Why Audiophiles Are Shopping for Vintage Turntables

[Ron Texas]

#notme

 

[sergeauckland]

There were many variables with tape. For an interactive experience nothing beat open reel. LOL

Keeping your recorder optimal? Not a simple task, but a necessary one if you cared about live recording. To keep it in perspective, below is a link to an article by the late Bill Vermillion--recording and radio engineer. An important guy in the Florida music making scene--a man I recall fondly. In his review Bill discusses:

1. Physical head alignment (azimuth alignment)
2. Playback level
3. High frequency playback response
4. Bias adjustment
5. Record level
6. Record high frequency response
7. Low frequency playback

It's worth a glance if only for historical purposes.

http://recordist.com/ampex/docs/align/aligndek.txt

And bear in mind that alignment needs to be done every day, and again for any change of tape. My first job after university was in a studio where the tape machines (Philips Pro 50s and Ampex AG440s) were aligned every morning, which took about an hour. We bought Scotch 206 tape in batches of 100 or so to make sure tapes all came from the same batch as there was enough variation batch to batch to warrant realigning. Maybe our Studio was a bit pedantic, but I learned an awful lot about tape at that time.

S

 

[NoMoFoNo]

I recently discovered good quality digital after years of chasing the phono dragon. Jesus, how exhausting it became, what a great way to burn through cash and acquire endless bits, baubles, gadgetry, with the next 'better' sound threshold just beyond the horizon. I've been very active on another popular forum for years, contributing to the madness that is endless audio pursuit through phono, only registering here after several weeks of discovery of digital playback.

I'm now in the process of simplifying, working out the best way to do streaming, wondering WTH I'm going to do with all of these records, and multiple turntables, and phono preamps, etc, etc, I've acquired along the way. Ugh.

My answer to the question posed by the OP is that I grew up listening to records and was drawn back in by a mix of nostalgia, gear fetishism and ritual. It all became something of a trap though, that thing where I was using the music to listen to the equipment. I also fell into the subjectivist trap, which supports the creation of the endless feedback loop of 'need' for 'larger sound stage', 'more warmth', or 'more transparency', or whatever bit of magical thinking grabbed me any particular week.

I'm glad to have found ASR, which is a small voice of reason in a world of audiophiliac idiocy.

 

[captain paranoia]

#meneither

 

[BDWoody]

I recently discovered good quality digital after years of chasing the phono dragon. Jesus, how exhausting it became, what a great way to burn through cash and acquire endless bits, baubles, gadgetry, with the next 'better' sound threshold just beyond the horizon. I've been very active on another popular forum for years, contributing to the madness that is endless audio pursuit through phono, only registering here after several weeks of discovery of digital playback.

I'm now in the process of simplifying, working out the best way to do streaming, wondering WTH I'm going to do with all of these records, and multiple turntables, and phono preamps, etc, etc, I've acquired along the way. Ugh.

My answer to the question posed by the OP is that I grew up listening to records and was drawn back in by a mix of nostalgia, gear fetishism and ritual. It all became something of a trap though, that thing where I was using the music to listen to the equipment. I also fell into the subjectivist trap, which supports the creation of the endless feedback loop of 'need' for 'larger sound stage', 'more warmth', or 'more transparency', or whatever bit of magical thinking grabbed me any particular week.

I'm glad to have found ASR, which is a small voice of reason in a world of audiophiliac idiocy.

Welcome...and happy to see you jump off the crazy train.

This place really is an oasis in a desert of information... It has saved me so much money, but more importantly the stress of always worrying about what I MAY be missing!

Cheers.

 

[MattHooper]

Welcome!

I recently discovered good quality digital after years of chasing the phono dragon.

I always find that a bit weird because good quality digital has been around for many decades. I've been listening to mostly digital since the late 80's.

