News:

"The phone is a remarkably complex, simple device,
and very rarely ever needs repairs, once you fix them." - Dan/Panther

Main Menu

Any Audiophiles Here?

Started by Fabius, March 06, 2015, 11:17:31 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Fabius

I recently decided I wanted a vintage stereo FM receiver with good quality speakers. And maybe eventually adding a turntable. As always cost was a concern. It's amazing how much information is available on the web. I couldn't afford one of those monster 200W per channel receivers. What I found and bought was a 1970s era Pioneer SX-626. It's highly rated and provides 20W per channel which is plenty of power to drive the Scott L176 controlled impedance speakers. I'll mate to it 
Tom Vaughn
La Porte, Indiana
ATCA Past President
ATCA #765
C*NET 1+ 821-9905

Fabius

Here's the system I really wanted.  ;)
Tom Vaughn
La Porte, Indiana
ATCA Past President
ATCA #765
C*NET 1+ 821-9905

twocvbloke

Careful, audiophiles will poopoo anything you own if it doesn't cost more than $10,000 and isn't made of Unobtanium and Yominium... ;D

I just have my Pioneer turntables at the moment, I use my PL-400 mostly, the PL-720 is a "spare" (works nicely, but isn't as good as the 400) and the PL-300 I originally got is now just spare parts, don't have a stereo amp, so I hook up my Turtle Beach PX-21 gaming headset to the Cambridge Audio CA540p Pre-amp, and it all works nicely and makes my ears happy... :)

Fabius

#3
Quote from: twocvbloke on March 06, 2015, 12:33:57 PM
Careful, audiophiles will poopoo anything you own if it doesn't cost more than $10,000 and isn't made of Unobtanium and Yominium... ;D

Don't forget that the amps must have Western Electric tubes. Unbelievable on what some of the WE tubes cost. I've read that the audiophiles in Japan and China have really drove up the price.
Tom Vaughn
La Porte, Indiana
ATCA Past President
ATCA #765
C*NET 1+ 821-9905

jsowers

The newsgroup I've read for years had a term "audiophools" and I'll leave it up to the reader who is and isn't included in that group. Some people can really go overboard on stuff like speaker wire and how one kind of wire sounds better than another. I don't get into that at all. I do still like listening to LPs and have a big collection of them.

My oldie goldie receiver is a Pioneer SX-6000 I found at Goodwill for $25 and a pair of Pioneer HPM-100 speakers found at the same Goodwill for $25 for the two, I think. I had to pick off all the lint pills on the speaker grilles and so far that's the only repairs I've had to do. The old receiver is showing signs of caps failing, but all the dial lights are nice and bright, which leads me to think it was low mileage when I found it. I forget what model Pioneer turntable I have, but it was also partly a thrift store find, though the cartridge and headshell are from my original Pioneer back in the 1970s. It's just a basic manual belt drive. I do pull out the turntable so the receiver won't overheat, in case anyone happens to notice how close together everything is.

I have other stuff connected, like a CD changer, an audio CD recorder, a reel-to-reel and a Thorens turntable I never use (for 78s). It covers the entire entertainment center.
Jonathan

DavePEI

#5
The only problem I have noticed with older Pioneers is they have capacitors which tend to short intermittently. I had an SX-424 which I absolutely loved in the 70s. Its demise was it developed intermittent crashes which would nearly blow your ears out. I never did find the bad cap which was causing it, but it was a super unit until then. Beautiful clear sound - really pleasing to the ears!

Dave
The Telephone Museum of Prince Edward Island:
http://www.islandregister.com/phones/museum.html
Free Admission - Call (902) 651-2762 to arrange a visit!
C*NET 1-651-0001

WEBellSystemChristian

#6
I don't understand the "rich sound" or "warmth" to the sound that audiophiles think they hear with vacuum tubes compared to digital sound. Give them a blindfold, and let them listen to the same song; one played with a tube radio and one played by a modern radio, and they won't be able to tell the difference.

Don't get me wrong, I would much rather have an old tube radio compared to a modern piece of junk, but there isn't any measurable difference between the two when it comes to sound quality.

One of the main reasons I like tube radios is looking at the tubes lit up :)
Christian Petterson

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right" -Henry Ford

DavePEI

#7
Quote from: WEBellSystemChristian on March 06, 2015, 02:03:23 PM
I don't understand the "rich sound" or "warmth" to the sound that audiophiles think they hear with vacuum tubes compared to digital sound.
These weren't tube radios - they were all solid state. But they were some of the best! Think Pioneer, Marantz, etc.

But, insofar as people loving the sound of tube equipment, what they liked was the distortion as the tube reached it peak cutoff - it was aesthetically pleasing. Same with tube guitar amps. Back in the 60s and 70s, most people cranked up their amps as loud as they could!

What's that. Eh? I can't hear you!

