I think I still have the record player I bought somewhere around 1975 - so same vintage as the records. At the moment, both records and player are somewhere lost under a stack of books and miscellaneous oddities I am sorting to clear out. I think it still works, but I don’t think I have actually seen it in several years. I think it also had a cassette tape player and a radio. There are also speakers. Somewhere. I think.
If I were in the mood to replace it, I would likely go with something like this:
@medz@sammydog01 I like where both your heads are at, but sadly no.
I do have a Harry Potter Pop, he’s just sitting in our dining room, not in the office.
My setup is pretty horrible (it’s a non brand all in one thing, it looks like from Sears back in the day). But, I just found the the John Williams Superman soundtrack and a Kansas album each for a buck from the second hand shop. Pretty proud of those.
@PooltoyWolf The front is covered by fabric that I can’t take off and I think the back is sealed too. I’ll have to look. I think all he did was buy commercial speakers and then put them in heavy wooden boxes.
@Kidsandliz My problem is that I have intimate knowledge of speaker drivers and how to configure/crossover/match them, but zero woodworking ability and hence can never build any cabinets!
@PooltoyWolf Contact a custom furniture maker and get them to build what you need. I am sure if you make templates for the cut outs for the speakers and then have enough space behind them for you to do the wiring you’d be fine.
@PooltoyWolf take a community workshop offered at the high school (or wherever) to learn how to do woodworking and then use that class to make your own boxes for that. They shouldn’t be hard or take all that long to make since they are simple 24 degree edges for the top, bottom and sides, cut outs for mounting the speakers and stabilizing them, then put the back on and whatever front you want. That might be pretty cheap and then you’d just have to buy some wood.
@PooltoyWolf meant to say 45 degree not 24 degree. Look to see what the parks and rec department offers, the school system sometimes offers community courses like this and sometimes community colleges/vocational colleges offer non-credit short term classes like this (low cost) too.
1- An AT-PL120 turntable. Upgraded to Shure M97XE cartridge. Opened it up & replaced the audio cables to better ones leading to two plugs. It’s all middle-of-the-road, but plays my records fine, including my 45, 33 & 78’s. I switch cartridges for 78’s of course to a Shure M78 (or something like that). Nice Integra receiver & Bose & Def Tech speakers. And a Def Tech powered sub. Still looking for that 1970’s Marantz receiver (though I like having a receiver using a remote control). I have a several hundred albums & a few hundred 78’s. After retirement, I usually listen to an album a day.
2- A strictly 78rpm tube player/radio, 1940-50’s. All wood & it makes 78’s sound like they should. Finally found an odd “bent knee” needle that it requires.
3- A 16/33/45/78 rpm tube phonograph. This is a nice floor unit in beautiful wood that starts slow and gets the turntable going to speed after a minute or so, probably 1960’s, and sounds great.
4- A portable Goodwill find. It’s got one tube & I had to replace the leaking paper caps, but it’s pretty nice (except kinda loud motor). 33/45 & 78’s.
edit… I almost forgot the Montgomery Wards stereo in my shop! It is a turntable, 8-track and cassette player all in one unit. Top-o-the-line shit there…
@daveinwarsh I wanna know more about that Goodwill find! Is the one tube the audio amplifier, and everything else is transistor? I had a late 60s Sony portable TV like that…it proudly proclaimed ‘Solid State’ on the front panel, but actually used a tube for the high voltage rectifier! LIES!!
@PooltoyWolf If you go to my videos, my other antique players are there also.
I’ve really been happy with my current set-up for playing albums. That AT turntable is nice, as long as you don’t mind a manual one. I’ve honestly never had an automatic player at all. The Garrard turntable I owned in the 70’s got smashed during a move a long time ago. My old receiver & speakers were taken/sold by a bad person many decades ago. Good luck finding the system that works for you, there’s so much good (& bad) info on the internet!
I love vinyl, too! It’d be awkward if I didn’t, considering I’m made out of it. :U
Seriously though, if you’re on any sort of a budget and care about sound and build quality, I always recommend vintage. Sure, it might need a little cleaning up and some minor repairs here and there, but it’s almost always a far better bang for your buck than buying anything new. It looks better, sounds better, will last longer, and costs a lot less (thrift store vs. big box store).
@ChadP You can’t really go wrong, brand-wise. The better stuff will be separate components, rather than combined together in one unit. Some brands to keep an eye out for are Pioneer, Yamaha, Sony (older), Marantz, Kenwood (older)…really anything that seems heavy and has more metal than plastic.
@PooltoyWolf FYI - Used speakers tip:
Get yourself a multimeter.
