The vinyl long-play (LP) record has been around for a while. It debuted in mono form in 1948 and was adapted for stereo in 1957, but it hasn’t changed since; only the music has. By contrast, rapid technological advancement is a defining characteristic of digital music.
Digital recording entered music production in the 1970s. The Compact Disc arrived in North America in 1982, bringing digital music playback to the home, but it wasn’t until the 1990s when personal computers began to be used for playback of digital music. Although the freedom from discs was almost universally welcome, computer-based playback remained a niche technology for a while longer. An early adopter of this technology was one of our first writers, Greg Smith, who had the foresight to recognize that a computer connected to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) was sure to become a ubiquitous hi-fi centerpiece. Greg was so thoroughly convinced of this, in fact, that he started a column for us, “Convergence Corner,” dedicated to the subject.
Around the year 2000, as the now-largely-forgotten file-sharing platform Napster approached peak popularity, the use of computers for music playback took off. I recently polled a few of our writers about when the switch from disc-based to computer-based playback occurred, and most felt that it was around 2010, however. That was 19 years (!) after the joint introduction by IBM and Microsoft of WAV (Waveform Audio File Format), the first digital file format for music, which is still used today.
Many audio enthusiasts remained skeptical about the use of a personal computer with a connected DAC as a high-end hi-fi system, although this was becoming ubiquitous. Skeptics’ concerns were twofold. The first was that the personal computer was never intended to be a source component in a hi-fi system; it was designed to be an appliance for doing work or playing games. This notion was reinforced by the type of computer connection most DACs used, USB, which is usually reserved for printers and other mundane computer peripherals. This view, I suspect, is what led to the development and proliferation of music servers, which look like hi-fi components but are nothing more than computers in fancy casework. The hi-fi-component similitude of modern music servers has been convincing enough that the continuing use of a USB connection in most servers is mostly overlooked now.
The second concern, and the focus of this article, was that the setup procedure to get a computer and DAC to work well together was too involved and onerous. My standard response to those who expressed that concern to me was “Have you ever set up a turntable?” Because in my experience, setting up that age-old tech is far more cumbersome than pretty much any setup procedure on a computer. It still is.
A minutes-long computer setup
Setting up a computer with a DAC in 2010 wasn’t much different from how it’s done today, though sometimes it wasn’t as smooth. Most of the occasional wrinkles in the process, however, have since been ironed out. You would first plug the DAC into a computer’s USB port and then wait a few seconds for the computer to identify it. On Windows PCs, you often needed to install driver software from the DAC manufacturer. I like to think of a device driver as a bridge that allows the computer access to the various functions of the associated device in blissful ignorance of how they are actually implemented by it. A DAC driver, in particular, allows for playback of files up to 24-bit/192kHz; Windows’ built-in generic driver would top out at a lower resolution. On macOS, music files could be played at up to 24/192 natively, obviating the need for a DAC-specific driver. This has led many to consider Apple computers superior for music playback—it was more of a plug’n’play experience. Yes, it was marginally simpler on a Mac, but the need for a one-time DAC driver installation on Windows can hardly be said to have made Windows computers difficult to use for music.
As mentioned, there were wrinkles to iron out. Normally, the computer would recognize the DAC, but sometimes it wouldn’t. The culprit was usually on the DAC side, often a flaw in its USB implementation, so even with a good driver, the computer couldn’t recognize the DAC. This rarely happens today. Once the DAC was recognized by the operating system, whichever it was, the next step was to open the system’s audio settings menu and set the DAC as the sound output device instead of the computer’s speakers. Music playback through the computer and all computer-generated sounds (e.g., notifications) would then come from your stereo system.
Having endured this five-minute “rigmarole” (setting up a DAC takes me even less time today), you could use the music-playback software bundled with your operating system to play music files through your stereo. It has always been better to use third-party music-playback software, however, as it invariably has a better interface and offers richer functionality. For example, one of the first and most popular Windows-based packages was JRiver Media Center, which, among many other features, supported every music file type available at the time and allowed for the ripping of CDs, which is what I used it for. Foobar2000 was another popular audio player, and it was free. Neither player had a Mac version, but in 2011 Audirvāna arrived, specifically for macOS, and became a popular alternative to iTunes among audiophiles. JRiver, Foobar2000, and Audirvāna still exist and are now available for Windows, macOS, and Linux; but today the playback software with the slickest interface is Roon.
