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Turntables - help me understand the appeal?

MattHooper

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MattHooper

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Another reason why I enjoy listening to my music on vinyl is that it’s a break from the world of computers and screens. Like many I work on a computer, then there is leisure time often spent on the internet, and there is the constant tug from my smart phone for attention.

As I’ve mentioned I operate my digital music sources via an iPad and my iPhone. But after spending the day looking at computer screens it feels like the last thing I want to do is stare at and interact with more screens and digits.
I find it such a welcome relief to be able to unplug from the digital life even briefly and sink back in to the “analog world” of tactile objects and mechanical devices.

Reading a nice book - not on a kindle or damned iPad or whatever, but a physical book - also seems to provided a much needed, nourishing break.

I think this is one of he reasons I found I never have used my iPad much. Working and surfing the web is a much more ergonomic and pleasant experience for me on my nice desktop computer and when I want to take a break, just heading off to the sofa to interact with yet another computer screen just isn’t appealing.
 

Frank Dernie

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Another reason why I enjoy listening to my music on vinyl is that it’s a break from the world of computers and screens. Like many I work on a computer, then there is leisure time often spent on the internet, and there is the constant tug from my smart phone for attention.

As I’ve mentioned I operate my digital music sources via an iPad and my iPhone. But after spending the day looking at computer screens it feels like the last thing I want to do is stare at and interact with more screens and digits.
I find it such a welcome relief to be able to unplug from the digital life even briefly and sink back in to the “analog world” of tactile objects and mechanical devices.

Reading a nice book - not on a kindle or damned iPad or whatever, but a physical book - also seems to provided a much needed, nourishing break.

I think this is one of he reasons I found I never have used my iPad much. Working and surfing the web is a much more ergonomic and pleasant experience for me on my nice desktop computer and when I want to take a break, just heading off to the sofa to interact with yet another computer screen just isn’t appealing.
I tend to agree with this, but my solution has been CD. I do play LPs when what I happen to want to listen to next is on LP rather than CD but mainly it is CDs.
My solution to the phone problem is to switch off all notifications. I absolutely abhor the idea of being a slave to a phone, or, worse, having it congratulate me for achieving a goal. How on earth did anybody think this would be a nice idea? It took me ages to get rid of all the irritating defaults.
I look at my emails when I feel like it on my desktop - usually just first thing in the morning. I don't have emails on my phone or anything else except a family whatsapp which is the only thing I have notifications for so if I need to help out a family member I know straight away.
Anything else can wait and if somebody is upset about me not instantly replying - tough.
OTOH I only read magazines on an iPad now which I find convenient, but never books. I got a Kindle years ago and got a couple of books but never got into it. I have hundreds of books instead.
 

Sal1950

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I look at my emails when I feel like it on my desktop - usually just first thing in the morning. I don't have emails on my phone or anything else except a family whatsapp which is the only thing I have notifications for so if I need to help out a family member I know straight away.
Anything else can wait and if somebody is upset about me not instantly replying - tough.
Agreed, I carry a dumb flip phone, it does exactly what phones were made for, making phone calls.
And half the time I leave it sitting on the kitchen counter when I go out.
Got a dang good voice mail system to handle things when I'm gone.
Smart phones have developed the rudest generation in history.
They expect the whole world to stop when they get a call no matter what or who else they're involved with at the time.
My magazines are in the mag rack in the library (Bathroom). ;)
 

MattHooper

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I tend to agree with this, but my solution has been CD. I do play LPs when what I happen to want to listen to next is on LP rather than CD but mainly it is CDs.
My solution to the phone problem is to switch off all notifications. I absolutely abhor the idea of being a slave to a phone, or, worse, having it congratulate me for achieving a goal. How on earth did anybody think this would be a nice idea? It took me ages to get rid of all the irritating defaults.
I look at my emails when I feel like it on my desktop - usually just first thing in the morning. I don't have emails on my phone or anything else except a family whatsapp which is the only thing I have notifications for so if I need to help out a family member I know straight away.
Anything else can wait and if somebody is upset about me not instantly replying - tough.
OTOH I only read magazines on an iPad now which I find convenient, but never books. I got a Kindle years ago and got a couple of books but never got into it. I have hundreds of books instead.

Believe me I understand the sentiment!

