Hifi advice: look back or head forwards?

Dave;

My advice would be to pick up a cheapy turntable, something like a Dual 505 or a Regards Planar 2/3 to itch the analogue scratch. I got myself a used Dual 504 a few years ago and fitted a AT440MLa cartridge and I still can't stop playing vinyl, really sounds great for about £55, I've around 550 albums etc, mainly jazz.

I also run a 3TB HDD connected to a Netbook and run a Squeezebox server to access my music library into a A&R Cambridge Alpha (£35) connected to Audioplan Kontrast floor standing speakers, very convenient and a massive choice of music along with digital radio streaming from around the globe.

Love it....!

:)

p.s.
I've a local record shop based in Stirling which stock around 20 thousand vinyl albums, prices are actually pretty decent starting from £2 to an average £5 etc....
Check out a local record shop near you, it's not that bad price wise, trust me.
 
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Cheers Peter. according to Yelp I have several crackin' record shops within easy bus or bike ride from my place. I'll head out Tuesday and check a couple out. BYW I did get a turntable, a phono preamp but also a wifi streamer/amp all for within my budget more or less. I used to have a Dual TT way back that OI bought in Germany and brought through in my backpack.
 
Agreed and luckily I had a ton of options I recognised as great quality on my eBay Watch List, so had I not got sorted this wen then I certainly would have by Wed/Thurs ... just lots of great stuff in decent to excellent condition. Luckily I have very good speakers, wire and interconnects from the old days.
 
Phil V said:
Anyone else tell me if this would drive my old speakers ok?
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A second hand pair of original Mission 700s were my first proper speakers as a schoolboy in the 80's. Excellent sounding. I downgraded to a pair of Wharfedale Diamonds Mk I, when I went to Uni and needed something smaller to cram into a student bedsit.

They are a nominal 8 ohm design and should be easy to drive with the MA amp, being well within the stated wattage too.

Without wishing to put you (or the OP) off, I'd go for a second hand Sqeezebox Touch and a cheap Tripath based Class D amp for a roughly similar budget to the MA solution, for streaming FLACs or MP3s.
 
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Have seen a few mentions of the Squeezebox and seems like an option, but too late for me now. Hopefully, my MA will arrive in the next 3-4 days and can then let y'all know how it is.
 
DorsetDude said:
Makes me wonder if the 100 or so I've got in the loft are worth owt.
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I sold around that many in 1992 for £65 thinking vinyl had has it's day and whatever I could get for them was likely a good deal. Now when I look back at the titles I sold I feel a right mug!

macvisual said:
I'm still spinning my Sony JE330 minidisc, I must have around 150 discs, great sounding thing and versatile with it.
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I had one that I took travelling for 2 years over 1999-2001. Seemed very space age at the time :-) The only MD I remember from then was Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks ... could have chosen worse I guess!
 
macvisual said:
I'm still spinning my Sony JE330 minidisc, I must have around 150 discs, great sounding thing and versatile with it.
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I've got a little portable minidisc player which I haven't used in years. I don't have any original minidisc recordings, but I've got a load of compilation ones I made which I'd love to be able to get off the discs as I wouldn't even know which CDs I got a lot of the tracks from.
 
Phil V said:
I think I'm on Dave's ignore list :(

Anyone else tell me if this would drive my old speakers ok?

The specs look compatible (whilst the speakers are capable of more than the amp can put out.

And is it necessary to spend a lot on a DAC switch, as I'd really like 2 optical inputs.
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Yes they'll be fine Phil.
 
since going back to vinyl my quality of life has improved, I sit down relax put a record on and enjoy.. I have nothing against all the modern ways of listening and last year I was full on streaming but I was not enjoying it, call me a sad nostalgic fool or whatever you want I don't care, I just know I feel better after putting a record on.

my gear

Project Debut Carbon turntable, a beauty it is and the carbon fiber tonearm is yummy.
Onkyo A9010 amp, great amp with direct path circuitry
Q Acoustic 2020i speakers, superb
Sony CDS300 cd player, great warm sounding cd player complements the turntable well, I had a Marantz before but it was wayyyy too bright after listening to vinyl

and I have a vinyl wall too :cool:

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Much sympathy with that attitude. It may well be my final destination. What's your favourite album quality wise?
 
