A return to TT

[JackD201]

Frantz,

I'm loving the Townshend Rock 7. The front damping trough really works (especially with rumble aka makes headphone listening more tolerable) and so does the vibration isolation. The plinth and feet are basically seismic sinks, a combination of springs and pneumatics. For snap on convenience the Excalibur arm, a modded Rega, is okay. It could benefit from some TLC and spit and polish as far as looks go however. I'm using a ZYX Airy 3 S on mine. Nice tight bass. The stage is not as wide as my other carts but imaging is very stable and dense. Best thing is the price of the table and arm. It's competitive with many tables that cost more. It's also very compact. Downside of the table is it doesn't come with a dust cover. If you live in an area where airborne particulates are a problem, you'll need to have one made. Downside of the arm is that round top carts won't fit because of the head shell taper limiting carts to rectangular bodied ones.

BTW, I went back into analog because my Mom gave me all her LPs. She bought them, made selections on tape for her and my Dad and shelved them. Now she buys CDs, rips 'em and burns her selections. She loves the convenience. She asked for an Apple TV for Christmas. Looks like my 77 year old mother has plans of streaming from her iPad. She's adorable! . A large part of my love for LP is due to these heirlooms that I intend to pass on too when the time comes. Enjoy!

Jack

 

[RBFC]

Frantz,

It's wonderful to hear that you managed to get a hold of so many treasured albums! If it takes a TT to play them, fine! I have a rare recording of George Szell's last live performance (Sibelius #2) taped from a NHK radio broadcast in Japan. It's on cassette tape, and I will always be glad I have a cassette player when I want to listen to it.

Lee

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

You're not losing me. I am gaining a lot of superb music, that will quickly converted to digital. The dril will be what I usually do for my new CDs.. I rip them while listening .. end of the story ... then they will be enjoyed through a digital gig ... I could have done it with some friends TT but it would have been a bother ... I might as well have a TT. And I don't want to sel these album call them legacy or heirloom

It's the best of both world's, really. Listening to a server while looking at album covers! I've considered it myself.

Tim

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Congrats Frantz on this amazing gift, and I understand why you won't sell them. I only have about 100 or so LP's that my Dad gave me years ago, and I'll never sell them either. The sentimental value of them is too great to want to part with them.

I'm not going to give you any advice on which TT/Arm/Cart you should consider, so I'll step away from that discussion, but I did want to ask about the software you'll be using when doing the needledrops. I'm thinking of transcribing more of my vinyl as well, something I used to do years ago and greatly enjoyed. There have obviously been significant improvements made on the software side of this, hence my question.

 

[flez007]

I have an extra EMT table ready to ship!

 

[FrantzM]

Congrats Frantz on this amazing gift, and I understand why you won't sell them. I only have about 100 or so LP's that my Dad gave me years ago, and I'll never sell them either. The sentimental value of them is too great to want to part with them.

I'm not going to give you any advice on which TT/Arm/Cart you should consider, so I'll step away from that discussion, but I did want to ask about the software you'll be using when doing the needledrops. I'm thinking of transcribing more of my vinyl as well, something I used to do years ago and greatly enjoyed. There have obviously been significant improvements made on the software side of this, hence my question.

John

I don't have a firm answer just yet on the software to use. I am thinking very much about re-building a system and already know there will be a Burmester
preamp in it. The one I used allowed a Phono stage ... Wil be looking in the same direction for that. I am also looking in to those "needledrops"... I must say that I find the DSD process unnecessarily wasteful. I would have preferred PCM all the way and likely wil not do the DSD to PCM conversion , I am an engineer and that caries in my thinking .. the DSD to PCM conversion cannot be entirely transparent, I would like to avoid it. I have however only heard praises about the Korg unit which at <$2000 is the kind of thing I am looking for. I wonder if there is any PCM equivalent to it i-e a PCM ADC in that price range with that level of performance.

@Jack
I don't have much experience with the Townsend but always liked their engineering approach. Their solution came before the time when audiophile would take isolation seriously. And they worked. The beauty of the Triplanar is breathtaking I must say but the simplicity, sturdiness, availability and price of the SME iV or V is attractive. I may be able to get a Technics SP-10 too .. Keeping my finger crossed. As for its plinth I may get my mind wet into designing one while I am here, for a few weeks .. A good friend of mine works in metal and has a shop with CNC machine, etc, here in Haiti ... I need more info on this and would like to ask the best solution for plinth and what would be required ...

 

[JackD201]

Albert P, Mike L and Mark have first hand experience with the SP-10. Sounds like a fun project!

 

[mep]

The SP-10 MKII is a war horse that just does its job and gets out of the way. If you are going to go with a pivoted arm, I do think the 12" arms bring a little something extra to the table (pun intended) by what they leave off of the table. And that would be lower distortion than their shorter bretheren. I know of no better value than the SME 312s arm which Albert Porter recommended to me.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

A few things..
First . I will likely digitize as much as I can...
Digitizing a large record collection is work .. Lot of work. More than I thought. I am trying to understand Audacity, a very good software. Just ripping a record, turning it over and and making of this a file is not a huge problem in itself ... making sure that you have the tracks and artwork is so far to me a serious work as it has to be done fo each LP.. And it canbe done casually. ou have to approach each LP as a Project and work on it .. thus ...
I will have to socnsider a more serious approach to my foray back to to TT. I
I am very partial to the Technics SP-10 and was able to locate one at a fair price.. Now comes the problem of arm .. I may go SME or come back to Graham or even the Triplanar.. I now am facing mep problem.. I need a good plinth for the Technics. I am very price conscious so a plinth should not cost an arm and a cartridge

I am still in Haiti and have located a Radio station with EMT turntables and they are willing to sell them ... What are they worth? And which one are the real deal? That radio Station happens to have a bunch of Tape Decks aka R2R ... Otari, Teac, Studer, yes, Studer looks like PR99 pr something. I'll know when I visit....

