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Post by jono1uk on Dec 30, 2019 13:39:17 GMT
Been collect bout 3 years .. and yesterday finally bought a decent Cambridge Audio preamp for my Audio Technica Deck ..even though it needs burning in ..the results are astonishing ... so much more clarity... Next will be a turntable upgrade me thinks ...
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Post by alexkirtley on Dec 30, 2019 21:41:44 GMT
Yup!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2019 22:02:04 GMT
Over and above considerations of quality of sound reproduction I often have fond memories of the rituals of vinyl--the cleaning of the record with a velvet thingy and gently lowering the stylus with (hopefully) no clunks. No flipping through tracks obviously so you'd be more inclined to just sit back and absorb the music. Mmmm--happy days! (man)
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Post by leeophonic on Dec 30, 2019 22:45:54 GMT
Still playing and buying (new and 2nd hand) Vinyl, the product offers something you can hold, read, smell, expanded on the ears, there is a process and to date other than one or two mistaken purchases I have never bought a download. I am no audio expert but have a reasonable set of speakers amp and turntable, I have simple need's.
Lee
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Post by calvoi on Dec 31, 2019 8:07:59 GMT
Yup! Alex, what kind of vinyls can you play on that? Is is just the old shellac ones? I’ve heard you can convert them to more ‘modern’ equivalents but the needle wears down the vinyl quite quickly.
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Post by Pickers Ditch on Dec 31, 2019 10:06:32 GMT
Yup - still using my old Technics / Marantz set up with my LPs and singles from the last century.
It's not supa dupa but it works for me.
I did consider getting an old Dansette again, just for old times sake, 'til I saw the prices being asked for a good'n....
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Post by alexkirtley on Dec 31, 2019 12:06:46 GMT
Yup! Alex, what kind of vinyls can you play on that? Is is just the old shellac ones? I’ve heard you can convert them to more ‘modern’ equivalents but the needle wears down the vinyl quite quickly. Yes 78's only, you can't play vinyl records on them, the soundbox is much too heavy, needles too wide and the motors aren't made to go that slow. I collect gramophones, phonographs, 78's and cylinder records, this is one of my pride and joys, a 1936 EMG Xa, I've got another similarly large beast to the left of that gramophone.
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Post by jono1uk on Dec 31, 2019 14:32:02 GMT
Anyone use any particular record / track as a benchmark for checking quality if changing anything? my new pre-amp needs burning in so periodically i have been blasting the studio version of Dire Straits "Telegraph Road"
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Post by Pickers Ditch on Dec 31, 2019 14:42:39 GMT
....update, after a bit of thought I remembered an old dusty record player in the loft. Give me a few hours for an ol' mans post lunch kip and I'll give it a clean to see wots occurring. Wait out.....
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Post by bonzo on Dec 31, 2019 15:57:31 GMT
Hi Jono, I'm in my 60th year of collecting, I've thinned down my collection a few times over the years and now have around 1000 albums. Quite a few, but I have friends that have collections in the 10's of thousands! Over the years I've upgraded my system, swapping,trading and finding bargains. I've now got what I think is a good sounding system both vinyl and CD. As an aside, a good vinyl system will always sound better than a good digital system. NO ARGUMENT! (All things being equal of course). To answer your question about burning in, books have been written on the subject. I always listen to an album that I'm really familiar with, Paul Simons Graceland springs to mind and as well as listening to the lyrics feel the rythmn. Hopefully you'll be getting more than with your previous gear. Bear in mind that you will be listening to the equipment at first and it takes a while to get back to the music! Enjoy!
Best wishes to you all, and a very happy New year. John
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Post by jono1uk on Dec 31, 2019 17:35:05 GMT
how NOT to clean your vinyl
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Post by bonzo on Dec 31, 2019 17:45:29 GMT
Oh my dear, if one doesn't have a Moth disc washer with vacuum dirt extractor one really shouldn't bother daaarling! Lol!
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Post by Michael Messer on Dec 31, 2019 19:41:29 GMT
The subject of hifi is an interesting and personal one and this is not in any way meant to sound anything more than my opinion and is absolutely not a criticism of anyone else's opinions.
