Well.... yes and no.
In theory what a turntable does is pretty simple.
Rotate the record at the right speed while holding the cartridge in the right place relative to it.
The problem is that, with vinyl albums, the audio signal is stored in the form of little wiggles in a little groove.
Look at a record and observe how small those grooves are.
Those grooves represent the audio you want to hear.
Now remember that ANY movement of the cartridge relative to the surface will produce sound.
Now imagine the surface vibrating a little bit... perhaps from motor vibration...
If that vibration moves the surface 1/1000 as far as the music recorded in the groove the noise it produces will only be 60 dB down.
(It's actually a lot more complicated but the scale of magnitude there is about right.)
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And, in fact, it's actually pretty difficult to spin something at a precise speed...
And, in fact, it's even more difficult because the platter actually spins relatively slowly (so not much "flywheel effect" unless it's heavy)...
And even the tiniest vibration that makes it through to the record will introduce distortion or a funny noise...
And, even if the surface of the record vibrates due to sound in the air, again you have undesired sound...
And, of course, as the surface pushes up on the stylus, the stylus pushes down on it, which might cause the record itself to vibrate...
(In effect the stylus is tapping on the surface of a sheet of plastic... which we hope won;t make any sound at all in response to that pressure.)
And the arm can't simply hold the cartridge in place...
It has to move across the record...
And, since no record is ever perfectly flat, it has to follow the surface up and down as well...
Yet, while doing all that, it still must remain at the exact precise relationship to the record's surface (when considered at audio frequencies)...
So.....
- some turntables have audible speed variations (wow or flutter depending on how fast they occur)
- some turntables have rumble (usually due to bearing noise)
- some turntables have audible motor noises
- some turntables fail to prevent outside noises from leaking in through the suspension
- some arms don't move smoothly enough (so they can't follow a record that's even slightly warped)
- and the bearings on some arms have a bit too much drag
- every arm has a somewhat flexible suspension (so it has a resonant frequency between its weight and that spring constant)
- and the cartridge must be mounted in the arm at the precise correct angle
- and, as the arm swings across the record, that angle changes (draw it on a piece of paper... you can minimize the error but you can't fix it completely)
- (and there are arms that move horizontally... but that causes other problems)
- (and even the same cartridge is going to act differently with arms that are longer or shorter, or heavier or lighter, or hold the cartridge at a different angle)
- (and we haven't even mentioned things like suspension, and damping, and arm materials, intended to minimize these things)
And all of those things do in fact affect how the same cartridge will sound when playing the same record....
And some of them do so in interesting and unexpected ways...
For example:
- a certain cartridge (which has a certain weight and a certain amount of springiness)
- in a certain arm (which has a certain weight)
- might end up with a resonant frequency that happens to match exactly with the warp in a certain record
- and, if it does, you might hear some really interesting warbles in the bass (or that arm might jump right off that particular record on that particular track)
The bottom line is that, because the system is so delicate, even incredibly minor things CAN affect the way it sounds.
Sort of going a bit off-topic here, but assuming the same cartridge, is there that much difference in audio quality between turntables? If so, like what, and why?