UK Expert Info

Nowadays every one of us plays the role of DJ, whether that means choosing which tracks to play as a driver giving lifts to friends around town or putting on a playlist as host of a party. But as we can tell from the norm of deejaying now depending on music being played on digital formats, much of the DJ’s art has been abandoned in the post-vinyl age. Of course you can still buy records, indeed their larger format has been embraced anew by musicians who value album art. What is missing, however, is the correct equipment to play these records on. You may frequently pass charity shops whose baskets literally overflow with 7 inch and 10 inch discs of funk, soul, indie, pop and jazz. But when do we pass shops selling record players and their essential counterparts: speakers, phono stage, phono preamp and phono amp? The shameful answer is once in a blue moon.
As the hip hop legends De La Soul sang in ‘The Magic Number’: ‘Everybody wants to be a DJ/Everybody wants to be an MC/But being speakers are the best/And you don’t have to guess’. This 1980s trio knew the worth of good equipment but they also had the luck of being surrounded by good suppliers and occupying prime territory in the music scene. In our times, where many more of us are amateur DJs and do not know where to look for our speakers and amplifiers, we feel quite perplexed.

The strange inconsistency of our times is that we have more choice than ever as consumers: the internet allows us to look worldwide for our purchases. This abundance of choice confuses us, however – if we really are musical amateurs we simply do not know which audio company to type into our search engine. Shopping for sound is an arduous task: at least with other consumer goods like clothes or decorations it is possible to base your choice on an image. Unless you know exactly what you are doing, this is impossible: these are arcane devices.

Here are some tips: vinyl is all about the richness of sound. The job of a phono preamp is to bring the unique warmth of the record to your ears with very little interference. A true balanced output is what you are hankering for in a phono stage and an authentic reproduction of sound that cuts out crackles and privileges the beat is what every DJ or private audiophile deserves. The phono amp should contribute to better sound than digital media.

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Technology has changed a lot since the old time of vinyl. The digital age means that not only is sound quality different (not necessarily better, though – a lot of people find digital sound too ‘manufactured’ for their tastes) but the vagaries of the hardware used to play it have also changed. If you’re using a modern stereo system but still want to play LPs off a turntable through it, there’s a fair chance you will need to invest in a phono stage (also known as a phono preamp or sometimes a phono amp) before you can get a signal worth putting through your speakers.

The issue is that the output from turntables tends to be a fraction of the output from up-to-date digital sources like MP3 and CD players. Thus, if you link a record player – created for an amplifier/speaker set built to similar specifications – up to your 21st century stereo system, the chances are that you won’t get a signal strong enough to give you any kind of decent playback quality. At best, you will have to turn the volume right up to be able to hear anything – meaning that you will also hear a large amount of snap and crackle, too.

A phono stage solves this problem by amplifying the signal from the turntable and producing something that will be useful as an input to your stereo. Very few modern stereos have these phono amps built in – there is no need, as relatively few people still listen to vinyl. Check the back of your amp – there will likely be a row of inputs for different sources. If you’ve got one there marked ‘phono’ or ‘record player’ you’re probably alright. If not, then you’re going to need something to adapt the signal before you can plug it into one of the other inputs – the signal will now work in the ‘CD’, ‘video’ or other input.

If you’ve invested a decent amount of money on a stereo and a turntable for your old vinyl (or new, if you’re a current collector), then it’s also worth spending a reasonable sum on a good phono stage. A bottom-of-the-range phono preamp will boost the signal to the right level, but if you want sound quality to match the quality of your existing equipment, then it’s best not to economise here. Get a good phono amp too, or you will find that this component is the weak link in your system.

Please visit http://www.whestaudio.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.whestaudio.co.uk/

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