What Are The Parts Of A Record Player? Here’s Your Guide

What Are The Parts Of A Record Player

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Record players, in one form or another, have been around for nearly 150 years, and even though it seems like everything in our lives now is digital, including how we play music, good old analog records and record players are experiencing a huge resurgence in popularity.

But still, despite how long they’ve been around, and how many people these days own a record player or turntable, very few really know how record players work.

One interesting and effective way to understand how the process of playing a record actually works is to look at the individual parts of the record player, identifying and explaining each of them so that the bigger picture starts to emerge.

So let’s look at the individual parts of a record player one by one. 

Please note that I will use the term “record player” and the words “turntable” and “phonograph” interchangeably throughout this article.

They are essentially the same thing, and can be used synonymously, although many people think of a record player as a kind of all-in-one device, which may also have its own amp and speakers built in, while a turntable is normally meant to plug into a stereo system – or, more and more these days, directly into powered active speakers – and doesn’t have its own amp or speakers. Phonograph, on the other hand, is a more generic term, and is often used to indicate either one.

This is quite a long article, with in-depth looks at each of the turntable’s components and systems and the part they play in playing records. It is, in fact, just over 5,000 words long, and probably a 25-30 minute read. 

So if you’re one of those TL;DR types, I’m going to put a much more brief and concise – but still complete – summary here, which is less than 700 words long and should only take a few minutes to get through.

The Parts of a Turntable – An Executive Summary

What Are The Parts Of A Record Player? Here's Your Guide

The phonograph needle or stylus projects out on a tiny arm, the cantilever, from the record player’s phono cartridge. During play, the needle sits inside the groove of a record, optimally deep and centered, tracks the physical modulations inside that groove and, by moving the electro-mechanical apparatus inside the cartridge, creates an electrical music signal. The cartridge is mounted to a headshell, which connects to the end of the tonearm.

The tonearm permits this mechanical tracking to happen in the most precise and efficient way, using a high quality, low friction pivot for ease of movement, a counterweight to counter-balance the weight of the cartridge and apply the correct downward pressure, and an anti-skating mechanism to counter-effect any centrifugal force.

The tonearm also carries tiny wires inside of it which carry that electrical audio signal to the larger wiring mounted on the base of the record player or turntable – and eventually the to the stereo connectors.

This larger wiring, which has two leads for left and right channel stereo sound, carries the very weak signal to your stereo system, where it will be amplified by a phono preamplifier, to be finally amplified again by the main amplifier which powers the speakers to make sound. Because the electrical audio signal coming from the cartridge is so low, the wires carrying it must be very well shielded from noise and electromagnetic interference, and are also grounded to channel excess noise away from the phonograph’s musical signal by using a ground wire.

The phono preamplifier is sometimes built into the turntable itself, which means that less shielding is required and the output does not need to be grounded on the stereo system. Many of today’s turntables will have both the low level phono output and this higher level preamplified “auxiliary” output.

The turntable platter is the disc upon which the record sits – a round piece of usually heavy and non-resonant metal (or other material)  designed to spin evenly and mounted to minimize any vibration of the record itself. At the center of the platter is a stem, which centers the record and keeps it in place.

The record mat, which sits on the platter, is an additional way to keep the record from receiving unwanted vibrations, and also protects the record.

Inside the turntable, usually mounted under the base, there is an electric motor, which spins the platter, allowing the needle to follow the record’s grooves. This motor is either mounted directly beneath, centered with and directly physically connected to the platter – a direct-drive system – or offset and connected by a longish belt – a belt-drive system.

While the direct drive system has advantages, chiefly speed stability, accuracy and control, the belt drive is often preferred on audiophile turntables because of its superior physical isolation and lower noise, and on inexpensive record players because it is cheaper to engineer and manufacture.

The base, or plinth, is the large frame of the turntable, which holds and houses all the other components. It must be heavy and as acoustically dead as possible, to keep physical energy – from movement in the room and from the acoustical waves coming from the speakers (especially woofers and subwoofers) – from disturbing the record and stylus and degrading sound quality.

