The LP experience begins!

Paul Connor

Oh, by the way Tres Hombres is my favorite ZZ album hands down.

madmax

That is my second favorite. I too picked Tres Hombres as my favorite for awhile until I listened to Degualo several times. As far as I'm concerned the two of them are necessities.

Speaking of absolute favorites: The Kinks, Give the people what they want. And guess what, I picked up that LP 10 years ago and never opened it because I found it on CD! I can't wait to spin that one. BTW, I don't care much for any other Kinks music. This particular one is quite different than the rest.
madmax

Paul Connor

I'll have to check out that Kinks album. I saw that there was a cd release of their music recently. What are some of the songs on Give the people what they want?

As for ZZ--give a listen to Master of Sparks on Tres Hombres if you haven't recently. One of my personal favorites.

I think rlw is out buying vinyl this weekend, we'll have to see what he came up with.

Paul

madmax

Master of sparks is awesome!
Some other songs on the Kinks album are Around the Dial, Art Lover, Give the People what they want, Yo Yo, A little bit of Abuse, Destroyer, Add it up, Predictable... This is one of those few albums where all the songs are so good that you can't figure out which one you like the best.
madmax

madmax

I wish I could find tres hombres and degualo on LP.

I Just got the SME arm in!!! I'll play with that tonite. It sure looks monsterous!

madmax

madmax

Which one has "I'm bad, I'm nationwide" on it???
madmax

rlw

Originally posted by madmax001
I wish I could find tres hombres and degualo on LP.

I Just got the SME arm in!!! I'll play with that tonite. It sure looks monsterous!

madmax

Excellent news on the arm! Hot damn, you'll be spinning vinyl RSN!


Open the wallet here

rlw

Originally posted by Paul Connor

I think rlw is out buying vinyl this weekend, we'll have to see what he came up with.

Paul

Too much, much too much.

Ended up doing a blitz, and picking out 50 Lp's or so, ranging in condition from M- to SS.

Got some new stuff: the new Alanis Morrisette [absolutely sucks], some older stuff: David Thomas and the Pedestrians, "Sound of the Sand", 45RPM, released in 1982 on Rough Trade, with no surface noise at all [awesome tunes], and some old stuff: original releases of Ella Fitzgerald. Also picked up the Cybil Shepard LP "Cybil Does it to Cole Porter" - couldn't resist that one. Oh, found a Mint copy of Nancy Sinatra, "Boots" LP...some Sun Ra...Kinky Friedman...Fred Frith...Slaphappy...Eugene Chadbourne...

Also got some nifty new CD's of stuff that will never be released on vinyl but is important new jazz.

Now I need to get going on building some shelving.

Paul Connor

I'll have to look, but I think I have a couple of old Nancy Sinatra lp's that came in a collection I bought sight unseen.

Got exited today at lunch and went back to Triple Play Records and bought a sealed copy of Gordon Lightfoot's Back Here on Earth and a mint copy of the soundtrack to Easy Rider.

Storage. I am currently in the process of restoring an armoire that belonged to my great-grandfather. I am going to retrofit it for 331/3 storage. I think I can get it strong enough to hold around 2000 lp's.

Good news on the arm max-the finish line is near.

Paul Connor

Looked for the Kinks album, but no luck.

madmax

Nancy Sinatra is awesome. I have that on CD and it has better than excellent sound. Probably the LP is better? I dont see how. I got the arm limping along last night. Everything is right according to the manual but I need to re-check everything and do a little listening.

Cool letdown happened. My phono preamp is in the bottom of a full closet and a tube type microphone preamp just happened to be sitting close so I grabbed it and hooked it up. Surprisingly no noise or hum. I put on one of the old mishandled discs I had been using for setup. Crack pop hiss etc. This was worse than I remembered. I rechecked all the arm settings. I put on a clean LP and it had very nice extended bass but at a very quiet level and it was very top heavy. I'm sure you see where this is headed. I forgot about the RIAA curve. No wonder the sound was so top heavy! The sound showed some real potential though! Now for the real first listening...
madmax

gidrah

rlw - What Sun Ra did you get? That is just TOO cool.

rlw

gidrah,

"Strange Celestial Road"
"MonoRails and Satellites"

I know *nothing* about SunRa. Do you have any recommendations?


madmax,

You're sooo close. I'll get that by the end of tonight you're spinning vinyl!

Paul,

I'm envious that you have a great vinyl so close by!

