Do You Own A Turntable?

[Tom Sweetnam]

This month's edition of The Absolute Sound reports that more than one million turntables were sold in the US last year. Not bad for a technology that was supposed to have died back in the late 80's. Seven hundred thousand were consumer level turntables (say $500 or less), and three hundred thousand were audiophile grade turntables that go from $1000 to the sky is the limit.

My setup is pretty basic but it sounds sweet as can be. I have a Riga turntable with an Ortophon cartridge connected to a 26 year old Adcom GFP 565 preamp (with the best phono stage ever put in a solid state preamp), a 1980's vintage solid state 200 watt Parasound amp, and a very nice set of Klipsch studio monitors. Records sound sweet and musical with a surprising level of warmth for a solid state setup.

I'd like to go tube, but the stuff I want has price tags that're crazy.

Interest in the vinyl art is getting so keen, that many companies are now manufacturing very high quality record pressings these days. They're expensive, but then quality always is.

 

[Manonthestreet]

yes.....an ION

 

[Moonglow]

What else can I play my records on?

 

[Pogo]

I've got three. One's down with a power issue (AT PL120) and two direct-drive linear trackers. Only for old stuff, of which I still have a plethora.

The PL120 is kinda cool in that not only will it play 78s, but I can hit a switch and it'll go backwards.

 

[Mr. H.]

I've got an old low-end Technics and also one of those newer analog to digital turntables which I have YET TO GET TO WORK PROPERLY.

Re: the Technics... a few years ago I paid $50 for a new stylus cartridge. Well, on the drive home I got gas and decided to clean out the car. You guessed it....

Fuck.

 

[Moonglow]

I've got three. One's down with a power issue (AT PL120) and two direct-drive linear trackers. Only for old stuff, of which I still have a plethora.

The PL120 is kinda cool in that not only will it play 78s, but I can hit a switch and it'll go backwards.

That way you can hear the secret messages...

 

[Moonglow]

I've got an old low-end Technics and also one of those newer analog to digital turntables which I have YET TO GET TO WORK PROPERLY.

Re: the Technics... a few years ago I paid $50 for a new stylus cartridge. Well, on the drive home I got gas and decided to clean out the car. You guessed it....

Fuck.

I not surprised you threw it away, I am astonished you'd shell out 50 bucks for a stylists...but yolo....

 

[Mr. H.]

I've got an old low-end Technics and also one of those newer analog to digital turntables which I have YET TO GET TO WORK PROPERLY.

Re: the Technics... a few years ago I paid $50 for a new stylus cartridge. Well, on the drive home I got gas and decided to clean out the car. You guessed it....

Fuck.

I not surprised you threw it away, I am astonished you'd shell out 50 bucks for a stylists...but yolo....

Here's something else to shell out.

 

[Pogo]

I've got three. One's down with a power issue (AT PL120) and two direct-drive linear trackers. Only for old stuff, of which I still have a plethora.

The PL120 is kinda cool in that not only will it play 78s, but I can hit a switch and it'll go backwards.

That way you can hear the secret messages...

Too bad I've already heard 'em. I've been around reel-to-reel tape decks all my life and learned the old "wind backwards around the capstan/pinch roller" trick long ago.

I can tell you for a fact, it's very very difficult to say the words "Number Nine" exactly the right way so that it reverses to "turn me on, dead man." You can do it but you need many many takes.

 

[Moonglow]

They were masters of the reverse lyric evil movement...

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

I not surprised you threw it away, I am astonished you'd shell out 50 bucks for a stylists...but yolo....

Get real. You can find cartridges online at the big audiophile dealers for $10,000 and even higher.

 

[Moonglow]

I not surprised you threw it away, I am astonished you'd shell out 50 bucks for a stylists...but yolo....

Get real. You can find cartridges online at the big audiophile dealers for $10,000 and even higher.

I must be missing out...

 

[Pogo]

Yeah I was gonna say, fifty bucks for a stylus is cheap.

Stylist -- not so much. Yeah I caught that Moonie.

 

[Moonglow]

$19.99 at a place Rogers, Arkanslaw...

 

[HenryBHough]

Yes, I still own a turntable. The one radio station I still do some volunteer work for maintains two. One of them is in a production room for copying the occasional track onto the automation system's hard drives. The other is in the air studio, surprisingly well used by part-time "specialist" folks who bring in their own (sometimes very rare) vinyl.

Problem with most tuner/amplifier combinations sold today is that they do not include a phono preamp but those can be bought reasonably from any of several broadcast supply online distributors. There's a mini-rage for tube type amplifiers (again) and I will concede that they are richer in harmonics than anything solid state but whether or not that's a good thing is up to individual tastes. If you're shopping trust ears over the price tags and claims. What good is extremely high frequency range if you can't hear it?

As to the vinyl vs. CD issue....

A new (played very few times) vinyl recording will sound much better than a CD. But, after a dozen or so playings, the CD will sound better. It won't have improved but the vinyl will have degraded. How much depends on the tone arm pressure. The same music copied onto a hard drive (whether mechanical or solid state) opens a slew of quality questions involving the sampling rate and compression algorithm used.

There are very few people with good enough hearing that the difference between any of the media amounts to much at all.

 

[Moonglow]

Except the scratchy noises by the stylist and ze record...

 

[HenryBHough]

Except the scratchy noises by the stylist and ze record...

There are many very good programs for Windows and Mac that will ingest scratchy audio off vinyl (you'll need an amp and preamp to get it into the computer) and spit out nearly scratch-free results. Decent quality, too. One or two of them even allow you to do bit-by-bit manual repair for instances where the automated fix is not up to your expectations. But manual repair is tedious as hell.

 

[Tom Sweetnam]

I've got an old low-end Technics and also one of those newer analog to digital turntables which I have YET TO GET TO WORK PROPERLY. Fuck.

I hear you. I bought a Music Hall USB turntable a few years ago so I could rip my LP collection onto hard drives. It's hit and miss at best.

 

[MaryL]

Yes, it's right next to me, near my heart...Although I am going deaf. It breaks my heart, like putting a pet to sleep. Sound sort of...........slips away, like life. Enjoy it whilst you can! Life slips away so fast.

 

[Moonglow]

Except the scratchy noises by the stylist and ze record...

There are many very good programs for Windows and Mac that will ingest scratchy audio off vinyl (you'll need an amp and preamp to get it into the computer) and spit out nearly scratch-free results. Decent quality, too. One or two of them even allow you to do bit-by-bit manual repair for instances where the automated fix is not up to your expectations. But manual repair is tedious as hell.

Op amp work ok?