounds
notably duller and distorted by a
splashy, tearing sound, the tape is
being saturated. Reduce the record
level until the phenomenon goes
away.
Now focus on the high end again
Note any change in its character be
tween tape and original. There
shouldn't be any.
A lthough open reel tape ma
chines should easily pass the
same no-difference A-B test that
top-notch cassete recorders do, judg
ing from the vast herd of 20-year old
Webcor recorders I’ve encountered
recently, most are unlikely to do so.
The big trouble with replacing your
old receiver is disappointment. The
quality of broadcasting does not match
that of hi-fi gear (although there are a
few superstations that justify having the
best in home stereo).
While technology has improved so
that now the average FM station can
transmit tenths of a percent of distor
tion instead of the halves and full
f
points they did five
years ago, that same
technology has also
pushed accuracy in
the other direction.
Stations can now
broadcast with less
dynamic range than
ever before, they can
distort frequency per
spective with multiband
processors so that every
recording has essentially
the same sound, and they can simply
clip the hell out of the high end to
squeeze the most and loudest signal
■under the 75 microsecond pre
emphasis curve.
Some improvements in receiver de
sign can help, though, if you live in
less than an optimum reception area.
You can glom a larger chunk of the
airwaves and find more listenable sta
tions with the added sensitivity and
selectivity of newer receivers. You can
sort through multipath better with to
day's lower capture ratios. But don't
expea miracles. The improvements on
the order of a dB. or so may not be
audible to you. In many cases a better
antenna will be more effective than a
new receiver in improving reception.
About the biggest advantage of a
new receiver’s radio seaion is im
proved tuning. Frequency synthesizer,
crystal control, and phase-locked loop
circuitry will eliminate distortion
caused by improper dial adjusting.
The effects of the improved
amplifier sections in new receivers is
...-.
also a feast of subtleties. Most people
will find that increased power (within
reason) can do nought but help their
stereo. But don’t expea to blow down
apartment walls with increased loud
ness. Twice the volume will take ten
times the power — should your speak
ers even be able to handle it.
fMhe biggest mistake most au
diophiles make when consider
X ing the replacement of their
speakers is listening to advice rather
than the speakers. Every design variant
sounds different Your choice becomes
an existential one, sorting between dif
ferent realities.
The acoustic suspension speaker put
high fidelity in a reasonable-sized box
decades ago. Now mathematical for
mulae make what once was a mixture
of art, black magic and luck into an en
tirely predictable affair, and our expec
tations have shrunk. In faa we now
expea the tiniest boxes to give big
bass.
Most old speakers don't wear out
Some may bum out, a few dry out and
fall apart, but overall an old speaker is
just as able a performer as it was when
new. The time to change is when your
taste and discernment changes and
what you have begins to sound boomy,
muffled, or just plain bad when com
pared to something you’ve heard
elsewhere.
The most important question is the
same one you should ask yourself
when making any decision in stereo:
Can you hear the difference?
i
1
3
by P. Gregory Springer
The Big Beep
Since pre-Renaissance times, the
wristwatch has been strapped
onto arms to symbolize time,
elegance, efficiency, gifts of adorn
ment, and twenty years with the com
pany. In the last half decade, modem
technology has turned it into a who
opee gizmo.
The watch — and particularly my
watch — now has a stopwatch to time
yellow lights at the intersections, to
notify me when I break jogging re
cords, and most importantly has a mis
erable shrill beep which elevates me
three feet in the air from the prone
position every morning about 9 a.m.
Other people s watches do even more
musical things, like accidentally crank
ing out Brahms or “Love Story" at in
opportune moments in the most artifi
cial and nasal tones ever devised by
man.
The singing watch tips the iceberg
on a musical revolution which puts to
shame the minor advances perpetrated
by the recent so-called New Wave.
Electronic musical instruments and
compact recording and playback de
vices have already caused young ears
to evolve in ways undreamed of in the
Seventies. Our ears have accepted the
beep replacing the electric buzz, the
tone upsetting the tune, and synthetic
sound squalling over any natural
noise.
The Casio VL-Tone
The Casio VL-Tone VL-1 Elec
tronic Musical Instrument and
Calculator makes a kind of
music which has been described as
sounding like a frankfurter made of
chicken parts. Yet, its capacity for
creating songs reaches several sophis
ticated levels far beyond any other
basic pseudo-instrument developed
for non-musicians.
White, plastic, about a foot long and
three inches high, the VL-Tone stuffs
into a vest pocket. Its keyboard of
about 2-1/2 octaves has little plastic
pegs of black and white, like any
piano’s, an L.E.D. read-out which
flashes each note's numerical equiva
lent as it is played, ten special keys for
the rhythm box, the tempo setting, the
recording mode, reset, plus four
switches to alter octaves, instrument
sound, volume, and calculator func
tion. The speaker is built right in.
VLSI, Very Large Scale Integrated
Circuit, allows the VL-Tone to hold so
much within so little a space, but the
tool (I hesitate to call it an instrument)
lacks a cute nickname, like the ocarina
had, which may inhibit high school
band directors from giving it any
widespread acceptance. The range of
musics which can be created is
nonetheless quite various. For exam
ple, by setting the rhythm box to
"swing,” “rock-1,” or “rock-2" (of 7
others, “bossanova" is too compli
cated, “rhumba" too defined, and
“march” clearly too stultifying), the
program mode then can be activated
to record up to 100 notes of, say, “96
Tears" and stored in memory. Plug the
VL-Tone into your stereo amp, and
play the whole thing back at full vol
ume without touching a button. Your
neighbors will think Question Mark
has returned from the beyond. If you
rather haltingly recorded the tune the
first time around, a feature called
“One Key Play" allows you to re-record
the song at any speed and syncopation
you choose by pushing just one button
instead of misfiring on the keyboard.
One can understand why avant
garde violinist Laurie Anderson is keen
to write music especially for an or
chestra of the little monsters. It's like
having Kraftwerk condensed into a
squashed cube much simpler than
Rubik’s to conquer.
Beyond simple diddling-about pos
sibilities, the VL-Tone drives relatives
i crazy at family reunions. There are five
' instrument sound settings: piano
plunk, fantasy (twilight zone synthe
sizer woo-woo), nose-hold violin, trill
ing flute, and amateur guitar. Aunt Hil
da’s proud rendition of "When the
Saints ..can be played back in each
sound, at any of nineteen different
tempos In addition, a feature called
ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Re
lease) allows you to program the en
velope of any sound so that one can
actually create new possibilities for the
electronic tone, no less than 80 million
different ones. Then, "When the
Saints . . ." comes out sounding like the
wawa of Jimi Hendrix’s ghost, or the
piercing wail of a Haitian banshee, or a
tuba, or whatever, all of course con
fined within the original chicken
frankfurter quality sound.
The VL-Tone makes a superb toy,
much advanced beyond the toy pianos
of yesteryear. If all else fails, there’s an
orange emergency button on it which
blurts out a "German Folk Tune,”
utilizing five different instrument
sounds and four rhythms, making it
appear that you can actually make the
new technology work and have talent
after all. They all laughed when you sat
down to play the VL-Tone. Or, you can
balance your bank book with the cal
culator.
The Realistic
Synthesizer by
Moog MG-1
For a few hundred dollars more,
Radio Shack will give you all the
authenticity of a funeral parlor
organ right through your living room
stereo. Unlike the VL-Tone, you must
affix the MG-1 to your stereo or
through your rock group's PA before
any sounds come out of it. About the
size of the Compact Edition of the Ox