Let's talk about vintage turntables and cartridges

Oh, hey. I just ordered an AT95e cart for my Akai. 

Cool. Let us know how that goes. This would be a good place to ask set-up questions too

I love my Denon DP-59L. While my VPI Scoutmaster is better, its not nearly as much better as one might think - the Denon, which was a high end table in its day, has help up well performance-wise. It's a superb deck.

I was going to get the Shure but according to PayPal $57 is not enough to pay for a $56 purchase. 

I have a 32 year old Sony PS-4750 direct drive manual turntable. It's tonearm is fitted with a Shure V15V-MR which is about  15 years old. I had not used this turntable for maybe 10 years; but, back last June, I bought a Roxio ADC with USB output so that I could begin to digitize my collection of LP's into iTunes. For grins and giggles I bought a few new CD's of material I had on LP, as well as a few new LP's of material I had on CD to get a feel for whether or not today's notion about LP warmth was something I could appreciate. My conclusion is I cannot distinguish LP's from CD's until I hear the terribly annoying snap, crackle, and pop common to LP's, which reminded me why  I stopped listening to LP's and replaced many as soon as those albums were issued on CD.

 

Edited by sterling1 - 2/28/11 at 5:01pm

I know it is common with analog but I am getting lots of pops and clicks. I finally got my cartridge in and set it up properly (I think). Everything sounds great but I still have lots of pops and clicks, although I have read review that with the AT95e there are minimal pops and click. What could be the problem?

If the snap, crakle, pop bothers you, use tubes, as they TEND not to pass along the sharp transients.  Use a tubed phono preamp.  Use a transient noise filter.  Turn down the treble.  Use a good LP cleaning machine.  Use a zerostat gun.  Use a dustbug.  The list goes on and on...

It got better after a few minutes...odd. But I have a vintage receiver so I am really not gonna go for a separate tube phono. I think I need to clean it. It is just an old record from Goodwill so it may just need a good cleaning. 

OK, so an old record from goodwill that you have not cleaned is going to have more snap crackle and pop than a whole box of rice crisps, and is going to make your cartridge really dirty really fast. You have to clean the records, and even still, Goodwill records are almost always trashed, IME. You can get records really cheap at used record stores, and they will almost always be much better since they usually check them before they bring them in and sell them, as they need their customers to be happy with the records. goodwill does not have a reason to care.

Mralexosborn, PM me your address and I will send you a record cleaning brush free. I have some spares lying around.

I'd guess he needs more than a brush.  Like a nice wet wash.  Like a Spin Clean.

 

http://www.spincleanrecordwasher.com/

 

Heck, these days people clean brand new records because of the notion there's a mold release agent on the record.

 

Oh yeah, is a VPI HW-19 considered vintage yet?  

Edited by Eee Pee - 3/4/11 at 4:03pm

I've never tried that spin clean, but I like the idea. I use a VPI 16.5, of course

I have cleaned a couple records with 91% isopropyl alcohol. They sound noticably better and leave the paper towel yellow stained so I suppose they are dirty. XD

 

Why does my TT give me more bass than my digital source (Droid)?

My roommate works at a used record shop (lucky me, unlucky wallet), so when I have an extra dirty record that I can't get clean with my brush I give it to him and he cleans it at his shop.  They use a vacuum style cleaner, and wet wash the records with vodka.  Cleans up the records real nice, and when I get bored I can go hang out at his shop, listen to records and get drunk on the cleaning supplies!

I run an 80s vintage Rega P3 with a Grace G707 arm and Shure V15V cart.  Nice sounding arm/cart combo and the table is reliable, but I'm not a fan of the subtle timing inconsistencies intrinsic with these belt driven tables, I'd rather tolerate a little idler rumble.  I'm going to sell the Rega when I finish rebuilding and plinthing a Garrard Lab80 I bought for $20 a few years ago.  

 

The Lab 80 is a dry run for a future Garrard 401 project.  I've collected a number of vintage arms and carts to play with, including some ancient GE mono carts.  My preamp sucks and I'll eventually build a tubed phono stage.

Edited by rehabitat - 3/5/11 at 2:00am

I get bored all the time!  I'm moving to Baltimore.