Of course I mean both.
 
condyk said:
Of course I mean both.
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Miles Davis - Kind of Blue is a beauty on vinyl, I have it on CD too and it loses all the atmosphere. Ride - Going Blank Again is one of my fave albums to listen to, again I have it on CD and whilst not bad, the brightness on the ride and hihat is horrible compared to vinyl. A re issue that has thrown me back how awesome it is to listen to vinyl is Norah Jones - Come Away with Me, jaw dropping vocals.
 
Yup, used to really like that Nora Jones album. Will add it to my list. I remember it getting very good reviews sound quality wise too. I might just buy ten quality LPs from 'the past' and then add now and again. I suspect I'll end up buying FLAC singles and/or a HD Tidal subscription more than vinyl just for the day to day.
 
Here's a few albums I have with outstanding sound quality

Larry Carlton - Friends
Joe Cocker - Sheffield Steel
Grace Jones - Nightclubbing
Eric Clapton - There's one in every crowd.
Robert Cray - Strong Persuader
Dire Straits - Dire Straits
Bob Dylan - Slow Train Coming
Chris Rea - The Road to Hell
Lee Ritenour - Portrait
Roxy Music - Avalon
Simply Red - Simply Red
ZZ Top - Tejas
John Martyn - Grace and Danger.

I'll probably rediscover others over time.

The problem is though, it can depend on which pressing you get and at which stage of the pressing cycle your album was made in.
 
CDs can also vary hugely. Some early "translations" were simply the vinyl mix slapped onto CD and sounded bleedin' 'orrible (early versions of Led Zep and Pink Floyd are prime examples) but were then remixed and/or remastered so sound far closer to the sound of vinyl. Now gone totally digital with CDs as the usual home source and iPods for the car and holiday listening.
 
I got pretty into my audio a while back. I even have some plans to build some speakers (Linkwitz LXmini speakers - http://www.linkwitzlab.com/LXmini/Introduction.htm) but that had to be put on hold while other house stuff takes rightful priority.

I stream FLACs to my amps and the quality is good enough for me. I invested in a reasonable stereo amp (Cyrus) with a good onboard DAC, yes you can get better DACs and a better quality amp for more ££ but this was a reasonably cost effective solution. The speakers aren't great (lower end B&W), but they actually work well in the room I have - they have a nice stable frequency response in an anechoic chamber (which none of us have in terms of room dynamics) but because of where I position them - and the fact I complement them with a good musical subwoofer, they actually work fairly well. They're not £20k nautilus shells but they're good enough for me.

As Nawty (I think) mentioned, the biggest factor - and let down - in sound reproduction and the right signal reaching your ears is the room acoustic. In 99% of rooms this is dreadful. And I mean dreadful - to the point of it being a waste spending lots of money on decent kit because certain frequencies will dominate because of room modes, some frequencies will be lost at certain listening positions and you may well have reverb issues. To put it in context, these problems will occur no matter what kit you buy - they are a feature of your room and where you place your speakers (and listening position). The only reliable solution is to analyse your room dimensions (and if being fancy, the materials used) and factor in seating locations and speaker placement to determine what the theoretical frequency response and reverb falloffs will be for a "flat" speaker. You can then implement acoustic traps to deal with standing waves (bass frequencies) and acoustic absorption panels and diffusers to deal with mid and higher frequency problems. It may sound like a lot of work but this will make a MASSIVE impact on the sound you hear. It doesn't have to look ugly - the panels can be covered with pictures or solid colour and the bass traps can look funky - here's a quick picture I found which shows how "normal" things can look:
room-kit2.png


The biggest issue most rooms have is their height, but there's not much we can do about that :)

Not sure if any of that helps, but before spending ££ on kit which will just make a muddy, reverby sound very marginally brighter or whatever, you're better off dealing with the muddiness and reverb itself.