The plinth sits on suspension feet, which on less expensive record players are fairly simple, but on more expensive hi fi phonographs tend to be highly engineered high quality components ideally designed to also keep the physical / acoustical energy from the room and from the speakers from vibrating the turntable.

Finally, the dust cover is the large, transparent piece which can be raised and lowered, usually on hinges which attach to the back of the record player’s base, and covers and protects all of the record player’s visible parts. This big, hollow piece can be very susceptible to vibration, and especially to the acoustic energy coming from the speakers, and on audiophile turntables it is very carefully engineered, and usually is removed completely when playing records.

The Parts of a Turntable – An In-Depth Look

How Does Record Playback Work?

Again, maybe the best way to understand how records and their playback actually work is to look at the individual parts and systems of a turntable, phonograph, record player – whatever you want to call it – and see how they all fit together.

The Needle and Cartridge

turntable Needle and Cartridge

Let’s start where the rubber meets the road, or at least where the diamond meets the vinyl.

A record player has a cartridge, which is the box at the end of the tonearm, that has a needle – also called a stylus – sticking out from it on a tiny arm called a cantilever.. 

This cartridge and needle assembly are mounted to a headshell – a small frame to which the cartridge can be very rigidly mounted, and which itself attaches to – and can be easily removed from – the end of the tonearm.

The cartridge and needle are maybe the most important part of the record playback process, since the cartridge is where the musical signal itself is first generated.

To understand this, we should know that the record itself has a groove – not “grooves,” as some say, but one single groove which spirals from the outside to the inside of the disc. Inside this groove, on both sides, there are modulations – basically physical waves and notches – which actually hold the recorded music signal.

Louder sounds have deeper waves or notches, while softer ones will have very shallow notches, and deeper notes will have longer waves, while higher notes will be shorter. Amazingly, the whole complex picture of, say, a symphony orchestra can be captured in this way, as can the sounds of an electric guitar, a grand piano, a human voice or an electronic composition.

Indeed, the tiniest and most smallest changes in volume, pitch and intensity, not to mention the most subtle – or dramatic – expressiveness in the music and the performance, can all be captured in the grooves of a record with astonishing accuracy and completeness.

Now we get back to the cartridge, which has a bit of miniaturized electrical circuitry inside of it that generates electrical current – most often a tiny array of magnets which move within a coil assembly and act as a miniature electrical generator (very similar to how speakers or microphones work (ah, but that’s another article, isn’t it?)).

The needle – which is a diamond (usually) tip mounted at the end of the tiny arm (again, called the cantilever) sticking out from the cartridge – fits perfectly into those grooves, and the modulations in the grooves move the needle, and thus the cantilever, and thus the electrical parts inside the cartridge.

When this happens, and the electrical mechanisms inside the cartridge begin to move, the electrical signal they produce contains the same musical information that was in the grooves.

The electrical signal is an “analog” of the physical grooves, and the physical grooves are an “analog” of the original musical performance.

This musical signal is carried from the cartridge via tiny wires which run through the center of the next part of the record player we’ll look at – the Tonearm.

The Tonearm

Tonearm turntable

The tonearm is the long arm which swings over, and lays down onto, the record. As we’ve discussed, at one end of the tonearm – the end that swings out – is the cartridge, while at the other end is a counterweight – a usually round weight that counter-balances the weight of the cartridge.

The tonearm has two main functions: 1, to allow the needle to optimally rest in and follow the record’s groove from the outside of the record to the inside, where the label is. And 2, to carry the wires – and thus also the musical signal – from the cartridge to larger wires mounted in the turntable’s base.

The first function is managed through a combination of physical processes and parts, and in fact the simple job of letting a needle follow a groove is in fact pretty exacting and needs to be done with much precision – a real engineering feat!

