Who's still rockin' a turntable?

[alarmguy]

A lot depends on the home acoustics.

I really liked Denon. I started with a low end receiver and then added a cassette player and the turntable. Interestingly, all three items came from different countries. Oddly enough the best sounding speakers I had were Zenith Allegros. They came off of a Zenith wedge system I had growing up. Later on I purchased a pair of Advents but to my ears the Zeniths sounded better.

The biggest problem back in the late 70’s and into the 80’s was that vinyl recording was just horrible. The industry was cheapening the process.

In my earlier years, my favorite speaker was a pair of Boston Acoustics A-40 bookshelf speakers. I was more into crisper sound but they did amazing, being it was our first apartment it was a good size without to much boom/
AS time progressed and my AMPS became more powerful I finally blew the A40s when we moved into our new home using a NAD 2155 Amp... Ended up with a pair of Mission which at the time, maybe Stereo Review commented on their power handling among other things.
Over time I ended up with a Onkyo Power amp, same high current abilities mostly... was never too crazy about the sound of the Mission and upgraded to a lower priced pair ($500 or so) of Paradigm's which I loved and had for over 20 years and still had until last fall when we moved to our new home, I gave them to my son to sell or give away, they still worked perfect.

*LOL* and now, I have that JVC Bar 500 (which is amazing to us) and maybe a bit of relief after leaving behind a Yami receiver, 2 Paradigms, Studio series JBL center and two rear JBL sats. The Bar 500 will not match the music of the system but the video experience considering what it is (a sound bar with no rear channel speakers) is amazing, sometimes freaky hearing sounds come from the sides (but not back) we have the perfect room for the set up for that to take place on the sides that the bar fires at/ 11 foot ceilings and perfect proportion of the side walls. Its kind of startling ... nearby family member has mostly the same set up but the room is not the same nor the effect, still good but not startling .

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I have an AT-120 fully manual table, with AT's Vm540ML cart attached. It's going through a 1977 Marantz 2230B that was properly rebuilt.

There is currently "something" wrong with the sound......it fades out on the right channel after time, and sounds scratchy. It's not the needle, it's in the TT somewhere. Need my Marantz-rebuild guy to get his digical (Vice Grip Garage) tools out to figure out what's going on.

View attachment 38392View attachment 38393

Clean the contacts on the removable headshell - make sure the HS wire and clips are tight. New would be good here.

May also need fresh wiring in the tonearm and out the back.

I would not discount issues in your phono stage in that ancient but valuable classic Marantz 2330 Monster receiver

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I have an old Sansui SR- 2050 TT I bought a decade ago. I have it almost restored. Need to replace the cables out the back.
Unfortunately the rubber spheres supporting the plinth have gone dry and flat. I have some chunks of silicon rubber in their place now. I guess ill pick up some light coil springs and rubber sheeting from the hardware store - if i get motivated.

My Jim Bongiorno** designed SAE MK XXX preamp died so I am a bit thrown aback about getting a good TT setup going.

Similar exact unit images but not my actual equipment:

______________________
** of GAS, SAE, SUMO fame

 

[Kruse]

What is a CD?!
Oops! Oh, I see now the rates at the local bank are up to over 5% I might stash some cash there myself!

Har, Har. My advice to you: PLEASE don't give up your day job. Whatever you do, don't go into the comedian business.
I actually started my music collection with vinyl. The system wasn't great. I remember the turntable was a Dual and the speakers and amp were mediocre. I bought what I could when my budget allowed.
About that time, CDs were just hitting the marketplace. My first CD player was a Toshiba I bought at WM. I updated the rest of the system as I could. I lived in Dallas at the time and the big store to hit for both new and used vinyl and CDs was Bill's Records and Tapes. (Google the store. Quite interesting) Vinyl was okay, but soon I'd only buy vinyl if the CD version wasn't available. Also at that time, just about every audiophile "expert" was pushing CD. "It sounded soooo..... much better" was all you heard. Since my system couldn't compete with the pieces that cost many thousands of dollars, I didn't care anyway. You could load up a bunch of CDs in a multi-disc player, hit the random button and it was the life of the party. Unlike vinyl.
Now the audiophile "experts" are again pushing vinyl. Funny how they did a 180° lately.
Fast forward to now and my daughter is on the vinyl kick. Why? Because it's the latest fad among her friends and the music industry is again enjoying selling vinyl that now costs at least $30 for an LP, unlike my CDs that you can get used for $5 or so.
And music CAN sound good on CD, if the CD and the rest of the system is of decent quality. Yes, it's old school. It's also nice to pick up multi-disc CD players for under $30 on the used market.
One last thing: Play an LP 100 times and I'll play my CD 100 times on any system you like. Then put them side-by-side and listen to them again and see which one sounds better.

