Vinyl & turntables

[Flay]

I 'inherited' some classic early lps. Such as 60s Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp , etc., from a dodgy uncle.
They've mainly gone to Cancer Research who have an expert pricing them. When I've wandered in and seen what I could get in ebay or Amazon for Quadrophenia plus inserts ..... well, I didn't mind. (that much!) as it benefits others ..

So long as they were sold for reasonable prices and went to good homes.

I fired up my humble Technics turntable recently to find that the belt had rotted away. Fortunately a replacement was cheap and easy to find on the net.

One word of caution - the younger generation have no idea how to handle vinyl records and styluses. Ensure they are tutored before letting the offspring at the turntable. I learnt this the hard way...

[umslopogaas]

Flay, that word of caution is well spoken. My nephew gets my LP collection when I shuffle off, but he needs a quick lesson in how to handle them. They arent scratch-proof like the silver discs ...

Interesting that the replacement drive belt was"cheap". The belts for my Thorens cost £16 quid when I last bought one, which seems rather pricey to me for a rubber band.

[amateur51]

I was following this thread this afternoon and it made me go and find my old Thorens turntable in the loft. It's now dusted and sitting in the living room. My Naim system does not have a phono stage, they like you to pay an extra £325 to plug your record player into your amp.

Anyway, I haven't got any LPs any more, sold them all about 10 years ago.

Why did I get my turntable down??

You wanted to sell it to Throppers?

[Flay]

Interesting that the replacement drive belt was"cheap". The belts for my Thorens cost £16 quid when I last bought one, which seems rather pricey to me for a rubber band.

£6.25 from gettheneedle.co.uk

[umslopogaas]

Thanks Flay, I must lay in a couple of spares. Its not a rare thing, but here we are again, megabucks worth of equipment rendered potentially useless for the need of a tuppence worth spare.

But I reckon i could repair a worn-out drive belt, if I couldnt get a new one. Basically, they wear out by stretching, so all I would do is cut a bit out, then reglue the cut ends together.

[Flay]

No, mine had fallen to pieces. It hadn't been used for a good few years. It's fine now though.

I suspect they are very carefully constructed to give the correct tension and elasticity.

[umslopogaas]

Can you get the for3 administrators to email me your mailing address?

[richardfinegold]

I was following this thread this afternoon and it made me go and find my old Thorens turntable in the loft. It's now dusted and sitting in the living room. My Naim system does not have a phono stage, they like you to pay an extra £325 to plug your record player into your amp.

Anyway, I haven't got any LPs any more, sold them all about 10 years ago.

Why did I get my turntable down??

Nostalgia. Reading about vinyl does that.
Project sells Phono stages that work for about $100. You can probably get a decent used phono stage on e bay for much less.
Of course, you will have to decide if you want tubes or solid state. IMO, a Naim based system, which emphasizes "pace", work better solid state, and avoiding tubes (otherwise known as "valves" on your side of the pond) will be one less headache for you.

[Ferretfancy]

The overall tone of this thread seems to suggest that vinyl was always a problem due to poor pressings, crackle and pop. I certainly did have some problems in the days when LP was the only medium, but it took me some time to discover why. The problem was mainly due to the custom encouraged by the audio magazines of trying to achieve even lower tracking weights with moving magnet cartridges such as the high compliance Shure V15
This was a perfect way of causing distortion and groove wear and led to serious mistracking.

I lost count of the time I spent tinkering with pickup arms, particularly the SME with it's curiously unstable knife edge bearings. At some time in the 1970's I bought a second hand Linn Sondek turntable from a friend, and it is still in use after a few upgrades. I use a lower compliance moving coil cartridge with a tracking weight of 1.9 grams, and have carefully cleaned my large collection of LPs. Of course, in a big collection there are a few members of the awkward squad, but they are in a small minority.

Given that there are many fine performances that have not appeared on CD, it makes sense to take those discs down from the attic if space permits. In my Meridian system the analogue inputs such as LP and FM are converted to digital format by the sound processor, and remain as digital up to the loudspeakers before being re-converted to analogue. I then sit down to enjoy the music.

[Beef Oven!]

Nostalgia. Reading about vinyl does that.
Project sells Phono stages that work for about $100. You can probably get a decent used phono stage on e bay for much less.
Of course, you will have to decide if you want tubes or solid state. IMO, a Naim based system, which emphasizes "pace", work better solid state, and avoiding tubes (otherwise known as "valves" on your side of the pond) will be one less headache for you.

Yes, nostalgia indeed!

I'm actually going to ditch my Naim system and get a pair of active speakers and hook my laptop, iPad, iPod and now, hopefully my turntable!

Will need some kind ov audio interface for that (cross that bridge when I come to it).

My speakers' delivery date has been put back to 10th Novemeber

[richardfinegold]

Yes, nostalgia indeed!

I'm actually going to ditch my Naim system and get a pair of active speakers and hook my laptop, iPad, iPod and now, hopefully my turntable!

Will need some kind ov audio interface for that (cross that bridge when I come to it).



My speakers' delivery date has been put back to 10th Novemeber

Do your active speakers take analog inputs? If so, then all you need is a basic phono stage

[Beef Oven!]

Do your active speakers take analog inputs? If so, then all you need is a basic phono stage

I didn't check. Will see when they arrive! Not really up on this sort of thing. should find a work-around one way or another. I guess I'll need to ask on here when I hit a snag!!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Can you get the for3 administrators to email me your mailing address?

unslopogaas, have you found my Private Messages?

Look for "Notifications", highlighted in red towards the top right hand side of the screen, and click on it...

[umslopogaas]

Ein Alp, no I hadnt, but I see there is a message flagged up at the top of the page, so I'll investigate. The hifi man says he will make a CD of that LP, but I'm not sure when he will get round to it. Gives me a good excuse to drop in regularly and badger him (they do very good coffee).

[umslopogaas]

Ein Alp and Caliban, points duly noted. I dont want to prolong this issue, but would either of you like to post on it? It seems to be of general interest, there must be many readers who have similar thoughts.