Record (vinyl) turntable. I'm needing your advice.

[FishFright]

Nice friends you got!

I know !

 

[MontyVeda]

Hands up those who criticise high end audio and have actually spent anytime listening to any .

I have... I'd still rather spend my money on the music rather then the 'high end' kit to play it on. The set up I have sounds fine to me and that's all that matters

anyway... @PaulB ...what do you currently listen to music on?

 

[Cycleops]

My QUAD 303's are only 45 watts per channel, admitedly I use 2 of them (bi-amped so that each drive unit has its own channel) but they gp plenty loud enough,

Oh okay. I thought you might be boasting about these:

 

[Profpointy]

Hands up those who criticise high end audio and have actually spent anytime listening to any .

Well.... I guess I have. I've got medium nice kit, albeit currently in disarray, and when it was all plugged in I had a professional level studio sound card (which I got secondhand), a middling amplifier: Cyrrus 2 previously then a Meridian, and some astonishingly good Kef 105/3 speakers - apparently £3k new (£500 secondhand). All pretty good kit, and I don't think I'd have been disappointed had I gone crazy and splashed the £3k for the Kefs new. I do appreciate good sound, and to a degree at least, you get what you pay for.

But I had occasion to hear an extremely high end system after going round to visit some hi-fi consultants (I'd bought a minor item off them via fleabay). I got the full treatment - and just to be clear they weren't realistically going to sell me a system, they were just genuine enthusiasts. But the the thing was their system sounded awful to me - and to put it in perspective they had something like £60k of Naim amplifers, a £10k digital streamer thingy, also Naim and a fully upgrade Linn which was I guess also £10k. The speakers no doubt in the same ball park. It just sounded unpleasant to me. They also had some odd ideas: the speakers supposedly would go up to 60kHz - when even the youngest amongst us cant't hear beyond 20kHz and maybe 15kHz is a push for many of, and even if you could hear it it ain't on the record in the first place. They had an explanation for why it still mattered, but it was utter bollocks. They genuinely believed all this and were nice people but there was a lot of nonsense too.

These days, the cheap kit is so much better than it was too, but that said, I'm so pleased with my Kef speakers, as I was with my Linn record player back in the day.

I must finish getting it all fired up again

after the great PC motherboard disaster!

 

[mistyoptic]

. They had an explanation for why it still mattered, but it was utter bollocks. They genuinely believed all this and were nice people but there was a lot of nonsense too.

to be a true hifi “aficionado” you need to be like the White Queen in Alice and be able to “believe six impossible things before breakfast”. I’ve been to hifi shows and, like you, some of the systems left me cold. On the other hand after one demo I wanted to applaud, the system sounded sooooo good. Cost more than I paid for my house, mind!

Some of the stuff they spout defies belief. Cryo-treated mains fuses for £45 anyone?

 

[mistyoptic]

Hey everyone,

I had some really good advice on here about a dash-cam I was buying last week so am asking the same question about getting back to playing vinyl records again.

Things seem to have changed so much since the olden days (1980/90s). I went into a branch of Richer Sounds yesterday hoping to leave with a suitable system but came out more confused than when I walked in. All this pre-amp stuff was a bit too much for my simple mind so anyone here with some advice would be gratefully accepted.

Firstly, the system recommended by the Richer Sounds guy wasn't in stock so I'd have to buy it on line. Secondly, the cost seemed OK to me...until he announced I'd need speakers to go with it and the ones he suggested were more expensive than the turntable taking the cost of the whole set up to over £1,000!

Looking on Amazon is doing me no good because, like with the dash-cam, there are just too many pages and so much conflicting advice/suggestions. All I want is a record player than will allow me to begin playing 12 inch albums again.

So if anyone has a system they like and sounds great, please let me know and I'll gratefully receive all forumites' recommendations.

I guess the other point which needs to be addressed is “how much vinyl do you have?” If you’ve got loads from BITD that’s one thing. If you’re planning to start buying it afresh, I would ask “why?”