To accomplish this, and allow for accurate and frictionless contact between the needle and the record (accurate, so the sound is as good as possible, and frictionless so the records won’t wear out), the tonearm has a pivot, an anti-skating dial and the aforementioned counterweight.

The pivot is located at the round plate where the tonearm is attached to the turntable’s base, much closer to the end of the tonearm with the counterweight than the cartridge end. It is typically a very high precision piece that allows the tonearm to move with as little resistance as possible – not just from the beginning of the record to the end, but also up and down, to accomodate for warps in the record and other variables.

The anti-skate is a kind of counter-force which keeps the needle right in the center of the groove – it should be mentioned that the musical information is kept in modulations on both sides of the groove, one side for the left channel of stereo playback and the other for the right channel. As such, the needle being perfectly centered in the groove is very important for accurate and convincing stereo imaging.

The problem is that the record spins when played, either at 33, 45 or 78 RPM (revolutions per minute), and so there is centrifugal force pushing the needle toward the outside of the disc – and so to one side of the groove. Antiskating applies a counter-force to gently push the tonearm back to the middle, toward the label, and in this way keeps the needle centered in the groove.

Antiskating is always set at the same level as tracking force, which brings us finally to the counterweight.

As we’ve already mentioned, the counterweight allows the tonearm to balance. This is something that needs to be set manually when you are first setting up a new turntable, or when you change cartridges. You can turn the counterweight clockwise or counterclockwise, moving it closer to or farther from the end of the tonearm, until it balances perfectly with the cartridge on the other end.

The counterweight has a dial on it with numbers indicating grams of downward pressure, or “tracking force.” Once it is balanced, you turn it to the correct tracking force for whatever cartridge you’re using – often right around 1.5 to 2 grams.

This is important because the cartridge not only needs to be centered between the left and right walls of the groove, but also needs to be at the right depth – too deep into the groove, or too shallow, and the needle can’t properly track and capture all of the musical information in the groove’s modulations.

Cabling – Signal Wires and Connector Plugs

Cabling - Signal Wires and Connector Plugs turntable

The signal that a normal phono cartridge can produce is very weak, very low voltage – often only 4 or 5 thousandths of a volt – and the output of certain specialized audiophile cartridges, called “moving coil” cartridges, is even much smaller, often in the .5 mV (millivolt) range, or one-tenth of a normal phono cartridge’s output.

This means that the signal can be very much prone to interference from outside forces – like the electrical fields generated by other stereo components – especially amplifiers – or computers, phones, appliances and more. So this signal must be carried through very thin, high quality wires which are shielded from outside electromagnetic noise and interference. 

This very fine wire first runs from the phono cartridge through the center of the tonearm tube, and then comes out the end and is connected to a much larger wire – usually the same sized wire, actually, but with a much thicker and better shielding outer casing.

This thicker wire runs from the back of the turntable to be plugged into a stereo system, and is terminated at that end in male “RCA plugs,” standard plugs which will be also found on the back panel of the stereo system as female RCA inputs.

In fact there are three different wires to be connected – left channel and right channel – the ones that have RCA plugs – and “ground.”

Left channel and right channel are necessary for two channel stereo playback, and the ground wire, which is connected to the “ground post” on the back of the stereo system’s receiver, amplifier or preamp, grounds out all additional noise, keeping it separate from the still very weak electrical music signal the cartridge has produced. If you don’t have a ground wire, or don’t connect it, you very well might not be able to hear the music over the humming noise which, at this point, is stronger than that phono signal.

Once this weak signal has reached the stereo system, it is amplified to a much higher level – using what is called a “phono preamplifier” – and then the stereo’s main amplifier amplifies this somewhat stronger signal much, much more so that it can power speakers and make music.

If your stereo system does not have a phono preamplifier, it can’t really use the very weak signal coming from a turntable. This also applies to active speakers, which are very popular these days. They have an amplifier to power their own speaker, but they very rarely will also have the much more sensitive phono preamplifier.

