Turntable Advice

[Hiten]

you're playing with your precious lps!

Yes, that's sad fact, even with proper TT setup we degrade our Vinyls somewhat while playing. But enjoyment they give is worth it. I wonder should I start keeping two copies of my favourite Vinyls

 

[hifiashok]

Hi steven,
no I didn't get another counterweight. The site I looked at won't ship them to India. I have managed with the wrapped lucoplast. Today had a very funny experience. I was playing a Runa Laila record. I was expecting a female voice but it sounded like a male voice. Then I thought I am listening to a duet song and Runa Laila will join soon. Still no sign of her. I was wondering wot's wrong then I looked at the lp closely I found its 45 rpm. Didn't know LPs come in 2 different rpms.
Thanks.

16? R.P.M., 33? R.P.M., 45 R.P.M., 78 R.P.M. (though then all are not 'LPs/EPs').

 

[stevieboy]

Yes, that's sad fact, even with proper TT setup we degrade our Vinyls somewhat while playing. But enjoyment they give is worth it. I wonder should I start keeping two copies of my favourite Vinyls

you should hitensitapara!

i once dropped a western soundtrack compilation, good bad ugly etc... perpendicular on the floor and a piece cracked off. luckily i found a second copy!!!

 

[murali_n]

Yes, that's sad fact, even with proper TT setup we degrade our Vinyls somewhat while playing. But enjoyment they give is worth it. I wonder should I start keeping two copies of my favourite Vinyls

Hai hiten,

I used to Digitize my favourite vinyls (full or in parts), so even if my TT lets me down one day, i still have my fav tracks in CDs as back-up. Manytimes my TT is only used for archieving my LPs.

N.Murali

 

[Hiten]

@ Stevieboy
Yes, I have also managed to break few records Hindi Movie 'Bobby' for instance but didn't liked it anyway. A Georgio Moroder (E=MC2) cover got damaged by iso propyl alcohol so just for cover I have to buy new one.
@ Murali
Digitizing being tedious process puts me off as I work whole day on PC and most of the music is available on cd. I like the vinyl sound and vinyl, its artwork, sleeves etc. infact some album cover art fetches good money. And there used to be grammy awards for album cover art.
The Value of Album Cover Art - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com

 

[tek]

Happy to announce that I finally took the plunge and popped the 2M Red onto my Genie ... and boy.. it's a huge difference in sound. Much better separation, and overall clarity. Where my OM3e was shrieking in places, this baby just kicks!

Gave it a good run with GnR - Appetite for Destruction, and as soon as they launched into Welcome to the Jungle.. the differences between the carts was very obvious.

Gonna be an awesome friday night, just cracked open a cold beer and have a huge stack of LP's pulled out for this occasion.

Thanks for all the help guys!

 

[mahiruha]

That's very good news tek. Enjoy the moment. Where did you get this cartridge from and who fit it?

 

[reignofchaos]

IMHO digitizing is a completely useless process unless you have a very good phono pre coupled with a super good sound card. Even then, the european/japanese cd pressing would probably be better than the digitized vinyl. If a TT with an MM/MC cart is properly setup, there's very little chance of damaging LPs.

 

[Abhishek]

hi tek,

congrats! the 2M Red is indeed a good cartridge. happy listening with your upgrade!!

regards,
abhishek.

Happy to announce that I finally took the plunge and popped the 2M Red onto my Genie ... and boy.. it's a huge difference in sound. Much better separation, and overall clarity. Where my OM3e was shrieking in places, this baby just kicks!

Gave it a good run with GnR - Appetite for Destruction, and as soon as they launched into Welcome to the Jungle.. the differences between the carts was very obvious.

Gonna be an awesome friday night, just cracked open a cold beer and have a huge stack of LP's pulled out for this occasion.

Thanks for all the help guys!

 

[anm]

Is this red cart compatible with technics 1700? Can anyone compare it with Shure 97xE ?

 

[anm]

any help on this? I hope to pick a cart on my blore visit

Is this red cart compatible with technics 1700? Can anyone compare it with Shure 97xE ?

 

[Abhishek]

hi anand,

as i could make out from photographs seen over the internet, it should be possible to fit the ortofon cartridges in your turntable.

we have it with us, you may come and take a look. i will show you the project turntables and you can confirm if your tt has the same type of tonearm. from the pictures i saw, they looked the same.

you already have my number, so let me know.

regards,
abhishek

 

[stevieboy]

Happy to announce that I finally took the plunge and popped the 2M Red onto my Genie ... and boy.. it's a huge difference in sound. Much better separation, and overall clarity. Where my OM3e was shrieking in places, this baby just kicks!

