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Author Topic: Any turntable junkies out there? Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-14-2008 04:43 PM                     I had one of those VPI cleaning machines too. It does to an excellent job at claening deep down dirt... but cleaning too often is also not good for the vinyl. I also had a VPI turntable with an air bearing tone arm and all the hoopla. I sold all of it about 5 years ago. I'm glad I did... it was too much hassle. I'm at a point where I'm far more likely to enjoy the music than care about the system it's playing on. Even the car radio is great as long as the music is good! Mark  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-14-2008 08:17 PM                     True Mark, esp. with that homemade stereo unit (with those tube driven pre-amps) that you made - even makes CD's sound as good as vinyl. Yea, I bet your LR and your wifes's H3 have got pretty good sound systems by themselves....  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-14-2008 08:38 PM                  Mark, I saw this and immediately thought of you and your "high-end" turntable...  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-14-2008 11:01 PM                     Whoa Phil... That is way to cool and very rare, I've set "MY E-Bay" to watch that one. While I did sell my VPI stuff off I did keep my Edison Victrola, Edison Cylinder player and 78's and such. That Cacti sharpener would come in handy to use with them. Cacti needles are supposed to play 78's without all the background noise. I once heard a high end CD of Caruso recordings where they placed a Victrola in a famous Italian Opera House and played back his 78's with cactus needles. The effect was erie but none the less very stunning!! So I'll bid on it and if I don't win I'll still grab some cacti needles this weekend when I'm out in the desert. I could sharpen them by hand and still give it a try... All I need is an Opera House to play back in. Heck... I wonder what the fines are for stealing cactus needles out on BLM lands???? I'll may do it at noght . Monte: The LR "radio" is just that. Nothing special.. just the stock LR radio/CD. The H3 system is much better quality although I don't know what it is or who made it. I just thank god neither are by Bose! Mark  |  IP: Logged Aaron Garman Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1470 From: Toledo, OH USA Registered: Mar 2003 posted 05-16-2008 09:11 PM                     I've finally done it, and bought me my first turntable. The first few days went great, and I was enjoying the great sound it was outputting. Now though, and I don't know why, the high frequency seems to have an odd distortion, say if you're suppose to hear the word snake and it sounds like sssssssnake. The cart is new, and everything was balanced at the audio shop I picked it up at. Like I said, the unit did not exhibit this on the first couple days. I plan on calling them in the next day or so, but maybe you all might have an idea of what it could be. AJG  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-16-2008 09:46 PM                     You cannot balance a turntable and then move it. It sounds like your counterweight has slipped and you are destroying every record you play in it (and your stylus/cartridge as well) due to the tracking force too high.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-16-2008 10:12 PM                     ..and if you know that your vinyl is destroyed is to rub your hand over the grooves and you feel groove ridges-raised walls of each groove. Lookswise, things won't be as shiny either due to the raised groove walls from too much stylus pressure. Be more of a duller/blacker nature. It sucks when that happens - Monte  |  IP: Logged Allison Parsons Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 630 From: East Peoria, IL Registered: Oct 2004 posted 05-17-2008 02:39 AM                        Probably a silly question but how do you know when you need a new stylus? And how long of life do most have? I need to take the TT that I pictured in for some minor fixing. I'm 99% the stylus is still good because it sounds fantastic while playing LP's. But can they rust or deteriorate and you're not able to see it with the naked eye, thus ruining your records?  |  IP: Logged Damien Taylor Master Film Handler Posts: 493 From: Perth, Western Australia Registered: Apr 2007 posted 05-17-2008 09:51 AM                     They die in two main ways, mainly the diamonds go blunt. The stock standard quoted lifespans are: 1000 hours for Hi-Fi 500 hours max for DJ use. Your mileage may vary They can also crack from very rough use, effectively turning them into a nice little knife on your records. Oh, and if you are really rough the metal cantilever might snap. I mean really rough.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-17-2008 11:28 AM                     quote: Allison Parsons Probably a silly question but how do you know when you need a new stylus? Thats easy to tell.. its when your clothes look remarkably different fomr everyone elses!  |  IP: Logged Aaron Garman Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1470 From: Toledo, OH USA Registered: Mar 2003 posted 05-18-2008 04:28 PM                     Thanks for the tips Brad. I did some research on balancing and tracking force, and it looked descent but I decided to fiddle with it. It seems to sound much better than it was sounding, but some records still exhibit the distortion. They are used, and perhaps it's possible it's the record itself, so I'm going to try it out on one of their units at the store and see if it is exhibiting the same problem. Nevertheless, their is still a lot to be desired from the highs. I'd imagine a better phono preamp could help this? I'm using one in my old Yamaha receiver, and outputting that to my new Onkyo receiver. I was using the Onkyo's built in preamp but it had so little gain, it was awful. This setup exhibits "better" sound, but it is not ideal. My references have been Billie Jean off of "Thriller", most of Fleetwood Mac's Rumors (which luckily has always sounded lovely), and U2's Joshua Tree. Billie Jean has been the real trouble maker. AJG  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-19-2008 02:51 AM                     quote: Allison Parsons but how do you know when you need a new stylus Here's a good link on the topic of Stylus wear Basically with two small lights straight across from each other with the diamond in the middle. If light reflections from each side of the diamond are present, the sides of the diamond have flat surfaces from the wear in the groove and should be replaced. - for both conical and elliptical styli.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-28-2008 08:51 AM                        I was at a sound archivists' conference last Friday, which included a presentation from the professor running this project. Most of what they're doing is analysing the content of classical music recordings from the '20s and '30s, but their site does have some interesting stuff on transferring 78s. I'm not sure how much I agree with their assertion that you need £25k-worth of gear to do the job properly. Frankly, some of the transfers I've done with a £200 turntable, a £50 cartridge and Adobe Audition (using the mike input to avoid RIAA preamplification and applying a Blumlein or Westrex curve using Audition's EQ feature) sound very nearly as good, to my ears.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 05-28-2008 11:09 AM                        I've been using a Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum to digitize records. It does a decent job but I suspect it's not all that great. I just ordered an M-Audio 2496 Card to try out. It's supposed to be superior to the Creative consumer-grade stuff.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 06-04-2008 01:39 PM                        Big-box retailer Fred Meyer is carrying records again Fred Meyer returns to vinyl -- yes, vinyl -- to boost music sales Posted by jrose June 03, 2008 08:37AM What can you say about the latest product in the electronics departments in 60 Fred Meyer stores? Well, here's something: Spin the black circle! The newest piece of merchandise getting display space isn't from the MP3 age but from music's 33 1/3 rpm past. In a sign that vinyl is indeed "staging a comeback," as this week's issue of Rolling Stone reports, Fred Meyer has started to restock LP's and turntables. Sure, plenty of indie stores in the Northwest have stayed true to what many hi-fi enthusiasts insist is the one true way to listen to music. The web site alt.Portland keeps a decent list of some of the city's vinyl haunts. (Of course, we would add Mississippi Records, an absolute gem of a shop, to the must-visit inventory). But now that a big-dog department store/supermarket chain like Fred Meyer is stocking the left-for-dead LP, it appears that a bona fide resurrection is underway. Even officials at Kroger, Fred Meyer's parent company, were caught off guard. "There's a funny little story behind this," said Melinda Merrill, a Fred Meyer spokeswoman. "We got back into vinyl by accident." Earlier this spring, someone in charge of ordering CD's for Fred Meyer, intended to order a special edition compact disc and DVD set of R.E.M.'s new album "Accelerate." But the employee mistakenly clicked the "LP" option on the electronic order form. Stacks of the R.E.M. vinyl showed up at the warehouse and were sent out to several stores without question. "We didn't catch the mistake until the records started showing up in the stores," Merrill said. Puzzled by the boxes of vinyl, most managers sent them back. But a nostalgic few decided to give the retro-product a whirl. A handful of stores figured out ways to display the album, with its skinny 12 inch-by-12 inch packaging. Twenty copies sold on the first day. After a week, 55 had sold. Now Fred Meyer is "doing a test" in 60 stores, stocking 20 albums, ranging from a reissue of The Beatles' "Abbey Road" to the new Raconteurs album on premium 180-gram vinyl. "They're selling really, really well," Merrill said. "The biggest seller is 'Abbey Road.'" She added that Fred Meyer stores will likely roll out more vinyl releases and different models of turntables, including one with a computer port that allows vinyl-to-MP3 transfer, in coming months. "I really don't know what to make of it," Merrill said. This much is clear: It's once again safe to lug those old Who and Bob Marley records out of the basement without looking like a dinosaur to your kids. Play 'em if you've got 'em. -- Joseph Rose; josephrose@news.oregonian.com  |  IP: Logged

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