I read a story today that says Tidal is losing money hand over fist and only has enuff cash to last another 6 months.
dave
What's unfortunate are the lack of decent reviews of all the new turntables that have come out in the past few years aside from the usual suspects (rega, pro-ject, vpi blah blah blah). It's a travesty. Vinyl audiophiles are some of the most dogmatic I've ever come across. They just complain about anything new and just want to talk about either expensive tables or the vintage tables you'd have to pry from their cold dead hands that they found for a $1 on a sidewalk in 1997 or whatever. There's a real gap between older vinyl knowledge and young newcomers. I Feel bad for the latter.
Kind of O.T., but I'll bite: this was inevitable. We all knew this was going to happen. The trend from the outset has been clear - buy an upstart streaming service, brand it and provide added value, sell to one of the big media/tech companies for oogobs of money.
Unfortunately Jay-Z's timing was off. It was a smart play, but obviously the world... changed around the time he needed to sell. He has lost leverage and money. He'll still sell it but for much less than he hoped. Remember though he only bought it for what $50 million? I think he'll recoup that easily. Won't have Dre bragging rights though.
Kevin,
There used to be a really good forum in the UK started out 1999, then it changed when a new crowd joined, all Idler fanatics, attacked anyone who didn't agree or accept that idlers ruled. We had a forum member who helped to set the DVD a standard in the USA. He had been an industry professional in the 1970s in the UK.
He posted a list of D/Ds and stated why, technically they were superior. I had bought a Tecnics SL120 for my partner. Got rained off (construction) one day and decided to set it up. I was gobsmacked at how silent it was and with absolute speed control, realised in a moment was a load of shite the Rega decks and arms were - the Technics came with an SME arm, set up by SME at their factory up the road from where I had bought the deck s/hand.
On that list was the Kenwood KD990. If you want a top class D/D in Europe, you look to ebay.de. I bought one, surprisingly for a German seller it was badly packed and had been dropped en route. The piano finished plinth was smashed in one corner.
I decided to set it up and see what the craic was - it worked perfectly but got in touch with the seller and negotiated a big reduction in price @ £120. This Kenwood does ex\ctly what a t/t should do - it plays silently with an exact speed - something that idlers and belt drives never do and what's more importantly it doesn't add or subtract anything to the sound of the LP.
If you go down the Idler route you will have to shell out for a complete new bearing set up and that's just for starters. You will never achieve a neutral sound, maybe you don't want a neutral sound, that's fine, I do. I just want to hear what the artist/s /musicians/recording engineers have put together. Oh yes and it will cost a lot of money.
I was lucky and got into D/Ds before the price rocketed, I have two Kenwood KDs. Like I said I Love my vinyl but I look to the future, I have to post a question on diy - how to digitise my music and achieve an acceptable (to me) sound.
Wushuliu,
The price of top class new t/ts is ludicrous, mostly they are obsessed with the bling factor and not function. Mostly they are belt driven, it was never a good idea. The function of a t/t is to rotate at a precise speed, without rumble and without noise. The bearing system of a good D/D is far above anything being made today - look online at the system employed by the Kenwood KD series, clean and change the Slick 50 oil every two years and it has 'an indefinite life'.
Tell me what new t/t has end of side shut down and arm lift - answer none. It's virtually impossible to scratch an LP with these two simple functions that in no way interfere with the sound quality of the deck - so why don't even the most expensive modern decks have these two simple functions - because it would interfere with their profit margins.
Had I known that Kenwood were going rip out and sell their production line for KD decks in 1990 I would have raised the capital to buy that line and the rights of production. Why can Technics sell their D/Ds today for the price they do, simple they kept that line going, thanks to DJs across the world wanting those decks.
You can still buy a functioning KD deck in Germany for around €8-900.It comes with a brilliant medium mass arm that is a doddle to set up and by using the other 3 pillars of the die cast spider you can have another 3 arms if you want, what new deck gives you that, none that I know of. Also the arm is silver wired and was the first to do so. Replace at least the PSU caps but why not go the whole hog and look at the resistors, they are all bog standard industrial types. Do this and you effectively have a new deck.
