# Records (LPs), inexpensively



## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

I recently watched the complete series of Fringe on Netflix. In this series, one of the main characters occasionally listens to records. This has put me in a mood to listen to records, too. I haven't had a turntable in years, though, and even when I did, it wasn't a particularly good one, or connected to a good stereo.

I'd like to get back into this, but don't know where to start. I'm not looking to spend thousands of dollars, maybe $1g at most to start. I'd like a turntable, amp, and speakers. And not little speakers, either. Not little speakers with a subwoofer, either. If I'm gonna listen to records I want a proper set of old-school big speakers.

This setup doesn't need to connect to anything else. I'm fine with going vintage.

I've read that having tubes somewhere in the audio chain is enough to put impart the warm tube sound, that all the components don't need to be tube-based. Is that correct? Is the easiest way to do that with a tube phono pre-amp?

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I expect I'll be seeing 32rollandrock in this thread soon...


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

JJR512 said:


> I recently watched the complete series of Fringe on Netflix. In this series, one of the main characters occasionally listens to records. This has put me in a mood to listen to records, too. I haven't had a turntable in years, though, and even when I did, it wasn't a particularly good one, or connected to a good stereo.
> 
> I'd like to get back into this, but don't know where to start. I'm not looking to spend thousands of dollars, maybe $1g at most to start. I'd like a turntable, amp, and speakers. And not little speakers, either. Not little speakers with a subwoofer, either. If I'm gonna listen to records I want a proper set of old-school big speakers.
> 
> ...


You guessed correctly--it's me.

You can get a very fine system for a grand, although I wouldn't fool with tubes at that price point.

Your first priority should be the source, aka turntable. If I were in your position, I would figure on spending half--or even more--of your budget on the TT. Rega makes some very nice TT's, and you can often pick them up secondhand for around $500. If you want to go new, Rega also offers entry level tables for $400-$500. A good TT and cartridge are absolute game changers--it's kind of like seeds in the world of flora. You can't do better than the seed you start with. In this case, the vinyl is the proverbial seed, but the TT and cartridge are a close second, so you want to get the very best that you can afford. I'll never forget the first time I hooked a quality TT up to my system. "Oh, so THAT'S what it's all about," I thought to myself. The difference was astounding.

You can skimp on the amp and speakers, at least for now. Quality vintage speakers are just about everywhere these days. I bought two pairs last week from Goodwill, much to my wife's consternation, because I just couldn't walk past JBL's that cost $800 or so new that were just sitting there marked at $15. Between the speakers and the amp, you should spend about $300 (get them secondhand) and put the rest into your turntable and cartridge. And don't forget a record cleaning system. It is absolutely crucial.

This is a great website for finding a quality secondhand turntable: https://app.audiogon.com/

You can also use it to find the rest of your components, but, really, you should be shopping craigslist and, if you have patience and time, thrift stores for the amp and speakers--they'll be cheaper there than anywhere else. Pawn shops are also worth checking.

If you are going to be buying and playing used records, and practically everyone with a turntable does, I would recommend this for a budget record-cleaning system:

They're pretty widely available for south of $100. I haven't personally used one, but a friend has and swears by it. Likes it better than his Nitty Gritty that cost hundreds of dollars more. If you attempt to play records without cleaning them first, you've defeated your purpose. I would also recommend putting your records in new sleeves once they've been cleaned. I buy mine from Sleeve City. Depending on what kind you get, they cost anywhere from $10 to $20 for a package of 50 sleeves.

With regard to speakers, size doesn't necessarily matter. While it is true that large speakers back in the day were, generally speaking, better than small speakers back in the day, it all boils down to quality and the maker. Vintage Polk Audio speakers, for example, will outperform vintage larger speakers by Technics. And modern technology is mind blowing. When I purchased new speakers this year, I was going to go with large vintage ones--I was thinking Klipsch--but completely reversed course after hearing what looked like silly-small speakers by Music Fidelity, which I bought new on clearance for $500.

