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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Topic: Any turntable junkies out there?
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-07-2008 01:49 AM
quote: Brad Miller
I have considered it, but have heard various reports that it is TOO good and picks up every little imperfection in the disc. Plus my LP collection isn't big enough to warrant that kind of money on a player when my current unit sounds great.
I was chatting to someone from the National Sound Archive I met at a conference a couple of years back. They bought one, and he reported exactly the same thing. The laser reads crud in the grooves as if it was part of the signal, and the only way to get round the problem is to operate the machine in a clean air environment and ultrasonically clean the record first. Of course, the latter completely defeats the object of the exercise, i.e. a 'no contact', non-invasive way of copying the signal from the record.
Most of my collection consists of 78s - about 300 in total (you can hear a sample on my website, mainly of political speeches and comic songs from between the wars (though my oldest record is from 1907). I used to use a Goldring Lenco GL78, bought from Ebay for £30. But that died when my landlord sent a safety inspector into my flat to check the wiring, who tried to stand on it to reach a light fitting (he succeeded too, but totally destroyed the turntable in the process). With the insurance money I bought a Vestax BDT2600 and a Shure M78S cartridge. The fine speed adjustment feature is useful, but the belt drive doesn't give as accurate or as consistent a speed as the combination of the idler wheel drive and the fookin' heavy platter deck (it was quite an impressive slab of metal, about 7-8cm thick and weighing five kilos!) on the Goldring. It has a built-in preamp to line level (which can be bypassed), but this applies the RIAA curve and so is useless for playing pre-RIAA 78s. For that I take the phono level output into the mike input of my PC's sound card, and then equalise and normalise using Adobe Audition.
quote: Monte L Fullmer
Then, you'd definitely have to "soap and water" wash your vinyl and let them air dry in the dish drainer.
Fully immersing the record in a saucepan of boiled and filtered water after it has cooled down to lukewarm is my favourite method of record cleaning - no limescale or detergent to clog the grooves. I then dry them by stringing them up in the living room by a rod through the centre hole (so the playing surface isn't touching anything as the record dries).
[ 03-07-2008, 03:02 AM: Message edited by: Leo Enticknap ]
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John Hawkinson
Film God
Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 03-08-2008 08:13 AM
"The laser reads crud in the grooves as if it was part of the signal, and the only way to get round the problem is to ...clean the record first"
Umm, to me this sounds like a problem for postprocessing. The software associated with the laser should be able to decide what kind of resolution to apply and what represents crud and perform some smoothing. Sure, somebody's gotta tune the algorithm, but it should certainly be doable.
Now, before you jump up-in-arms and say "I want the real audio! Not some modified tinkered thing!" just remember that a turntable cartridge does smoothing too, by the physical nature of the shape of its head and the various adjustable parameters. All of that you should be able to mimic with the software (heck, or even hardware) of the laser.
This is handwavy, I don't have direct experience with laser vinyl systems, but I know something about the problem in the abstract.
--jhawk
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 03-15-2008 09:12 PM
..a story from Time Magazine for us vinyl junkies:
Article below
- From college dorm rooms to high school sleepovers, an all-but-extinct music medium has been showing up lately. And we don't mean CDs. Vinyl records, especially the full-length LPs that helped define the golden era of rock in the 1960s and '70s, are suddenly cool again. Some of the new fans are baby boomers nostalgic for their youth. But to the surprise and delight of music executives, increasing numbers of the iPod generation are also purchasing turntables (or dusting off Dad's), buying long-playing vinyl records and giving them a spin.
Like the comeback of Puma sneakers or vintage T shirts, vinyl's resurgence has benefited from its retro-rock aura. Many young listeners discovered LPs after they rifled through their parents' collections looking for oldies and found that they liked the warmer sound quality of records, the more elaborate album covers and liner notes that come with them, and the experience of putting one on and sharing it with friends, as opposed to plugging in some earbuds and listening alone. "Bad sound on an iPod has had an impact on a lot of people going back to vinyl," says David MacRunnel, a 15-year-old high school sophomore from Creve Coeur, Mo., who owns more than 1,000 records.
