Taz Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 Have lots of CD's. Well a few anyhow. The big question is should I go to Vinyl for the K Horn set up. I will soon have old Stereo Console that I believe is a Magnavox. That will go in the master bedroom. No where else to put it. It will be gone through and play Vinyl. Don't know if tube or not. Just know my Grandmother wants me to have it. Besides it looks like new. Well as usual for me, I started on one subject and rambled into another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tube fanatic Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 The tonearms used in most of those old turntables as found in the 50s and 60s consoles track with excessive force (we used to refer to their tracking force in "pounds" back then, although it wasn't quite that bad!). In addition, the styluses weren't exactly benign in their treatment of records either. So, in considering going to vinyl, you may want to install a modern turntable (with a built-in preamp) in the interest of preserving the records that you play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 My uncle had a Heathkit system with a Garard changer set to 6 grams with a GE VR1I which tracked perfectly with ZERO distortion accross the whole record. Never seen anything or heard anything that would even come close to it's performance and I have heard a lot of records and turntables. There were no pops, crackles, or rumble. Not even one pop and if you played a record that you know had pops it would not pop on his system. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tube fanatic Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 My uncle had a Heathkit system with a Garard changer set to 6 grams with a GE VR1I which tracked perfectly with ZERO distortion accross the whole record. Never seen anything or heard anything that would even come close to it's performance and I have heard a lot of records and turntables. There were no pops, crackles, or rumble. Not even one pop and if you played a record that you know had pops it would not pop on his system. JJK With a 6 gram tracking force I'm surprised that you didn't see vinyl shreds coming off when the record was played!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
consistent Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 I went back to vinyl about a month ago. Found my old Kenwood KD 500, bought a Rega arm with special mod (weights) from ebay and bought one of my favourite cartridges Garrott P77 also from ebay. Bought the right chemicals to clean up some of the old vinyl, even pulled out my old zerostat gun. Wow! All I can say is still WOW! Do it Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 If you really want to hear what LPs can sound like, get a decent turntable with a modern cartridge. You'll get good sound and low record wear, two things we didn't get with that old gear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boxx Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 Go for it... nothing ventured, nothing gained... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeFord Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 There is some magic through the vinyl door, but its an expensive one to open. Its also kind of like fire, below a threshold in an analog system you get warmth, but no fire. The turntable, arm, cartridge, and phono stage need to work as a system and be above some level of quality, lots of different combos can work, but I haven't seen it done for less than $2k or so. Obviously a $29 USB "record player" works, makes sound, but it isn't remotely close to what a good system can do. OTOH lots of fun to be had buying old LPs and listening to things that never made it to digital. Major downside is that good vinyl systems are floated in snake oil and people much more interested in taking your money than getting you good sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 Tube Fanatic: I also thought that. I was impressed with not hearing any trumpet fuzz, voice fuzz, or any kind of fuzz. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted August 1, 2011 Share Posted August 1, 2011 There is some magic through the vinyl door, but its an expensive one to open. Its also kind of like fire, below a threshold in an analog system you get warmth, but no fire. The turntable, arm, cartridge, and phono stage need to work as a system and be above some level of quality, lots of different combos can work, but I haven't seen it done for less than $2k or so. Obviously a $29 USB "record player" works, makes sound, but it isn't remotely close to what a good system can do. OTOH lots of fun to be had buying old LPs and listening to things that never made it to digital. Major downside is that good vinyl systems are floated in snake oil and people much more interested in taking your money than getting you good sound. Not sure I'd go that far. Yeah, you open that door you are going to need a fair to middlin table, arm cart. Then you have police up some lps to play and with any aspect of this hobby, you will be tweaking, and fiddlin, upgrading and messin, tradin and braggin. Phono section, if you aint got one you will want a fairly decent one. Table, an old Empire will make you happy. Arm. Rega RB 250/300 an you're in clover. for 2 bills. Cart, a Shure Mx97e for $60 or get fancy with an Ortofon MM for two bills. If your phono stage supports