Spirit Bubble Level for levelling Record Players
The Dutch Vinyl Spirit level is an essential tool to correctly setup your turntable.
Levelling a record player is one of the things that doesn't take a lot of effort, but can make a huge difference in the way the music is reproduced.
There are people who make it a real sport to level their record player as much as possible and check it every time they play. We ourselves think that this is a bit exaggerated, because once it is in the right position and is not moved, all this will not change very quickly ...
Proper levelling, that is an aspect that certainly deserves sufficient attention when placing the turntable. But why is that actually the case?
The influence of the turntable position on the sound
There are two different things you can influence with the position of the turntable. First of all, the tonearm is pushed more towards one side of the groove when the whole is slightly skewed, this ensures that, for example, the left channel gets more emphasis than actually intended. As a result, the balance in the display is lost. Now a lot of record players do have an anti-skate / bias adjustment, but that is not intended to correct for the player being skewed. The anti-skate / bias value that a cartridge manufacturer recommends is also based on a perfectly horizontal turntable.
Secondly, the bearing of the turntable is disproportionately loaded. This results in faster wear, but can also cause extra vibrations because the rotational load is no longer completely in the middle (the centre of gravity moves slightly to the side). These vibrations can be transmitted to the platform and thus also influence the sound.
Levelling your record player
How do you properly level your turntable? That is often a slightly bigger job than is initially thought. It is not the case that when it is level at one point, the entire turntable is in good order. That is also the reason for us that we also put the bubble level on the turntable before adjusting and check it on several points by turning it a little further. When you have it correct at about 6 to 10 points, you can be sure that it is good.
The chassis will not be perfectly horizontal in all cases, this is not such a problem, what really matters is that the plate is absolutely level.