Gave it a good run with GnR - Appetite for Destruction, and as soon as they launched into Welcome to the Jungle.. the differences between the carts was very obvious.

Gonna be an awesome friday night, just cracked open a cold beer and have a huge stack of LP's pulled out for this occasion.

Thanks for all the help guys!

CONGRATULATIONS man!!! way to go. so you managed to set it up without much problems?

 

[stevieboy]

IMHO digitizing is a completely useless process unless you have a very good phono pre coupled with a super good sound card. Even then, the european/japanese cd pressing would probably be better than the digitized vinyl. If a TT with an MM/MC cart is properly setup, there's very little chance of damaging LPs.

hi reign,

since you're the digital dude you could clarify this. was co-incidentally researching usb converters to record lps last week! saw the art2 ($79 amazon) and the hagerman ripper ($399). apparently the hagerman or the art also bypasses the internal sound system of one's computer. there was a name for it...kernel or something like that... cant get it now. and this results in you getting better sound. what's the deal with how it works?

"Now that we've recorded our songs. Let's focus on high performance playback. This is done by using ASIO (audio stream, input / output), a transfer protocol that bypass the Windows kmixer. It was developed for low latency and bit-accurate audio quality. We start by installing a more flexible media player, Foobar. Go to the Foobar2000 website and download the installer."

Hagerman Technology LLC: The Ripper Setup Page



regards

 

[reignofchaos]

hi reign,

since you're the digital dude you could clarify this. was co-incidentally researching usb converters to record lps last week! saw the art2 ($79 amazon) and the hagerman ripper ($399). apparently the hagerman or the art also bypasses the internal sound system of one's computer. there was a name for it...kernel or something like that... cant get it now. and this results in you getting better sound. what's the deal with how it works?
regards

You still need an ADC and the digital conversion will screw up with the dynamics. That USB converter will probably have a very cheap ADC and without clean power, the output will sound dreadful. You basically lose one of the reason why vinyl sounds good - no Analog -> Digital and Digital -> Analog conversion and associated artifacts.

The only reason I can think of why anyone would rip an LP is when the CD is mastered very poorly. Otherwise you are better off simply buying the CD as you'd have to invest a lot of dough (read stuff like Lynx TWO) to get anywhere close to the quality of a properly mastered cd.

 

[stevieboy]

hmmmm part of what you say is true but transfers do sound better than cd. i remember when i was in college i got deep purple 'burn' recorded by razak onto tape and it pretty much made my cd version sound hollow. had that 'body' to the sound that the cd did not have. might not be as good as the original lp but still transfers much of the vinyl magic. one thing i agree with is to get as good a converter as you can. hagerman is quite reputed for phono stuff so am guessing the ripper ought to be good...

am definitely aiming at ripping my collection onto cd for backup and for listening when i'm doing something that doesn't allow me to change record sides. and for office and on the move listening. primary would still be the original lp.

thanks for the lynx two reference will look it up!

wishing viren would make a usb converter plugin for his phonostage ah... viren any thoughts?

 

[stevieboy]

hey reign, some more tips required on the digital front

read that if you dont want to clean up your lps on the computer but only do a straight burn to a cd you can get a cdr recorder. what would a good cdr recorder to buy in that case?


thanks

 

[reignofchaos]

When you compared the tape to the cd, I'm sure it was the difference between a well mastered vs a poorly mastered version. There are massive differences between indian and euro/jap pressings of the same CD. Its so massive, it isn't even funny .

That said if vinyl to cd transfers rock your boat, then get the best sound card you can afford and connect the output of your phono stage directly to the sound card and record at the highest sampling/bit rate you can. It won't be as good as listening to the vinyl but will be reasonably close. Or else buy decent pressings of CDs and avoid the indian versions like plague.

I'm not aware of any dedicated vinyl to cd machines so can't really comment.

Cheers!

 

[stevieboy]

so basically the rca output from the phonostage goes to the rca input of the soundcard and the soundcard converts the analog signal to digital? any recommendations on good soundcards that i can buy? i saw an e-mu card but it seemed to accept balanced connection which my phonostage does not have.

thanks

 

[reignofchaos]

so basically the rca output from the phonostage goes to the rca input of the soundcard and the soundcard converts the analog signal to digital? any recommendations on good soundcards that i can buy? i saw an e-mu card but it seemed to accept balanced connection which my phonostage does not have.

thanks

The most basic you should get is an EMU 1212M PCI. Beyond that, there are the Motus and Lynx cards. All of them have switchable inputs that alternate between balanced and unbalanced based on software settings.