Ohm out the speakers. Set your meter to read resistance.
First, make sure there’s no “dead short”. Hooking an amp to that could and probably will fry your nice amplifier.
Then, just read what you get from the speaker leads. They should be close to the same reading and will tell the speakers ohm rating. Round your numbers up. Examples: A reading of 3.2 would be a 4 ohm speaker. 7 would round to 8.
@daveinwarsh Hello. Do you know a way to determine the polarity of speaker wires if you can’t trace them to the speaker posts? Like if they are both copper wires with no red or black on them, how do I know which is the positive vs negative wire?
@daveinwarsh@medz There really isn’t a way to tell just by looking at them, but the worst that will happen if you reverse them by mistake is your speakers will be out of phase and may sound bad. I’ve actually had to reverse phasing to make speakers sound correct in some rooms.
@medz take a battery and hook it up to the leads and watch which way the cone moves. If the cone moves out, your positive and negative match that of the battery. If the cone moves in, switch positive and negative. If the cone doesn’t move (and battery is good) test for open circuit or short.
9v battery is easy, but I have no idea if it might harm some more delicate speakers. In theory it would work with any kind of battery, but excursion will vary with voltage so it may be harder to see if you use, say, a AAA.
@medz The back of an unpowered or not-biamped speaker should have two posts. Red/Black or +/- or something. If there’s wires on them, take them off and check them closely for damage.
Getting polarity wrong won’t hurt anything, except cancel out some bass potentially.
@medz you can sound check them if you have pairs. Hook them both up and play some music, preferably with some bass to it. Then switch polarity on one, and see which way sounds better. Tag the wires once you know they match.
As others have said, positive and negative are not absolutes. It only matters whether your speakers are in phase with each other. If you’re doing more than two speakers that are all unlabeled, phase match two and label them, then proceed with a known speaker and an unknown until all are labeled.
It may even be that due to positioning/room shape, your speakers need to be electrically out of phase to sound best. It’s still ok, you’re really tagging the wires as to which way the speakers need to be set up. In audio, perception provides 100% of the facts you need.
Upgrade, what do you have now ?? I rock now to a Kenwood Integrated amp. Advent speakers, Realistic Lab 2100 linear track TT… All subject to change. My obsession… …
@ChadP, I would like to help you, but I don’t think there is any way to do vinyl in a Meh-budget friendly way and make it worth the effort. Vinyl can be amazing, but in order for it to truly outshine all of the readily available (reasonably) high-quality versions of digital music, you need very decent equipment. Plus, I’ve found that buying records has become a bit of an obsessive sickness. And yet…
Anyway, what do you currently have in your setup, and how much do you realistically plan to spend?
Quality entry level turntable with decent installed cartridge. The upgraded model has a few desirable tweaks. There are several brands and choices in this price range, and from what I’ve read they’re all pretty good. I replaced the cartridge on mine with a much better one.
You would need a good stereo receiver. Most of them have phono stages built in, but a separate dedicated phono amp can be a nice upgrade. I have one of these, and it’s pretty great. This kind of thing isn’t needed right out of the gate, if your receiver has a built in phono amp.
I’d suggest a subwoofer, depending upon the size of your listening space, the kind of music you listen to, your overall satisfaction with the bass from your main speakers, and whether or not you share walls with neighbors…
Another route is to get 2 Sonos speakers (Play 1, 3, or 5) based upon your budget and preferences as well as a turntable of your choice (and probably a phono amp, unless you get a turntable that has one built in). That’s all you would need to get started. It’s also easy to add a Sonos subwoofer later, and except for the connection from the turntable to one of the speakers and electric plugs, the whole thing is wireless.
This is all very subjective, of course. There are those who would never slum it with such equipment, and others who would consider it ridiculous to spend real money on “archaic” tech… I hope this helps you in some way.
Crosley gets a lot of shit because they’ve historically been low quality, but I picked this up and it’s a good entry option that isn’t multiple hundreds of dollars and can get you something that sounds good but that you may still want to upgrade in the future.
Or you can connect to a receiver that has No phono input or with phono input, Get a set of bookshelf speakers and a powered sub woofer …and you are good to go. It’s all in what you want .
Advent 300 receiver, dual 506 turntable with ortofon cartridge, epi 100 speakers. Winslow Burhoe and Henry Kloss will never be equaled IMO. All middle of the road kit back when I sold stereo equipment in college but still sounds great to me.
I like the AT-LP60 belt-drive turntable. Pretty cheap, but upgrade the cartridge. Check out receivers from Onkyo, Yamaha, or Denon. Edifier R1280T seem like nice bookshelf speakers, tho I don’t own a pair myself. Polk Audio and Pioneer (Andrew Jones) have some affordable floor standing speaker models.
