Hi-fi sound test !!

[Audio Al]

It wont be long before I know how good my Stereo is as I now have a

" A Stereo Test Record "" :eyebrows: By Howard West Audio

I am carious to see what happens , Will someone come round and ring my door bell , or will I get a email telling me its crap :lol:

The rear of the sleeve is all instructions on thing like Wow and Flutter , Phasing , bias correction , tracking ability , Rumble

It quite interesting :)

[Wakefield Turntables]

These things are all very well and good but the best test of your system is your ears. Dont waste your time mate.

[hifi_dave]

Such discs are made to a price - they might help with tracking and bias but the rest is limited by the quality of the disc itself. I once had a set of Denon test discs - ten in all and costing many hundreds of pounds. They were useful, to a point.

[Mr Kipling]

Such dics are made to a price.

Is that so. . . Dave. . . ? Is that so. . . ?

[Audioman]

It wont be long before I know how good my Stereo is as I now have a

" A Stereo Test Record "" :eyebrows: By Howard West Audio

I am carious to see what happens , Will someone come round and ring my door bell , or will I get a email telling me its crap :lol:

The rear of the sleeve is all instructions on thing like Wow and Flutter , Phasing , bias correction , tracking ability , Rumble

It quite interesting :)

Allen.

It was made by 'Howland West Audio' - HFS75. I have said before it's use is limited. Tracking tests generaly trip up most cartridges and induce paranoya. Who likes listening to white noise unless accompanied by illegal substances? Did find the channel balance usefull. Do it all by alignment protractor and balance plus ears to set bias. So it's been sat on a shelf for most of it's 37 years.

Paul.

[DSJR]

These things are all very well and good but the best test of your system is your ears. Dont waste your time mate.

Bollix sir!!!! Your ears and especially the brain attached to them are the most unreliable thing you have where sound is concerned :lol:

The HiFi Sound test record will help in judging long term tracking problems and the test tones are a boon for setting bias correction. Nothing at all to do with music off vinyl I grant you, but useful if used properly.

PLEASE don't poke fum at records like this. Used properly, they're very useful in the initial setup of a turntable system!

[1000RPM]

I've spent the past couple of years tinkering with settings, using my ears. Last week I thought sod it, let's buy Len Gregory's test record, which is 180g and feels a quality item. Instructions are clear and helpful, as is the protractor.

Result? I spent one evening getting my TD150 to sound the best it ever has. The SL1210 is next and then the Gyro.

[Lodgesound]

You live in Oxted Philip???

SNAP!!!!

[Lodgesound]

I agree also - you have to establish at least a baseline setting with some kind of line up disc. By all means tweak all you want after that but you honestly need to do a standard set of line-ups first.

It's the same with tape machines - you absolutely must have a reference tape - they are expensive and essential as you simply cannot setup for even a basic standard recording without one.

A test disc is an essential tool for any vinyl enthusiast.

[StanleyB]

A test disc is an essential tool for any vinyl enthusiast.
Should it not be a test record? A test disc is normally reserved for the CD variety..

Talking about CD: a CD setup test disc is hard to come by. They have to be specially ordered and are not sold to the general public. I have always assumed that the reason for that is that these discs would show up a lot of faults with a CD player, and would have owners running to the repair centre every other week....

[Lodgesound]

The reason I think you'll find that test CD's are not sold to the public at large is the type of very high level signals recorded on them - often 0dBfs at frequencies beyond normal hearing that will easily square off an unchecked amplifier output and damage not only drivers but unsuspecting ears as well.

We always had to be extremely careful when it came to running any kind of tests on high level audio monitoring systems as it was so easy to injure your ears frighteningly quickly.

[StanleyB]

The highest frequency on a CD test disc is still 20KHz. I got several of these discs from my days as a service engineer. But some of these tests can detect the onset of a faulty CD laser pickup or one that has not been aligned properly. Other tests can detect problems with signal separation, dynamic range, etc. I use them often when working on product designs. I wouldn't trust my ears with some of the tests. The scope is then the only suitable instrument to visualize the end result.

[1000RPM]

You live in Oxted Philip???

SNAP!!!!


excellent - up for a bit of tea-drinking and kit inspection? :eyebrows:

[Marco]

That sounds vaguely kinky....

Marco.

[1000RPM]

How dare you Sir. There's nothing kinky about tea.

[Lodgesound]

Ahhhh.......but you have to ask yourself what Marco would wear in the aforementioned session......

[Lodgesound]

...and yes indeed Philip.......inspection (and tea) would be most welcome Sir..

[1000RPM]

good stuff - this may be just the spur I need to reassemble my kit, most of which has spent a year in hibernation due to building works chez 1000RPM.

ps - returning to the original thread, I am making various adjustments to my TD150 at present, and the test record is proving very useful in helping me keep track of what fine-tuning is doing the the mechanical performance of the TT.