Dave
The Telephone Museum of Prince Edward Island:
http://www.islandregister.com/phones/museum.html
Free Admission - Call (902) 651-2762 to arrange a visit!
C*NET 1-651-0001

Greg G.

#8
Not really an audiophile, but I have a 70s era turntable I use to digitize my 78 record collection using a DAK setup.  It's not fancy, but it works for my purposes.  I would "upgrade" the turntable to something better, but nobody makes turntables with a 78 rpm setting anymore.  I can record them at 45 rpm and the digitizing software will convert them to 78, but I want to listen to them being played at the correct speed.  Converting them from 45 rpm would take all the fun out of it and just be a time-consuming pita to do them that way.
The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

twocvbloke

Quote from: Brinybay on March 06, 2015, 02:29:51 PMbut nobody makes turntables with an 78 rpm setting anymore.

You can actually buy new turntables which have a 78rpm setting, but sadly they're cheap and nasty things so not really a viable solution id you want to get the best out of your 78s....

I have a few shellac 78s somewhere actually, keep meaning to get a suitable cartridge for my turntable to play them back (at 45rpm of course!!) to hear them... :)

Greg G.

Quote from: twocvbloke on March 06, 2015, 02:39:22 PM
Quote from: Brinybay on March 06, 2015, 02:29:51 PMbut nobody makes turntables with an 78 rpm setting anymore.

You can actually buy new turntables which have a 78rpm setting, but sadly they're cheap and nasty things so not really a viable solution id you want to get the best out of your 78s....


That's what I've heard about modern turntables.  I can't afford and don't really want to spend a grand or two on a high end turntable.

Quote from: twocvbloke on March 06, 2015, 02:39:22 PM

I have a few shellac 78s somewhere actually, keep meaning to get a suitable cartridge for my turntable to play them back (at 45rpm of course!!) to hear them... :)

That's one of the things the repair guy did for me, install a quality needle made for 78s.  I bought the turntable at a place that sells them but doesn't repair them, then hand carried it up a block to a place that repairs them, but doesn't sell them.  Sadly neither business is around anymore.  If this one conks out, I'm stuck.
The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

Fabius

Here's the 78 capable turntables on eBay right now. A little web research will tell which are worthwhile.

http://tinyurl.com/mypfohe

Tom Vaughn
La Porte, Indiana
ATCA Past President
ATCA #765
C*NET 1+ 821-9905

NorthernElectric

#12
I wouldn't call myself an audiophile, but I do love my vintage big knob Sony TA-313 amp, mated to a pair of Axiom M3 bookshelf speakers which I picked up at the factory in nearby Dwight, Ontario after auditioning them in their sound room.  I mostly use it to play the audio from my Media PC, on which I can play just about anything; CDs, MP3s and numerous other digital file formats, DVDs (but not Blueray unless I get a drive for it), video clips from the web, and OTA HDTV.  I don't have sufficient internet bandwidth for all but the lower resolutions of streaming video, so I usually download media instead and play it later from the hard drive.  I also can't play vinyl cause I no longer own a turntable and sold off most of my LPs years ago anyway.

I didn't have batteries in the camera so photos are from the web, but mine look just like these.

IMO, the tube thing nowadays is to some extent an eye candy thing.  All of the recently manufactured tube amps that I have seen are designed with clear cases or windows of some sort so you can see the glow of the tubes.  I have auditioned a few tube amps and didn't notice any improvement in quality like you can with different speakers.  Back in the day when I had tube amps, there was always a slight bit of A/C hum that you could hear between tracks or in quiet passages if you really cranked it.  I probably never had a really good one though.  And like I said, I wouldn't call myself an audiophile, and there is much to audio that is a matter of personal preference.
Cliff

twocvbloke

Quote from: Fabius on March 06, 2015, 07:54:07 PM
Here's the 78 capable turntables on eBay right now. A little web research will tell which are worthwhile.

http://tinyurl.com/mypfohe

A lot of those results are the cheap and nasty things I mentioned, they're not worth bothering with to be honest as they're poorly made and easily broken, plus they usually sound worse than a Dansette portable record player, there are plenty of originals there though, but require additional equipment and probably restoration to make them work reliably...

Quote from: Brinybay on March 06, 2015, 04:13:45 PMThat's one of the things the repair guy did for me, install a quality needle made for 78s.  I bought the turntable at a place that sells them but doesn't repair them, then hand carried it up a block to a place that repairs them, but doesn't sell them.  Sadly neither business is around anymore.  If this one conks out, I'm stuck.

One thing I like about my PL-400 and 300, they both have a Bayonet fitting, so having a spare headshell taken off the 300, I can fit a 78 cartridge on the black headhsell for the 78s, and leave my AT95 on the silver headshell (as seen in my picture above), the 400 has a useful feature in that it has a 10" setting too, which is handy for auto-playing 78s... :)