the future of recorded music

[Sid]

I'm basically a luddite. I only listen to music from cd's, lp's & tapes. It would be good if cd's stayed around, to some extent they probably will like the LP. But basically if I want to maintain expanding my familiarity with the repertoire, I'll have to invest in the technology and get the know-how that most of you guys have, sometime down the track...

[Daverz]

I ordered it and it was "temporarily out of stock" for a month before I lost patience and canceled.  DG's web site says it is available only as a download.

Amazon.ca lists it as in stock:

http://www.google.com/search?q=B000INAVQW

[Florestan]

Ideally, I'd like to go back even further, and be able to play all those LPs I stored years ago in my parents' basement.

May I suggest a turntable?   

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

May I suggest a turntable?   

You know, that might be just the thing  I've tried to cram the LPs into the little slot on my CD player, but for some reason it isn't working! But I'll figure out a solution somehow.

More seriously, any anachronistic setup involving LP playback is contingent upon the ending of my current nomadic lifestyle, and my settlement in a home I can regard as permanent.

[Florestan]

You know, that might be just the thing  I've tried to cram the LPs into the little slot on my CD player, but for some reason it isn't working! But I'll figure out a solution somehow.

More seriously, any anachronistic setup involving LP playback is contingent upon the ending of my current nomadic lifestyle, and my settlement in a home I can regard as permanent.

Earlier this year I received a splendid gift from my wife: a turntable that converts LPs into mp3. 

Of course, of my 300+ LPs I have converted only one since then...  ...but the whole idea is very comforting. 

[Florestan]

I am not a fan of those USB turntables because they are generally not very good turntables.

Agreed, but it depends on what you want. I am not an audiophile, so for me it's serviceable enough. 

I had one and stopped using it and retrieved my Thorens from storage, hooked it up to my digital interface and converted about 1,000 LPs over the last two years.  For the same cost of one of those USB turntables you can get a decent interface and have much better quality transfers - if you already have a good turntable, that is.

Well, I don't.   

[Scarpia]

I am not a fan of those USB turntables because they are generally not very good turntables.  I had one and stopped using it and retrieved my Thorens from storage, hooked it up to my digital interface and converted about 1,000 LPs over the last two years.  For the same cost of one of those USB turntables you can get a decent interface and have much better quality transfers - if you already have a good turntable, that is.

Well, I have a Thorens turntable, it doesn't make the process any more pleasant, constant fussing with the tracking force, the anti-skate force, cleaning dust off the record, and from the stylus, then the mysterious hum in the left channel that goes away when the ground wire is attached (it wasn't doing that last time I used it).  How the phonograph lasted as long as it did is a mystery to me!

[bigshot]

Records can be a pain with all the cleaning and storage problems. But I don't find any problems with turntables in general. Once they're set up properly they work fine without a lot of fiddling. The problem most people have with tracking is that they track too light. I know it seems that tracking a little lighter than recommended might not wear out records as fast, but in fact that isn't true. If you track too light, the needle tends to float around in the groove causing much more damage than tracking a little too heavy. If you have problems with tracking, the problem is either too light a tracking weight, incorrect anti skate setting or a cartridge that is poorly designed. Surprisingly the only time I've run into problems with tracking it was the fault of the cartridge. It taught me to use a good cartridge not a fancy audiophile one.

Good solid used turntables from the 70s can be found second hand for well under $100. A mediocre 70s turntable is better built than an expensive current one.

[Daverz]

Well, I have a Thorens turntable, it doesn't make the process any more pleasant, constant fussing with the tracking force, the anti-skate force, cleaning dust off the record, and from the stylus, then the mysterious hum in the left channel that goes away when the ground wire is attached (it wasn't doing that last time I used it).  How the phonograph lasted as long as it did is a mystery to me!

So why are you constantly fussing with the tracking force and anti-skate?  And, yeah, electrical behavior can be kind of unpredictable if the ground wire isn't properly attached.

[Scarpia]

So why are you constantly fussing with the tracking force and anti-skate?  And, yeah, electrical behavior can be kind of unpredictable if the ground wire isn't properly attached.

