104 S
ilicon
C
hip
siliconchip.com.au
Celebrating 30 Years
But anyone using a turntable for the first time would be
wise to check that the tonearm is correctly balanced and
that the tracking for and anti-skating settings are correct.
The instruction manual is quite good in this respect but
anyone who has never set up a turntable would probably
be wise to ask their audio retailer how it is done or have a
look at video on the internet.
RCA leads are supplied so it is simply a matter of con-
necting these to the line inputs on your amplifier and you
are ready to play. Before we did that, we checked the speeds
of 33.33, 45 and 78 RPM using our 100Hz white LED strobe
and strobe disc.
This showed that the speed settings were exact, with
no drift of the disc strobe markings on any speed setting
(see S
ILICON
C
HIP
, December 2015:
www.siliconchip.com.
au/Article/9640
).
If the speeds had been slightly off, the turntable has a
facility for slightly increasing or decreasing the speed. This
is a small pushbutton and knob on the underside of the
turntable, at the lefthand side.
To change a speed setting, you first select the speed, then
press and hold the button for two seconds and a LED comes
on, You can then turn the knob to increase or decrease the
speed to the desired setting. After that, you press the but-
ton again, the LED will flash and then turn off and the new
speed setting will be stored by the unit’s microprocessor.
We then set up the arm for balance, set the tracking for
3.5 grams and adjusted the anti-skating force accordingly,
prior to testing the tracking ability of the cartridge using a
variety of test records, some of which provide very stringent
testing. In summary, the supplied Audio-Technica cartridge
is adequate for average listening but records with very high
recording levels will cause it to seriously mistrack.
By the way, we regard 3.5 grams as a fairly high tracking
force – we tried it at 2 grams and found that this made little
difference in tracking performance.
Our next series of tests involved frequency response and
we were able to confirm that the fitted Audio-Technica
3600L cartridge has a response within ±2dB from 20Hz
to 20kHz. Channel balance is within 1.5dB and channel
separation averages between -15 and -20dB. The waveform
on sinewaves is good. These tests were performed with the
CBS STR100 test record.
Wow & flutter was quite low and difficult to measure,
as was rumble. We would expect that result with this belt-
drive/electronically controlled motor system.
And then it was on to playing records. This was the
most enjoyable part of this review, being satisfied that the
Music Hall turntable and cartridge performs well. The
Audio-Technica has a clean, bright sound which does not
emphasise surface noise and clicks – most important if you
are playing older records which will inevitably have their
share. You can buy it with confidence.
The Music Hall mmf-1.3 turntable has a recommended
retail price of $499 inc GST.
For further information, contact the Australian distribu-
tors, Convoy International Pty Ltd, Phone (02) 9774 9900;
website
www.convoy.com.au
The mmf-1.3 is a fully manual turntable, which means
it doesn’t start operating when you lift the tone arm.
The motor is controlled via the speed selection knob.
Unusually, this turntable offers a 78RPM speed.
The rear panel sports the 12V DC input socket (plugpack
supplied), a “GND” terminal and stereo RCA output
sockets. You can choose RIAA line-level or “straight”
phono output via the switch alongside the output sockets.
The mmf-1.3 is supplied with an Audio-Technica AT-3600L
moving magnet cartridge, a middle-of-the-road model with a
0.6 mil conical stylus and a recommended tracking force of
3.5 grams. Note that this stylus will not play 78RPM records!
The hinged perspex lid on the mmf-1.3 turntable is
completely removable, for those who prefer to operate that
way (or to house the turntable in a hifi unit, for example).
Size (without lid) is 435 W x 106 H x 367 D.
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