 

[Steve Williams]

Frantz

you might want to PM member "astrotoy" here. Larry is a retired astronomer who has the largest collection of vinyl I have ever seen.....probably well over 15,000 albums. He wanted to digitize the entire collection and give to his daughter and her husband.

Here is a thread which might interest you

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...erver-for-My-Vinyl&p=5229&viewfull=1#post5229

 

[FrantzM]

Steve

Thanks so very much .. Larry has 15 K and want to devote 10 years doing this thing .. I have about 1000 maybe more so it looks like a year .. Man it is a lot of work .. Just for one album .. Believe me ... I am trying just to get to know Audacity and I am puffing ... So are EMy TTs any good? What other Radio TTs could serve the purpose .. What about Plinths ? The love of Music will be my undoing
PM to Astrotoy soon

 

[Steve Williams]

Larry did tremendous due diligence in this project before he decided on final components. It's worth talking to him

 

[rockitman]

why go through all the trouble to digitize vinyl ?
1) The digital version will not sound as good as the actual vinyl playback.
2) If you go through the process and significant expense to get quality vinyl playback...table. arm, cart and phono stage, wouldn't you want to use it ?

Other than having titles that may be on vinyl but not on digital, what is the motivation to do it ? Convenience ?
If you have the same title on CD and vinyl, the only motivation to copy it I see is because it sounds better than the CD, so this returns me to point #1.

I'm in an infinite loop now....

 

[cjfrbw]

Frantz,

You have unleashed the manic, analog genie. I would say just settle on a good rig and do your thing. Otherwise, you will just keep going down the rabbit hole like the rest of us analog slaves.

If you want the most tape like, dense recording: idler wheel turntable and 12 inch arm with low compliance cartridge.

Greatest sense of precision: Direct drive turntable with a great arm like the phantom and a decent cartridge.

The EMT 9 hundreds are considered among the best traditional turntables by the analog gurus, but may require some restoration magic to bring them up to snuff. If you are willing to go that direction in terms of time and effort, you can't go wrong.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

why go through all the trouble to digitize vinyl ?
1) The digital version will not sound as good as the actual vinyl playback.
2) If you go through the process and significant expense to get quality vinyl playback...table. arm, cart and phono stage, wouldn't you want to use it ?

Other than having titles that may be on vinyl but not on digital, what is the motivation to do it ? Convenience ?
If you have the same title on CD and vinyl, the only motivation to copy it I see is because it sounds better than the CD, so this returns me to point #1.

I'm in an infinite loop now....

+1

 

[FrantzM]

Frantz,

You have unleashed the manic, analog genie. I would say just settle on a good rig and do your thing. Otherwise, you will just keep going down the rabbit hole like the rest of us analog slaves.

If you want the most tape like, dense recording: idler wheel turntable and 12 inch arm with low compliance cartridge.

Greatest sense of precision: Direct drive turntable with a great arm like the phantom and a decent cartridge.

The EMT 9 hundreds are considered among the best traditional turntables by the analog gurus, but may require some restoration magic to bring them up to snuff. If you are willing to go that direction in terms of time and effort, you can't go wrong.

+1

Very sound advice indeed I must say that the audiophile in me had already started fussing about the littlest things. I do understand that a lot of this hobby is psychological. I know there are certain designs with which my engineer mind is not at ease with, idler-pulley is one of them. I have located an SP-10, if the price and conditions are right, I may go the Albert Porter/mep way ... I like however the look and the sound of the Triplanar, had a Graham and a SME V before so this is likely path. Cartridge is to be an MC as for Phono Stage it is wide open and could be anything not crazy expensive but good and it seems there are a few out there ... Suggestions are welcome as well

 

[mep]

Frantz-there are a gazillion phono stages out there from $49.00 to $49K. Are you going to go with a preamp from Burmester? If so, don’t they MC phono cards for their preamps? I’m using the Krell KPE Reference phono stage which I’m quite happy with. It has switchable gain all the way to 76dB and of course switchable loading. It’s dead quiet. The price is right used.

 

[FrantzM]

mep

Likely preamp will be Burmester ... Depends on model Phono is a drop-in module indeed. We will see ...

 

[garylkoh]

If you're going with Burmester, the Ph100 also comes with a killer ADC to do the digital conversion....... most members of our audio club couldn't reliably tell the difference between analog and digital in that exercise.

 

[FrantzM]

If you're going with Burmester, the Ph100 also comes with a killer ADC to do the digital conversion....... most members of our audio club couldn't reliably tell the difference between analog and digital in that exercise.

Gary

I have only heard great things about this particular unit and I could just grab it and be done for the next century !! Got to check it out.. Thanks... What's the price?

A jab at my analogue friends ... Reliably discerning between good digital and good analogue is not as clear cut as many would like to think