Turntable dust cover: Open, closed, or removed while playing?

Many audiophiles and turntable manufacturers claim that leaving the dust cover open while playing a record, or preferably removing it entirely, will reduce the amount of resonance picked up by the stylus and produce better sound quality than having it closed while playing. But is there any truth to these claims? Let's do some tests and try to find out!

Time flow:
0:00 Introduction
1:34 Why closed?
2:35 Why open/removed?
3:52 Test setup
4:45 Tapping test
6:23 Speakers on table
8:45 Speakers on pads
10:20 Test results
11:17 Direct comparison
13:02 Conclusion

The 45 I played is "The Winning Lion (It's Time to Go)" by the Winning Lion.

In case you want to do your own detailed comparison of the full song, I uploaded the following unlisted videos:

Dust cover closed:
   • Comparison test: Dust cover closed  

Dust cover open:
   • Comparison test: Dust cover open  

Dust cover removed:
   • Comparison test: Dust cover removed  

#vinyl #turntable #audiophile