The music industry, hoping to find another revenue source that doesn't easily lend itself to illegal downloads, has happily jumped on the bandwagon. Contemporary artists like the Killers and Ryan Adams have begun issuing their new releases on vinyl in addition to the CD and MP3 formats. As an extra lure, many labels are including coupons for free audio downloads with their vinyl albums so that Generation Y music fans can get the best of both worlds: high-quality sound at home and iPod portability for the road. Also, vinyl's different shapes (hearts, triangles) and eye-catching designs (bright colors, sparkles) are created to appeal to a younger audience. While new records sell for about $14, used LPs go for as little as a penny--perfect for a teenager's budget--or as much as $2,400 for a collectible, autographed copy of Beck's Steve Threw Up.
Vinyl records are just a small scratch on the surface when it comes to total album sales--only about 0.2%, compared to 10% for digital downloads and 89.7% for CDs, according to Nielsen SoundScan--but these numbers may underrepresent the vinyl trend since they don't always include sales at smaller indie shops where vinyl does best. Still, 990,000 vinyl albums were sold in 2007, up 15.4% from the 858,000 units bought in 2006. Mike Dreese, CEO of Newbury Comics, a New England chain of independent music retailers that sells LPs and CDs, says his vinyl sales were up 37% last year, and Patrick Amory, general manager of indie label Matador Records, whose artists include Cat Power and the New Pornographers, claims, "We can't keep up with the demand."
Big players are starting to take notice too. "It's not a significant part of our business, but there is enough there for me to take someone and have half their time devoted to making vinyl a real business," says John Esposito, president and CEO of WEA Corp., the U.S. distribution company of Warner Music Group, which posted a 30% increase in LP sales last year. In October, Amazon.com introduced a vinyl-only store and increased its selection to 150,000 titles across 20 genres. Its biggest sellers? Alternative rock, followed by classic rock albums. "I'm not saying vinyl will become a mainstream format, just like gourmet eating is not going to take over from McDonald's," says Michael Fremer, senior contributing editor at Stereophile. "But there is a growing group of people who are going back to a high-resolution format." Here are some of the reasons they're doing it and why you might want to consider it:
Sound quality LPs generally exhibit a warmer, more nuanced sound than CDs and digital downloads. MP3 files tend to produce tinnier notes, especially if compressed into a lower-resolution format that pares down the sonic information. "Most things sound better on vinyl, even with the crackles and pops and hisses," says MacRunnel, the young Missouri record collector.
Album extras Large album covers with imaginative graphics, pullout photos (some even have full-size posters tucked in the sleeve) and liner notes are a big draw for young fans. "Alternative rock used to have 16-page booklets and album sleeves, but with iTunes there isn't anything collectible to show I own a piece of this artist," says Dreese of Newbury Comics. In a nod to modern technology, albums known as picture discs come with an image of the band or artist printed on the vinyl. "People who are used to CDs see the artwork and the colored vinyl, and they think it's really cool," says Jordan Yates, 15, a Nashville-based vinyl enthusiast. Some LP releases even come with bonus tracks not on the CD version, giving customers added value.
Social experience Crowding around a record player to listen to a new album with friends, discussing the foldout photos, even getting up to flip over a record makes vinyl a more socially interactive way to enjoy music. "As far as a communal experience, like with family and friends, it feels better to listen to vinyl," says Jason Bini, 24, a recent graduate of Fordham University. "It's definitely more social." -
Maybe it's a good thing that the lot of us are lucky to keep our turntables in fully operatable conditions.
I went to a thrift store in my area to see how the vinyl situation looked like and true, there is tons of junk vinyl out there. But, once in a while, a gem stands out amongst the coal: nailed a 4 vinyl German import boxed set in a near mint condition of Brahms Symphonies with vinyl that looks like it never saw a turntable....for 2 bucks.
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