Why Audiophiles Are Shopping for Vintage Turntables

[Robin L]

Absolutely, you can hear the rice krispies clear as day even with the most inexpensive gear.

I get the drawbacks to LP playback -as someone who has spent 50+ years setting up turntables -the more more I learn about phono play back -the more I go "This works? At all?" Then I listen and go -ahhh -that's so nice ! But I had a experience about 30 years ago that was a education. Bought a used tonearm of a model that I had set up probably a hundred of -excellent sound for the dollars and rock solid reliable -never had a bad one. Couple of months in one channel goes open (turns out the guy who sold it to me had "looked at" rewiring the internal wire and pulled the rubber plug out of the base of the arm -then reinserted it-failure is anticipated.)Return to importer -months go by and I'm only listening to CD's in the mean time. Finally shame the importer into a new arm ( I was the service manager for his local dealer.) -re-install -all is good again. BUT-THIS IS A BIG BUT: For about a month after that I was really aware of the noise on LP's - at that point I only had about 1200 LP's -but none of them were as quiet as CD's - I was not tempted to make the complete switch to CD for music simply because (especially back then) - a LOT of my LP collection had not made it onto CD. And after about a month my wetware had readjusted and I simply wasn't aware of the background cr@p that accompanies most LP's when played back. I really do get the YMMV aspect of this and for all of you who dumped out of those nasty LP's over the years -sincerely "Thank You" . Your rejects make up most of my out of control music collection.

Glad to oblige.

 

[TLEDDY]

Vinyl vs Digital ad nauseam...

In order of the media I actually use:

Streaming (Tidal, Amazon music)
CD Redbook
SACD
High res downloads
Vinyl
RxR

I bought an ultrasonic vinyl cleaner and hired a college student to process over 3000 discs, replace inner sleeve and repair covers. Some of my collection dates to the 1950s. I date to 1941 .

That said, I truly enjoy all formats. I am vastly more interested in the musical content than the media.

non-sequitor: The Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival was cancelled yesterday... I have been in attendance for 25 years... very sad!

 

[captain paranoia]

Twenty pages on, and I'm still thinking about Gwyneth Paltrow's foo-foo...

 

[audiopile]

SME has always been a precision machining company - in the last few decades a lot of work for the medical and aerospace industries. Tone arms (and tables) have always been a relative sideline for that company. Arms were a interest of the founder of the company -he passed away some time ago and the family sold the company ? years back. Frankly- my guess is a sold engineering company may have simply found dealing with audiophiles in general and vinylphiles in particular - a challenge -espicially with sentitive end user ego's involved . The incredible patience involved on the part of tech support folks to avoid eMailing "R U Nutz" to a fair percentage of questions that show up looking for answers - it's a rare skill in any organization. For instance: Years ago I knew a guy who got a blazing amazing deal on a SME V because the previous owner had managed to scrape off all the lettering and VTA alignment lines from a SME V arm tube -apparently the guy he bought the arm from was convinced it sounded better minus lettering/lines -and had been surprised that absolutely no dealers would take it in trade ?
Full disclosure I own and enjoy using both a SME IV and a couple of Series III tonearms - great hi-fi tools.

 

[Prana Ferox]

I bought an ultrasonic vinyl cleaner and hired a college student to process over 3000 discs, replace inner sleeve and repair covers

Possibly the first case in history where looping in a college student improved the signal to noise ratio

 

[Frank Dernie]

SME has always been a precision machining company - in the last few decades a lot of work for the medical and aerospace industries. Tone arms (and tables) have always been a relative sideline for that company. Arms were a interest of the founder of the company -he passed away some time ago and the family sold the company ? years back. Frankly- my guess is a sold engineering company may have simply found dealing with audiophiles in general and vinylphiles in particular - a challenge -espicially with sentitive end user ego's involved . The incredible patience involved on the part of tech support folks to avoid eMailing "R U Nutz" to a fair percentage of questions that show up looking for answers - it's a rare skill in any organization. For instance: Years ago I knew a guy who got a blazing amazing deal on a SME V because the previous owner had managed to scrape off all the lettering and VTA alignment lines from a SME V arm tube -apparently the guy he bought the arm from was convinced it sounded better minus lettering/lines -and had been surprised that absolutely no dealers would take it in trade ?
Full disclosure I own and enjoy using both a SME IV and a couple of Series III tonearms - great hi-fi tools.

Actually the company was recently(ish) (2016) bought by Cadence Audio Group which also then bought Garrard so they actually see high end expensive turntables a bigger earner than the precision machining they do, which it probably is, the profit margins on record players are huge whereas the precision engineering manufacture will have competitors.