Total cost will be around €1000, now tell me how much a new deck that won't come anywhere near the quality or functionability will cost. Stuck in the past, no but I do know good value when I see it.
There used to be a really good forum in the UK started out 1999, then it changed when a new crowd joined, all Idler fanatics, attacked anyone who didn't agree or accept that idlers ruled. We had a forum member who helped to set the DVD a standard in the USA. He had been an industry professional in the 1970s in the UK.
He posted a list of D/Ds and stated why, technically they were superior. I had bought a Tecnics SL120 for my partner. Got rained off (construction) one day and decided to set it up. I was gobsmacked at how silent it was and with absolute speed control, realised in a moment was a load of shite the Rega decks and arms were - the Technics came with an SME arm, set up by SME at their factory up the road from where I had bought the deck s/hand.
On that list was the Kenwood KD990. If you want a top class D/D in Europe, you look to ebay.de. I bought one, surprisingly for a German seller it was badly packed and had been dropped en route. The piano finished plinth was smashed in one corner.
I decided to set it up and see what the craic was - it worked perfectly but got in touch with the seller and negotiated a big reduction in price @ £120. This Kenwood does ex\ctly what a t/t should do - it plays silently with an exact speed - something that idlers and belt drives never do and what's more importantly it doesn't add or subtract anything to the sound of the LP.
If you go down the Idler route you will have to shell out for a complete new bearing set up and that's just for starters. You will never achieve a neutral sound, maybe you don't want a neutral sound, that's fine, I do. I just want to hear what the artist/s /musicians/recording engineers have put together. Oh yes and it will cost a lot of money.
I was lucky and got into D/Ds before the price rocketed, I have two Kenwood KDs. Like I said I Love my vinyl but I look to the future, I have to post a question on diy - how to digitise my music and achieve an acceptable (to me) sound.
Wushuliu,
The price of top class new t/ts is ludicrous, mostly they are obsessed with the bling factor and not function. Mostly they are belt driven, it was never a good idea. The function of a t/t is to rotate at a precise speed, without rumble and without noise. The bearing system of a good D/D is far above anything being made today - look online at the system employed by the Kenwood KD series, clean and change the Slick 50 oil every two years and it has 'an indefinite life'.
Tell me what new t/t has end of side shut down and arm lift - answer none. It's virtually impossible to scratch an LP with these two simple functions that in no way interfere with the sound quality of the deck - so why don't even the most expensive modern decks have these two simple functions - because it would interfere with their profit margins.
Had I known that Kenwood were going rip out and sell their production line for KD decks in 1990 I would have raised the capital to buy that line and the rights of production. Why can Technics sell their D/Ds today for the price they do, simple they kept that line going, thanks to DJs across the world wanting those decks.
You can still buy a functioning KD deck in Germany for around €8-900.It comes with a brilliant medium mass arm that is a doddle to set up and by using the other 3 pillars of the die cast spider you can have another 3 arms if you want, what new deck gives you that, none that I know of. Also the arm is silver wired and was the first to do so. Replace at least the PSU caps but why not go the whole hog and look at the resistors, they are all bog standard industrial types. Do this and you effectively have a new deck.
Total cost will be around €1000, now tell me how much a new deck that won't come anywhere near the quality or functionability will cost. Stuck in the past, no but I do know good value when I see it.
As Kevin says, he is happy with his Idlers. When you get properly analytical the drive method doesn't matter, as has been seen on the turntable speed stability thread on here. There are much more important things to worry about.
If you hunt around on here there are pictures of his man cave. It's very impressive!
If you hunt around on here there are pictures of his man cave. It's very impressive!
I thought the same about the age of vinyl buyers but have seen some age figures that showed indeed that a proportion of up to ~45% is younger than 35.
Another surprising fact is that (according to numbers from the UK) around 9-10% of the buyers don´t possess a turntable and another 35% have a turntable but don´t use it .....
