Nice turntables. Attached picture is an absolute requirement.

[Robin L]

Realize I didn't post photos of the last two turntables I owned/used - not counting an old Garrard. That had a flip-over stylus in a ceramic cartridge, used it for 78s.

First, a Strathclyde 305 M with a SME III arm. The cartridge was a Shure 97xe. Like the AR XA, you had to remove the platter to change speed. Options were 33&1/3 or 45 rpm:

This is a very early Technics direct-drive TT, mine had a Shure 44 M-7 cartridge. The Strathclyde was slowly falling apart. The belt was stretching to the point where it required replacement, and I couldn't find one. I was transferring audio discs to digital formats at the time, the Technics deck was more reliable, and the Shure DJ cartridge could track discs the 97xe couldn't. Had to get rid of all my LP related gear when I moved thanks to downsizing. This is a stock photo of the Technics TT:

 

[Kblade]

SME10 with Series IV tonearm. Bought 25 years ago when I was in Audio it’s bulletproof.

 

[dr0ss]

Question : Do you actually use the slide rules tho?

I do. If you drop it in the bathtub, no harm done. In fact, it works better.

(I once had a job where we had to worry about dropping computing devices, slipstick or calculator, into vats of acid or polychlorinated biphenols. Since calculators were hundreds of dollars back then, I used to favor the old/cheap tech.)

 

[Thomas_A]

There's a difference between theoretical capability and music requirements. I attended a live jazz festival last week. For one song during performances by various artists, I recorded a minimum unweighted SPL of 86.5 at my seat. The maximum was 119.9. (And, yes, I was wearing earplugs to protect my hearing.) That comes out to a difference of 33.4 dB between the softest and loudest parts of the song. Live orchestral pieces can have twice that difference. Regardless, it's all compressed in the studio.

What people want and what people need often gets mixed up. But I guess life is teaching us the important stuff, not only SINAD.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Is it just the crest factor or is it also all the other noise and distortion that is introduced into the recording of vinyl playback by the equipment, environmental noise, etc.?

Yup it's the crest factor that makes a clean vinyl pressing appear 1 to 2dB better than it is relative to the master.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

This thing with inaccurately regarding DR result for vinyl I imagine exists. How much such inaccurately can it be about do you think? Generally that is for vinyl that is

Approx 1 to 2 dB benefit in vinyl's favor relative to the original master thanks to crest factor using the DR tool. So if an album on vinyl says 17, it's somewhere between 15 and 16.

BUT, it should be obvious to ANYONE with a bit of science or engineering background that vinyl playback can NOT be more dynamic than digital from the same master! I'm perpetually amazed how often people show the DR numbers from vinyl to prove how great it is! Why don't they scratch their heads and think "how can this be?"

Any one of us here can produce a digital file with music on with a dynamic range of 90+dB via gain-riding. It would be easy if risky to play this via CD, but almost impossible to cut as an LP and totally unplayable.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Of course, you want what you show, if you can choose, but if you only had the two I showed. I wonder how one would experience them?Provided played on a capable record player without squeaking / crackling / static etc

Yes is my favourite band. I have two different original LP pressings as well as the earliest CD releases from the same 90125 master (and all the 12" singles). I also have the various remasters on CD.

At normal listening levels the compressed remaster sounds more impressive with more slam and greater detail. In comparison the uncompressed version sounds softer with less detail. At high volume the uncompressed earlier version sounds better.

 

[DanielT]

Yes is my favourite band. I have two different original LP pressings as well as the earliest CD releases from the same 90125 master (and all the 12" singles). I also have the various remasters on CD.

At normal listening levels the compressed remaster sounds more impressive with more slam and greater detail. In comparison the uncompressed version sounds softer with less detail. At high volume the uncompressed earlier version sounds better.

For the thread itself completely OT BUT because Sal1950 said Yea but Steven Wilson fixed that on his remaster regarding Tears for Fear's album The Tipping Point being heavily compressed from the start.

Plus what you mentioned Yes.