My answer to the question posed by the OP is that I grew up listening to records and was drawn back in by a mix of nostalgia, gear fetishism and ritual. It all became something of a trap though, that thing where I was using the music to listen to the equipment. I also fell into the subjectivist trap, which supports the creation of the endless feedback loop of 'need' for 'larger sound stage', 'more warmth', or 'more transparency', or whatever bit of magical thinking grabbed me any particular week.

Totally understand! All the ways vinyl playback can go wrong, and all the tweak/upkeeping would seem to ready to trigger an audiophile's latent audio neurosis. Though, you'd think the accuracy and ease of digital would solve this, yet you can see at least as much audio neurosis in many of the digital/computer audiophile forums! Some proportion of hobbyists will always find something to keep them interested in the gear

As it happens my trajectory was the opposite of yours. I went from listening almost exclusively to digital but found myself more often focusing on the sound than I liked, in the sense of having an unprecedented ease in whipping through tracks to hear "how it sounds on my system." And I found the ubiquitousness of music via digital seemed to somewhat devalue it for me, with the ease of use leading me to surfing through the thousands of tracks I had ripped from CDs, then millions at my fingertips from streaming. "Music ADD" as I would call it. When I can just say "Alexa, play some music" and music just arrives in an endless stream, it just becomes more like wall-paper, everywhere, available to be ignored as much as to be listened to.

For me getting back in to vinyl had the effect of sort of winding back the clock to when I started getting in the hobby, and I find it very much aids my focusing on listening to albums rather than track-surfing. We all have our journey

 

[Robin L]

There were many variables with tape. For an interactive experience nothing beat open reel. LOL

Keeping your recorder optimal? Not a simple task, but a necessary one if you cared about live recording. To keep it in perspective, below is a link to an article by the late Bill Vermillion--recording and radio engineer. An important guy in the Florida music making scene--a man I recall fondly. In his review Bill discusses:

1. Physical head alignment (azimuth alignment)
2. Playback level
3. High frequency playback response
4. Bias adjustment
5. Record level
6. Record high frequency response
7. Low frequency playback

It's worth a glance if only for historical purposes.

http://recordist.com/ampex/docs/align/aligndek.txt

Tell me all about it. Sent my deck to the best shop in town, they said it was within spec. So much for all that. A bad s/n ratio + high frequency saturation means what goes in is not what comes out.

 

[captain paranoia]

I always find that a bit weird because good quality digital has been around for many decades. I've been listening to mostly digital since the late 80's.

It has. But the vinyl audiophiles have always denied it (and continue to do so). NoMoFoNo's epiphany is a liberation.

 

[captain paranoia]

Though, you'd think the accuracy and ease of digital would solve this, yet you can see at least as much audio neurosis in many of the digital/computer audiophile forums!

I found this rather astute observation recently:

I have always thought that a big part of the problem for audiophiles and magazines is that they have [n]ever managed to accept that digital isn't like analogue and all of the tweaking and adjustment that was useful or necessary in the vinyl era isn't anymore. So they end up trying to imagine that there are dark secrets in digital data streams and that software is like a tone arm or cartridge or something.

 

[anmpr1]

Working on mag tape while making a movie was just awful (same with physical film). Pure drudgery trying to roll multiple tracks through the gangs of a syncronizer, putting teeny pieces in here and there, watching mags jump the gangs, having to start over. If there was ever an unalloyed good in the world, it was moving from analog to digital sound editing! For me, RTR sounds like a chore that is just a bit too reminiscent of this. (Which is of course utterly subjective as someone may really like the activities involved with RTR just as I do with vinyl).

The entire analog scene was a lot of work, and sometimes you could never be sure because of the 'chain of synchronization'. Below is an excerpt from a Bob Ludwig interview:

In the case of The Rolling Stones’ "Beggar's Banquet" the cutting master used for the 40 (just guessing) or so lacquers was slow. There was a movie made at the same time as the session and it confirmed they were playing at the correct pitch. So the entire recorded history of “Beggars Banquet” has been a little slow. We redid it at the correct pitch from a pristine master to make the SACD...