The beauty of this is, audiophiles are constantly upgrading and so there's a lot of very nice secondhand equipment out there for not much money. Once you get that quality turntable, you can upgrade around it as opportunity and funds allow. Be warned, however, that you are, essentially, buying a crack pipe. A system that costs $1,000 is chicken feed compared with what you will find yourself spending on records.

Addendum: Also, you can build a system for less than $200 by going the secondhand route for everything and settling for a middling quality turntable, but I wouldn't recommend it. The improvement in sound quality over CD's is going to be marginal at best.


----------



## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

I'm not familiar with the Rega name, but in looking around, I came across two other names I recognize, Linn and Thorens. I'm also slightly familiar with the Technics 1200 series. How do these compare to Rega?

Which particular model(s) should I reasonably expect to get in the ~$500 price range?

On a side note, the first song I want to hear is Roundabout by Yes.


----------



## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Roundabout??

I suggest headphones.

YES!!


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

JJR512 said:


> I'm not familiar with the Rega name, but in looking around, I came across two other names I recognize, Linn and Thorens. I'm also slightly familiar with the Technics 1200 series. How do these compare to Rega?
> 
> Which particular model(s) should I reasonably expect to get in the ~$500 price range?
> 
> On a side note, the first song I want to hear is Roundabout by Yes.


I would go with Rega. Here's their entry model, brand new, for $345 with free shipping:

You could do worse than getting the RP1, then spending $100 or so on a quality cartridge. Roommate in college had a Rega. It was fabulous. At last report, it was still going strong more than a quarter-century later. I can't give you a definitive breakdown on how Rega compares with these other brands, but the brand's reputation is sterling and that one Rega I had access to long ago was a great product. CMDC purchased a Rega earlier this year and is very happy with it. They have a reputation for delivering a lot of bang for the buck.

Some of this will likely boil down to what you stumble across. I have a Yamaha PX3 turntable that I love, but I would never have bought it if it hadn't shown up on CL.

PS: Remember what I said about your turntable as crack pipe?

I've reached the point where $50 doesn't seem like a huge amount to pay for a record.


----------



## jph712 (Mar 22, 2007)

32rollandrock said:


> You can skimp on the amp and speakers, at least for now. Quality vintage speakers are just about everywhere these days. I bought two pairs last week from Goodwill, much to my wife's consternation, because I just couldn't walk past JBL's that cost $800 or so new that were just sitting there marked at $15. Between the speakers and the amp, you should spend about $300 (get them secondhand) and put the rest into your turntable and cartridge. And don't forget a record cleaning system. It is absolutely crucial.
> 
> This is a great website for finding a quality secondhand turntable: https://app.audiogon.com/
> 
> ...


Good information all. I never even thought to clean the LP, thank you for that.

I have a circa 1988 JVC component system that I purchase new along with a pair of Polk Audio 3-ways, and have recently acquired a pair of circa 1990 Polk 2-ways, and have been looking to get a proper turntable.

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk 2


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

jph712 said:


> Good information all. I never even thought to clean the LP, thank you for that.
> 
> I have a circa 1988 JVC component system that I purchase new along with a pair of Polk Audio 3-ways, and have recently acquired a pair of circa 1990 Polk 2-ways, and have been looking to get a proper turntable.
> 
> Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk 2


You are well on your way, then. Polk Audio speakers will do for now. Put your money into the TT and cartridge.

A dealer whom I know and trust has recommended this record cleaning system: 




Here's an even better demonstration: 




It's $100 more than the Spin Clean, but is likely worth the extra money. I have a Nitty Gritty vacuum cleaner that works great but cost a lot more than this one.


----------



## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Don't believe all the brand advertising hype. You don't need to spend a small fortune for good vinyl sound, far from it.


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Don't believe all the brand advertising hype. You don't need to spend a small fortune for good vinyl sound, far from it.


Uh, yes you do. Absolutely you do. Those who would say otherwise--and there are plenty--simply do not have sophisticated ears. That's OK. I don't have a sophisticated palate when it comes to wine. We can't all be all things.

In my opinion, you have to spend at least a grand to get a system worth listening to, and that's with secondhand components. That said, we all have our priorities. If you are willing to settle for OK sound, that's your business. But I can play you a record side by side on a cheap system and then an audiophile quality system, or a crappy pressing next to quality pressing on the same system and you'd say, "Oh, I get it now." If you said otherwise, you'd either be deaf or lying.