I’ve had an AT turntable for a long time - not sure if new still has same high build quality. I have a couple older receiver/amps that I like, Pioneer & Onkyo. And a set of vintage Kenwood 3-way speakers whose sound I love.
I haven’t paid attention in recent decades. You might look at a reputable vendor like Crutchfield for ideas. Back in the day, I would have said get an AR turntable, AR 3A speakers, and a Dynaco amp. Nowadays, you likely need VR goggles and an app to control your system.
@lichme banned
Sorry, this account has been temporarily suspended. If you feel like this is an error, tell somebody who cares.
I think I still have the record player I bought somewhere around 1975 - so same vintage as the records. At the moment, both records and player are somewhere lost under a stack of books and miscellaneous oddities I am sorting to clear out. I think it still works, but I don’t think I have actually seen it in several years. I think it also had a cassette tape player and a radio. There are also speakers. Somewhere. I think.
If I were in the mood to replace it, I would likely go with something like this:
It’s a Crosley
/image vinyl floor
@medz I already have that.
@ChadP until you flood the joint again
Um yeah, I kind of like vinyl too. (C’mon, you knew this was coming from someone.)
I’m completely disappointed in this post.
/image vinyl pop figure
@medz I have 2 Funko Pops sitting on my computer in my office. 10 points if you can guess which 2 they are.
@ChadP @medz
@ChadP @medz
@ChadP Harry Potter and Dr who
@medz @sammydog01 I like where both your heads are at, but sadly no.
I do have a Harry Potter Pop, he’s just sitting in our dining room, not in the office.
@ChadP @medz @sammydog01 Is it a Hello Kitty one?
@ChadP @medz @therealjrn This one?
@ChadP Yoda?
@sammydog01 By the power of my mullet!
@ChadP @medz They have only made 13,642 different ones- we’ll hit it eventually.
@ChadP @medz Rick Grimes and Michonne?
@sammydog01 I badly want you to keep trying forever.
@ChadP You got it.
@ChadP
/image elsa pop figure
@ChadP @sammydog01 can you give us a hint? Are the two totally unrelated? or not?
@ChadP
@ChadP This game is worse than trying to guess a schoolboy’s football jersey numbers.
Can you throw some hints out?
@therealjrn 28?
@ChadP @therealjrn Hints spoil the fun.
or something from Terminator
@medz @sammydog01 @chadp I’ll leave y’all to play with your dolls then.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Y’all have a long road ahead.
@ChadP @medz homer simpson and scott pilgrim
@ChadP @medz Merle Dixon and Hawkman
/image Bob Ross funko
/image Funko Steve jobs
It is the holiday season…
Alright. This has been fun.
@ChadP I had Bob Ross also PBS fame, so I get 1/4 of the points.
My setup is pretty horrible (it’s a non brand all in one thing, it looks like from Sears back in the day). But, I just found the the John Williams Superman soundtrack and a Kansas album each for a buck from the second hand shop. Pretty proud of those.
I have an older dual turntable, an older Pioneer Stereo AM FM Receiver, and great speakers that my brother’s friend made me.
@Kidsandliz I wouldn’t mind seeing some pics of those homemade speakers, especially if we can see the speaker drivers themselves!
@PooltoyWolf The front is covered by fabric that I can’t take off and I think the back is sealed too. I’ll have to look. I think all he did was buy commercial speakers and then put them in heavy wooden boxes.
@Kidsandliz Right, the grille covers/cloth are not removable. Darn, no nudes for me
@PooltoyWolf The sound from them is very good so he must have chosen good individual components. He made the wooden boxes too.
@Kidsandliz My problem is that I have intimate knowledge of speaker drivers and how to configure/crossover/match them, but zero woodworking ability and hence can never build any cabinets!
@PooltoyWolf Contact a custom furniture maker and get them to build what you need. I am sure if you make templates for the cut outs for the speakers and then have enough space behind them for you to do the wiring you’d be fine.
@Kidsandliz The issue is one of cost. I acquire all my drivers for free or dirt cheap, so I couldn’t afford to pay someone to build cabinets for me.
@PooltoyWolf take a community workshop offered at the high school (or wherever) to learn how to do woodworking and then use that class to make your own boxes for that. They shouldn’t be hard or take all that long to make since they are simple 24 degree edges for the top, bottom and sides, cut outs for mounting the speakers and stabilizing them, then put the back on and whatever front you want. That might be pretty cheap and then you’d just have to buy some wood.