 

[anmpr1]

And bear in mind that alignment needs to be done every day, and again for any change of tape. My first job after university was in a studio where the tape machines (Philips Pro 50s and Ampex AG440s) were aligned every morning, which took about an hour. We bought Scotch 206 tape in batches of 100 or so to make sure tapes all came from the same batch as there was enough variation batch to batch to warrant realigning. Maybe our Studio was a bit pedantic, but I learned an awful lot about tape at that time.

S

Absolutely. Bill (in my linked article) laughs about aligning the studio machine several times a day:

Some machines were re-aligned several times in one day. This was because we would be working with source tapes recorded on different media, in different studios at different operating levels. I had one machine that I did a complete re-alignment on three times in the course of one day. Two
different 24 track tapes, one Dolby, and a 16 track setup. After doing this that often we got to be able to set up a 24-track machine in 30-40 minutes,
which is about the length of time it took me to do my first alignments on two track machines.

 

[anmpr1]

Tell me all about it. Sent my deck to the best shop in town, they said it was within spec. So much for all that. A bad s/n ratio + high frequency saturation means what goes in is not what comes out.

I 'loved' the look 'n feel' of open reel until the expense started to hit me. I used to be able to buy consumer (Maxell UDXL or UD) metal reels at my guitar store for pretty cheap. Then you couldn't get that, but had to buy Quantegy (née Ampex). Then that was history. But what did it for me was the hardware. I remember calling Studer/Revox in Nashville (their corporate US headquarters) for a quote on refurbing my B77. Once I got the quote I put an ad in the paper (no Internet back then) and sold all my open reel gear.

 

[MattHooper]

I found this rather astute observation recently:

JJB70 said:
I have always thought that a big part of the problem for audiophiles and magazines is that they have [n]ever managed to accept that digital isn't like analogue and all of the tweaking and adjustment that was useful or necessary in the vinyl era isn't anymore. So they end up trying to imagine that there are dark secrets in digital data streams and that software is like a tone arm or cartridge or something.

Yes, the subjectivist version of the hobby really offers up a powerful one-two punch in terms of keeping audiophiles enraptured:

1. They get to tell each other technical stories - the part that is catnip to the "gear fetish" parts of our brains.
2. They use only their own powers of perception to determine the success of the engineering claims, which often results in "Yay! Success!"
And does so in a way that can never really be challenged (because any objective methods are rejected as inferior to subjective).

So, in terms of how the human brain is set up for biased reasoning and rewards, it's a perfect combination.*

Without employing a rigorous and reliable method to discern between reality and imagination when testing the ideas, these concerns can flourish forever. This aspect of the hobby is no more likely to go away any time soon than is alternative medicine (e.g. homeopathy etc).

*(And I do not mean that as pretending I'm "better" than the folks I'm referencing; if some significant group of people are displaying some quirk-of-mind, you can bet it likely derives from a characteristics we all share).

 

[Sal1950]

Sal, do you still use Pomade?

Nope, just a wash rag.

And bear in mind that alignment needs to be done every day, and again for any change of tape. My first job after university was in a studio where the tape machines (Philips Pro 50s and Ampex AG440s) were aligned every morning, which took about an hour. We bought Scotch 206 tape in batches of 100 or so to make sure tapes all came from the same batch as there was enough variation batch to batch to warrant realigning. Maybe our Studio was a bit pedantic, but I learned an awful lot about tape at that time.

Absolutely. Bill (in my linked article) laughs about aligning the studio machine several times a day:

Some machines were re-aligned several times in one day. This was because we would be working with source tapes recorded on different media, in different studios at different operating levels. I had one machine that I did a complete re-alignment on three times in the course of one day. Two
different 24 track tapes, one Dolby, and a 16 track setup. After doing this that often we got to be able to set up a 24-track machine in 30-40 minutes,
which is about the length of time it took me to do my first alignments on two track machines.