I've had the privilege of listening to a system that cost north of $50,000 and it was absolutely staggering. I'll never be able to afford anything like that, but I do what I can to treat my ears, and it isn't hype. The $1,000 or so I spent on upgrades this year was money well spent, particularly the turntable and record-cleaning system. And you do have to spend at least $100 on a cleaning system. I spent $300 and would do it again in a heartbeat. Improves sound quality by 30 percent or so, I'd say, while also extending the life of your vinyl and stylus.

All this said, it isn't money alone. I can get better sound out of a $500 system with properly placed speakers than I can get out of a $1,500 system with speakers not properly placed. Ask Shaver about speaker stands.


----------



## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

I'm glad I spend my money on sensible things like tubas and boats!!


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

WouldaShoulda said:


> I'm glad I spend my money on sensible things like tubas and boats!!


Why do you think that records and a quality sound system are wastes of money?


----------



## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

32rollandrock said:


> Why do you think that records and a quality sound system are wastes of money?


Not wastes, necessarily, just not tubas and boats!!


----------



## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

LPs... it has just dawned on me that *this* will be a fantastic application of 3D printing.

I'd love to see very precise files available for purchase online - the whole classical catalogue would be my focus - so that I can print LPs out.

Just... wow.

DH


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

Intriguing. That would be mind-boggling-ly cool. Just one issue.

At some point, you would have to put the source into digital format. That's already done lots of times, of course--probably most times. But there have been restorations of vinyl recordings with no digital technology at all. The recent Beatles mono releases come to mind, as does an amazing restoration of Getz/Gilberto released a few years ago. There are plenty of diehards out there who will argue that once it leaves analog format, it will never be the same.



Dhaller said:


> LPs... it has just dawned on me that *this* will be a fantastic application of 3D printing.
> 
> I'd love to see very precise files available for purchase online - the whole classical catalogue would be my focus - so that I can print LPs out.
> 
> ...


----------



## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

32rollandrock said:


> Uh, yes you do. Absolutely you do. Those who would say otherwise--and there are plenty--simply do not have sophisticated ears.


I totally disagree. But I should explian my point further. I have three systems set up in my house, of varying degrees of expense and quality, and all are more than sufficient for purpose. The more you spend and the more you tweak the less improvement you notice with each subsequent change. The huge improvements come when a new vinyl listener is starting out and replaces for example, a plastic bodied automatic turntable for a wooden bodied belt drive turntable with a good cartridge, then of course changing from bell wire to proper good quality speaker cable is another huge lift, then room postioning and what the items sit on is another huge lift. Any hi-fi guide will tell you this, however magazines advertising hi-fi usually don't because they are in the business of advertising to sell. As a hobby in the 90s in London I used to buy and sell bits of hi-fi and set up systems for friends and colleagues, so I do know what I'm talking about.


----------



## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

32rollandrock said:


> Intriguing. That would be mind-boggling-ly cool. Just one issue.
> 
> At some point, you would have to put the source into digital format. That's already done lots of times, of course--probably most times. But there have been restorations of vinyl recordings with no digital technology at all. The recent Beatles mono releases come to mind, as does an amazing restoration of Getz/Gilberto released a few years ago. There are plenty of diehards out there who will argue that once it leaves analog format, it will never be the same.


Well, apparently the benefit of analog format is simply an absence of an electronic limitation: we can't digitally produce square waves.

Actual, live music features both sinusoidal and *square* waves. To reproduce those you need two things: (i) uncompressed recordings (meaning: analog) and (ii) vacuum-tube produced signals (since only vacuum-tube discharge can signal a square wave).

Digital sound systems necessarily use compressed file formats, and they can only reproduce sinusoidal sounds.

(I think Marantz still builds tube recievers.)

DH


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

Sounds right to me. Tube amps are still widely available.