 

[audiopile]

I do have a certain sympathy for supporting your arm on your turntable(s) as opposed to whatever TT may appeal to the end user - a ton fewer variables to deal with/guess your way thru to a solution. Will be interesting for those of you still around to see if SME is still in the TT/arm biz- say in 10 years ? There has been a certain amount of shock comparing prices for a "new" Garrard to even the fairly substantial cost of vintage 301/401 rim drives today. I get the profit margin argument - but just how many units are they selling ?

 

[Frank Dernie]

I do have a certain sympathy for supporting your arm on your turntable(s) as opposed to whatever TT may appeal to the end user - a ton fewer variables to deal with/guess your way thru to a solution. Will be interesting for those of you still around to see if SME is still in the TT/arm biz- say in 10 years ? There has been a certain amount of shock comparing prices for a "new" Garrard to even the fairly substantial cost of vintage 301/401 rim drives today. I get the profit margin argument - but just how many units are they selling ?

The local dealer sells SME and has them in stock. One of the assistants told me their problem is more for Avid whose TTs look nice and are generally less expensive than SMEs but don't have an arm and have almost always been sold (by them) with a SME arm.
It will be interesting to see how many of any of the TT makers are still in business in 10 years.
At least SME are well engineered, in general, as well as nicely made whereas so many these days are styling and bling excercises using (sadly effective) meaningless buzz marketing phrases to sell to the ignorant.

 

[anmpr1]

Absolutely, you can hear the rice krispies clear as day even with the most inexpensive gear.

This is true. I recall a Pink Floyd record (the one with cows on the cover). The last cut was about eating breakfast, or something. Started out with bacon, eggs, suasage but in one section someone poured milk over the cereal and you could clearly make out the snap crackle pop. I was using an inexpensive record player at the time consisting of a bottom of the line Garrard changer and ceramic cartridge (with the flip over needle).

I was happy when CD came out, because for the first time I could tell they used low fat 2% milk, and it was almost as if I could taste Rice Krispies crunching in my mouth.

One thing I noticed was that the water faucet drip at the end of the song was cut into the lead out groove and would drip forever if your changer didn't cycle, or if you had a manual record player. This didn't happen on the CD since, of course, CDs don't have lead out grooves. It was then that I realized that if I was going to get that last bit of water faucet pleasure, then records were the only way to go.

 

[NoMoFoNo]

Especially if you like the water dripping with a sweet additional bit of 'woosh, woosh, woosh' and delicious vinyl noise floor! What's not to like?

This is true. I recall a Pink Floyd record (the one with cows on the cover). The last cut was about eating breakfast, or something. Started out with bacon, eggs, suasage but in one section someone poured milk over the cereal and you could clearly make out the snap crackle pop. I was using an inexpensive record player at the time consisting of a bottom of the line Garrard changer and ceramic cartridge (with the flip over needle).

I was happy when CD came out, because for the first time I could tell they used low fat 2% milk, and it was almost as if I could taste Rice Krispies crunching in my mouth.

One thing I noticed was that the water faucet drip at the end of the song was cut into the lead out groove and would drip forever if your changer didn't cycle, or if you had a manual record player. This didn't happen on the CD since, of course, CDs don't have lead out grooves. It was then that I realized that if I was going to get that last bit of water faucet pleasure, then records were the only way to go.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Especially if you like the water dripping with a sweet additional bit of 'woosh, woosh, woosh' and delicious vinyl noise floor! What's not to like?

The woosh noise of the closed groove reminds me of the question "how many grooves are there on a typical LP?"

 

[NoMoFoNo]

One?

 

[Frank Dernie]

One?

Two.
One each side

 

[Robin L]

This is true. I recall a Pink Floyd record (the one with cows on the cover). The last cut was about eating breakfast, or something. Started out with bacon, eggs, suasage but in one section someone poured milk over the cereal and you could clearly make out the snap crackle pop. I was using an inexpensive record player at the time consisting of a bottom of the line Garrard changer and ceramic cartridge (with the flip over needle).

I was happy when CD came out, because for the first time I could tell they used low fat 2% milk, and it was almost as if I could taste Rice Krispies crunching in my mouth.

One thing I noticed was that the water faucet drip at the end of the song was cut into the lead out groove and would drip forever if your changer didn't cycle, or if you had a manual record player. This didn't happen on the CD since, of course, CDs don't have lead out grooves. It was then that I realized that if I was going to get that last bit of water faucet pleasure, then records were the only way to go.

