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| MarcusStrapp |
Ok so this blog is bought to you by the letters "A" and "D". Or more specifically A to D because my cardigan groover teenage son's birthday request was for a vinyl spinner on which to play all the old Jazz LP's left to him by his grandfather. My son, for those of you not in the know, rebels against rebelling. He does his damnedest not to fit in with his MP3 hip-hop contemporaries, not by design of course (he shuns design in the shoddiest of ways) but by blissful ignorance. He goes his own meandering way with all the foresight and planning of a deaf mole.
He's currently standing over on the other side of the living room drooling over his present, a Project turntable bought second hand on eBay. He was offered a nice shiny new turntable, with built in A to D converter and USB interface that could be plugged into a laptop. No no no, if it wasn't bona-fide 70's hard core Heath Robinson technology, it just wouldn't do.
At present we do not have an amplifier with phono level input (who the hell would in the 21st century) and so the turntable is currently plugged into to my surround sound DVD system and with the volume wound up to eleven, we have a barely audible twitter twitter tweeting Robert Palmer emanating from the other side of the room.
So decades after I jettisoned my Musical Fidelity and Mordaunt Shorts in favour of a more environmentally acceptable (read, domestically acceptable) digital audio system, analogue seems to have made a come back in my living room.
I'm taken back to my audiophile days and the great digital audio debate, "but it's so much warmer", "the stereo placement so much more precise", "all that extra detail" (never mind that static snap crackle and pop storm) and I am wondering whether the world is fundamentally analogue or digital? I mean, and my son will hate me for saying this, depending on how much you zoom in doesn't everything ultimately become discrete? Synapses, molecules, atoms...
He's happy. Even I'd have trouble representing that digitally.
Edited Mon 27 Apr 09, 11:27 PM by MarcusStrapp
| 27 Apr 09, 11:17 PM misfit UK, 3 yrs  |
Space is of the essence for me so I have a very small JVC CD player and a digital radio. When space was not of the essence when I was younger I spent ages building up a Kenwood system with many add ons. If I had more space I would definitely have another record player with amazing sub bass speakers. WOW. M Space travels in my blood. And there ain't nothing I can do about it. | |||
| 27 Apr 09, 11:35 PM rodm99 UK(CB), 7 yrs |
Good for your boy! If it all goes on being serious, there are good pre-amps to lift the output of a magnetic cartridge to something that will work into a standard 'line level' input. Just look for 'pre-amp' on eBay - cost about 12 quid. 'Twosies beats onesies, but nothing beats three...' | |||
| 27 Apr 09, 11:37 PM glasgowfella2 UK, 5 yrs |
Anorak time from a broadcast engineer - its sounding twittery and tweetery at a very low level because the surround sound system will not have RIAA equalisation to match the cartridge ... However should the lad desire to move to new fangled cassettes we are ankle deep in worthless seriously good tape machines that cost a fotune a few years ago, GF2 ( Totally avoiding the A or D debate )
Subs are like kites - they only fly if you hold the string ... | |||
| 27 Apr 09, 11:45 PM MarcusStrapp UK(CB), 7 yrs |
Rod, cheers! Currently got a bid on Pro-Ject Phono Box. Just don't encourage him mind!, And I'll bloody shoot anyone that even hints that before chips there were transistors and before transisors there were.... VALVES!
The Fetish Photo Album A free and private flickr group for IC members to share dirty pictures! | |||
| 27 Apr 09, 11:54 PM MarcusStrapp UK(CB), 7 yrs |
Thanks. Yupp, before I got totally cool, trendy and oh so street, I used to be a dyed in the wool audio nerd.
As for tape machines, you talkin' that new fangled cassette technology (it will never catch on) or are we talkin' 'bout a nice Revox or Tandberg reel-to-reel? No no no I don't want one and I'll shoot anyone who shows my son a picture of one! The Fetish Photo Album A free and private flickr group for IC members to share dirty pictures! | |||
| 27 Apr 09, 11:56 PM MarcusStrapp UK(CB), 7 yrs |
Shuttttt-Uuuuppppp!!! A radiogram would be like an extra room. It's bad enough having lost the top of my sideboard!
The Fetish Photo Album A free and private flickr group for IC members to share dirty pictures! | |||
| 28 Apr 09, 12:23 AM Ro_Laren UK(S), 3 yrs |
I went shopping recently for a cheap cassette player. It made me feel about eighty when I found they only sold iPod parking ports. I got me coat. 'We cannot choose what we are, yet what are we but the sum of our choices?' | |||
| 28 Apr 09, 2:25 AM Ieuanfingers UK(NP), 5 yrs |
Incidently, why not try a bit of "pyramid"? 4 Speakers in each corner and one hanging from the ceiling in the middle (forming a pyramid shape). Then try some old LP's and sit in the middle of the speakers... The Who and The Stones are good-hint! Eagles may soar, but weasles get sucked into jet engines! | |||
| 28 Apr 09, 7:07 AM glasgowfella2 UK, 5 yrs |
Ah the simple pleasures of a B77 going at 15IPS still one of the best sources around GF2 Subs are like kites - they only fly if you hold the string ... | |||
| 28 Apr 09, 7:30 PM rodm99 UK(CB), 7 yrs |
Amazingly, upon a time, I owned two Revoxes! One at 7.5/3.75 ips; the other at 15/7.5 ips. Wouldn't have given you tuppence for Tandberg...  Probably still have a box of single-edged razor blades and a few chinagraphs somewhere...
'Twosies beats onesies, but nothing beats three...' |