 

[Lubener]

A long comment and I don't know what point you are trying to say which has any use... Maybe you should find a new hobby because an audiophile you do not appear to be..

 

[ARCOgraphite]

....
And music CAN sound good on CD, if the CD and the rest of the system is of decent quality. Yes, it's old school. It's also nice to pick up multi-disc CD players for under $30 on the used market.
One last thing: Play an LP 100 times and I'll play my CD 100 times on any system you like. Then put them side-by-side and listen to them again and see which one sounds better.

From a high-end audiophile and recordist perspective, CD (now 40 year old tech) has always been a very flawed playback medium, the poor quality mechanism (found in commodity consumer products) employed to read and spin the disc result in excessive jitter and error concealment. And 16 bit depth at 44.1khz is inadequate S/N for uncompressed recording regardless of Nyquist. Then throw in the poor quality duplicators/stamping(!) for commercial CD and the perfect sound promise is lost in translation to the consumer.

I am not a digiphobe. Decades ago I found DAT to work pretty good, as did a custom PC with firewire 200 mb/s . 24/48 is adequate here.

Most Audiophiles I knew in the early 80's had an awful time getting decent sound out of CD. I customised a Philips/Maggie FD1000 SL with a high current drive and grounding scheme to my Pioneer Series 20 class A amp. That was pretty adequate.

I archived some old 45 onto CD-RW maybe 20 years ago. Decent inexpensive hardware yielded decent results.

Just appears everything has moved to solid state storage and low latency/high res BT. You can put a lot on a thumb drive.

But, Archive and burn them CD's to you heart's content! Enjoy the music!

Funny note, my wife's new 2023 Subaru with a stick shift has a CD player. Haven't seen one in many years in a new car.


Magnavox FD1000SL top Loader 14bit/4X

Pioneer Series 20 M-22 Class-A power amp (30 watts/channel)

 

[PimTac]

Most Audiophiles I knew in the early 80's had an awful time getting decent sound out of CD.

I agree. Those early CDs were a hit and miss proposition at best. A lot of older albums came out on CD but they would be copies of poor recordings to start with and being digital, that would accentuate the flaws of the master recording.

I remember looking for DDD CDs. Those were pure digital and sounded the best.

Albums were so bad that most people would record an album onto cassette tape and put the album away. The CD made things more durable in that respect.

 

[Hermann]

Har, Har. My advice to you: PLEASE don't give up your day job. Whatever you do, don't go into the comedian business.
I actually started my music collection with vinyl. The system wasn't great. I remember the turntable was a Dual and the speakers and amp were mediocre. I bought what I could when my budget allowed.
About that time, CDs were just hitting the marketplace. My first CD player was a Toshiba I bought at WM. I updated the rest of the system as I could. I lived in Dallas at the time and the big store to hit for both new and used vinyl and CDs was Bill's Records and Tapes. (Google the store. Quite interesting) Vinyl was okay, but soon I'd only buy vinyl if the CD version wasn't available. Also at that time, just about every audiophile "expert" was pushing CD. "It sounded soooo..... much better" was all you heard. Since my system couldn't compete with the pieces that cost many thousands of dollars, I didn't care anyway. You could load up a bunch of CDs in a multi-disc player, hit the random button and it was the life of the party. Unlike vinyl.
Now the audiophile "experts" are again pushing vinyl. Funny how they did a 180° lately.
Fast forward to now and my daughter is on the vinyl kick. Why? Because it's the latest fad among her friends and the music industry is again enjoying selling vinyl that now costs at least $30 for an LP, unlike my CDs that you can get used for $5 or so.
And music CAN sound good on CD, if the CD and the rest of the system is of decent quality. Yes, it's old school. It's also nice to pick up multi-disc CD players for under $30 on the used market.
One last thing: Play an LP 100 times and I'll play my CD 100 times on any system you like. Then put them side-by-side and listen to them again and see which one sounds bette

Have done your challenge in the past. I have vinyl that have 500 plays and still sound near new. It is all in keeping them clean. A high quality cartridge helps a lot. I have lot of CD's but only a dozen or so have really good dynamic range and not so compressed that it hurts to listen at times.