@Kidsandliz Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll look into it!
@PooltoyWolf meant to say 45 degree not 24 degree. Look to see what the parks and rec department offers, the school system sometimes offers community courses like this and sometimes community colleges/vocational colleges offer non-credit short term classes like this (low cost) too.
I have 4 phonographs.
1- An AT-PL120 turntable. Upgraded to Shure M97XE cartridge. Opened it up & replaced the audio cables to better ones leading to two plugs. It’s all middle-of-the-road, but plays my records fine, including my 45, 33 & 78’s. I switch cartridges for 78’s of course to a Shure M78 (or something like that). Nice Integra receiver & Bose & Def Tech speakers. And a Def Tech powered sub. Still looking for that 1970’s Marantz receiver (though I like having a receiver using a remote control). I have a several hundred albums & a few hundred 78’s. After retirement, I usually listen to an album a day.
2- A strictly 78rpm tube player/radio, 1940-50’s. All wood & it makes 78’s sound like they should. Finally found an odd “bent knee” needle that it requires.
3- A 16/33/45/78 rpm tube phonograph. This is a nice floor unit in beautiful wood that starts slow and gets the turntable going to speed after a minute or so, probably 1960’s, and sounds great.
4- A portable Goodwill find. It’s got one tube & I had to replace the leaking paper caps, but it’s pretty nice (except kinda loud motor). 33/45 & 78’s.
edit… I almost forgot the Montgomery Wards stereo in my shop! It is a turntable, 8-track and cassette player all in one unit. Top-o-the-line shit there…
@daveinwarsh I wanna know more about that Goodwill find! Is the one tube the audio amplifier, and everything else is transistor? I had a late 60s Sony portable TV like that…it proudly proclaimed ‘Solid State’ on the front panel, but actually used a tube for the high voltage rectifier! LIES!!
@PooltoyWolf Here it is…
@daveinwarsh That’s really neat! Interesting record, too. I wish my Goodwill stores had neat stuff like that.
@PooltoyWolf If you go to my videos, my other antique players are there also.
I’ve really been happy with my current set-up for playing albums. That AT turntable is nice, as long as you don’t mind a manual one. I’ve honestly never had an automatic player at all. The Garrard turntable I owned in the 70’s got smashed during a move a long time ago. My old receiver & speakers were taken/sold by a bad person many decades ago. Good luck finding the system that works for you, there’s so much good (& bad) info on the internet!
I love vinyl, too! It’d be awkward if I didn’t, considering I’m made out of it. :U
Seriously though, if you’re on any sort of a budget and care about sound and build quality, I always recommend vintage. Sure, it might need a little cleaning up and some minor repairs here and there, but it’s almost always a far better bang for your buck than buying anything new. It looks better, sounds better, will last longer, and costs a lot less (thrift store vs. big box store).
@PooltoyWolf any suggestions?
@ChadP You can’t really go wrong, brand-wise. The better stuff will be separate components, rather than combined together in one unit. Some brands to keep an eye out for are Pioneer, Yamaha, Sony (older), Marantz, Kenwood (older)…really anything that seems heavy and has more metal than plastic.
@PooltoyWolf FYI - Used speakers tip:
Get yourself a multimeter.
Ohm out the speakers. Set your meter to read resistance.
First, make sure there’s no “dead short”. Hooking an amp to that could and probably will fry your nice amplifier.
Then, just read what you get from the speaker leads. They should be close to the same reading and will tell the speakers ohm rating. Round your numbers up. Examples: A reading of 3.2 would be a 4 ohm speaker. 7 would round to 8.
@daveinwarsh Hello. Do you know a way to determine the polarity of speaker wires if you can’t trace them to the speaker posts? Like if they are both copper wires with no red or black on them, how do I know which is the positive vs negative wire?
@daveinwarsh Very good advice. I also carry around a 9-volt battery with leads to test.
@daveinwarsh @medz There really isn’t a way to tell just by looking at them, but the worst that will happen if you reverse them by mistake is your speakers will be out of phase and may sound bad. I’ve actually had to reverse phasing to make speakers sound correct in some rooms.
@medz take a battery and hook it up to the leads and watch which way the cone moves. If the cone moves out, your positive and negative match that of the battery. If the cone moves in, switch positive and negative. If the cone doesn’t move (and battery is good) test for open circuit or short.
9v battery is easy, but I have no idea if it might harm some more delicate speakers. In theory it would work with any kind of battery, but excursion will vary with voltage so it may be harder to see if you use, say, a AAA.