Just my 2p!
 
You can get somewhere near by paying attention to speaker positioning, position and nature, soft or hard, of furniture and seating position.

Consider curtains and carpets, and one or two strategic acoustic panels.

It doesn't have to be very difficult to get a good sound in most rooms, but most rooms are set up to give a terrible sound.
 
Absolutely - and as Simon says (ha!) if you know what you're doing, it's possible to shortcut a lot of this with some quick calculations using REW and working out what the likely "problems" are and buying some off the shelf products to deal with those frequency ranges. But that's if you know what you're doing - i.e. a pro or someone who's done it before and made the mistakes already (like anything I guess).

The only thing I'd add is that over-deadening a room isn't a good outcome either. Curtains are a good starting point because rooms are typically "bright" with lots of acoustically reflective surfaces and the worst of these - windows - can be covered by curtains. But going too far - panels on all walls and thick carpet on the floor may lead to your room sounding lifeless with music seeming "dull". It's probably the lesser of the two evils, but given you'll have spent £ to achieve this effect, it's not exactly ideal.

The other occasional problem you might have is some music is mixed and recorded to assume the listening room is likely to be rubbish - this is naughty but it does happen. So when you play these tracks in a good room or studio, they sound awful in a completely different way.
 
Yes, the acoustic environment is vitally important. Many of us just can't be arsed with the fuss of it I suppose. I'm likely one of them. If I had the time and money I'd have a go, but I probably don't care enough as is. My approach has always been to buy the best you can afford, based on reviews and on listening and on combining, or what you want to to spend out on, site it all as best you can, as Simon says, connect it all up properly, use the best source material and position yourself as best you can too. Listenability and foot-tappin' is key for me. Not too harsh or flabby. The room I kinda think like it or lump it, just do what you can.

The streaming amp was due to be delivered today but then when they txt'd the delivery window this morning it was exactly when I had agreed to pick up my bike over the other other side of the city. Sods law! So I had to reschedule for Friday when I'm next home all day!! Shame as I was looking forward to some fettlin' around. TT should be here tomorrow, but again I'm not in. Pre-amp should be here Thursday, but not in. I'll likely have to pick it all up Saturday AM from the PO. Hopefully it's not all too heavy!! I was hoping to head to a few record shops after picking up the bike but weather was so wet I couldn't face it. At least I'll have the weekend to mess around.
 
Don't get me wrong, Dave, acoustics are not the most important thing... you enjoying (and having others enjoy) your music is. There's nothing worse than a music/audiophile bore dragging his guests down to explain at length why the purity of the sound is head and shoulder better than their system when everyone just wants to have a party :)

What I would say is that spending a decent wedge of cash on speakers, amps and good quality sources is ultimately going to have less benefit than perhaps £100-150 on room treatment. Depending on what speakers you have, moving them a foot from the wall and having them exactly that same distance from the wall and curtains plus carpets rather than blinds plus wooden floors will make a big difference. Putting your speakers on the "short wall" rather than the long wall is important, too. The next thing might be a couple of bass traps and after that you're getting into the realms of diminishing returns unless your room has real problems or you're wanting a recording/mixing studio ;)

Don't get stressed about interconnects or speaker cable. The best quality interconnects used in the recording industry are frequently welding cable! Thickness is important (oo-er) in longer runs but 12awg is probably overkill and 14 or even 16 should be sufficient. Inexpensive interconnects, especially if transmitting digital over coax are fine too. I typically spend about £3-4 on a digital / RCA interconnect.

Amps are important in that one of the key distortions we can perceive is clipping. When an amp is underpowered and being driven too hard to try to power the speakers to generate a certain sound level, it will clip the waveform very noticeably and can eventually damage the speakers. Once you have a powerful enough amp, the differences between them are secondary by comparison. Universal Class D vs Class A is still the big debating point but that's a debate than runs into the £000s so beyond what I'm willing to bear.