I'm under 45 and got into vinyl ten years ago. For about three years I learned to do easy to moderate vintage repair and drove around Los Angeles County buying tables off Craiglist. Lot of fun. I gifted my best friend a Thorens in great condition. He LOVES music and sees live music constantly. He owns records and has gifted me records.
But he's never used the Thorens.
So yea, there is definitely a weird phenomena of people who don't actually use the tables. But then that brings me back to my earlier point that unlike other components I just don't see much outreach from the older generation to us 'young' kids about what to do, enthusiasm for affordable new tables, etc. So I think a lot of us are kind of intimidated and frankly don't really know what to do with the tables. I used to be a regular on Audiokarma and Vinylengine but the grouchiness and close-mindedness is just overwhelming.
A good target market for the mag lev TT. I never noticed "power consumption - 12W", will wonders never cease (platter is 80% ABS plastic and 20% glass fiber, even better).
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billshurv,
the drive method is important if you want to achieve the best sound that's possible from your vinyl. When I first got serious about my system and got interested in what the audio forums had to offer, it became obvious that there was a direct comparison with political and religious freaks - agree with them or be an enemy.
Talk about entrenched attitudes, hanging on to outmoded ideas, refusing to move on. the scelerotic fixed ideas from both the tube and ss camps.
The androids waving their holy books accusing others of 'believing' - when in fact they were describing themselves, very sad and it does tend to chase away many as wushuliu says.
I saw the commercialisation of record collecting taking place in the UK at the end of the 80s. Go to the car boot sales and see the pros barging people out of the way to get to the LPs - not at all interested in the music, just the money to be made. I did deck two of them once, this meant that at future car boots if I got in first they all stood back - left a nasty taste though.
I never imagined though that prices would get as silly as they are today - I bought vinyl to listen to. In reality I shouldn't have been surprised - the whole of life has become commercialised - look at sport.
For me it's all about the music, so plug and play D/D does it, for others it's about non stop re-inventing the wheel, always at the bench and never really listening to music at all. Nothing wrong with that, there's room for both.
It would be nice to see a forum where the very basics of sound systems are seriously challenged - standard i/connects/speaker cables just don't follow sound science at all, based on premises that are decades old, unchallenged and just plain wrong. RCA/XLR/headphone jacks plugs are a case in point - the signal cable should be the start point of all discussion and design but it is an after thought - I'll stop there because this thread is not about these kind of things.
I only brought it up because this is exactly what those teams of Japanese did with the t/t and came up with direct drives as a consequence. It's what Dr. Heil did with the transducer - what a shame he died before he finished his work on the full range AMT.
If some find digital vinyl is good for them, fine, if others don't, also fine - is it about enjoying the music and sharing info with others, giving and receiving ideas and suggestions - all this is good for me - regiments of true believers swirling around on a battlefield of belief systems - pass.
the drive method is important if you want to achieve the best sound that's possible from your vinyl. When I first got serious about my system and got interested in what the audio forums had to offer, it became obvious that there was a direct comparison with political and religious freaks - agree with them or be an enemy.
Talk about entrenched attitudes, hanging on to outmoded ideas, refusing to move on. the scelerotic fixed ideas from both the tube and ss camps.
The androids waving their holy books accusing others of 'believing' - when in fact they were describing themselves, very sad and it does tend to chase away many as wushuliu says.
I saw the commercialisation of record collecting taking place in the UK at the end of the 80s. Go to the car boot sales and see the pros barging people out of the way to get to the LPs - not at all interested in the music, just the money to be made. I did deck two of them once, this meant that at future car boots if I got in first they all stood back - left a nasty taste though.
I never imagined though that prices would get as silly as they are today - I bought vinyl to listen to. In reality I shouldn't have been surprised - the whole of life has become commercialised - look at sport.
For me it's all about the music, so plug and play D/D does it, for others it's about non stop re-inventing the wheel, always at the bench and never really listening to music at all. Nothing wrong with that, there's room for both.