The Phono Preamplifier

Phono Preamplifier turntable

Because of this, lots and lots of new turntables on the market today have their own phono preamplifier built right in. This allows them to plug into pretty much any audio device made, as long as it has what is called an “auxiliary” input – which is optimized for the higher level signal that comes from a phono preamplifier, or from a phone’s or PC’s headphone plug, as well as a lot of other playback devices (cassette or 8-track tape players, MP3 music players. etc.).

We mentioned the ground wire above, but if a turntable or record player has a built in phono preamplifier it won’t need that ground wire – at least it won’t need a ground wire for that higher level preamplified signal.

What I mean by this is that many phonographs will have both the lower phono-level output and the higher auxiliary output, and while the higher level output doesn’t need to be grounded, the lower level output does, and there will still be a ground wire for that output.

Let’s summarize what we’ve covered so far, before we get into the drive system of the turntable:

The phonograph needle projects out on a tiny arm, the cantilever, from the record player’s phono cartridge. During play, the needle sits inside the groove of a record, optimally deep and centered, tracks the physical modulations inside that groove and, by moving the electro-mechanical apparatus inside the cartridge, creates an electrical music signal. The cartridge is mounted to a headshell, which connects to the end of the tonearm.

The tonearm permits this mechanical tracking to happen in the most precise and efficient way, using a high quality, low friction pivot for ease of movement, a counterweight to counter-balance the weight of the cartridge and apply the correct downward pressure, and an anti-skating mechanism to counter-effect any centrifugal force.

The tonearm also carries tiny wires inside of it which carry that electrical audio signal to the larger wiring mounted on the base of the record player or turntable – and eventually the to the stereo connectors.

This larger wiring, which has two leads for left and right channel stereo sound, carries the very weak signal to your stereo system, where it will be amplified by a phono preamplifier, to be finally amplified again by the main amplifier which powers the speakers to make sound. Because the electrical audio signal coming from the cartridge is so low, the wires carrying it must be very well shielded from noise and electromagnetic interference, and are also grounded to channel excess noise away from the phonograph’s musical signal by using a ground wire.

The phono preamplifier is sometimes built into the turntable itself, which means that less shielding is required and the output does not need to be grounded on the stereo system. Many of today’s turntables will have both the low level phono output and this higher level preamplified “auxiliary” output.

The Platter and Record Mat

The Platter and Record Mat turntable

The record player’s platter is the circular platform – usually the same size as an LP record – upon which the record sits, and which spins to allow the needle to follow the groove and read the musical modulations. This platter is often made of high quality cast aluminum, or some other strong and non-resonant metal, but they can also be made of acrylic or even glass, among other materials.

At the center of the platter is a stem, which fits tightly into the center of a record, allowing you to easily place and center the record and keeping it in place.

And the record mat is a cushion, the same size as the platter, which sits between the platter and the record, protecting the record and also often greatly improving the sound.  It is often a simple sheet of felt or rubber, but can also be a heavier and higher quality material – often some form of silicone.

It is very important, for optimal sound quality, that the platter and the record are isolated – physically and acoustically – from the motor that drives them. Motor vibration will make the sensitive needle vibrate in the groove, causing noise and distortion and blurring the sound.

That is why the record mat can be so important to sound quality, and why the platter itself is not only heavy, and stiff, keeping vibration to a minimum, but also mounted on a very high precision, frictionless ball bearing assembly, which helps it turn as smoothly as possible and further isolates the platter from the motor.

Further, the phonograph platter – especially on more expensive hi fi turntables – is made to very high tolerances, so that it is as close to perfectly round and perfectly balanced as possible, and can spin with essentially no wobble or noise.

Before we look at the motor, I should also mention that turntables, and especially record players, often also come with a 45 adaptor, a round piece of plastic which has a small hole in the center – the same size hole as you find in an 12 inch LP record, and a circumference which lets it fit snugly into the much larger hole you find in a 7 inch 45 RPM single. Without this adaptor, those older (and, more and more, new) 45 singles can’t be played on most record players.

