How do you adjust the speed on your turntable now that lights no longer flicker at 50Hz?
-- Richard
How do you adjust the speed on your turntable now that lights no longer flicker at 50Hz?
-- Richard
How about a nice neon indicator?
I've got one, recently bought, because I have around 300 LPs.
Now that is obviously your opinion, but a lot of us still have lots of old records and actually play them. I do get irritated by those sort of opinions as you propose, as although technology moves along, not everyone is prepared to re buy the music they already have. It was good enough then, its good enough now, and quite often the so called remastering to the new medium can destroy what one liked about the original. Which is right is academic. the important part is what you think.
Brian
I totally agree with you, Brian. I wouldn't be without my turntable for my fairly large vinyl collection.
Yes but to get back to the original question assuming
a) you have a vinyl collection and b) you still play it
the original post stated (without explanation) that "The lights no longer flicker at 50Hz.
What has changed about the lights or the power supply to be different from 30 yrs ago?
Many people have moved away from tungsten filament lamps to CFLs or LEDs. There are usually driven by a voltahe derived froma high frquency inverter and so 50Hz doesn't feature.
Many people have lighting which uses a high frequency.
An "old-fashioned" lamp will still have the same 50Hz flicker.
30 years ago, one solution was to rectify the mains, use an inverter to drive the motor, the inverter uses a crystal timebase (the crystal encased in a temperature controlled oven if you were totally over the top)
Now, simply use a cheap laser tachometer from ebay, about a tenner delivered.
Use a turntable that has its own neon.
I have CDs that were mastered from a scratched vinyl copy, and CDs that have the authentic tape hiss.
Don't worry about it when playing shellac, the record speeds were frequently off.
NT
Lights do still flicker at 100 Hz, but only florescents which use a ballast. CFL's and high frequency tube flourescents do not flicker at mains frequency.
Not a good idea anyway since mains frequency varies so much.
National Grid operating limits are 49.8-50.2Hz, so within a tenth of a semitone.
-- Richard
A more significant problem was the hole not being in quite the middle so you still get wow from the recording even if the deck is perfect.
Nowadays, that would be easy to emulate in software ;-)
I think you will find that your lights actually strobed at 100Hz not
50Hz.
That would not be a problem would it?
Well, there are discs around with known frequencies recorded on them, so why not use a frequency counter with one of those? Brian
Not if the markings on the edge of the turntable were designed correctly. They would work at 100, 50, 25, 12.5.....
Luckily, all the turntables I have experience of are marked for a light flashing at 100Hz, and, if you could find a light that flashed at 50Hz, they would work just as well.
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