This will determine how much it’s worth spending. Also, what will you play it through. Do you have some sound system to attach your vinyl player to, or do you want a complete system?

 

[PaulB]

Firstly, what do you currently listen to music on?

Can you plug a turntable into that? (via an Aux input, possibly).

I'm old school so have a separates system; amp, tuner, cd, cassette deck, mini-disc and turntable... which makes things easy.

If you just have just a phone with spotify and a bluetooth speaker, then you'll need to invest in more than just a turntable.

edit... the salesperson in Richer Sounds will try to make you spend more than you need to. Don't listen to them

Well I don't listen to music at home much any more. I used to only listen in the car but my new vehicle doesn't have a CD player and I don't have one round the house. I do have a Foxl bluetooth speaker which I use if we have people round but other than that, I'm starting from scratch really. Hoping to get the old and newer vinyl records spinning PDQ.

 

[Profpointy]

This has been posted before but still makes me smile. I reckon the cartoonist is mocking himself as the kit portrayed is very realistic so the artist is clearly something of an enthusiast himseld

Back in the day, hi end vinyl was genuinely superior to CD. Basically there was no comparison, not just subtle as CD was seriously over hyped. These days not so much, as digital technology has advanced so much and got so cheap. It's even possible to get high quality digital downloads that are the same as the original studio masters before it even gets on the vinyl record; admittedly these are higher quality than CD, but only slightly.

 

[mistyoptic]

This has been posted before but still makes me smile. I reckon the cartoonist is mocking himself as the kit portrayed is very realistic so the artist is clearly something of an enthusiast himseld

Back in the day, hi end vinyl was genuinely superior to CD. Basically there was no comparison, not just subtle as CD was seriously over hyped. These days not so much, as digital technology has advanced so much and got so cheap. It's even possible to get high quality digital downloads that are the same as the original studio masters before it even gets on the vinyl record; admittedly these are higher quality than CD, but only slightly. View attachment 626514

In a similar but older vein


View: https://youtu.be/7fJmmDkvQyc

 

[Smokin Joe]

Well I don't listen to music at home much any more. I used to only listen in the car but my new vehicle doesn't have a CD player and I don't have one round the house.

I would think your in-car sound system has either a USB or memory card slot? It is easy enough to copy CD's onto them and take in the car.

 

[yello]

Hands up those who criticise high end audio and have actually spent anytime listening to any .

I don't criticise it but neither do I prioritise it. I've listened to brother no. 1's set up and, yes, the sound quality is far superior to mine, I can hear that as clear as day, but I'm kinda 'so what?' about it tbh. That's his thing and that's cool. It's not for me though.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

I stopped, very deliberately, maybe 13-14 years ago as I recognised the treadmill I was on and the only thing I added since was a little media player & streamer.

Anyhow, What Hi Fi's take contains an ultra-simple solution which looks good:

https://www.whathifi.com/features/3-great-music-systems-for-playing-vinyl

 

[Cycleops]

Heres one for all you HiFi buffs:


View: https://youtu.be/pujXTj4X_I4

 

[Profpointy]

A pal of mine was a photographer and one of the magazines he was assigned to covered hi fi (at the moderate end of things). He wasn't himself that interested but recounts an article where they'd covered the stereos owned by three professional musicians: a jazz guy, a rock session musician and a classical player. The article then went on to choose upgraded sets ups for each tailored to their music genres.

The interesting thing was they'd all had quite poor systems, even though they could all hear and appreciate the upgraded set ups. The implication was they were appreciating the actual music and weren't particularly troubled by quality of reproduction, despite all them presumably having a good ear.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

The interesting thing was they'd all had quite poor systems, even though they could all hear and appreciate the upgraded set ups. The implication was they were appreciating the actual music and weren't particularly troubled by quality of reproduction, despite all them presumably having a good ear.

Another explanation could be that if they spent a lot of time playing instruments for a living, maybe they didn't actually spend very much time listening to recorded music so weren't that fussed.