Vinyl: turntable, tonearm, cartridge

The turntable needs a rigid, decoupled support, ideally wall-mounted or on a heavy shelf, never on the same furniture as the speakers. Check platter level with a bubble.

Verify speed with a measurement app: a 0.5 % error shows on piano, and slow drift (wow) reveals a tired belt or a dry bearing.

Keep the deck away from transformer fields (integrated amps, power supplies): hum picked up by the cartridge cannot be filtered out.

Order: overhang and alignment (protractor), tracking force mid-way in the maker's range measured on a scale, antiskate, then VTA/arm height, finally azimuth.

Too little tracking force causes distortion and groove wear; too much dulls treble and flattens dynamics. Set within 0.05 g.

Judge VTA on sibilants and balance: arm too high at the back sounds aggressive, too low sounds dull. Adjust in 1 mm steps and give each setting listening time.

MM: typically 40 dB gain, 47 kohm loading, with total capacitance (arm cable + input) as the tuning parameter, usually 100 to 300 pF. Excess capacitance builds a peak then a treble rolloff.

MC: 60 to 66 dB gain for 0.3-0.5 mV, resistive loading typically 5 to 20 times the cartridge's internal impedance. Too low darkens and compresses; too high can harden.

Check gain headroom: if you must run the volume near maximum, phono gain is insufficient, with added hiss and reduced dynamics.

The ground wire goes from the deck to the phono stage only, never to several points: a double ground path creates hum. With stubborn noise, test with and without the wire.

Clean records (carbon brush minimum, wet cleaning ideally) and the stylus after each side: dust on the tip explains most sudden losses of definition.

Expect 500 to 1,000 hours from an elliptical diamond, more from a fine-line profile. Gradually deteriorating treble signals wear before anything else.