Welcome to this addictive hobby. Many enthusiasts pursue the perfect sound. There in lies the challenge to improve your system. Distortion can come from anywhere. Is it more noticeable from records or CDs or radio? You could experiment to see if the distortion can be repeated from the same record or CD. If it is a record then wear of the vinyl may be the problem. If it is from a CD then the recording itself may contain the distortion. FM radio can introduce noise from time to time so it is not a perfect source. The speaker selector may provide convenience but it may also cause noise. The additional interconnections and the switch contacts can cause noise. That brings up something else, volume level. If you are trying to reproduce rock concert level sound the equipment you have will not be up to it. If volume level makes a difference then the speakers may be the source. I am not familiar with your speaker  models but if they are 2 ways then the high end will be limited. When the driving the high frequency hard the driver will begin to break up.

Other things you might experiment with is test recordings. Shure, they make phone cartridges, produced their "Audio Obstacle Course". If you can find one it would give you the ability to evaluate your turntable and cartridge. Stereophile magazine at one time produced a sound test CD. It has test tones plus other things. That is another way to evaluate  your system. Being a teenager you are able to detect smaller sound level changes than older people. Your hearing frequency range is also wider. The fun part now is to experiment with the equipment you have  Ultimately you will conclude that you need higher quality equipment.

Well, the Yamaha speakers and the equalizer are crap, IMO. Your Bose speakers I am not specifically familiar with, but every Bose speaker I am familiar with is very poor.

My advice is sell them cheap at a garage sale.

I would hook your receiver to a set of Polk R300 speakers, which you can get for about $200, and go with that.

Does your receiver have an actual phono input? I do not see in its description where it has one.You must understand that LPs are physically recorded with almost no bass and greatly boosted treble, and MUST MUST have a phono stage that has an RIAA equaliation filter in it to restore the correct frequency balances. Some amplifiers and receivers do not have one and you have to add an external phonp preamp. I think that is your situation.

If you don't have a proper phono stage the treble will be excessive and there will be no bass from your records. I think maybe that is what you are describing.

OK. I see that your turntable has a phono preamp. so that is OK then.

tzing2589 wrote:

Hello all! Very new here and to the wonderful hobby of vinyl collecting. I recently purchased an Audio Technica AT-LP60 turntable to add to my hand me down stereo system. I'm a teenager and don't have the money for crazy expensive equipment but here is mine: -AT-LP60 turntable -(Brand New) Onkyo AV HTRC330 receiver -(early 2000's) Onkyo DX-C206 CD Changer -4 Bose 141 shelf speakers (early 2000's) -2 standing speakers Yamaha (1970/80's) Speakers are running through a speaker selector. My question is, how can I achieve the best sound? I was also handed down a Realistic equalizer but after doing some information I took it out. Right now it sounds pretty damn good but there are so distortion in the highs. It's rare and only happens sometimes, but I was wondering what that maybe could be? Anyway I would just like the people on here to help me out! Thanks! PS if need be Im willing to dump some cash into this if there are things i can do to make this better.

that you check out the Emotiva speakers? I have had wonderful results with their products providing better sound (for me) at reasonable prices. I recently upgraded from a pair of 6.1 monitor speakers to their 6.2 tower speakers and am really happy with the results! All their speakers have a wonderfull sweet and extended silk tweeter that added sparkle to my music. OK, it adds some crackle on harsh recordings, but there you have it, poorly recorded music sounds poorly recorded.

Trey