The Steven Wilson Remixes is a box set by the English progressive rock band Yes. Released on 29 June 2018, it compiles remixed versions of five of the band's albums—The Yes Album (1971), Fragile (1971), Close to the Edge (1972), Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973), and Relayer (1974)—overseen by Steven Wilson.

The Steven Wilson Remixes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And here comes a gem for all lovers of Yes and/or prog. Music in that style. A really good album:

The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) is the third solo album by British musician Steven Wilson, released by Kscope Music Records on 25 February 2013. Each track on the album is based on a story of the supernatural. Alan Parsons, who had previously been involved in the creation of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, was responsible for engineering the album.[4][5]

A deluxe, 4-disc edition of the album was released as well, which included a 128-page book of lyrics and ghost stories, with illustrations by Hajo Mueller.[5] In addition to this, the album is also available in stand alone double-vinyl, CD and Blu-ray editions.[4] The album was generally well received critically, and has sold over 100,000 copies.[6]

The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hold on to your hats, because now it's going to be a bass blast:

 

[EJ3]

In the CD player's first year with childhood illnesses (if there were any), maybe. I don't know much about the performance of the first CD players. Their internal DACs from these old first CD players certainly cannot be compared to today's DACs. Audible jitter?

In that time period I had a great Magnavox (Philips) CD player (which easily beat my TT sound), a couple years later I bought a horrible SONY CD player (which certainly did not beat my TT sound). Of course this is objective but it was many, many years before I bought anything SONY again.
So, it was quite possible to have bad quality CD sound in that era.

 

[EJ3]

That's the advanced feature that lowers the noise floor and decreases the wear on your precious vinyl collection.

Maybe the CD slot is on the other side, so that it can then appear to be magically playing great sound?

 

[Sal1950]

In that time period I had a great Magnavox (Philips) CD player (which easily beat my TT sound)

My first CD experience was a Magnavox CDB-560 and the Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms CD.
The Phillips/Magnavox players were the ones that really opened up CD for the masses, before that they were mostly too pricey for the
Joe Sixpacks like myself. I used it for a bunch of years and never had any complaints over it's sound, good recordings always sounded great.
After that I couldn't wait for the day I could replace all my cherished recordings with this glorious sounding new format.

 

[EJ3]

My first CD experience was a Magnavox CDB-560 and the Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms CD.
The Phillips/Magnavox players were the ones that really opened up CD for the masses, before that they were mostly too pricey for the
Joe Sixpacks like myself. I used it for a bunch of years and never had any complaints over it's sound, good recordings always sounded great.
After that I couldn't wait for the day I could replace all my cherished recordings with this glorious sounding new format.
View attachment 402517

They were wonderful. Unfortunately I succumbed to one of the early multiple disc SONY's (and worse, gave my Magnavox to friends (husband & wife) that played in the Charleston Community Band (a 50-60 piece that was sort of a sub-set of the local symphony but played a lot of show tunes, patriotic band music, marches, etc).
For CD's I now use either my SONY RCD-W500C or my oPPo 205 UDP. I'm Very happy with them.
But I will always miss that first Magnavox for the eyeopener that it was so good at the time.

 

[Holmz]

Approx 1 to 2 dB benefit in vinyl's favor relative to the original master thanks to crest factor using the DR tool. So if an album on vinyl says 17, it's somewhere between 15 and 16.

BUT, it should be obvious to ANYONE with a bit of science or engineering background that vinyl playback can NOT be more dynamic than digital from the same master! I'm perpetually amazed how often people show the DR numbers from vinyl to prove how great it is! Why don't they scratch their heads and think "how can this be?"

Any one of us here can produce a digital file with music on with a dynamic range of 90+dB via gain-riding. It would be easy if risky to play this via CD, but almost impossible to cut as an LP and totally unplayable.

Many rooms have a noise floor around 40-45 dB(A).
If one listens at 85dB(A) then 55% of that 90dB is not really needed.
Yeah it looks great on paper, but one really needs the volume cranked towards 11 to even begin to hear the noise.