An hours-long turntable setup
Compared to setting up a computer for a DAC, setting up a turntable has always been more involved, never getting any simpler, and has taken more time. SoundStage! Ultra senior editor Jason Thorpe says it can take him a few hours to set up a turntable when it entails mounting a cartridge and a complex tonearm. But Jason prefers to take his time when setting up turntables, working carefully and deliberately, not only to get things right, but also to avoid doing damage—unlike computers and DACs, turntables and their parts are notoriously fragile.
I was recently reminded of the time it takes to set up a turntable after receiving a Denon DP-3000NE direct-drive turntable, which sells for $2499 (all prices in USD) with a mounted tonearm but no cartridge. Of course, before the owner of this or a similarly equipped turntable can tackle the task of mounting a cartridge to it, he or she must first acquire one. With three main cartridge types (viz. moving magnet, moving coil, and optical) and numerous models now available, selecting the optimal cartridge can be a truly daunting task. Denmark’s Ortofon alone, which, granted, is one of the largest cartridge makers in the world, has dozens of models in its cartridge range.
Cartridge choice can’t be taken lightly, because it can have a profound effect on the sound of a system. Much like a loudspeaker, a cartridge is a type of transducer: it converts one energy form into another. A loudspeaker converts electrical energy to mechanical energy; a cartridge does the opposite. Both conversions are vulnerable to nonlinearities, which can result in wide variations in performance. Most people have trouble distinguishing one well-designed DAC from another, but even novice listeners can hear differences between cartridges, just as they can with loudspeakers.
Once you decide on a cartridge type and model, you must find a suitable phono stage for it, which can be equally daunting. A different phono stage is required for each cartridge type, and different models can have very different sound. The signal boost a phono stage provides is considerable (low-output moving-coil cartridges need the greatest boost), and the attendant noise and distortion of different phono-stage designs and models can vary greatly, something you can measure and often hear.
A phono stage also needs to perform some corrective equalization on the audio signal from the cartridge. The mastering process of most records includes the application of an equalization standard known as the RIAA curve—a specification of the Recording Industry Association of America—to the audio signal before it is cut to vinyl. This boosts its high frequencies and attenuates its low frequencies. The phono stage then applies the inverse of this curve on playback, which restores the frequency response to its unbiased state but also diminishes high-frequency artifacts generated by the medium itself. In our lab, we have found that adherence to the RIAA curve varies from phono stage to phono stage, which also affects how each sounds.
So, you’ve selected and acquired the ideal cartridge for your turntable and system, and the perfect phono stage for it—now all you need to do is simply mount it to the tonearm. Not that simple. In fact, this is something I wasn’t prepared to do with the DP-3000NE. It takes more knowledge, practice, and patience than I can claim to have. I decided therefore to enlist an expert to the task: Jason Thorpe, who has been playing turntables, and with turntables, for decades. The only real catch was that Jason lives about five hours away from me by car.
Key parts and players
To entice Jason to make the trip, I invited him and his family—Marcia, his wife, and Toni, his daughter—to an afternoon by my pool, drinks and a great meal included. It would the turntable, though, that would consume most of Jason’s afternoon, I knew. The Thorpes were game. We thought it would be interesting to recount the setup experience individually, each from his own perspective. You’ll find Jason’s write-up on SoundStage! Ultra.
Before Jason arrived, we discussed how to make the setup as simple and straightforward as possible. We decided to use a cartridge we both considered a natural fit for this turntable, the Denon DL-103 ($399), now considered a classic. The DL-103 was introduced in 1962 and has been in production ever since. Neither Jason nor I had any experience with the DL-103 and didn’t know how good it would sound with the DP-3000NE, but given that both come from Denon, we felt this was a safe bet. I purchased a DL-103 cartridge, as planned, but a few days later, Denon announced a special version of the DL-103, the OJAS DL-103o ($549), which was created in collaboration with Devon Turnbull, founder of the hi-fi audio brand Ojas. On its website, Denon describes Turnbull as a “Brooklyn-based high-end audio artist” who “pushes the boundaries of design and innovation to craft bespoke sound systems that are coveted by sonophiles the world over.” Turnbull’s contribution to the DL-103o was mostly cosmetic, though. It is essentially the DL-103R version of the cartridge, which differs slightly from the DL-103 in its output, clad in a semi-clear body. The rest is the same. Since Denon sent a sample of the new OJAS DL-103o cartridge along with the turntable, we decided to leave the original DL-103 on the shelf.