Dhaller said:


> Well, apparently the benefit of analog format is simply an absence of an electronic limitation: we can't digitally produce square waves.
> 
> Actual, live music features both sinusoidal and *square* waves. To reproduce those you need two things: (i) uncompressed recordings (meaning: analog) and (ii) vacuum-tube produced signals (since only vacuum-tube discharge can signal a square wave).
> 
> ...


----------



## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

Dhaller said:


> Well, apparently the benefit of analog format is simply an absence of an electronic limitation: we can't digitally produce square waves.
> 
> Actual, live music features both sinusoidal and *square* waves. To reproduce those you need two things: (i) uncompressed recordings (meaning: analog) and (ii) vacuum-tube produced signals (since only vacuum-tube discharge can signal a square wave).
> 
> ...


Your understanding of digital and analog and reproduction is off.

"...we can't digitally produce square waves." This is incorrect. Square waves can be produced or reproduced digitally. In fact, digital can excel at producing square waves. one of the basic problems with digital is that it cannot produce sinusoidal waves; rather, it can only produce stepped waves, which a square wave is an example of.

Think of it like this. Imagine a sheet of graphing paper. Draw a line straight across, then draw a waveform centered on the line. Now place a dot on the waveform every place a vertical graph line crosses through the wave. Those dots are samples, and the height of each dot above or below the center line is converted into a number. When a waveform is converted to digital, those samples are all that remains. What the produces, in effect, is a stepped wave. When the digital music is played back, those numbers are used to plot a waveform, but what it actually makes is a stepped wave. The converter then uses an algorithm to smooth out the steps into a sinusoidal waveform. What it comes up with may not be an exact copy of the original, but it will always be the same, it will always come up with the same imperfect copy every time. And for the most part, it's so close that the difference is hard for most people to notice.

The problem with reproducing a square wave has nothing to do with digital or analog, it has to do with playback equipment. Specifically, speakers. Speakers cannot emit a square sound wave. A square wave goes from zero to max instantly. A speaker cone cannot move instantly from rest to full extension; it must move from one to the other, which produces a sinusoidal wave of sound in the air.

(On a side note, I'll point out that this is a problem with sirens. Mechanical sirens, whether on police cars or ambulances or the type used for air raid warnings, use an impeller in a slitted housing. As the impeller turns, air trapped in the impeller voids is forced out through the housing slits as each void is exposed to a slit. It's the off-and-on blast of air through a slit that creates sound. The faster the impeller turns, the higher pitched the sound is. The sound from this type of siren is a stepped wave, because of the on-and-off nature of the air either coming out of the slits, or not coming out of he slits. Nowadays mechanical sirens are rare, because they take a huge amount of power to operate. Most vehicles with sirens use electronic sirens that essentially play a recording of a siren, or use a tone generator to create the sound wave. But even if they play a stepped wave recorded from a mechanical siren, what actually gets emitted into the air is a sinusoidal wave, because the horn used to emit the sound, like a speaker, cannot emit a square or stepped wave. This is a problem because sinusoidal waves do not penetrate into vehicles nearly as well as stepped waves do, which means modern sirens are not as audible, even at the same decibel level.)

I should also point out that an uncompressed recording does not necessarily mean analog. Typically, compression is usually a reference only to digital recordings (unless you're talking about dynamic range compression which is different and unrelated). The digital recording on a CD is not compressed. An MP3 digital recording is compressed. "Compression" means removing certain parts of data that are superfluous or redundant. Removing redundant data is fine. Removing redundant data means that if you have a particular subset of data that repeats multiple times, instead of repeating the data, you instead just have the data once, then a notation of how many times it repeats. This is like at the grocery store, if you buy five of the exact same item, the cashier could either scan each item one by one, or just scan the first one and then the "quantity" button followed by the "5" key (or whatever similar keys and methods are used on whatever cash register is being used).

Redundant data rarely occurs in music. The type of compression used in music removes data that is allegedly superfluous, meaning it's presence isn't noticed, therefore it's absence won't be noticed, either. That's the theory. The reality can vary, depending on how much data is removed and how sensitive the listeners' ears are.

