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Warped record playback

I have recently bought so many new LPs that turn out to have, to some degree or another, edge warp that I am wondering what to do. Equipment-wise the situation is now this: I bought a new Rega P9 and Kontrapunkt B a few months ago and put my venerable AR ETL One up for sale. Despite some discussion, it has not sold. I am always leery of damaging what is for me an expensive cartridge with a nonuser replaceable stylus by playing warped records. I am also leery of doing harm to the stylus by playing records (whether new or used) that have, to use a polite term, imperfections. What if I kept the ETL One, sold the Rega RB 300 arm and bought a different arm and a new cartridge optimized for tracking of warped records. Am I wrong in thinking that an arm with lighter effective mass can negotiate warps better? What would you recommend insofar as such an arm and relatively inexpensive cart to go along with it? I might have done myself a favour by not selling my Shure V15 V mr, but it's too late now, it has found a new home. The other problem also being that my phono section only has input for one turntable. Any suggestion, short of plugging and unplugging as needed, to get around that one. Thanks.
pbb
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Patrick,

First, I don't think you will damage the stylus on a warped record unless the warps are so bad the arm goes airborn. A good record clamp should help flatten them. Second, I would never optimize my table to play the worst of my vinyl. Last, can the albums and move on in the direction you meant to take. You'll never be happy with severely warped records anyway.

It seems that you wrote in another thread that these were new albums from a manufacturer that you later found out was notorious for warps. If so, is the record vendor standing behind the product he sold you?
viridian's avatar
viridian
4,184 posts
 
Most warps should not be an issue at all. If the compliance of the cartridge is optimized to the moving mass of the arm, then the cantiliver should not deflect at all when playing warps. If the arm/cartridge resonant point is not optimal then you will actually see the cantilever deflect upward toward the bottom of the cartridge body. This indicates problems far worse than problems tracking warped records. Pinch warps, which are sharp warps at one point at the periphery of the record are rare but can cause mistracking in all but the most compliant of cartridges tracking in the lightest of arms. Usually, they should be thrown away. I believe that the question of damaging cartridges was answered in your former thread; the consensus being that warps and scratches do not hasten the demise of one's cartridge. What does hasten the demise is incorrect geometry, where the stylus is meeting the groove at a less than optimal angle, or there is either too little or too much tracking force. Also realize that, if these factors are wearing the cartridge at a greater rate, then the damage being done to the soft vinyl of your records is far, far greater than any cartridge issues. Finally, there can be issues with phono sections that do not have the IEC 20HZ high pass roll off and have vented woofers that, by definition are not damped below their primary resonance. The woofers can begin pumping in response to the subsonic signal created by the warps and can exceed the designed excursion of the woofer as well as eating up amp power and making one quite nervous.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Warped records ceased to be a problem when I bought (decades ago) a Sony PS-X800 table with linear tracking Biotracer (servo controlled) arm. It will track anything. Really amazing.
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