A lot of people don’t get what a phono stage is for. After all, it’s fast to plug in your old turntable to your 21st century sound system without a phono preamp, and use all of your old records like you used to 30 years ago. Except, of course, it’s not quite as good as it was back in the day. The sound quality isn’t as clear. There’s static and background noise – before you even put the needle down on the machine, which is a sure sign that something is wrong. It’s not that the record is old, or the turntable just has too many miles on it: it’s because you’re missing the phono amp which is specifically designed to interface the turntable with your hifi, providing the kind of signal it requires to give decent quality playback.
The signal that comes off a regular turntable is very low. That’s ok if your amp and speakers are made for that kind of signal level, as they would be if you were using ones you bought at the same time, that were always intended to be used with vinyl. But when you begin mixing old and new, you run into snags. The turntable signal is too quiet. You can get around that to a limited extent by turning the volume on your hifi way up high, but that brings plenty of problems of its own. For starters, the louder it is, the more ‘noise’ you get: you are amplifying everything, including the sound that you require (i.e. the music signal from the record). That means that all the extraneous, unwanted noise gets amped up too – which you hear as hiss and static. That will be noticeable even before you put the needle down and start playing the record, because it’s not a problem with either LP or player. It’s a problem with your hifi, which was never made to play records.
The answer is to buy a phono preamp, also known as a phono stage. This alters the signal from your turntable, preparing it for the hifi, which can then use it as it would a signal from a CD or modern input. Very few modern hifis have a built-in phono amp, since it’s now quite a rare and specialist thing, and an unnecessary outlay for most sound systems. But if you’re into vinyl, then there’s no good substitute for one.
Please visit http://www.whestaudio.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.
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