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TerryB's Mixtape.... I am not an audiophile...... I just like to listen to music. At home, in the car, wherever. And I am of the mind that newer, more convenient music formats have offered a steady decline in quality over the standard vinyl LP (cd, then MP3, now MP4 and such) that they were meant to replace. Yeah, it's hard to play a record in the car, and they are a bit fussy in terms of cleaning, system setup, and all, but they simply sound better than standard cd's on a modest, well-set up system. I remember as a kid envying my uncles and their shiny, silver-faced, vinyl-based systems and the record collections that went along with it. (Lionel Richie, anyone?) Back in the 70's and early 80's it was nothing for a self-respecting guy to drop a grand or two on their stereo system. Given inflation, we should be happy to pay that much for hi-fi sound nowadays, but convenience has trumped quality. All one needs is an Ipod and a pile of MP3's from Itunes, or even the old Napster if you really want to cheap out. No messy and heavy records and their jackets to store, no cd jewel cases to break, and all we need is our JBL Docking Station from Best Buy to crank up the party. What's been lost is not just the sound itself, but also the culture of music listening and collecting. My 'system', if you'd call it such a thing, is not 'hi-fi' in the ultimate sense of the term, but it makes real music, and I like it. Would I like to upgrade some things? Of course, but for now I can put a plate on the stereo and not have my eardrums slowly scraped away by shrill MP3 nonsense. Sources:
I was ready to pick up a Pioneer PL-12 and soup it up a little but my wise wife informed me that we were going to do this once and be done with it. So with a budget allocated, I decided on the Music Hall mmf-5 at $500 (this was before the price went up). It's a very solid, non-suspended, dual-MDF plinth, fully manual table stock with decent Pro-Ject 9 arm and excellent Goldring 1012 cartridge. My brother had one at the time (still does) so I was able to check it out for myself before ordering one from Garage-A-Records, who sadly no longer carry the MH line. The mmf-5 really is a good table and sounds great right out of the box with some basic adjustments. After losing the stylus on the 1012, I balked at the the replacement cost (nearly $200) and swapped it with a Shure M97xe at $120 for the cart and a spare stylus. This cart is a bit more reserved than the Goldring, in fact I soon wanted to replace it for something a bit livelier. That said, it is a solid performer and a great value for those who like its laid-back sound. Tweaks, January 2007: I also added a set of leveling come feet from Parts Express for fifteen bucks. No need here for several hundred dollar feet, and I don't know if these did much to the sound but they sure make it easy to level the bugger. I also swapped the stock felt mat and record clamp for a DIY 'sticky' mat based on the None-Felt design. I used shelf liner material from Home Despot that I use on my glassware shelves in the cider room. It's a ventilated, breathable, grippy but non-adhesive material that I cut to size and slapped on the glass platter. A little double stick tape on the back helps to keep it from moving around. I went for the donut design as recommended by the None-Felt folks. The major advantage to this mat is that it eliminates record slippage and allows me to not use the clamp that came with the table. I know some would say that the clamp gives a better sound but I haven't noticed anything different. My bigger problem was that the cartridge would hit the clamp at the end of the record and eventually the cantilever would bend in its suspension causing major mistracking. This happened to the original Goldring as well as a cheap Grado I had on it. The next tweak in the works will be to add a Pro-Ject Speed Box speed controller to help stabilize platter rotation. I still have the Dual and have got it in running condition, but it need some arm work and I may want to make a new base for it someday. I also have a crap Phillips in my office at work as well as two older Garrard rim drives that I plan to play with down the road. I got a Dual 1219 for $10 at a garage gale and planned to get it running, but the gear lube was so hardened I broke knobs just trying to turn the thing on. I stripped it out for parts that I sold for $40 on eBay and still have the plinth, bearing, and platter that will go in my newest record cleaning machine project. My other two 'tables are a Technics SL 220 and SL 2300 that I might set up as second systems using my old Kenwood and possibly the Shure cartridge. They are both nice in that they have removable headshells for easy cartridge swaps but they are a bit too plasticy. Neither has a belt currently and I'll play with them as time comes. Phono Amp I was looking for more from my setup and thought that I could do with a better phono preamp, but wasn't crazy about the price of any of those that might truly better my stock phono in my Kenwood receiver. Considering that the preamp does some 90% of the signal amplification in a vinyl system, and equalizes to the RIAA curve at the same time, I can see where quality is important. I looked into buying used (Lehman Black Cube, various Creeks, etc) but even they were a bit out of my range (Hey...I have a kid and a life outside of this). The Bugle DIY kit looked promising at under $100, but I know myself. I'd be sinking way more than that into tools and such to make a bunch of really bad solder joints.
So I was pouring over reviews online, especially on the vinyl asylum, and the Cambridge Audio 640P was looking interesting, especially at a new price of $189. This unit has fully passive equalization ad seemed like a pretty high quality unit for the price. It also handles low output moving coil cartridges, albeit with limited loading and gain options, should I ever choose to play around that route. I mentioned in a post there that I might want to buy one and a generous poster replied offering to sell me his for $100 (he was moving up to a $1000 unit, something I'll never do). Now it's hard to compare fully since I swapped this in at the same time I added my NAD receiver, but this unit was a dramatic improvement to the system, maybe moreso than the recent cartridge upgrade I did. In short this thing really sings and I can't recommend it enough for the price. Here's a great review/shootout from TNT.
The inner workings of the 640P I am of the opinion that modern cd/dvd players in the moderate budget range (say under $500) likely sound similar enough that I don't see myself moving up into the megabucks players anytime soon. Digital discs are played with a Sony DVP-NC600 five disc carousel. These are damn near obsolete today, except for those of us with a cassette collection. Actually I had most of my cassettes stolen in high school, but I have enough still that it would be nice to play them, at least just to archive them onto cd. Right now I rely on a crappy Technics deck to do the job, but I'd love to replace it someday with something more solid.
I have a 250 gig hard drive hooked up to a laptop running Winamp 5.32. I've been ripping cd's and vinyl to .flac format and use this setup as a jukebox. I also have my 40 or so gigs of MP3's on the drive, but they still sound pretty shitty.
When I was setting this up I didn't have the cash for modern, even mid-fi two-channel preamp/amp gear, even in the NAD/Adcom range. I wasn't crazy about much of the newer mass-market stuff, little of which comes in a two-channel version and few of which have phono inputs. Considering the period when vinyl was king (70's-early 80's), I figured I'd look into that route. I found this Kenwood KR-5600 receiver from hifinut on eBay for about $100. It's rated at 40 watts per channel, a little on the low end but more than adequate for my needs (volume, size of room).
I also have some cheap Dual outdoor speakers on the deck which work okay for the moment, but leave a little to be desired. These are from the new Dual line run by some Chinese outfit and don't have anything to do with the old German company aside from the badge. Cables
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All material Copyright © Terence Bradshaw 2006-2008 terryb at lostmeadowvt dot com
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Edirol UA EX-1
Remember,
this is a mid/low-end hifi system. I don't need expensive
'interconnects' to make myself feel good. I can buy a lot of records
for the price of a single $300 patch cord. That said, I do want to
make sure that my precious signals are passing through some reasonably good
wire. All RCA cables are basic Dayton Audio three footers from Parts
Express. Cable from the mmf-5 to the phonostage is the stock captive
cable that came with the 'table. Speaker cables are 12 gauge Monster Cables
I picked up somewhere or another with Dayton banana plug ends. The NAD,
due to tight spacing on the back, really needs bananas on the speaker end.