@djslack ok…some speakers are covered and cone not easy to see. Have to have someone help given distance of some wire ends to speaker
@medz The back of an unpowered or not-biamped speaker should have two posts. Red/Black or +/- or something. If there’s wires on them, take them off and check them closely for damage.
Getting polarity wrong won’t hurt anything, except cancel out some bass potentially.
@medz you can sound check them if you have pairs. Hook them both up and play some music, preferably with some bass to it. Then switch polarity on one, and see which way sounds better. Tag the wires once you know they match.
As others have said, positive and negative are not absolutes. It only matters whether your speakers are in phase with each other. If you’re doing more than two speakers that are all unlabeled, phase match two and label them, then proceed with a known speaker and an unknown until all are labeled.
It may even be that due to positioning/room shape, your speakers need to be electrically out of phase to sound best. It’s still ok, you’re really tagging the wires as to which way the speakers need to be set up. In audio, perception provides 100% of the facts you need.
I rock a Uturn orbit with a uturn preamp and a Sony receiver. The orbit is great and doesn’t kill you on price.
Upgrade, what do you have now ?? I rock now to a Kenwood Integrated amp. Advent speakers, Realistic Lab 2100 linear track TT… All subject to change. My obsession… …
@ChadP, I would like to help you, but I don’t think there is any way to do vinyl in a Meh-budget friendly way and make it worth the effort. Vinyl can be amazing, but in order for it to truly outshine all of the readily available (reasonably) high-quality versions of digital music, you need very decent equipment. Plus, I’ve found that buying records has become a bit of an obsessive sickness. And yet…
Anyway, what do you currently have in your setup, and how much do you realistically plan to spend?
@shahnm uhhhhhhh…I want it to sound good. Current setup is cheap.
@ChadP If I were doing it today, and I wanted it to be worth the effort, I’d do (at minimum) something like this:
Great speakers (especially for the current price)
Quality entry level turntable with decent installed cartridge. The upgraded model has a few desirable tweaks. There are several brands and choices in this price range, and from what I’ve read they’re all pretty good. I replaced the cartridge on mine with a much better one.
You would need a good stereo receiver. Most of them have phono stages built in, but a separate dedicated phono amp can be a nice upgrade. I have one of these, and it’s pretty great. This kind of thing isn’t needed right out of the gate, if your receiver has a built in phono amp.
I’d suggest a subwoofer, depending upon the size of your listening space, the kind of music you listen to, your overall satisfaction with the bass from your main speakers, and whether or not you share walls with neighbors…
Another route is to get 2 Sonos speakers (Play 1, 3, or 5) based upon your budget and preferences as well as a turntable of your choice (and probably a phono amp, unless you get a turntable that has one built in). That’s all you would need to get started. It’s also easy to add a Sonos subwoofer later, and except for the connection from the turntable to one of the speakers and electric plugs, the whole thing is wireless.
This is all very subjective, of course. There are those who would never slum it with such equipment, and others who would consider it ridiculous to spend real money on “archaic” tech… I hope this helps you in some way.
Crosley gets a lot of shit because they’ve historically been low quality, but I picked this up and it’s a good entry option that isn’t multiple hundreds of dollars and can get you something that sounds good but that you may still want to upgrade in the future.
Get a turntable that already has built in phono pre amp, like Audio -Technica or Denon That way you can connect it to a good set of powered speakers and you’re good. Like these:
https://www.turntablelab.com/collections/turntable-listening-packages-alpha/YU4
Or you can connect to a receiver that has No phono input or with phono input, Get a set of bookshelf speakers and a powered sub woofer …and you are good to go. It’s all in what you want .
Advent 300 receiver, dual 506 turntable with ortofon cartridge, epi 100 speakers. Winslow Burhoe and Henry Kloss will never be equaled IMO. All middle of the road kit back when I sold stereo equipment in college but still sounds great to me.
I like the AT-LP60 belt-drive turntable. Pretty cheap, but upgrade the cartridge. Check out receivers from Onkyo, Yamaha, or Denon. Edifier R1280T seem like nice bookshelf speakers, tho I don’t own a pair myself. Polk Audio and Pioneer (Andrew Jones) have some affordable floor standing speaker models.
I’ve had an AT turntable for a long time - not sure if new still has same high build quality. I have a couple older receiver/amps that I like, Pioneer & Onkyo. And a set of vintage Kenwood 3-way speakers whose sound I love.
I haven’t paid attention in recent decades. You might look at a reputable vendor like Crutchfield for ideas. Back in the day, I would have said get an AR turntable, AR 3A speakers, and a Dynaco amp. Nowadays, you likely need VR goggles and an app to control your system.