Featured Essay: The Trials and Tribulations of Finding A Perfect Turntable

by Bill Cooper

As I write this, Nothing Has Changed, a David Bowie compilation, is spinning on my Pioneer turntable. It’s a pleasant, warm experience that reminds me exactly why I love records. Instead of subjecting yourself to Spotify algorithmic playlists, you choose an album to live in for thirty minutes or more, creating a more meditative way to experience music.

But getting to the point where I was happy with my setup, including finding my perfect turntable took me four years. Most big box stores push the worst ones — the suitcase record player. Made by recognizable brands like Victrola and Crosley, you may think you have a quality player. More importantly, they don’t take up a lot of space and the speakers are built right in. I had one of these in college and it worked well for my dorm. Somewhere along the three moves since graduating though, I lost track of it. 

Reminiscing on playing records a decade later, I bought another one during the pandemic. I placed it on top of a storage box and graced it with my favorite Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Though the music didn’t sound amazing out of tinny speakers, this time, I was hooked. I bought more albums over the next year until, at one point, I put on the Grimes’ album Art Angels.

As the record began, I settled in to read a book. But as Grimes’ lilting voice sailed over the bass-driven mix of “California,” I heard a familiar sound that brought a white-hot searing physical pain starting in my gut before rushing up to my head. Every single one of Grimes’ lines jumped, audibly unfinished, moving ahead a few seconds in the track. I screamed in my mind: Why? Why was it skipping? Was it something to do with the stylus? I replaced it with a new one immediately, but this didn’t fix the problem, making the record relatively unplayable. Around this time, I also found out that these suitcase record players weren’t great for my records, due to heavy styluses that wear down records faster than the average needle in addition to not being able to play bass-heavy records.

Assuming a more advanced hi-fi setup was too expensive and complicated, I gave up playing records for a while. Things would change though on Christmas of 2022 when my wonderful girlfriend (now wife) Sarah, bought me a new record: Florence and the Machine’s Lungs. She could see the look on my face when I opened it, wondering how I would play it. But before I could protest, she said, “I talked to the guy at the record store. He said you can get a better setup for only a few hundred bucks.” She knew how much happiness I got from playing records, but was turned off by the frustration the old turntable had caused. Magnanimous as she was, she agreed to pay for half of the system, an additional part of her Christmas gift.

Going to The Music Connection, the record store Sarah mentioned, was a good choice. In thirty minutes, the clerk got us the perfect setup for our apartment…or so I thought. For the first few years, I never had any trouble. I purchased mainly older records, but every once in a while, when I would throw a new release on the turntable, the needle would start skidding like crazy across the disc.

The worst part was that it would only happen with some records, but not others. At first, I thought it was, again, the needle. One night, while inebriated and frustrated at not being able to listen to the Dandy Warhols’ Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, I attempted to rip off the needle without first unscrewing and detaching the cartridge. Instead, I jammed the stylus inside and had to bring it to the Music Connection with my head hung low in shame. Thankfully, they were nice enough to lend me a turntable while they worked on it for a month.

When I got it back, I continued to have similar issues though. When I looked online, many told me to adjust my tracking force when I played the records or asked if the turntable was level. And, of course, I was asked if I had changed the needle.

At this point, I realized how finicky and unique turntables can be. With my Technics DL-B200, I couldn’t increase the tracking force, adjust the anti-skate, or follow any of the other suggestions people online gave to fix the issue. This was because I had a “plug-and-play” model that may have been great when I first started playing records, but now, it wasn’t fitting my needs due to the amount/variety of records I played. Add that I live in an apartment with wooden floors, and you have a bigger problem — no matter what surface I put the record player on, it would never be perfectly level. If you walked by it, it was sure to skip.

One night, I decided to ask Music Twitter for a solution. Someone quickly responded with a confusing question: “Where’s the penny?” I stared at this stunned and slackjawed for a full minute before googling “penny” and “turntable” together. I learned that decades ago when a turntable didn’t have adjustable tracking force, a one-cent solution was to put a penny on the cartridge head. It sounded stupid, but I gave it a shot anyway. 

My jaw dropped as the record stopped skipping right in front of my eyes. Only one problem, like a suitcase Crosley, the penny would eventually hurt my records by becoming a too-heavy engraver. I realized this over time as the records degraded in sound quality and seemed to be doing so at a more alarming rate than I had previously encountered.

The skipping, the pennies, and the overwhelming frustrations became too much. I needed something better. Once again, I went to the Music Connection. This time I knew exactly what I needed — a heavy turntable with big rubber feet, able to withstand someone walking past it, and adjustable tracking force and anti-skate. I mentioned what I wanted to the clerk so he could finally recommend a solution to my problems, the Pioneer PL-540, a perfect machine to fit my needs. But I only knew it was because I had the wrong systems for so long. I had to work with other turntables before finding the one that worked for me.

Buying a turntable isn’t easy. A perfect setup for one person can be the wrong one for someone else. Though a clerk at a record store can help you to a degree, they can only see a small portion of the picture. It’s worth mentioning if your floors are uneven, what type and condition of records you play, and how often you play them. Through my issues and mistakes, I learned what I needed. Even though I love it now, I’m sure one day even the Pioneer PL-540 won’t suit my needs anymore. Nothing is perfect forever, but that’s ok. As I hear David Bowie sing about “Changes,” I know I’ll be prepared for whatever curveball my setup throws at me next.

Bill Cooper writes about music obsessively. He’s a regular contributor to Spectrum Culture, writing deep dives retrospectives and album reviews for new releases by little-known and well-known artists alike. When he’s not writing, he’s browsing records he can’t afford or finding ways to resurrect old technology from the grave. Find more by him here: https://spectrumculture.com/author/bill-cooper

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