Rain Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 (edited) I’m not very good at spending money on stuff for myself. I’ve finally replaced the 9 year old dying Mac in July after a year of postponing and calculating and reassessing, and I was pressured to make a move because the upgrade options were getting fewer and more expensive by the hour. Otherwise, who knows how much longer I would have stalled… But a few weeks ago, I felt an urge to listen to Back in Black on vinyl, so I bought the album on Amazon. And a turntable to play it. Well, that was like opening the floodgates. Amazon must be very happy with me, as I’ve been re-building the record collection at a rather fast pace (especially for someone usually so careful with money). I find myself constantly looking for the next vinyl, and I have a bunch of them in my cart at all time. My last catch is a 45 rpm/2 discs version of Sad Wings of Destiny that I found on eBay. Sealed. With the embossed cover. Cool stuff. I’ve always looked fondly on the good old days when I’d put on a record and just lie on my back on the floor and listen. Used to be my favorite thing as a kid - putting the headphones on and listening to 8 tracks. That set up makes it easier to do just that. No display, no smart phone, just me and that one record that I pick. Also seems easier to commit to an entire album too - you can’t just scroll and click on something else. That’s been my thing after work recently. Try and listen to an album a day - instead of just having music playing in the background while I do chores or look up stuff on the internet. Hadn’t really done that since the 90’s. Amusing, considering that I'd done away with vinyls, CDs and tapes all those years ago and embraced the digital era. I sold my entire collection in 2004, although I did start buying CDs again after settling here in 2013. I'd simply import them on the computer and store them. And so now I’m looking into CD players, for the same purpose. But since hipsters don’t think CDs are cool, CD players are a lot harder to find and a lot more expensive than a relatively decent turntable. Edited September 22, 2023 by Rain 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted September 22, 2023 Author Share Posted September 22, 2023 (edited) Double post. Edited September 22, 2023 by Rain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted September 22, 2023 Author Share Posted September 22, 2023 Thank you for that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 1 hour ago, pwalpwal said: also, https://www.discogs.com mwa-hah-haa I spend a lot of time on that site! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grem Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 Yeah, I got my wife a record player for Christmas last year. And I too abandoned records long ago. But I gotta admit, there is something special about putting an album on and just letting it play and sitting there listening to the whole thing. We had not done that since we were in our twenties. Hell, I hadn't done that since I quit my cannabis indulgence! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane_B. Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 @Rain Have you stopped in to see Ritchie at Wax Tracks lately? Hah. I don't know if you remember our conversation quite a few years back about him. I knew him when he was in PA but he moved out there by you. He has to be up there in years now. He may not even be around anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane_B. Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 I was at a high end audio shop in KC one time a few years ago. I heard one of these ... https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/products/turntables/MT10 Through one of these ... https://hifiplus.com/articles/mcintosh-ma5200-integrated-amplifier/ Over a pair of these (with a sub but I dont remember what it was) ... https://magnepan.com/collections/floor-standing/products/magnepan-lrs-1 Nothing I've ever heard before or since even comes close. You could actually hear where everyone was standing/mixed in the sound stage. It was as if you could get up and walk around and go to where everyone was at. It was astounding. BTW I looked online to see if Ritchie is still there. He is, but I see he hasn't changed based on his reviews. Expect to bring a wallet with 6 credit cards. Hah. I've been hitting the local thrift stores. I've got my collection up over 300 LPs. I lost my 700+ collection whne my basement flooded many years ago. I refuse to pay any more than a $1 per LP. I also made my own LP cleaning system. If I can find the pics I'll post them some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
57Gregy Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 I have one word to say to you: plastics. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Dickens Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 I could kick myself for ditching all my LPs back when. Had some good stuff. Fortunately, I was smarter about my guitar amps and my film cameras. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 Reminds me of the record store I used to go to called Licorice Pizza. Got to meet Terri Nunn of Berlin there! (The Interwebs says she's 5' 6" tall but, for me at 6' 4" she seemed around 4' 9"! ? ) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulo Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 (edited) Turntable question...... Mine has just started playing up... It was fine the last time I used it (a few months maybe) but when I tried to use the other day the speed is all over the place. It's not a belt issue because there isn't one. I know nothing about it as I was given it by someone who has moved away now. Is this likely to be a fixable (assuming that I can find anyone who fixes them) or is it just junk now? FWIW Toshiba SR-Q660... Edited September 22, 2023 by paulo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane_B. Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 31 minutes ago, paulo said: Turntable question...... Mine has just started playing up... It was fine the last time I used it (a few months maybe) but when I tried to use the other day the speed is all over the place. It's not a belt issue because there isn't one. I know nothing about it as I was given it by someone who has moved away now. Is this likely to be a fixable (assuming that I can find anyone who fixes them) or is it just junk now? FWIW Toshiba SR-Q660... Could be dust inside the contacts of the speed control knob. Spin it all the way back and forth a bunch of times really fast to see if the speed variation changes or it may fix it. Sometimes if it's old it can be a bad capacitor in the speed control circuit. They go bad over time. Motor going bad. There really isn't much to them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane_B. Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 3 hours ago, pwalpwal said: nice, but you didn't mention room treatment? not worth the money if you're playing it back in a box There really wasn't any room treatment. Just a bunch of amps and speakers in a big open room so you could compare them. Thats some serious money your talking about with those items I linked to. That's beyond the grasp of most people. Although Magnapan is making affordable speaker versions now. I think, not sure, the ones I linked to are $1,000 a pair. The two things I noticed were the imaging which was more the speakers probably and the lack of distortion from the amp. I can only guess that designing a very low distortion amp is a lot harder and more costly than building a high wattage amp. I A/B'd it with other amps and the clarity was night and day. I never really understood what they meant by "distortion" in the amp specs until I could actually hear the difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 I, for one, do not miss all the hiss and static, the short play times and having to replace the records often because I had played them until they were flat! As a DJ (late 1980 thru late 1983), we were required to hold each record and look at it across the grooves. If the surfaces was a dark and shiny black, we played it. If it was dull and gray, it meant the grooves were gone and the record was flat. Those were noted in our log (so the program manager could replace it) and tossed. Oh, and, yes, I could spin a record on my finger tip while fading in another with my other hand! It looked really cool for those looking into the DJ booth. ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bats brew Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 i do not miss the vinyl sound. i DO miss that ritual of opening up the album, taking it out, putting it on the platter, setting the needle, kicking back with the album art, and just listen. for, about, what, 20 minutes?! LOL, then have to get up, flip it, and do it all over again... but i never thought vinyl was very accurate. noisy. and if you didn't have your turntable far enough away, or, in my case, floating in the air riding on a macrame sling, the low end would make the needle jump!! how annoying... i bought a nice Yamaha Natural sound receiver, cd player and tape player set back in 1980, gave it to my parents, 20 years later, i had it back, and still have it! i rip my own albums from my cd collection, and i have a hundred cassettes that STILL play, but no vinyl. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted September 23, 2023 Author Share Posted September 23, 2023 13 hours ago, Shane_B. said: @Rain Have you stopped in to see Ritchie at Wax Tracks lately? Hah. I don't know if you remember our conversation quite a few years back about him. I knew him when he was in PA but he moved out there by you. He has to be up there in years now. He may not even be around anymore. I seem to remember something like that yes! I should go visit that place sometime - admitting that I ever manage to find the will to leave this house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted September 23, 2023 Author Share Posted September 23, 2023 This morning before putting on that new 45 RPM version of Sad Wings, I did have that knee jerk reaction… Like, ugh, I’m going to have to flip that record every couple of songs and then change discs altogether. Why not listen to something else? But in a sense, it helps me focus and appreciate that moment. Without trying to get all philosophical about it, that little effort keeps me grounded in the act of listening to music. It’s not simply something that’s happening - I am actively listening to this album. And even once I am done, again, action is required on my part. Draws boundaries. But that’s the way my brain is geared. And that’s but one way to listen to music. Come my night off, I’m in the studio with a bottle of red wine or two and enjoying the convenience of digital audio. And to be honest, my favorite version of the aforementioned Priest album is a Japanese master ripped from a CD that lives in my digital library. But I still had a great time lying on my back with the cans on listening to the vinyl after work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane_B. Posted September 23, 2023 Share Posted September 23, 2023 I prefer listening to vinyl from back in the day when it was a room full of musicians being recorded live and recordings were made to sound good on LP. I never liked listening to rock on LP. It always sounded thin to me. I remember when Mobile Fidelity used to boast about their half speed master recordings. I read an article about Decca one time and they did it that way back in the day because it sounded better. IOW, those old LP's sound really good because they recorded and mastered the audio for that medium. At some point that started to change and it became more about getting LPs out as fast as they could and sound quality became secondary. My collection is mostly stuff from the 50s and 60s just because of the sound quality. I've picked up LPs I've never heard of just because they were original Decca, and other labels, from that era. Old LPs really need to be deep cleaned to truly hear them. You have to get the 50+ years of gunk and dust out of the grooves to get full needle depth and the full sound 'data' from the grooves so to speak. You really don't need high end equipment. Does it help, yeah, but Im more than happy with the current setup I have. I have a Technics turntable I got at a yardsale when I was a kid. Its still chugging along. I've taken it apart a few times and cleaned it. I did replace the head. Its so old now that the needles are discontinued. This was the only place I could find them. https://needlefinder.net/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted September 23, 2023 Author Share Posted September 23, 2023 (edited) Funny you mention that because I realized earlier this morning that I too draw a line, though for me it's somewhere in the early eighties. And there's a few 70's Elvis records that I am really looking forward to hearing on vinyl. That is, on clean vinyls and on a proper turntable. I have plenty of old ones with all the clicks and pops that sound fantastic on a cheap little record player with a 3 inch speaker... And genre is also a factor. I have no interest in listening to Master to Puppets or Reign in Blood or Powerslave on vinyl, even if that's how I originally heard them. So I guess I get what you mean. As for half speed... I bought this copy of Creatures of the Night on Amazon. Unlike Black in Black or Love Gun, it's not one that I felt any pressing need to listen to on vinyl. I think it's probably better on CD. But it was on sale, and it was my first heavy metal album back in the days, and there was that half-speed label, so I got curious. I've not yet had the time to listen to it, and I don't own a non half-speed copy to compare, but I'm curious to hear if there's anything I can pick up. But for this type of album/sound, I believe that digital is the way to go. Edited September 23, 2023 by Rain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted September 23, 2023 Share Posted September 23, 2023 Can't believe you even found a copy of that one! I used to have all their solo efforts on vinyl too... ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now