Turntables: Old vs New

Two vintage record players. One modern turntable. Three copies of the same record. And one answer to the question: How do vintage turntables compare to today’s models?

Everybody knows vinyl is white-hot these days. And everyone’s getting in on it. You’ve got 16 year-old kids looking for the next hip thing. You got 70 year-olds looking to recapture the sound of their youth. The question is, what turntable do they buy? The days when you could walk into your local electronics store and choose among 15 or 20 models are gone. It seems like there’s not a whole lot of choices these days except for $100 plastic junk or $1,000+ audiophile turntables. Except for one alternative most people never consider: vintage turntables.

7
JUN
2013

0

Butterworth

brent, butterworth, home theatre, old vs new, turntables, vintage

Receiver Shoot-Out: Vintage vs. High-Tech

A blind test finds out if 1970s receivers can hold their own against the latest stuff

What piece of audio gear has changed as much as the receiver? Since the early 1980s, receivers have grown from friendly devices into monstrosities almost no one can figure out. It used to be that the toughest part of designing a receiver was finding cool new features to add. Now it’s figuring out what features you can afford to cut because there’s no room for any more jacks!

7
JUN
2013

0

Butterworth

brent, butterworth, Pioneer SX-1980, receiver shootout, Sony STR-V6, Yamaha RX-V1800

The Shock of the Old

Why do more and more people prefer the audio gear of yesterday to the state-of-the-art products of today?

As an electronics journalist, I’m around audio enthusiasts a lot. But I’ve never seen so many of them get so jazzed about a single piece of gear as I did when a 1978 Pioneer SX-1980 receiver recently came through the doors at Innovative Audio, a Vancouver, BC vintage audio dealer. Some offered to buy the Pioneer on the spot. Some joked about stealing it. Every one of them had to touch it, lift it (or at least try) and somehow connect with this 270-watt-per-channel monster.

7
JUN
2013

0

Butterworth

Brent Butterworth, the shock of the old, vintage audio

Back On Track

When did you throw out all your 8-track tapes? Mid eighties, right? I remember the day. I’d already switched to cassette and was contemplating a move to CD. A lot of my 8-tracks had bitten the dust anyway, victims of deformed rollers, tangled tape, or being left too long in my truck under the hot Texas sun. And I didn’t even have a working player anymore. With considerable pride in my ability to kiss the past goodbye and embrace the future, I tossed my last five or six dozen 8-tracks into a box and threw them out along with my ankh necklace and my last pair of Levi’s Big Bells…

7
JUN
2013

0

Articles

8-track, cassette, tape

$1000 Worth of Sound for $100: Refurbishing a Vintage Turntable

The following article by Ed Kobesky is re-printed by permission of Audio Discourse (with a big thank you to Mr. Dave Clark).

Analog is a smarter bet than ever for audiophiles on a budget. Excellent turntables are available from Pro-Ject and Music Hall for around $300, although that may still represent a big investment for those who want to experiment with analog before making a high-dollar commitment. Another low-cost possibility is to refurbish the classic turntable that is lying dormant in your attic or waiting for you in a neighbor’s yard sale or on eBay. Dust it off and start playing records! Turntables from the 1970s and 80s can equal or exceed the sound quality offered by today’s entry-level models. If properly set up, some may even approach the quality of $1000 CD players!

7
JUN
2013

0

Articles

Audio Discourse, Dave Clark, Ed Kobesky, fix, record player, refurbishing, repair, restoring, turntable, vintage

An Interview With Gordon Sauck

A pioneer in the vintage audio business tells why the older gear is better.

What’s innovative about Vancouver, BC’s Innovative Audio isn’t the products it sells, but the products it refuses to sell. Instead of offering brand-new, state-of-the-art products, Innovative Audio focuses exclusively on vintage audio gear.

It wasn’t always this way. Innovative Audio started out selling new home theater gear, but founder Gordon Sauck soon realized his customers were more interested in the classic used gear on the back shelf than they were in the complicated new products in the front of the store. Sauck took the bold move of eliminating all the new gear from his store, moving to a new and larger location, and specializing entirely in vintage audio. In a few short years the store grew from a modest-sized retail outlet to the largest vintage audio facility in Canada.

7
JUN
2013

0

Butterworth

Ebay Do’s And Dont’s

Special thanks Paul Gill, and to guest eBay author, Joanna Gurnitsky, for this list. This is part of the Become a Power eBayer reference series. This article is written with permission from the author.

31
MAY
2013

0

Articles

donts, dos, ebay

How To Buy Vintage Audio

Alright, before you begin you should know that this is NOT your simple 4 paragraph ‘buyers guide’ so often seen everywhere else. This article contains reams of information and is very, very looong. If you wish, you can simply skip to certain areas but I strongly recommend reading this article in it’s entirety at least once.

So where do you start? Easy. If you are simply starting out in the audio hobby there is a massive market to explore with garage sales, flea markets, swap meets, thrift stores etc. Sometimes simply asking your friends or relatives if there is some stuff in their attic or garage they wouldn’t mind letting go of can yield surprising results! There are no rules at this level about what to buy as long as it works, and there is no smoke coming from it when it is playing, and it should not smell like the bathroom Grandpa just left. If you can buy an entire ‘system’ for around 50 bucks including speakers, welcome to the hobby.

31
MAY
2013

0

Articles

audio, buy, how to, vintage

Record Care and Cleaning

Believe it or not, even stored records will still accumulate dust, and when that happens, you’ll have to clean your records before playing them.

To clean vinyl (LP’s): Use a solution up to 20% isopropyl alcohol (one part isopropyl alcohol to four parts water), and gently wipe the record in a spiral motion, using a soft cloth, from the center out to the edge. Pat it dry with a clean, anti-static cloth. A fine camel hair paint brush can remove visible dust particles.

31
MAY
2013

0

Articles

78, lps, record care, record cleaning, vinyl

Innovative Audio Cassette Deck Shootout: Take 2

Vintage Cassette Deck Death Match: Can decades-old decks survive modern computer-based measurements?

Any time you do a comparison test with audio products, someone’s bound to get mad. When you do it with vintage audio products, it’s worse. With new stuff, few people own the products yet. With vintage stuff, lots of people do.

31
MAY
2013

0

Butterworth

brent, butterworth, cassette, esoteric v9000, marntz sd60, nakamichi dragon, pioneer ct-f1000, pioneer ct-f1250, son tc-k808es