That said, unlike a great many people today it sounds like your job doesn't require immediate attention to alerts or emails. Lucky you.
If I had turned off alerts or email on my phone today I wouldn't have a job by the end of the day.

Gotta unplug tonight with a nice book....
 

Hypnotoad

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That said, unlike a great many people today it sounds like your job doesn't require immediate attention to alerts or emails. Lucky you.
If I had turned off alerts or email on my phone today I wouldn't have a job by the end of the day.

Gotta unplug tonight with a nice book....

Same here, when I retired I disconnected my cell phone, and haven't had another one, it's heaven, I would get calls day and night, it was driving me nuts, no one can make a decision on there own today it seems.
 

Guermantes

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Deinstalled my Sony PS-8750, don't listen to vinyl anymore. Great player and rare as hen's teeth - http://www.thevintageknob.org/sony-PS-8750.html. Got all original parts including cart w. replaced Shibata stylus, serviced w. new capacitors & IC. Original Sony mat scrapped, oil stiffened due to old age, Herb's mat now.

View attachment 24298
But just looking at that turntable makes me want to hear it . . .

It's been interesting watching my young son (just turned 4) interacting with technology and music. Though he's part of a generation that will grow up having virtually every device around him connected to the internet, he engages most with music when there is some physical object or activity involved. He loves cassette tapes and CDs and insists on loading and pressing the buttons himself. He even has a personal collection of CDs now that has to travel with him from house to car, etc. He knows which track numbers are his favourites and calls out his requests from the back seat in the car after selecting a disc to play. We have an electronic music keyboard with in-built songs and sheet music books to go with them. When he sits down at the keyboard, he will dial up a song number and request to see the sheet music page. He knows that the keyboard can play the individual notes and attempts to play along sometimes but he's no Lang Lang.

He knows I have a turntable (a low-end Luxman with an AT150MLX cartridge) and sometimes asks to see it but currently it's out of bounds. It's a nostalgia item for me but what is it for him? A fascinating machine that makes music! That childlike wonder . . . I can't deny that it's infectious!
 

Frank Dernie

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Believe me I understand the sentiment!

That said, unlike a great many people today it sounds like your job doesn't require immediate attention to alerts or emails. Lucky you.
If I had turned off alerts or email on my phone today I wouldn't have a job by the end of the day.

Gotta unplug tonight with a nice book....
I haven’t been an employee since 1997 when one’s emails showed up on the desktop PC. That was when the internet was still good before all the marketing, misinformation mongers and criminals learned to use it...
I retired at the end of 2009 when few people yet expected instant replies to emails though I did work 60 - 90 hours a week.
I have a smartphone but it is for my benefit not that of others.
I haven’t played an LP this week but am currently streaming Mahler’s 1st Symphony from the Berlin Philharmonic web site - splendid video quality too.
 

JJB70

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The one thing I like about vinyl is the sleeve art, I know CDs replicate it and you can get it with online downloads and streaming but there is something nice about a proper LP sleeve.
 

Sal1950

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The one thing I like about vinyl is the sleeve art, I know CDs replicate it and you can get it with online downloads and streaming but there is something nice about a proper LP sleeve.
Yea, there will never be another Cheech & Chong's Big Bambu and it's giant rolling paper. :D
 

RCAguy

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I've come a little late to this party, which after reading 21 pages has been very interesting - better contributions than on any other forum. For those interested in improving their vinyl reproduction to get all that is baked in the groove, especially for older music that isn't available elsewhere, there's my (Robin Miller) how-to book The Better Sound of the Phonograph. It contains valuable info for newbies, audiophiles, and restorers about the "sound of the stylus" and how to choose a replacement, to DIY instructions for an audiophile-grade RIAA preamp and 12in transcription tonearm. All about skating, arm alignment, optimizing resonance with free tools, and much more, it's available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and bookstores supplied by Ingram publishing.
 

sergeauckland

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I've come a little late to this party, which after reading 21 pages has been very interesting - better contributions than on any other forum. For those interested in improving their vinyl reproduction to get all that is baked in the groove, especially for older music that isn't available elsewhere, there's my (Robin Miller) how-to book The Better Sound of the Phonograph. It contains valuable info for newbies, audiophiles, and restorers about the "sound of the stylus" and how to choose a replacement, to DIY instructions for an audiophile-grade RIAA preamp and 12in transcription tonearm. All about skating, arm alignment, optimizing resonance with free tools, and much more, it's available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and bookstores supplied by Ingram publishing.
I can also recommend John Crabbe's book 'HiFi In The Home' and what I consider to be a seminal work, Percy Wilson's book 'The Gramophone Handbook ' published in 1957. This book predates stereo as a consumer format, but he touches on it as a future development. It's so right about what matters and what doesn't.