The benefit of analog music is that in a perfect world it is an exact, unaltered copy of the original sound. This doesn't ever actually happen, though. In practice, the benefit is that although the analog copy played back at home may be slightly flawed as compared to the original, the flaws are more pleasing to the ear than the flaws introduced by the conversion of analog to digital and back again.


----------



## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

Refer to the attached image for clarification. The image comes from the Wikipedia artfile on Pulse Code Modulation which is the analog-to-digital conversion method most commonly used for music.

On the image you see a sine wave. You also see vertical lines, which represent the sampling rate. For CD audio, the sampling rate is 44.1 kHz, meaning 44,100 samples are taken per second. The sampling rate on he image is not specified but isn't relevant. What is specified, though, is the bit depth, which is four. This means that the amplitude of the wave can be measured to 16 different values, 0-15. There are 16 possible values because a bit can be either 0 or 1, meaning two possible values, and if you put four of them together, there are 2^4 possible values for each point.

(If you have trouble understanding that, consider that it works for ordinary decimal numbers as well. Suppose you have an ordinary number that's four digits long, and each digital can be 0-9. How many possible numbers are there? Answer: 10^4, or 10,000: 0000-9999.)

A sample is taken at every sampling interval. A "sample" is simply the amplitude, or height, of the wave at that moment in time. But note that at every sample interval, the wave may not be directly inline with one of the possible values of zero through fifteen. When this happens, the sample is rounded up or down. This is one of the flaws inherent in the process. When the digital data is converted back into an analog waveform for playback, the system has no idea where the sample really was originally. In the digital realm, all information must be perfectly aligned. So as you can hopefully see, when those dots are used to plot a waveform, it probably won't look exactly like the original.


----------



## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

My Geek detector just broke!!


----------



## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

WouldaShoulda said:


> My Geek detector just broke!!


I kind of figured my off-the-cuff explanation would trigger an actual explanation!

And thanks JJR512 for the clarifications 

DH


----------



## Quetzal (Jul 25, 2014)

One of my favorite forms of Physics! In fact, I'm even making a Physics Soundtrack ("Free Fallin'" obviously goes with...).

But seeing how the clarifications have already been explained, I'll offer my advice to the title of the thread.

I go to Flea Markets and Second-Hand Stores all the time, and have bought albums and records there for many years. Unfortunately, they have gone up in price since more and more people are apparently into vinyl these days. Seeing as how many are caring about clothes (especially those who prefer vintage clothes, such as members on the Fedora Lounge) these days, I wouldn't be surprised if thrift stores begin to raise their prices on clothes, just as eBay vendors have (I remember back when I could buy an old hat or suit for under $30.00...). On a bright note, society seems to be returning to the better parts of the days of yore, or the aspects of times of days gone by which have been long since forgotten. Let's hope that it's not a passing fad...

-Quetzal


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

Very rare to find a real keeper album in the thrifts these days. The local GW culls the best and sells them online, where they fetch amazing prices. Not sure why. I'm wouldn't trust a thrift store to grade records, and you can't return them regardless of how many scratches they have. OTOH, brand new reissues are getting to be fairly common, and for $20 or less for most titles.



Quetzal said:


> One of my favorite forms of Physics! In fact, I'm even making a Physics Soundtrack ("Free Fallin'" obviously goes with...).
> 
> But seeing how the clarifications have already been explained, I'll offer my advice to the title of the thread.
> 
> ...


----------



## Quetzal (Jul 25, 2014)

32rollandrock said:


> Very rare to find a real keeper album in the thrifts these days. The local GW culls the best and sells them online, where they fetch amazing prices. Not sure why. I'm wouldn't trust a thrift store to grade records, and you can't return them regardless of how many scratches they have. OTOH, brand new reissues are getting to be fairly common, and for $20 or less for most titles.


Sadly, you're correct. Most of my albums are Big Band albums that were probably made in the 1970s (containing the original recordings) which I purchased at flea markets, and that small collection has taken a few years to create. Otherwise, I have several 45s that were owned by my parents or grandparents, but not many albums. Now, I need to devote time to fix the Grundig...

The Goodwill in my area will allow records to be returned, but that's probably the only one.

-Quetzal


----------