The Motor

turntable motor

The platter is moved in a circular motion by an electric motor, usually mounted inside of or under the base of the turntable. 

The motor is connected to the platter in one of two ways – directly or by a belt.

A direct drive turntable has the motor mounted right underneath the platter, and the motor’s stem essentially sticks through the center of the platter.

This type of system allows for very stable speed of rotation – also important for the best sound – and very precise speed adjustment and control, but on the downside it can let more of the motor’s noise and vibration affect the platter, the record, the needle and the sound.

A belt drive turntable has the motor set off to the side, and a rubber or silicone belt connects that motor to the platter, letting it spin the platter without any direct contact.

The belt drive system is often preferred by audiophiles, because of superior noise isolation, and is also more common in the least expensive turntables because it is less expensive to engineer and manufacture. Belt drives do have somewhat less stable speed, but in good modern turntables this is not an issue, as their overall level of engineering and manufacture is high enough to overcome such potential problems.

The importance of keeping the record isolated from vibration and physical jostling leads to another bit of engineering in the turntable’s drive system, and that’s the physical suspension of the motor itself. Even with belt drive systems, where the motor is offset and not in direct physical contact with the platter, the physical movement and vibration it makes can still move into and through the record player’s base, the platter and the record, affecting the needle and degrading the sound.

So turntable engineers and manufacturers are careful to use very quiet and typically high quality motors, and to physically isolate those motors with some kind of suspension. The most common way is to mount the motor on rubber feet, which can keep its vibration and movement from coming through the frame, but there are other, more exotic, expensive and effective ways to isolate the motor, and some very high end turntables have the motor on its own separate frame, completely removed from the turntable frame and connected only by the drive belt.

Now we’ll get into the frame and feet, and also a lot more about suspension and its importance in record playback, but here again let’s summarize what we’ve covered so far:

The turntable platter is the disc upon which the record sits – a round piece of usually heavy and non-resonant metal (or other material)  designed to spin evenly and mounted to minimize any vibration of the record itself. At the center of the platter is a stem, which centers the record and keeps it in place.

The record mat, which sits on the platter, is an additional way to keep the record from receiving unwanted vibrations, and also protects the record.

Inside the turntable, usually mounted under the base, there is an electric motor, which spins the platter, allowing the needle to follow the record’s grooves. This motor is either mounted directly beneath, centered with and directly physically connected to the platter – a direct-drive system – or offset and connected by a longish belt – a belt-drive system.

While the direct drive system has advantages, chiefly speed stability, accuracy and control, the belt drive is often preferred on audiophile turntables because of its superior physical isolation and lower noise, and on inexpensive record players because it is cheaper to engineer and manufacture.

The Base (Plinth), Suspension Feet and Dust Cover

The Base (Plinth), Suspension Feet and Dust Cover

The base, or plinth, of a turntable is the large frame which holds and houses all the other components and parts. It is most often made of wood – either a solid piece of high quality and low resonance wood or some form of non-resonant compressed fiberboard like MDF – but in higher end turntables can sometimes be heavy acrylic, marble, glass or metal.

Whatever material is used, the plinth, or base, must be both heavy and solid, to keep vibrations from moving the record and stylus too much, and also very well isolated – usually with suspension feet. It also must be able to hold all the other components – and, as we have seen already again and again, hold them in a very stable and physically decoupled way that won’t allow anything to disturb the record and stylus.

The suspension feet of a record player are often, in less expensive all-in-one players, pretty simple – small rubber feet that don’t do much except keep the player somewhat raised above the surface on which it sits.

But on higher end turntables the suspension feet are among the most important parts of the whole system. They are highly engineered to physically “decouple” the turntable from the shelf or table on which it sits, so that physical movement of any kind – including people walking, doors opening and closing, and – a very big factor – the acoustical energy coming from speakers playing (and, at times, playing loudly) – won’t move the turntable.

