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Thread: Weird Metallic Ping Sound with Pioneer DDJ and Phono Pre-Amp

  1. #1
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    Weird Metallic Ping Sound with Pioneer DDJ and Phono Pre-Amp

    Hey guys, I hope you can help me with this weird issue because it's really taking the fun out of mixing records. I enjoy recording my mixes and listening to them later but the problem is a weird ping sound on bass kicks that is really annoying.

    Long story short I have 2 Vincent PHO-8 Phono Pre-Amps between my Technics Turntables and my Pioneer DDJ-1000. The reason for that is the audio quality is terrible with turntables directly connected to the Pioneer DDJ-1000 because it has a poor internal phono pre-amp. Everything worked fine previously. The audio quality using vinyl was bad but I didn't have this annoying ping sound until I added the Vincent PHO-8s to the setup.

    Here is a sound clip I recorded of the ping sound along with a song sample. https://soundcloud.com/nevereal-1/we...lic-ping-sound

    This sound happens when I tap the body of my turntable with the stylus down on a record. It mostly happens during songs on the bass kick. Seems to be related to low frequency sounds.

    This only started happening after I began using Vincent PHO-8 Phono Preamps between my 2 turntables and Pioneer DDJ-1000. I can still hear the ping sound with headphones through the Pioneer DDJ so it's not related to the USB connection, cables, speakers or anything like that. This does not happen when a single Vincent PHO-8 is connected to my Clarett 4-Pre DAC to my PC.

    Here's the really weird part: The ping sound goes away when I adjust the Pioneer DDJ-1000 channel gain up or down to particular levels. I theorize it's because of the Vincent PHO-8's faulty RIAA Equalization, which I saw a forum post about.

    Any ideas? Thanks!

  2. #2
    Moderator pete's Avatar
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    Ok, this one is easy to explain.

    Did you know that the stylus is a thing that turns physical movement and vibrations into electrical fluctuations, which is then turned into music?

    So when the stylus moves (like when it is getting dragged through a record) it moves. This is eventually converted into the sound you hear.

    I know you know this. you've got 500USD of phono preamps, after all, so sound is your thing.

    But with bearing it in mind are you surprised that tapping a record deck creates a vibration that is translated through the stylus to a sound?

    Going even further, are you surprised that a large bass sound can create a vibration that travels up through your desk, through the stylus and back out to create a sound. This is called "feedback".

    Imagine back in the days of raves when you had massive speaker stacks and loads of volume. It was a real headache back then making sure there was no feedback. Its very similar concept to microphone feedback that makes that screechy sound. It can also create a feedback loop that gets louder and louder until your equipment breaks. You've probably also worked out how it is affected by the channel gain by now too.

    I hate feedback. You hate feedback. Everybody hates feedback. Apart from Jimi Hendrix. He loved the stuff.

    How do you stop it?

    you could:

    - stop using records. (yikes, digital is the devil).
    - isolate the record decks (people used to put tennis balls halves under the feet, but do whatever you want).
    - make sure your speakers are not on the same table as your turntables and not pointing towards the stylus. (I'm looking at you, studio-monitor-guy)
    - turn the volume down (your neighbours will probably not come around and ask for you to turn it up again)
    - live with it and make strange noises. call yourself "the jimi hendrix of vinyl feedback" (seriously some turntablists use feedback to make weird tones)
    bored, curious, deaf or just bad taste in music?
    finally a mix by me
    and what's this, another shoddy mix...another dull mix

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    Thank you for your response, however this is not the problem. I am not an expert in vinyl technology but I understand it well enough that I already know about what you are saying. Perhaps I did not explain the problem well enough. I thought the audio sample would help.

    Unfortunately vibrations in the environment are not causing this issue, I wish it was that simple. This ping sound occurs regardless if I am using speakers or not. It occurs even when using headphones while the room is completely quiet and there are no vibrations.

    I tapped the body of the turntable to highlight this issue and so I could record an audio sample of it isolated from music. I provided examples of both in the audio sample from the original post. My turntables never make this sound when I tap them except when I am using the Vincent PHO-8 Pre-amps between my turntable and the Pioneer DDJ-1000.

    One of the most peculiar things about this problem is that I can make the ping sound become more quiet to the point it disappears completely by raising or lowering the gain to particular levels. However, the ping sound itself does not become louder when the gain is raised. I can raise the gain and yet the ping sound will become more quiet.

    Obviously the simple solution is to adjust the gain but it doesn't stay consistent for all tracks. I have to re-adjust the gain to get rid of the ping sound every time I start playing a different record.

    I have also considered buying a proper DJ mixer like a Pioneer DJM mixer to see if that fixes the problem but I was hoping there would be some way to fix this issue without having to buy another mixer.

    Quote Originally Posted by pete View Post
    Ok, this one is easy to explain.

    Did you know that the stylus is a thing that turns physical movement and vibrations into electrical fluctuations, which is then turned into music?

    So when the stylus moves (like when it is getting dragged through a record) it moves. This is eventually converted into the sound you hear.

    I know you know this. you've got 500USD of phono preamps, after all, so sound is your thing.

    But with bearing it in mind are you surprised that tapping a record deck creates a vibration that is translated through the stylus to a sound?

    Going even further, are you surprised that a large bass sound can create a vibration that travels up through your desk, through the stylus and back out to create a sound. This is called "feedback".

    Imagine back in the days of raves when you had massive speaker stacks and loads of volume. It was a real headache back then making sure there was no feedback. Its very similar concept to microphone feedback that makes that screechy sound. It can also create a feedback loop that gets louder and louder until your equipment breaks. You've probably also worked out how it is affected by the channel gain by now too.