 

[alarmguy]

From a high-end audiophile and recordist perspective, CD (now 40 year old tech) has always been a very flawed playback medium, the poor quality mechanism (found in commodity consumer products) employed to read and spin the disc result in excessive jitter and error concealment. And 16 bit depth at 44.1khz is inadequate S/N for uncompressed recording regardless of Nyquist. Then throw in the poor quality duplicators/stamping(!) for commercial CD and the perfect sound promise is lost in translation to the consumer.

I am not a digiphobe. Decades ago I found DAT to work pretty good, as did a custom PC with firewire 200 mb/s . 24/48 is adequate here.

Most Audiophiles I knew in the early 80's had an awful time getting decent sound out of CD. I customised a Philips/Maggie FD1000 SL with a high current drive and grounding scheme to my Pioneer Series 20 class A amp. That was pretty adequate.

I archived some old 45 onto CD-RW maybe 20 years ago. Decent inexpensive hardware yielded decent results.

Just appears everything has moved to solid state storage and low latency/high res BT. You can put a lot on a thumb drive.

But, Archive and burn them CD's to you heart's content! Enjoy the music!

Funny note, my wife's new 2023 Subaru with a stick shift has a CD player. Haven't seen one in many years in a new car.


Magnavox FD1000SL top Loader 14bit/4X

View attachment 168816


Pioneer Series 20 M-22 Class-A power amp (30 watts/channel)

View attachment 168817

OMG, makes me sick! That was my CD player! I bought it at the time that the CDs for sale were a 4 foot wide cardboard box display in Record World. I believe I got it "on sale" for $350, think about that decades back. I think one of my first CDs was "Drive" by the Cars. I still have that CD, the percussion IS amazing but the "shrill" is present on the high end.

I really took care of my self, I had it perfectly preserved, all original paperwork in the perfect original box... stored at my home... but then 20 years ago I got divorced and, well, never knew what happened with it. *LOL*

I agree, I think the whole digital revolution may have worked out great on paper, input and output, but the input sound is a studio and still converting analog to digital... perfect reproduction was presented but it wasnt perfect because to me its the imperfections of live sound that make it realistic... if that makes any sense. At least with this player I got to hold a physical disc and actually see it spin.

If I did it all over again, I would be back to turntables. Guess I am getting to sound "old" and I do wish I had the CD player to look at.

"The Magnavox FD1000 and the Marantz CD63 were the first European built CD players sold in the USA. Both are versions of the Philips CD100 and the Magnavox FD1000 is very similar in appearance to the Philips CD100. "

 

[ARCOgraphite]

OMG, makes me sick! That was my CD player! I bought it at the time that the CDs for sale were a 4 foot wide cardboard box display in Record World. I believe I got it "on sale" for $350, think about that decades back. I think one of my first CDs was "Drive" by the Cars. I still have that CD, the percussion IS amazing but the "shrill" is present on the high end.

I really took care of my self, I had it perfectly preserved, all original paperwork in the perfect original box... stored at my home... but then 20 years ago I got divorced and, well, never knew what happened with it. *LOL*

I agree, I think the whole digital revolution may have worked out great on paper, input and output, but the input sound is a studio and still converting analog to digital... perfect reproduction was presented but it wasnt perfect because to me its the imperfections of live sound that make it realistic... if that makes any sense. At least with this player I got to hold a physical disc and actually see it spin.

If I did it all over again, I would be back to turntables. Guess I am getting to sound "old" and I do wish I had the CD player to look at.

"The Magnavox FD1000 and the Marantz CD63 were the first European built CD players sold in the USA. Both are versions of the Philips CD100 and the Magnavox FD1000 is very similar in appearance to the Philips CD100. "

That swing arm laser mechanism used in Philips' first units was robust, but slow responding.
About the only unit to meet the S/N and DNR promise with good DAC linearity and good wave form recovery from 14 bits.
Actually tape hiss on analogue mastertapes help improve the recording process due to the dithering effect.
I think a lot of big record companies just used 3rd gen stamper tape copies - or worse so you didn't get top tier sound on the CD. And CD are pressed not 1x or 4X burnt so the pits were "the pits" from almost worn out stampers.

