Record Warps and System Playback Performance

There exists a great variation in the ability of current high-quality tone-arm phonograph-cartridge combinations to successfully track warped records. In this paper the optimum design parameters of the tone-arm system are developed which are necessary to cope with record warps without sacrificing other important performance aspects. An extensive survey of warps found on commercially available phonograph records and an analysis of the dynamics of the playback system are included in this study. The analysis extends the concept of trackability into the subaudible, or warp, region. Choosing the optimum tone-arm and phonograph-cartridge parameters yields improved playback performance for the total range of signals found on phonograph records in the presence of warps.