Poor speakers will have a biased frequency response, but remember your room will "colour" the frequency response far more. However, some speakers have very directional output (can be bad) and sometimes have misalignment issues between the tweeter, woofer etc. Some can throw a fair bit of sound backwards and sideways which then causes more reflection problems at specific frequencies (depending on how far the speaker is from the wall)...

In short, there will always be thing you can improve if you want but it matters not one iota if you're happy with what you have.
 
Some great advice Paul and some of it I certainly follow. It's been a long time since I had a decent hifi and I'm not even sure my hearing is sensitive enough anymore, but I used to definitely hear differences in interconnects and speaker cables. I suppose my view is the same now as it was back then ... it may be different but is it better and it may be better but is it worth the money? I'm always a bang per buck kinda guy! The great thing is that for those of us brought up during the crazy days just post Linn Sondek and the follow up interconnect anal retentiveness mania we can remember and appreciate the older stuff, the enveloping, engaging 'in the room sound' of a well put together system and so can still hunt around and buy the stuff S/H for silly money.
 
A good pair of cans should reduce the affect the size and shape of a room has on the audio. Not sure at what level of expenditure the law of diminishing returns kicks in but a couple of hundred quid should get close to a listenable system for a normal human and room.
 
Good thread - with some good points of view.
I had my choice made for me when my brother sold my LP collection when I moved out to move with my job - there was some great music too - it was the late 80s so the Cd was king and I collected a ridiculous number of Cds before about 5 years ago I decided to rip them to PC/Mac and get rid of 100s and 100s of cds. I was streaming into an Arcam amp via Apple tv but ive literally just bought a Sonas amp and can use my Dali Speakers and sub with it and the ipad/iphone interface is very very neat. I've not set it all up yet but its a lots less hassle than vinyl and I no longer have the perfect hearing of a teenager.
 
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Nod said:
A good pair of cans should reduce the affect the size and shape of a room has on the audio. Not sure at what level of expenditure the law of diminishing returns kicks in but a couple of hundred quid should get close to a listenable system for a normal human and room.
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I'm a big in-ear phones fan from when I lived in London. Hate that tish, tish, tish thing you get all the time from cheap earbuds so it was the only way to drown 'em out on the bus/tube! The sound can be really superb.

Overexposed said:
I've not set it all up yet but its a lots less hassle than vinyl and I no longer have the perfect hearing of a teenager.
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Pretty sums up where I was at ... wanted hassle free and decent sound, but too old and stupid to hear the subtleties I once did.
 
I said I'd follow up once everything had arrived and the amp/streamer, phono pre-amp and turntable are all here and looking good.

I could give the amp/streamer a low score if I was being critical because the instructions and feedback from the unit itself during set up are absolutely abysmal. Please, if you do buy one of these, go to the Monitor Audio website and download the full manual. All you get in the box is an IKEA style sheet of meaningless pictures. Really poor from Monitor Audio. I'm pretty tech savvy but struggled at first. I had to Google and finally found lots of good advice in an AVForums thread. It's worth a look, especially if you're struggling with setting up with Apple gear. It should really easy but it's clear many struggle to get things working. I'm running Android and so once I'd figured out how to connect to my wifi all was pretty OK. Without downloading the full manual and working through it I reckon I'd have sent the unit back it was so frustrating. The remote is pretty directional and a bit puny too and there's a terrible issue where the first time you play music it comes out full volume irrespective of whatever you think your setting is. This may get sorted with a firmware update, but I jumped out of my skin and I'm sure the neighbours did too!! Not very good for your speaker drivers either! I'm still very mildly stressed that it could happen again randomly.

Performance is great tho and it's been worth the effort. My TV goes in the one socket via optical and my turntable, via the phono pre-amp, into the analogue input. Neat and tidy. I'm using BubbleUPnP App to control the FLAC music side paired with Tidal HD to stream high res FLACs from the Cloud. So I'm ending up offering a big thumbs up just because the results, once set up is completed, are exceptional for the money. The App and Tidal and the A100 itself and Plex (which runs my desktop HD music store) all have their own learning curves and vagaries but I guess time will sort that.