CD is "analoge" when it comes to "time". the leading and trailing pit edge definition is crucial. Like a good, quick Morse code operator
Everything in the recording chain has to be top notch to get a good product. Burning a good LP at home losslessly can provide a better CD dupe than a possibly now ancient - and deteriorated master tape re-release from a big label.

 

[alarmguy]

That swing arm laser mechanism used in Philips' first units was robust, but slow responding.
About the only unit to meet the S/N and DNR promise with good DAC linearity and good wave form recovery from 14 bits.
Actually tape hiss on analogue mastertapes help improve the recording process due to the dithering effect.
I think a lot of big record companies just used 3rd gen stamper tape copies - or worse so you didn't get top tier sound on the CD. And CD are pressed not 1x or 4X burnt so the pits were "the pits" from almost worn out stampers.

CD is "analoge" when it comes to "time". the leading and trailing pit edge definition is crucial. Like a good, quick Morse code operator
Everything in the recording chain has to be top notch to get a good product. Burning a good LP at home losslessly can provide a better CD dupe than a possibly now ancient - and deteriorated master tape re-release from a big label.

View attachment 168963

Oh yes, it was slow responding for sure, but looking back, nostalgic now that I think of it.
I think you make a lot of good points in here. Nice post

 

[E150GT]

One night I was at a bar with a friend and there was a guy there that had a table He was selling books and records. I had a few in me so I bought a record and some books. I had no way to play a record, so I went and got one from Best Buy back when they had that music shop in them. Its a Stanton belt drive. After getting home I was disappointed to learn I need a phono pre amp to use it. so I ordered one. Got it all set up and turns out the record I bought was pretty cool. Never heard of the artist. Now I have a small collection of records from my favorite artists. A while back my wife's coworker said she was donating a bunch and we could sift through them. We got a bunch of stuff. Mostly for kids. The 5 year old loves putting the music on and dancing around the living room.

 

[vavavroom]

I use my turntable only when I fail to fire up the 8-track.

In all seriousness, yes, I do have and use a turntable. I have a few hundred LPs. Many of them are from the '80s when, as a kid, I was into collecting movie soundtracks. I was and still am interested in then cover art.

I have many peculiar LPs like this one:

 

[MVAR]

Here's a site some of you may want to look at:

https://dr.loudness-war.info/

Shows varying levels of compression on albums releases in different formats.

 

[MVAR]

Figured I’d share my bedroom setup as well. Mitsubishi DA series with an Oppo 983 for CD’s

 

[930.engineering]

,
I never stopped listening 12" records with (a) turntable(s).

Linn LP12 with Ittok LVIII Mk2 and Troika MC incl DIY-made Keal subchassis clone
Linn Axis with Akito Mk1 and K18 Mk2
Thorens TD160 with TP16 Mk4 and Linn K9
Rega Planar 2/3 with RB300 and Linn K9
.

 

[Jetronic]

I got back into it,

Here's mine, and you can hear it through your speakers/headphones lol

Scored a Technics SL-D2 today and 50 odd 7" singles (quite a few from "the sweet") so as soon as the noise dies down (tv/phones) I'm having a little ball

 

[Vil_Riker]

Scored a Technics SL-D2 today and 50 odd 7" singles (quite a few from "the sweet") so as soon as the noise dies down (tv/phones) I'm having a little ball

That's what I have, too.

 

[Cujet]

We have a nice album collection and a Craigslist purchased Technics 1210 MK5, with a mid grade Shure cartridge.

It is generally free of rumble and other nasty turntable issues. In the end, it works well and is a lot of fun to use.

I don't claim audio perfection, I do claim that I enjoy it.

It looks a lot like this:

 

[Hermann]

We have a nice album collection and a Craigslist purchased Technics 1210 MK5, with a mid grade Shure cartridge.

It is generally free of rumble and other nasty turntable issues. In the end, it works well and is a lot of fun to use.

I don't claim audio perfection, I do claim that I enjoy it.

It looks a lot like this:

A true classic.