I love great high quality sound in my living room. I am not a hifi freak as such, but I kind of am because I am very fussy about good sound.
I have been collecting and listening to music since I was seven years old and have always enjoyed listening to it through a great hifi system. I have owned many systems and in the 1970s was a quadrophonic and stereo direct cut discs freak. I have also been involved in professional recording, mastering and re-mastering for around forty years, and started making records before digital recording had become popular. I have made records (I call all recordings "records") with 2 inch and 1 inch multitrack, quarter inch stereo and various types of digital formats from Betamax tape in the early days to Logic on a Mac in recent years. I have mastered records both with analogue and digital mastering equipment.
When it comes to home hifi amplifiers, I am one hundred percent valve/tube and nothing else comes close. There is a transparency, depth of field and a realism that nothing else can achieve. On the subject of speakers, I like to move some air and have the space in the room for the sound to fully form and therefore am not a fan of small speakers. I am talking about stereo hifi speakers, not small convenient wireless ones. So when it comes to amplifiers and speakers I am very old school. With the other end, the format of the music itself - record, CD or streaming, I am not a fan of compressed digital audio files because too much of the file is stripped away in the compression process, but I am a fan of high quality digital formats, such as CDs and audiophile downloads. I must stress here that the CD does have to be played on something very good and probably not too new. New CD players, unless they cost very big money, are just not up there and sound terrible. But a thirty year old high quality Denon or Marantz for example, is really a whole different thing. Back then they built CD players to sound amazing and in good working order they still do. An audiophile download must be transferred to the amplifier via something a lot more meaty than a USB or 3.5 headphone jack, because they are just not up to it. I believe that much of the current interest in vinyl is because most of the CD players are so bad. I recently did some research on this and was quite shocked at how bad they are.
In the days of vinyl when I started making professional recordings there would be a final listen to the finished master on quarter inch reel to reel tape before it went to be manufactured. This was always a wonderful but also sad moment, because unless you took a direct copy of the quarter inch tape, which I often did, you would never hear the recording that good again! Believe me that me any many other professional recording people tried. No matter how good the pressing was or what deck it was played on, it never had the bandwidth or transparency of that original reel to reel master. It did have a great sound, but that sound was not as full or real as the original. Hearing your own album on vinyl for the first time was always disappointing. I know many producers and musicians that went through the same thing.
Then in 1989 for the first time I heard an album I had made on a CD in my living room and it totally blew my mind, because for the first time, sitting in my living room listening to my album I heard the same sound as I heard when the master was played at the mastering studio. There was no loss of quality and I had never experienced that before. I have had this discussion with a friend that is one of London's leading mastering engineers. He has mastered numerous big records over the past 40 years and these days is known for his exceptional vinyl masters. In his living room he listens to CDs. I am not saying this to appear as a "know all" or to be dominant, but because there is another side to the discussion about vinyl versus digital. To sum up my point, if the CD or other digital format is well mastered and is listened to through a high-end audiophile valve amp, it sounds as good as it can get. Digital formats have a wider bandwidth which allows for more to be heard, whereas vinyl has a narrow, but very sweet sound. Vinyl is tactile and is fun to handle, and it is big which makes for interesting packaging, but I prefer to listen to a whole album without having to turn it over and I like the CD format for artwork, because when it is done well it is extremely effective.
I have many shelves of vinyl records, but I do not own a record deck and unless something changes my mind, I have no intention of getting one. I've done that one and no longer have an Emitex cleaning cloth, a Calotherm anti-static cloth, or a Dust Bug! (Dust Bugs were very cool!!!)
Shine On Michael
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Post by Pickers Ditch on Dec 31, 2019 19:48:52 GMT
Update 2.
It is (was) a PILOT Encore record player.
The deck is bu88ered, the rubber mat has perished, the belt has disappeared and the motor has siezed. Now I know why it was in the loft.
However, the cabinet is in good nick and the amp has VALVES!
Now that has set me to thinking.....
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Post by jono1uk on Dec 31, 2019 19:53:12 GMT
Thanks Michael can you give me a few recommendations of old CD players to look for please?
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