All of these forms of physical energy can badly jar a turntable, and obscure the sound, but the last one in particular – the physical / acoustical energy coming from the speakers – is a constant presence when you’re listening to music, and the suspension feet (and, in fact, every single part of the turntable / record playing system- must be able to deal with that physical force.

Subwoofers, especially, and low frequency sounds, can be very disruptive to record playback, and seriously harm the sound, but all notes and any frequencies from the speakers, from the lowest to the highest, can cause a resonance in the record player and mess with playback.

So suspension feet in particular must keep the turntable physically / acoustically isolated, and this is so important, in fact, that many audiophiles – even when they have purchased very expensive turntables with exceptionally effective suspensions overall, and very good suspension feet in particular – still get separate suspension feet, usually from a specialized manufacturer, and place them under the turntable’s existing feet. These add-on accessory suspension feet often cost more than many of us would pay for the record player itself – of course, some of these turntables cost more than we spend on a car, and some high end systems literally cost more than the house they’re found in!

Finally, the dust cover is the clear plastic or acrylic piece that covers the tonearm and the platter. In addition to protecting these important parts, the dust cover needs to itself be very acoustically / physically inert, since a poorly designed dust cover can vibrate so much that it makes everything else vibrate, upsetting the whole playback process and, again, having a strongly detrimental effect on sound quality.

As such, even in cheaper turntables and record players, the dust cover tends to be pretty solid and heavy, as do the hinges at the back, which connect it to the base and allow it to be easily swung up and open or lowered gently closed.

And on high end products, an enormous amount of design and engineering time and money can be put into this seemingly minor part of the turntable, to make sure it is very, very solid and non-resonant. In fact, many audiophile turntables don’t have dust covers at all, since those covers are, in fact, big, empty pieces that are actually quite hard to make acoustically dead. Or they will have dust covers without hinges, that you must carefully position and place on the turntable when you are not using it, and which lift completely off and are set aside when you are playing music.

And now let’s summarize this last section:

The base, or plinth, is the large frame of the turntable, which holds and houses all the other components. It must be heavy and as acoustically dead as possible, to keep physical energy – from movement in the room and from the acoustical waves coming from the speakers (especially woofers and subwoofers) – from disturbing the record and stylus and degrading sound quality.

The plinth sits on suspension feet, which on less expensive record players are fairly simple, but on more expensive hi fi phonographs tend to be highly engineered high quality components ideally designed to also keep the physical / acoustical energy from the room and from the speakers from vibrating the turntable.

Finally, the dust cover is the large, transparent piece which can be raised and lowered, usually on hinges which attach to the back of the record player’s base, and covers and protects all of the record player’s visible parts. This big, hollow piece can be very susceptible to vibration, and especially to the acoustic energy coming from the speakers, and on audiophile turntables it is very carefully engineered, and usually is removed completely when playing records.

What Are The Parts Of A Record Player? Here's Your Guide

Conclusion; How Does a Turntable Work?

The actual details of record playback – like, for instance, how it is possible that the complexity of a symphony orchestra, with all of its different sounds and tones, volumes and dynamic levels, physical size and spatial/temporal interactions, can be somehow captured in a single record groove – is in fact beyond the scope of even such a long and in-depth article as this one.

And even here, with all the detail I’ve already given, we could say so much more about any and all of these individual parts and processes – entire books have been written on the tiny phonograph needle, for example, and doctoral dissertations just on the acoustic properties of a dust cover. Not, perhaps, the most rivetingly fascinating doctoral dissertations, but still…

But this article should, I hope, give a more than basic overview of the workings of a turntable and the kind of thought, design and engineering that must go into one to make sure it works and sounds as good as possible.

And in doing so, I sincerely hope I have also given you some insight into, and understanding of, how the whole mysterious process of record playback works, and how it leads to the wonderful music we all enjoy so much.