    I hate feedback. You hate feedback. Everybody hates feedback. Apart from Jimi Hendrix. He loved the stuff.

    How do you stop it?

    you could:

    - stop using records. (yikes, digital is the devil).
    - isolate the record decks (people used to put tennis balls halves under the feet, but do whatever you want).
    - make sure your speakers are not on the same table as your turntables and not pointing towards the stylus. (I'm looking at you, studio-monitor-guy)
    - turn the volume down (your neighbours will probably not come around and ask for you to turn it up again)
    - live with it and make strange noises. call yourself "the jimi hendrix of vinyl feedback" (seriously some turntablists use feedback to make weird tones)
    Last edited by tkat87; 03-06-2022 at 04:11 PM.

  4. #4
    Moderator pete's Avatar
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    Allow me to give some feedback (sorry).

    You'll have to isolate the issue to either being from the phono preamp, mixer, cartridge, record player or record.
    Try different ones till you are sure where the issue lies. To start you can compare sound from the phono premaps in the DDJ mixer with the Vincent preamps.

    You can also even isolate the sound by comparing recordings (record with you "pinging" setup, record without, invert one of the waveforms in Audacity, then sum them to isolate the difference).
    bored, curious, deaf or just bad taste in music?
    finally a mix by me
    and what's this, another shoddy mix...another dull mix

  5. #5
    The first thing to ask would be, do you have the inputs to your DDJ1000 set to "line" or "phono"? They should be set to "line" when an external preamp is being used.

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    Quote Originally Posted by light-o-matic View Post
    The first thing to ask would be, do you have the inputs to your DDJ1000 set to "line" or "phono"? They should be set to "line" when an external preamp is being used.
    The DDJ-1000 inputs are set to line. I never had this problem when the internal DDJ-1000 phono preamp was used. I added the Vincent PHO-8's because the sound quality of vinyl records is garbage on Pioneer DJ controllers. Other people have used external phono pre-amps with Pioneer DJ controllers and don't seem to have this problem so it seems to be isolated to the Vincent PHO-8.

    My PHO-8's work fine when used with my Clarett 4-Pre DAC, so I know they aren't faulty. However, as I mentioned in the OP there appears to be an issue with the RIAA Equalization of Vincent PHO-8's, particularly in the low frequency range. This could be what is causing the boing sound. My theory was that there is double RIAA equalization happening. First from the Vincent PHO-8 and second with the Pioneer DDJ. That doesn't really make sense though because line input doesn't apply RIAA equalization, correct? From what I understand it is only applied to phono inputs that are directly connected to a turntable.

    Here is the forum thread I am referring to in regards to the RIAA equalization of the Vincent PHO-8. Skip to the section titled "Phono Stage Audio Measurements".

  7. #7
    According to that review the RIAA curve on the preamp is slightly off.. by approx 0.5 dB or less.. which is really quite small. Sure, if you are buying a premium preamp you expect it to be perfect, but that is really quite a small eq error and definitely not the cause of this effect you are hearing. As you say, it sounds great when plugged directly.

    As far as double RIAA EQ, the RIAA curve is very steep, the result of doubling it would be massively obvious, you would notice right away that it sounds terrible with hardly any highs and too much bass. So I doubt it is that either.

    It sounds to me like some sort of resonance or feedback.. my first thought would be a mechanical resonance in your tonearm or cartridge assembly but you say that it works fine direct, so that would tend to rule that possibility out.. so the next suspect would be the settings on your DDJ for example effects settings, or signal routing within the software that results in feedback, or hookups that result in the same signal arriving through two different paths. Yes I know you have said that it works fine with the preamps in the DDJ and the problem only appears with the external preamps.. but clearly even though you've done everything you should to isolate the problem.. you haven't isolated it. The smoking gun here is that it does not do this when direct but does when connected through the DDJ.. yet when you remove the preamp from the path and run the turntable direct.. it's fine. So, either the input on the DDJ is not behaving the way you think it is when you change sources.. or the preamp is not behaving the same way when you connect it to different inputs. There is another variable that you have to look for here.

    PS: One last thought, make sure you have MM/MC set correctly on the preamp for the cartridge you are using.

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    Thank you for the thoughtful replies light-o-matic. I too thought the RIAA wouldn't be that much of an issue but thought it was worth mentioning. Also, the MM/MC is set correctly. I don't think it's a DDJ setting because I use mostly default settings, but I'll look into it.

    Could this perhaps be caused by grounding? I'm not getting a hum or static or anything like that so I don't think it's a grounding issue. Previously I tested moving the turntable ground wire from the preamp to the DDJ but that didn't seem to make a difference.

    Would it make sense to keep the ground wire from the turntable to the preamp and run an additional ground wire from the turntable to the DDJ?

  9. #9
    Moderator pete's Avatar
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    From the sound clip, it aint a grounding issue, grounding issues sound constantly horrible.

    You've definitely got some sort of feedback issue, especially as it is related to bass and tapping the record player.

    As to why, and why it only affects the Vincent preamp will be the line of attack.

    Back when I used to be into exotic hifi, people spent silly money isolating components, even digital.
    I would try connecting the phono preamps to a different electrical outlet to your DJ gear.
    I would also try physically moving them away from electrical equipment and speakers.
    But before all that I would try different phono cables. Cables are often the first point of failure.


    Last edited by pete; 03-08-2022 at 01:20 AM.
    bored, curious, deaf or just bad taste in music?
    finally a mix by me
    and what's this, another shoddy mix...another dull mix

  10. #10
    Will he ever come back to tell us what happened?
    I'm on the edge of my seat here...

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