Don't you think the same requirements apply to phono cartridges and arms? Temp, humidity, barometric pressure, and all that tend to change the highly dependent details of a set-up. These things should be checked minimally each day, maybe even before each record is played. Things can change very fast with the weather and inside conditions.

 

[anmpr1]

My answer to the question posed by the OP is that I grew up listening to records and was drawn back in by a mix of nostalgia, gear fetishism and ritual.

I'm glad to have found ASR, which is a small voice of reason in a world of audiophiliac idiocy.

I have four working turntables. Why? Like you, it's what I know. I have beaucoup records. Why? It's what I grew up with. I kept them and enjoy them. À la recherche du temps perdu... What I don't understand are folks who think that records are superior sonically than digits. Nothing could be more ridiculous. At the same time I draw the line at open reel. Nothing could ever convince me to own another reel to reel machine!

ASR is indeed a world of reason within a general audiophiliac idiocy.

 

[anmpr1]

Don't you think the same requirements apply to phono cartridges and arms? Temp, humidity, barometric pressure, and all that tend to change the highly dependent details of a set-up. These things should be checked minimally each day, maybe even before each record is played. Things can change very fast with the weather and inside conditions.

I'm not that nutz. Hopefully!

 

[Robin L]

I 'loved' the look 'n feel' of open reel until the expense started to hit me. I used to be able to buy consumer (Maxell UDXL or UD) metal reels at my guitar store for pretty cheap. Then you couldn't get that, but had to buy Quantegy (née Ampex). Then that was history. But what did it for me was the hardware. I remember calling Studer/Revox in Nashville (their corporate US headquarters) for a quote on refurbing my B77. Once I got the quote I put an ad in the paper (no Internet back then) and sold all my open reel gear.

When I moved, no one was interested in my 10 &1/2 inch, 1/4 inch reels of tape. Lord knows how much they cost, had to throw them out. I know musicians in my old home town but I couldn't give 'em away.

 

[Dimitri]

I always find that a bit weird because good quality digital has been around for many decades. I've been listening to mostly digital since the late 80's.

To some people it's good because it's digital and digital is superior blah blah blah. To others it's bad because it's digital. Because digital can never be blah blah blah and it's missing blah blah blah blah.
Both groups are confused.
There are a lot more bad releases and re-releases re-re-relases remixes,remasters re-released re-mixed,re-masters out there in digital form than in analog.
I was also never part of the 10K turntable crowd. Or 10K bicycle for that matter (that's a whole other disease out there).
I just wanted something that when I play it I don't have to worry about "what did they do to it now"?
Reading the "digital is awesome" threads, the "phono dragon", extinct for some has been replaced by the "digital dragon".
Cables, DACs, streaming services amplifiers, speakers, and whose processor does what when with which version of the software are still a plague. Just like before.
So the puny turntable / cartridge/ phone preamp industry got replaced with internet streaming services behemoths.
C'mon!
And artists loooove streamng btw. All those 1/10 of a cent they get do add up. In infinite time.
C'mon!
God luck

 

[Sal1950]

I'm not that nutz. Hopefully!

You need to know for sure.
Maybe if you check all 4 of your TT each day for a week and see what does or doesn't change?

 

[Prana Ferox]

higher end modern turntables and phono preamps are leaps and bounds more advanced that even the ones in the early to mid 80s

Not sure I buy the former. I just picked up an old Sony Biotracer deck and don't see anything comparable for new sale. The fashion now is uncorrected minimalist belt drives, and the performance (i.e. measured specs) just isn't there. I'd actually argue the market has regressed badly with the big names and volume market gone.

As for preamps, there are interesting things being done with A/D conversion and DSP but I don't see that being the trend, instead it's still nonsense like tube buffers. 80's saw plenty of very good preamps in upper consumer hardware.

If you're talking 'audiophile high end' that was knee deep in snake oil back then and it still is now.

(ignore test cartridge)