S.
 

Soniclife

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It's there a simple and cheep way to measure the frequency response of a cartridge? I'd like to know what mine is.
 

SIY

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It's there a simple and cheep way to measure the frequency response of a cartridge? I'd like to know what mine is.

Only with a test record, and trust me, there's no two the same!
 

sergeauckland

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It's there a simple and cheep way to measure the frequency response of a cartridge? I'd like to know what mine is.
You need a test LP with an accurate frequency response sweep or set of individual frequencies, such as the Decca Frequency Response LP, or you can use white or pink noise, but again, this must be accurate. My experience of using several test LPs is that those available to the 'public' are poor in terms of accuracy, as they're meant to be evaluated by listening. Laboratory standard LPs, such as the Decca, JVC or Ortofon I don't think are available any more as new.

For accuracy, the Decca test LP specified that it was guaranteed only for 5 plays each side, and whilst that's probably excessively pessimistic, LPs do wear at HF, so a test LP that's been used many time is unlikely still to be accurate.

Then there's the issue of how good your RIAA stage is. Assuming it's within 0.5dB, then errors in the cartridge and LP are likely to swamp that, but with certain phono stages that may not be the case. You can measure directly off the back of the cartridge, but noise gets in the way, so you have to pay close attention to capacitance and screening of any interconnect cables. MM cartridges are very sensitive to capacitance and resistance termination, so if you're measuring a MM cartridge, it's pretty much necessary to treat the cartridge/arm cabling/phono stage as one entity. MC cartridges are much more tolerant, but the signal levels are a lot lower, so making noise-free measurements more difficult.

After all this, in answer to your question, is there a simple and cheap way to measure the frequency response of a cartridge, I have to say, no.

S
 

Hypnotoad

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For a system with so many mechanical moving parts it really is amazing the sound quality that can be obtained from Vinyl. Except for a few die hard's maybe it's time has passed but it served us well, with the first long play record introduced in 1948.
 

TerryO

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I'm probably giving away my age, but the first records I ever bought and listened to, were all 78's! Later there were 45s and finally 33 1/3 records. Many records were recorded and much Classical music was available in analog records, but have never been released in a digital format. The best LP's nearly always sound better than CD's although some later digital formats aren't bad at all. I prefer analog LP's as I can't afford the cost of R2R tape like The Tape Project's products, which are far better than digital or anything else, however unfortunately are far too expensive for my budget!
 

GGroch

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Welcome Terry!
I am old too...but if you started with 78s you are OLD. All of my formative music listening was done on LPs. 45s were very popular as I grew up, but I have never been a top 40 singles guy.

The vast majority of posters at ASR will disagree with your assertion that the best LP's usually (or ever) sound better than CDs or more advanced digital formats.

LP's are objectively inferior in terms of accurate sonic reproduction. HOWEVER, in my view, very often the experience of listening to LP's, in terms of appreciation of the music. Whether it is the liner notes, or the process of playing an LP forces you to slow down and focus, the experience is often better.

Very much analogous I think to reading newspapers or books vs the internet. There is no question but that there is more information accessible faster online. But our understanding of that information, and our ability to incorporate it to enhance understanding, is another thing entirely.
 

Sal1950

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I'm probably giving away my age, but the first records I ever bought and listened to, were all 78's! Later there were 45s and finally 33 1/3 records. Many records were recorded and much Classical music was available in analog records, but have never been released in a digital format. The best LP's nearly always sound better than CD's although some later digital formats aren't bad at all. I prefer analog LP's as I can't afford the cost of R2R tape like The Tape Project's products, which are far better than digital or anything else, however unfortunately are far too expensive for my budget!


Like SET tube amps, vinyl sounds wonderful to those who would rather listen to nostalgic distortions than accurately reproduced music
 
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