To simplify the setup process, I did what I could before Jason arrived: I unboxed the turntable, set it up on a console I had previously leveled, installed the platter and its mat, got the dust cover ready, and tidied up the area to provide Jason with an uncluttered workspace. Jason arrived with a turntable toolkit in one hand and a phono stage in the other, just in case none of the ones I had available at the time worked well with the DL-103o. In the end, we decided to use a Simaudio Moon 791 streaming preamplifier, which I reviewed at the end of last year. The 791 has a built-in phono stage that supports both moving-magnet and moving-coil cartridges, and it has topnotch specs (verified by our lab measurements) and numerous configuration options—a perfect phono-stage solution for the Denon cartridges. We used the phono cable supplied with the DP-3000NE, which seemed to be of good-enough quality to start with.
Apprentice Andres with master Jason
We had all the tools and equipment we needed, but we also had an unexpected helper, my 18-year-old son, Andres, who’s always been good at building things. Andres has better eyesight than Jason and I do (for fine print and detail work, I need my reading glasses; Jason wears two!), and he has smaller, steadier hands than Jason’s and mine, an invaluable asset for mounting a cartridge with any precision. Most important, Andres is much more patient than either of us.
The value of these qualities of youth became apparent early in the setup process when Jason, despite his double reading glasses, misread the lettering on the cartridge for the connection of the four leads coming from the tonearm and headshell. Andres had no difficulty making out those letters. He called out the mistake, took the cartridge from Jason, and quickly disconnected the leads and reconnected them correctly. When the two finished setting up the turntable, Jason realized that even with the vertical tracking set to the lowest angle, the headshell seemed to slope down. Andres’s nimble fingers were called on again to detach the cartridge so that Jason could put in place some shims that came with it for this purpose, and then the two connected and attached it to the tonearm again. Later, reflecting on Andres’s quick learning and dexterity, Jason remarked, “I think he’s going to be able to install the next one himself.”
Looking back, Jason’s expertise proved pivotal. Certain steps in the process—properly mounting the tonearm counterweight, for example (it needs both a push and a turn to start threading), and accurately setting the tracking force—would have taken much longer without it. Moreover, on our own, we probably wouldn’t have taken Jason’s rigorous quality-control measures either. For instance, it wasn’t a given to Jason that adjusting the tracking force as directed in the manual would necessarily result in the optimal setting. Using a small, sensitive scale, he fine-tuned it further. You can’t adjust the rotating speed of the DP-3000NE’s platter, but we checked to make sure it was in spec. We used an app called RPM Speed & Wow—on two phones, for good measure—and then compared the results. And because you can never be too sure, Jason eyeballed and double-checked the alignment of the cartridge and the movement of the tonearm, among other things. And when all was said and done, we sat down to assess our handiwork. We began with Bob Seger’s Against the Wind, which I’ve heard on vinyl dozens of times this year alone. It had never sounded better, neither had any of the other LPs we played. Satisfied with the day’s work, Jason proclaimed, “I guess our job is done.” Indeed.
Getting by with a little help from a friend
From pulling the DP-3000NE from its box to pulling Against the Wind from its jacket, setup time came to just over an hour. Considering how deliberately and slowly we went about it, this cannot reasonably be said to be an unduly long process. Nonetheless, the hour or so it takes to go through the many complex steps involved in setting up a turntable is a far cry from the few minutes it takes to go through the few simple steps involved in setting up a computer with a DAC. In the light of this and my previous experiences of setting up a turntable, I can’t help but scoff at the notion that setting up a computer-based system is long and difficult.
Of course, while to me and many others configuring a computer is straightforward, to some it is a bewildering, vexatious endeavor that is inevitably futile—they are intimidated by it and therefore shun it. But with a bit of help from a patient friend, colleague, or family member who is comfortable with computers, this apprehension and resistance can be quickly overcome.
I’ve been involved in audio for over 40 years, and in all this time I’ve never ventured into the black art of cartridge mounting. But as I watched Jason go through the process and observed Andres’s openness to learning it, it appeared progressively less intimidating and more like something I could do too. Except that now that Andres can proficiently mount a cartridge and set up a turntable, I’ll happily delegate these tasks to him. What great experience this will be for a next-generation audiophile and a budding turntable expert!
. . . Doug Schneider
das@soundstage.com