Because no playback is ever perfect, and the thought that it might be better creeps in.   Then there is the idiotic fact that the manufacturers never established a standard headshell configuration, so that it is up to you to follow some obscure procedure to align the cartridge, which gives yet another reason why your playback might not be as good as it could be.   Of course the cartridge manufacturer and the tonearm manufacturer will give you mutually incompatible instructions for how to do it.  Finally, the signal from the cartridge is pathetically weak, and those phono plugs are the worst way to connect a fragile signal to a high gain amplifier.  A sane person would design a connector in which both contacts engage simultaneously, not one in which the central pin contacts first, then the ground.  Finally a sane person designs a connector which maintains contact through spring pressure, not friction, so that the thing does not wear out and get looser as it is used.   Connectors with all these good qualities exist, but are not used in audio. 

Anyway, the only way I can bear to listen to LPs is to burn it to a file, so I can listen the fatalistic attitude that, "well, that's what it sounds like, so be it."

[Daverz]

Because no playback is ever perfect, and the thought that it might be better creeps in.   Then there is the idiotic fact that the manufacturers never established a standard headshell configuration, so that it is up to you to follow some obscure procedure to align the cartridge, which gives yet another reason why your playback might not be as good as it could be.   

If you're that fussy, I would suggest getting a Mint Protractor made for your setup.

http://mintlp.com/best.htm

When I was using a Rega arm, I really liked the Baerwald arc protractor, which can be downloaded from Vinyl Engine and printed out.

http://www.vinylengine.com/library.shtml (registration is free)

[DavidRoss]

Good solid used turntables from the 70s can be found second hand for well under $100. A mediocre 70s turntable is better built than an expensive current one.

[Scarpia]

I mis-read that, I thought it said an old 70's turntable is better than a modern inexpensive one, which strikes me as more reasonable.  Still, and old table can have problems.  The gimbal mount on the tonearem has to be good and is hard to evaluate. 

I have noticed that turntable technology has stopped, except for the really exotic gear.  When I got my Thorens table out of mothballs I had the notion of getting a new cartridge.  I had a Shure V15 type IV and a nice Audio Technica stashed away in a box somewhere.  When I looked at new offerings, I saw they those two cartridges are still being sold without obvious modification, almost 20 years later.  Maybe I should spring for a new stylus. 

[Scarpia]

Running my Thorens through my stereo system  and then out to the digital interface produces a much better transfer than what I got using the USB turntable directly into the computer.  Also, I am using the sound editor Sound Forge which has some nice tools to clean up the track before creating the .wav file.

I don't fudtz with the anti-skating device that much and have never had any hum.

I don't doubt the USB experience, as long as the legacy hardware is available.  Hum has to be gotten down to a certain level.  When you drop the needle hum which might seem unacceptable disappears under the normal rumble.  My main complaint with the old Thorens is that every connector has to be wiggled to make contact.

[DavidRoss]

I mis-read that, I thought it said an old 70's turntable is better than a modern inexpensive one, which strikes me as more reasonable.

Aye, as long as the '70s turntable is a good quality one--but don't discount the quality of good inexpensive tables today from Rega and Pro-Ject. 

[Scarpia]

Aye, as long as the '70s turntable is a good quality one--but don't discount the quality of good inexpensive tables today from Rega and Pro-Ject.

Define "inexpensive."

[DavidRoss]

Define "inexpensive."

The Rega P-1 and Pro-Ject Debut III both go for about $350, including tonearm & cartridge.

[Gurn Blanston]

So, y'all are saying that the future of recorded music is playing old records on old equipment?  Man, I wanted something to equal flying cars...

[Scarpia]

The Rega P-1 and Pro-Ject Debut III both go for about $350, including tonearm & cartridge.

That does sound reasonable, maybe I should send my Thorens to the scrap heap (that would be cathartic). 

Found a reasonable review:

http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/507rega/

The nice thing about turntables is you get to use vocabulary like "plinth."  I also noticed a review that complained that the head-shell "does not allow quite enough overhang to achieve perfect Baerwald alignment with many cartridges."  How can I listen without perfect Baerwald alignment.  And why do they give it such a mundane name as "head-shell."  From now on, I'm referring to the head-shell as the "cartouche."

[DavidRoss]

That does sound reasonable, maybe I should send my Thorens to the scrap heap (that would be cathartic). 

Found a reasonable review:

http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/507rega/

The nice thing about turntables is you get to use vocabulary like "plinth."  I also noticed a review that complained that the head-shell "does not allow quite enough overhang to achieve perfect Baerwald alignment with many cartridges."  How can I listen without perfect Baerwald alignment.  And why do they give it such a mundane name as "head-shell."  From now on, I'm referring to the head-shell as the "cartouche."

There's a market for old Thorens TTs.  With or without cartouche.