It still seems very weird to be playing great sounding music from my phone! It really is a whole new ball game. With the HD service from Tidal (on free 30 day trial at the moment) at £19.95/month I suppose there's an unlimited music supply to dive into without any physical storage issues! Sound quality I can't complain for the money. I've had better sounding systems in the past tho at significantly higher cost, so on that basis I've picked up a SH Creek 4140 amp to try with the Rega. My investment is such that I'm sure that I can sell either the analogue or digital stuff at not much loss should I decide to ditch one or the other.. I've had a Creek/Rega system before and enjoyed it, tho different component parts, so it'll be interesting to see how sound wise it compares with the FLACs on the same material. I can't play the Rega as yet tho as I need to pick up an LP or two next week.
 
Finally got around to buying 'an LP'! Had a couple of hours to kill in the city between meetings so wandered over to the Diskery a well know, actually legendary, S/H vinyl store that's been trading for around 60 years!! Was an experience at least. Older blokes looking at records. Nice staff. Certainly a throwback to bygone days! I'm not sure I see it as part of my future! Didn't buy anything. Too worried about paying new prices+ for records that may be scratched or poor sounding. I did nearly bag a Cabaret Voltaire and a Pink Floyd. Headed back and by chance there's HMV over there so wandered in. They even had a spartan vinyl section, but there was actually a few I'd be into buying. I ended up with Blonde on Blonde (Dylan) in thick vinyl. Sorted the Rega combo and all sounded good. A tad more compressed maybe than the FLAC of the same album streamed via Tidal, but kinda nice and rhythmic and very listenable. I could easily enjoy this. But all that getting up and changing sides is a mission, then sourcing quality vinyl, hanging around mildly dingy record shops with dingy looking blokes ... I dunno. Compared to the slick FLAC approach, the simple effortlessness and close to unlimited supply of tunes just seems so much better. And then the Creek 4140 amp arrives. Classic British technology, no tone controls, nice phono in, small but heavy. You know it's gonna sound good and it does. Not much in it mind, but certainly a tad more toe-tappin', better voice, more transparency, bubbling drum and bass combo clearly distinct. All very fine. So in conclusion it's a swings and roundabouts thing and there is no right answer to my own question. The Rega/Creek wins on simple listening terms but it's very, very close. The Tidal/A100 wins on the thoroughly 2016 vibe of easy life and effortless choice. Of course, to me the Rega/Creek is uber cool and retro sexy. But I can't deny it's the Tidal/A100 I miss when I fancy a background tune!
 
exactly what i ended up deciding, the old kit is nice, its fiddly, it doesnt sound THAT great and its inconvenient as it doesnt travel.
i wouldn't trade my astell and kern and my ever growing headphone collection for old sckool.
 
@condyk it's all well and good telling us about your gear, but we'd like photos to oooh and aaah over please!
 
Ha, ha ... fair comment. It's all a jumble on the floor at the mo' until I decide where to put it permanently and which bits to sell, if any. The Raga is sexy but I've only used it twice while the A100 is functional but it's being used pretty much all the time! I think it can only go one way.
 
Bought a new stylus for my old Technics SL-6 linear turntable, all working well I'm pleased to say

Dug out one of my old albums (Argus/Wishbone Ash) still sounded great, definitely different to the digitally remastered CD which I played afterwards to compare
 
Strumstrum, I was in the bidding for the Carbon alongside the Rega and am still mildly miffed I didn't bag it, esp with that arm and the cartridge. I'll likely sell the Raga/Creek set up with a pair of Mission speakers I have when I next need the money. Am keeping hold for now as it is quite a seductive sound for sure!

Rich, that Technics was a well respected TT in it's day as you probably know!
 
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strumstrum said:
whats with all those buttons and how do you program a turntable?

its great when something you have for years still work, great stuff.
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The key to both answer is in the 'linear' part of the name, because the tone arm isn't free floating, it can be moved to preset distances on the LP. Hence you can have repeat, skip and other features normally expected of CDs
 
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