Oh my... I thought I had the last functional specimen!!! :D

G/F has me cleaning out my extra bedroom (current junk/computer room... I mean study) so we can use it as a... sigh... bedroom for when her daughter comes to visit.

Hmmmm... nice tube amp... turntable... a couple high efficiency speakers... hmmm... I sure the daughter would appreciate it ;)

Put an iPod hookup in and I actually bet she would like it. Just prepare for loud rap. :p

My Dual table is still spinning the vinyl well

Check out the Music Hall MMF-7. Have had mine for about 5 years and can't believe the bang-for-the-buck. Looks cool too.

Maybe we should start a poll on who has the oldest functioning turntable...

I have a Dual in my attic, don't remember the model, but I bought it in 1976 or so. I may look at one of those ones that digitizes the music for my ipod. Some old vinyl, probably two feet of it.

Figure your cost at about $50 per inch...

The big list of turntables thread:
List of Turntable Manufacturers - Blu-ray Forum

Smaller list from a on-line source:
Needle Doctor 1-800-229-0644, Turntables

alt source:
http://www.audioadvisor.com/products.asp?dept=78

Got this Toshiba in 1980. The Empire cartridge for it costs more than I paid for the whole turntable! Got Queen's News of the World on it right now...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1253932386.jpg

Gotta admit guys: CD's do sound better and are less maintenance than LPs. I once got ZZ Top Eliminator album synchronized with the CD version (by adjusting platter speed) and switched back and forth with the input selector knob to hear the difference. I can make the CD sound like the LP by bringing the highs down with the graphic equalizer. I think the 'warm' sound comes from the lack of mids and highs from the vinyl... it's less 'tinny', but the splash of cymbals is not as crisp and there are subleties missing on vinyl (like the1st violin, 2nd chair flipping the page on his score while the woodwinds carry the passage).

However, the nostalgia of dropping the needle on records I've had since Jr High is worth the cost of replacement styli... 1000x over!:)

Question: vertical linear tracking was the last great 'breakthrough' as far as I know with turntable technology. Have there been any improvements since 1985 in the technology?
If not, a good used turntable with a new stylus is all you need.

There has been an improvement in LP cleaning since I got my last carbon fiber cleaning brush:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1253937649.jpg

Not my experience at all. CD's are 'bright' and I for one can't listen to them at a decent volume for any length of time. - cd's are convenient, nothing else. iTunes takes that convenience to a whole nother level - great for parties or long sessions in the garage. Vinyl is for when you have time (and the need) for a listen at a level that your system is designed for, when you are ready for sonic bliss.

(My example is Dire Straits "Telegraph Road" The piano at the end of that song causes cold chills when I listen on vinyl; the cd? eh, whatever.
There's a good reason that the vinyl version of the Stones "Let it Bleed" asks the listener to Play Loud while on the CD that little bit of advice has gone missing. With the vinyl, you hear what was recorded. The CD discards what the computer (and the person doing the conversion) decides isn't important.

(Back to the thread, that Marantz TT is nice, great reviews, and it even comes with a cartridge! (but no dustcover) Still a little too rich for my blood. I've a midlevel Denon DD with a Grado
Black cartridge. Sounds pretty good to me.

Okay here is a vinyl blast for ya
I have Dark Side of the Moon in quad. I also have an old (functional) LLoyds quad receiver. I used to love to get..................................altered and center myself in the middle and just go. "wow"

No, not at all.

I do have some poorly cared for (used) LP's which are worn out and can't be steamed cleaned enough which a CD will trounce, but that's an exception.

I have $2,500 CD player and a $250 record player (plus $400 cartridge) and the record player sounds better given good source material.

What I was missing for many years in my experience with records was a properly set up and aligned cartridge. No bass, no highs and a muddy middle are all you can expect without a proper set up using a protractor. Most people who like CD's better have never heard an aligned needle. The others just like the convenience of CD's too much to be open minded.

I have to admit that before I had a tube powered system with tube phone preamp the snap crackle pop could be too much even on a clean record. All that changed when I went to valves/tubes. Solid state and records just do not go together.

Keep old technology with old technology for best results.

Cartridge Alignment Protractors
Cartridge Alignment Protractors | Free Turntable, Tonearm & Cartridge Tools | Vinyl Engine

Cartridge Alignment products
Cartridge Alignment


Alignment Proctrators
Turntable Accessories-Audio Advisor

I have the DB Systems protractor, difficult (but not impossible) to use with non-rectangular bodies.
http://www.audioadvisor.com/images/DBPRO_000.jpg

Use one of these too..........I know..sooooo much work.;)

Cardas Frequency Sweep and Burn-in Record – Good also to set anti-skating
Cardas Audio
http://www.cardas.com/images/product...eep-record.jpg

We have a USB turntable and we use it to play the old albums and convert them to MP3's. Works well!

My wife had never really listened to vinyl before I bought my turntable. Her previous experience was mostly with old "record players" and crappy albums full of scratches and pops. She was skeptical, needless to say.

Even she had to admit that the albums sounded great. I have an annoying habit (in her opinion) of listening to music at higher volumes than she thinks are appropriate and one thing that she noticed right away was that the vinyl music was less "harsh" at higher volumes than CDs. Much easier to listen to and more musical.

Having said that, I have some CDs that sound really, really good and I have some albums that sound really, really bad. :)

To me, part of the experience of listening to music is putting an album on and then looking through the liner notes and sleeve artwork, etc. I miss that with CDs.

I picked up this Dual CS-5000 on SleazeBay for ~ $200.00. It's not really considered audiophile grade but was highly regarded back in the day. It's run through a NAD C-162 preamp and twin NAD C-272 power amps. The vinyl always sounds better to me also.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...c/DSC05101.jpg

Just cruised the needle doctor site...some of the prices were amazing!

Pic of the old linear tracking Techniques...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1254001824.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1254027097.jpg

These were the cat's ass when I was into the analog scene. Sony and Mitsu made them. The idea was that the stylus remained perpendicular to the groove and there was virtually 'zero' tracking weight on the needle. I don't think there has been any improvement in 30 years in this regard.*

I don't know how a single diamond stylus can genuinely reproduce stereo separation, frequency and volume with a single analog input which depends so heavily on wear of the stylus and groove of the record, not to mention the speed and angle of the tracking groove.* As far as I'm concerned, get as much musical information faithfully reproduced as possible, and shape it from there. But to the human ear phono still sounds pretty good. It depends on how you listen to your music I guess, and how you like it to sound. I like a lot of presence. I want it to sound like I'm in the cathedral recording it. NO... like I'm directing it! Of course, the phono input is just the beginning. The rest of the stereo system must also faithfully amplify and reproduce what you're listening to.


* I have read that Edison had it right with his tubes. The frequency was recorded with a vertical component, rather than lateral. And his cylinders stayed aligned with the tone arm/stylus. But they only contained one track at a time and packaging was not as efficient.

The drawback to those was the vertical positioning...tough to put in the rack of other components. That's why I went with the horizontal techniques. Linear tracking is the key here. I noted none of those offered in the links given were linear tracking...that included one with an asking price of $300K...