 

[Robin L]

Many rooms have a noise floor around 40-45 dB(A).
If one listens at 85dB(A) then 55% of that 90dB is not really needed.
Yeah it looks great on paper, but one really needs the volume cranked towards 11 to even begin to hear the noise.

I've got some SACDs where the noise floor of the room eats up the lowest-level signals of the music. Those screaming for completely uncompressed recordings don't understand how recordings work in domestic environments. This is part of the reason why folks continue to enjoy LP reproduction - a lot of them are deliberately compressed. I know people in audiophile circles complain about Brickwalling, but there has been excessive audio compression ever since recordings were first made.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Many rooms have a noise floor around 40-45 dB(A).
If one listens at 85dB(A) then 55% of that 90dB is not really needed.
Yeah it looks great on paper, but one really needs the volume cranked towards 11 to even begin to hear the noise.

Correct. I could record a CD with, say, the end 3 minutes of Holst's Neptune and gradually reduce the gain as the singers leave such that the final sound is at -90dB. You would initially start with the volume knob set so the singers sounded normal in your room. But as the piece went on you would have to keep turning the volume up in order to still hear the singers at the end, above the noise floor in your room.

I could cut the same piece onto an LP, but the noise floor of the LP would drown out the end 30s or so.

 

[Holmz]

Correct. I could record a CD with, say, the end 3 minutes of Holst's Neptune and gradually reduce the gain as the singers leave such that the final sound is at -90dB. You would initially start with the volume knob set so the singers sounded normal in your room. But as the piece went on you would have to keep turning the volume up in order to still hear the singers at the end, above the noise floor in your room.

I could cut the same piece onto an LP, but the noise floor of the LP would drown out the end 30s or so.

Ok - I can think of one more contemporary song where I might want to ride the volume knob… But is it common?
If the noise floor in the room is at 40dB, and we are NOT riding the volume knob… then how maybe dB above or below the noise floor is the music at the end?

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Ok - I can think of one more contemporary song where I might want to ride the volume knob… But is it common?
If the noise floor in the room is at 40dB, and we are NOT riding the volume knob… then how maybe dB above or below the noise floor is the music at the end?

We're talking different things here.

BUT:
You are right - most listening rooms have background noise higher than CD and higher than very clean high quality LPs
You are right - most music is significantly compressed in production and mastering, deliberately so that quiet bits are still audible in normal rooms
You are right - as a result, most of this very compressed music fits in the available SNR from good, clean vinyl
You are right - the bottom 40dB (dithered) of Red Book CD is unused in most music recordings.

So we never needed CD...

 

[Robin L]

We're talking different things here.

BUT:
You are right - most listening rooms have background noise higher than CD and higher than very clean high quality LPs
You are right - most music is significantly compressed in production and mastering, deliberately so that quiet bits are still audible in normal rooms
You are right - as a result, most of this very compressed music fits in the available SNR from good, clean vinyl
You are right - the bottom 40dB (dithered) of Red Book CD is unused in most music recordings.

So we never needed CD...

. . . unless pitch stability was a consideration (no accident that "New Age music became a thing when CDs first appeared).
. . . unless the ticks and pops of typical, average pressings were annoying.
. . . unless one heard record wear and IGD.
Of course, to the record companies the real issue was declining sales. CDs filled that hole nicely. And SACDs and DVD audio appeared as CDs peaked and record companies attempted to stem the tide of file sharing. But we all know how that turned out, don't we?

Sorry about the diversion, here's another turntable:

 

[Multicore]

Signature 12.2 turntable. A new model from Pro-Ject. Out of my price range ($15k), but it looks cool.

I'll take your word for the cool part but I want to know how it is powered. Batteries in the white box?

 

[Willem]

Since I hadn't used my TD-125 for decades, I decided to clean it up and restore it to its original glory prior to offering it up for sale. The refurbishment turned out so well, and the turntable works so perfectly that I decided to keep it, even though I have no space in my current equipment rack to display it.

View attachment 171549

View attachment 171550

With a beautiful SME arm