it, Denon MC 103 or 103R for two bills. Records, Goodwill, friends, estate and garage sales and you've got a collection before you know it. $1 K tops, (can be done well for $400) and you will probably stop listening to cd, cause the steel and grit will irritate your teeth,not to mention your ears. There were literally millions of TT's produced in the '70's and '80-'s and probably at least a quarter of them were not junk. Think about that for a minute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeFord Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 There were literally millions of TT's produced in the '70's and '80-'s and probably at least a quarter of them were not junk. Think about that for a minute. Junk, not junk, good, very good, magic, and magic and revealing would be how I would class vinyl systems. Older Thorens are the gateway drug, and depending on model etc I place them in the good to very good class. KD500 with good arm is very good, Technics SL1200 with a sticky mat is very good, so are many others. Not that I am a Linn fan, but Linn I place as the gateway to magic, Rega has never made the magic for me. Goldmund, Well Tempered Table, those to me are ones that are both revealing and magical when coupled with the right stuff. The very good, but short of magic stuff can be very pleasant, its highly euphonic, lots of added reverb and EQ, plus add some tube mellow and its syrup to pancakes, hard not to like. My two cents on magic, low frequency noise is hard to tame in vinyl due to bearings and playback EQ, but its critical spatial information. Until the noise is below some threshold your ear won't process the localization cues well, and the sound stage won't really open up. LPs pick up a lot of vibration from the air, and from the needle, those vibrations need to be damped. The rest of the magic I think is mostly cartridge and arm related, and fairly straight forward physics. What took a lot of the fun out of vinyl for me is the lack top quality cartridges at anything like reasonable prices. Sign me a Shure V15 type 5 MR fan to the bitter end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybobg Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Not too sure I'd go with the old console.[^o)] Then again, I fix and use old stuff all the time. [H] I love my vinyl and reel to reels. Enjoy[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psg Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 My uncle had a Heathkit system with a Garard changer set to 6 grams with a GE VR1I which tracked perfectly with ZERO distortion accross the whole record. Never seen anything or heard anything that would even come close to it's performance and I have heard a lot of records and turntables. There were no pops, crackles, or rumble. Not even one pop and if you played a record that you know had pops it would not pop on his system. JJK With a 6 gram tracking force I'm surprised that you didn't see vinyl shreds coming off when the record was played!!! Yeah! Way back when, I had two DJ turntables with a Shure DJ cartridge, maybe the same as the SC35C still sold now. They sit at 90 degrees so you can spin them in either direction. As I recall, we'd track at 3 gram, which was huge compared to about 1 gram used on home tables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gagelle Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 My parents had one of those and I used it constantly when I was a kid. It had a mono tube amplifier with a built in turntable. (In fact, I saw one recently at a flea market.) It sounded great but I never considered the condition of the stylus. It didn't get too loud without breaking up, but I was really pushing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gagelle Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 That's a good one. Yea, 6 grams, you won't hear any pops but will tear apart the record. I'm sure I destroyed some of my albums with my parent's Magnavox. Its function was more as furniture than anything else. Although the tube amp wasn't bad. I used to play "Tommy" on it and the cymbals sounded amazing--very clean and distinct. On solid state, they sound more like they're running together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gagelle Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Those Shure cartridges were something. I remember when the Sure V15 Type ll came out. Man, am I old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gagelle Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I bought a restored Thorens 160 and put on a SME tonearm. I made the mistake of getting a MC high output cartridge. I would have done much better with a good MM. So I had to spend more money on a phono preamp--a Sutherland PH3D. Once I had the preamp set up correctly, wow, the whole sound stage opened up. In retrospect, for the money I spent, I could have bought a really nice, new setup with a MM cartridge. Live and learn. No matter what I buy in the future, I can always use the Sutherland. Ron Sutherland actually wrote to me and guided me through the preamp setup. I was so dense. I didn't know that you must plug a phono preamp into a regular input, like an AUX jack, not the phono jacks. It wasn't in the instructions and I wasn't thinking that I would be phono preamping twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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