Thought of this last night. Listened to my DAP last night at work, Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens. Essential music. I used to have first rate transfers on a Columbia LP from the 1950s, but from the $1 bin. Dynamics and tone color are good, but the degree of surface detritus was more "in your face" than the JSP CD transfers on CD that I ripped to my Fiio M3K. So the wear and tear of 60-odd years of playing of the LP are absent on the CD. And this is about recordings from the early electrical era. I guess that "mint" copies of the Columbia LPs would be a little better than the JSP CDs, but only by a little as the JSP transfers are first rate. Those JSP transfers, by the way, were in the analog domain, without digital de-noising–AAD. So a little surface is audible. But the transfer work by John R.T. Davies was a labor of love and you can hear it on these CDs.

I understand fully well how someone with a first class turntable based system and select discs can have a wonderful experience. But if it's the entire sweep of music were discussing, using the discs/media that are actually at hand, not selecting discs/media for how well they sound via one mode of playback but simply for the music itself, the sort of necessary investment in turntable gear seems like a massive waste of money compared to other options. I know it's a question of priorities. Music itself is, to me, a higher priority than the mode of its transmission. The less that mode of transmission interferes with the music, the better.

 

[audiopile]

Ya -don't care what it comes off of -as long as it is a pleasure to listen to. And some historic recordings are simply amazing once somebody with the patience and talent applies digital correction to them. My first taste of this was a Bessie Smith CD that a couple of Aussie (?) recording engineers had transfered off of 78's onto CD -they were able to correct for speed variations ,surface noise and clicks n pops -you could actually hear her sing and the musicians with her - way better than any of the LP transfers I had.

 

[sergeauckland]

Ya -don't care what it comes off of -as long as it is a pleasure to listen to. And some historic recordings are simply amazing once somebody with the patience and talent applies digital correction to them. My first taste of this was a Bessie Smith CD that a couple of Aussie (?) recording engineers had transfered off of 78's onto CD -they were able to correct for speed variations ,surface noise and clicks n pops -you could actually hear her sing and the musicians with her - way better than any of the LP transfers I had.

I've transferred a few 78s and tried more or less successfully to clean them up electronically. Satisfying when it goes well, but the greatest problem I found is getting a 78 that hasn't been played on a turntable tracking at several pounds (not grams) with a blunt needle. A stylus should be changed for each side, but who ever did that? I also have a few LPs of Django Reinhardt and other jazz stars of the 30s and early 40s which can only have been taken from 78s as being pre-tape, and they are surprisingly good, certainly of better than just historic interest.

It can be a fun hobby in itself transferring and correcting 78s

S

 

[Robin L]

I've transferred a few 78s and tried more or less successfully to clean them up electronically. Satisfying when it goes well, but the greatest problem I found is getting a 78 that hasn't been played on a turntable tracking at several pounds (not grams) with a blunt needle. A stylus should be changed for each side, but who ever did that? I also have a few LPs of Django Reinhardt and other jazz stars of the 30s and early 40s which can only have been taken from 78s as being pre-tape, and they are surprisingly good, certainly of better than just historic interest.

It can be a fun hobby in itself transferring and correcting 78s

S

One of the best sounding recordings was Dizzy Gillespie's 1947 "Manteca", RCA Victor 78, featuring an Afro-Cuban band, sounding best right off the disc with nothing in between. I had a cheap BSR 'tables with a flip-over ceramic cartridge. The dynamics were out of this world. My favorite direct to disc disc.

 

[SimpleTheater]

While I will argue that a certain few vinyl albums sound better than their highly compressed CD counterparts, the reality is that most of my vinyl albums sound better digitally. But digital doesn’t fascinate me the way a diamond stylus can turn minute vibrations into sound.

I was reminded of this post when I searched the dr database for the album Raising Sand, by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

The vinyl has better dr than the cd or the hd tracks. I’ll add this as a reason why I still have a turntable.

 

[sergeauckland]

I was reminded of this post when I searched the dr database for the album Raising Sand, by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

The vinyl has better dr than the cd or the hd tracks. I’ll add this as a reason why I still have a turntable.

That particular CD is heavily clipped, not just limited, so distortion is very high. It's not possible to cut hard clipping onto an LP, it turns into soft clipping but is more likely to be cut from a different master anyway, one less heavily processed. If for no other reason, it's then very likely that the resulting LP will sound better than the CD.

Another CD very heavily clipped is Human by Rag and Bone Man. I find both that and the RP/AK CD very unpleasant, in spite of it being quite good music.

S

 

[Burning Sounds]

Two.
One each side

Not if it is Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief - then there is three