Paul Connor

rlw,

Triple Play Records is a great store and the owner is very knowlegable about music. He hosts a local radio show here called Acoustic Sunday. He not only sells lp's and cd's, but vintage music posters, magazines and other music related items. He is also one of the local outlets for concert information and tickets. If you ever watched a movie called High Fidelity with John Cusak, the store itself looks a lot like the one in the movie. It is located in the old downtown area of town and has a real nice feel to it. If you are ever passing through Colorado on I-70, it would be worth the time to stop in and visit. His vinyl inventory is not what I would call huge, but he stands behind every record he sells. With that said, I have never returned a record.

Paul Connor

madmax,

Are you there yet??? We're waiting.............!!!!!!!

madmax

I probably wont be there until this weekend. Too much time spent shopping and not enough time spent working, so now I must work late for a few nights to catch up!
madmax

gidrah

rlw - Sun Ra is one of the most varied artists out there. To suggest anything, I'd need to know more about your tastes and more about Herman "Sonny" Blount. I can tell you that he recorded on at least 8 labels. He did 71 LPs and 26 singles (45s) on Saturn alone. Actually this label was created by a friend for his works. I've seen a Saturn label 45 on E-bay with an opening bid of $1000.00. Needless to say, I didn't bid.

I own 4 (probably 5 but can't be sure) CDs. They vary in sound and all around craziness.

Greatest Hits - 18 tracks from '56 - '73. All in chronological order.
Space is the Place - My first purchase. Space Jazz at it's finest and earliest. There's also a Space is the Place movie & soundtrack. I haven't seen or heard either one.
Lanquidity - My favorite from what I have. 5 tracks from '78.
Life is Splendid - Live at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival of '72. Real good at points, but sometimes extreme avantgarde becomes noise. Plus, the CD reads as 1 long track (9 possible tunes).

My next Sun Ra purchase will probably be Helioconcentric Worlds. Other than Space is the Place, this name pops up alot and may be worth an investigation.

Let me know what you think about your buys. Maybe I'll get one of those instead.

Madmax001 - Get in your closet and pull that pre already. When you're done there, get back to building those arrays.
Good luck on both!

madmax

Hey guys,
I'll get there soon. Today I received my orbitrac cleaning system, the Hunt 6 brush, stylast cleaner and album sleeves. Also, I received three new sealed LP's which are at the top of my prized possessions list at this point.
Hendrix-ElectricLadyland, Robert Fripp-God save the Queen and Chris and Cosey-Trust! I have ordered some other new LP's but have not received them yet. This weekend I have to work furiously because I wasted away at least a whole day at work shopping but mid week next week I will be in analog heaven! Hendrix is always an experience with the SDA's so I'm pretty excited about the Electric Lady LP's. Thanks rlw!!! (for all of them!) Now I still need a zerostat anti-static gun and shortly into the future I'll look into a VPI cleaning machine. I look forward to many new LP's at this point as well. I can't wait to get this new media going! I'm anxious to try the Harvest LP as well but have not ordered one yet.
madmax

rlw

Enjoy the LP's, madmax. I think you might find the Chris 'n Cosey to be prime SDA material!

madmax

I'll give it a try. So, I received the orbitrack and I'm looking at whether I should use it on the Gyrodec platter? Any problem with that? I thought I read somewhere not to. I still have the old pioneer, maybe I should use that for cleaning? Confused again.
Thanks!
madmax

rlw

I'd use it on the Pioneer...then, when you get your VPI RCM, you can use it on that.

I think you'll find the suspension on the Gorbe will make it impossible to use the Orbitrac well.

madmax

There are probably people who like suspension like the gyrodec has and others who like the orbe type. What are the good and bad tradeoffs of each type? A friend asked me and I realized I didn't have a clue.
madmax

rlw

The Orbe uses very clost to the same suspension as the Gyro; the only difference is that the plinth is "doubled" with the Orbe - essentially one plinth sits on the other and is coupled via tiny spikes.

IMO, all tables are suspended - just like if you were to remove the shocks and springs from a car, and tie the body and frame directly to the axles, the car would still have a suspension.

Once you buy off on that crazy idea, you can start to analyze the suspension a bit. The first thing is the idea of coupling/decoupling: you're trying to decouple the platter/arm from the plinth at certain frequencies, so that any vibration which passes through the plinth does not pass through the bearing and into the arm.

Take the Gyro: it decouples the motor from the sub-chassis, by coupling the motor to the same mount as the plinth, but having the sub-chassis assembly hang from inverted springs. Moreover, it decouples the sub-chassis from the rest of the world at predetermined frequencies: the hope is that it decouples low enough (10Hz would be great), so that no audible frequency can travel through your floor, to the rack, up the rack, into the plinth, and affect the arm.

So working on the suspension, in theory, is a great idea. However, like all suspensions, there's good and there's bad implementations thereof. A '53 Buick roadmaster has suspension, and you can kiss a curb and not feel it - but the '53 Roadmaster has some weaknesses when it comes to holding the road.

Same with tables: one downside of the Michell decks is that they are pretty susceptible to footfalls - those occur at a frequency low enough that the plinth passes the vibration to the sub-chassis, which then bounces...where a more solid suspension might put up with the footfall and not flinch.

You can also spend a *lot* of time tuning your Michell's suspension - getting it dialed in just right - and the payoff will be noticeably improved bass. However, if you have it wrong, your bass will be muddy, thick, and congealed.

The big upside is that when you get it right, it will sound quite tuneful...

A suspended table can be harder to work on, whether cueing the stylus or cleaning the stylus, or changing a setting on the arm: since the arm/subchassis bounce around, you can easily set the thing to shaking.

The Michell tables are a great entry-point into high-end tables: spend some time getting the suspension set right, and you'll hear what truly high-end tables are all about.

Does that help?

madmax

That helps a little. I've seen the michell tables with the plinth on top of a plinth. I guess that is an original orbe? Mine has only the single L shaped plinth and orbe platter. With the orbe upgrade why don't they use the extra plinth? Or do they and mine is just missing? Just wondering.

I ordered an anti-static gun! I hope it works ok. It uses a "C" cell battery rather than pulling the trigger to make the charge. It had a name I didn't recognize but it looked pretty cool.

Should I get one of those Hi-Fi News test disks? I've heard people talk about them but I don't really know what they do.

madmax

rlw

The upgrades to the Gyro don't include the double plinth...don't know why, but probably cost.

Where did you get your anti-static gun?

HFNR test disc: I dunno. I got one. Used it once...put it back on the shelf. It basically goes over system setup, identifies the resonant point of your arm/cart, and gives you some tracking tests to judge what anti-skate/tracking force works best.

madmax

I got the static gun off of ebay. I thought it seemed a little high but it sounded like a good one. I checked the completed ones and saw one that went for more but that only means there could have been someone more stupid than me out there.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1391052245

I'm racking up several LP's off ebay as well.
madmax

rlw

Dammit, stop playing on the Internet and get that vinyl spinning! The suspense is killing me!

madmax

Originally posted by rlw
Dammit, stop playing on the Internet and get that vinyl spinning! The suspense is killing me!

WHOA! Hold them horses there gents!

I am preparing for a full assult on vinyl here!

I have tried on and off playing some of those old scratchy LP's on cheap equipment and have always reassured myself that CD's were better. This time I don't want to hear scratches, pops, etc. If I hear a scratch I want to be able to clean the lp and get rid of it, if I hear a pop I want to eliminate it with the anti-static gun, if I am not sure of the quality of the pressing I want to be able to play a CDD or similar audiophile pressing to make sure that is not a problem! No gotchas here. This time it is going to be what it is. At this time I'm very aware of what my CD's sound like and I want to be able to have a decent audition of this "new" source before being corupted by this and that before getting things right. I Know there will still be things to learn but I want to be as close to heaven as I can get before I start.

On another note, I tried it out quickly with the wrong style preamp and even though it was not "right" I heard some new sounds come through the speakers. A bass line that sounded like nothing that had ever come out of the speakers before. This is my driving force so now I want to be as close as possible to the end result. I have enough evidence at this point to make the anticipation worth while!

I'll get there!!!
madmax

rlw

IMO, you're worrying too much!

You're going to have the occasional pop or click - for example, out of the last 10-15Lp's I've played, I've had 2-3 pops, and one LP with a level of surface noise that was higher than ideal, but by no means intrusive. This one LP was still very listenable, with the surface noise well below the level of music, and with gain on the system set so that peaks reached 105+ dB.

Note that these are for the most part used LP's - maybe 2 new lp's out of 15.

You're not going to be able to eliminate every one of those occasional pops or clicks you find. I'm probably going to reclean the one LP, but since it was used, I'm OK living with the fact that it might not have been cared for to the nth degree.

I started off cleaning every LP I got with the VPI. Now I look at each LP, and end up saying "Oooohhhh, I'll bet I can play that without cleaing it" or "Oh, I'll just give it a quick test spin to see, and then clean it later" about a great many even used LP's.

C'mon, man, the suspense is still killing me!

madmax

I have bigger problems though. Without getting into this perfectionist state of mind I would end up not caring for them very well. I want the few pops and such to cause me more work and stress so that I do not allow future laxness. Besides, I'm having fun!
madmax