It would be nice to see a forum where the very basics of sound systems are seriously challenged - standard i/connects/speaker cables just don't follow sound science at all, based on premises that are decades old, unchallenged and just plain wrong. RCA/XLR/headphone jacks plugs are a case in point - the signal cable should be the start point of all discussion and design but it is an after thought - I'll stop there because this thread is not about these kind of things.
I only brought it up because this is exactly what those teams of Japanese did with the t/t and came up with direct drives as a consequence. It's what Dr. Heil did with the transducer - what a shame he died before he finished his work on the full range AMT.
If some find digital vinyl is good for them, fine, if others don't, also fine - is it about enjoying the music and sharing info with others, giving and receiving ideas and suggestions - all this is good for me - regiments of true believers swirling around on a battlefield of belief systems - pass.
I used to run a vinyl mobile disco.
It was great fun especially on a bouncy floor when there was no stage !
It was relief when CD's came along and there was a big improvement.
However the CD player didn't like going from cold to hot and would sometimes skip a bit until it got warmed up.
It was much better when I moved over to a SSD PC with mp3 files.
It was great fun especially on a bouncy floor when there was no stage !
It was relief when CD's came along and there was a big improvement.
However the CD player didn't like going from cold to hot and would sometimes skip a bit until it got warmed up.
It was much better when I moved over to a SSD PC with mp3 files.
I am afraid that the measurements don't agree with you*. Record eccentricity causes errors far greater than the drive system when everything is set up right. One of the members here has just obtained a Nakamichi TX-1000 and the self-centering system on that really does what it says on the tin.
What is true is that there are some fairly poorly engineered belt drive tables out there. Sadly many from UK fred in shed operations where they can't even get the speed right. But that is not the fault of the concept of belt drive.
As for
That's why we have >1 turntable
. I think my optimal would be 4 (one MM, one MC, one mono, one wet play) but space and SWMBO limit me to two, one belt one DD. Life is good *These are 2017 measurements in many cases as Scott was showing us how 30 lines or so of Python can give a better result than Adjust+.
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billshurv - 'the measurements don't agree with you - what on earth are you on about. Measurements/instruments don't listen to music - humans do - what part of this reality don't you understand.In the simple context of listening to music, your statement is irrational.
In fact you've proved my point - there are those who are into the music and those who aren't - you stay with your measuring equipment and be happy and I'll spend my time listening to and enjoying music.
In fact you've proved my point - there are those who are into the music and those who aren't - you stay with your measuring equipment and be happy and I'll spend my time listening to and enjoying music.
OK, wind back to your lecture at Kevin on 14th December where someone supposed listed all the reasons DD was superior. Here, now in 2017 latest measurements by people here on this forum show that the drive mechanism is secondary to other aspects of turntable performance and any drive mechanism can be made to disappear from the equation with good setup.
Having pointed this out you accuse me of not being into music despite it being you who raised it. It may suprise you on a DIY forum, but wanting to build/tweak/optimse a system is in no way mutually exclusive to being a music lover.
Having pointed this out you accuse me of not being into music despite it being you who raised it. It may suprise you on a DIY forum, but wanting to build/tweak/optimse a system is in no way mutually exclusive to being a music lover.
Why constrain oneself to only one medium. One can listen to both format. My reason for listening to vinyl is there are some old good recordings, artists and music to be explored and turntables are fun.
I wonder if one has two tonearms a reworked alignment geometry (Typical has two null points across whole record) so that First half of the vinyl area has two null points (Less distortion) and rest half we switch to another tonearm again with two null point. And Probably an elliptical stylus for inner tonearm so as we reduce inner groove distortion.
Regards.
You can have a quasi beltdrive like Thorens TD-124 with 2 tonearms. That way you save space and have belt, idler, MM and MC combination.As for That's why we have >1 turntable
I wonder if one has two tonearms a reworked alignment geometry (Typical has two null points across whole record) so that First half of the vinyl area has two null points (Less distortion) and rest half we switch to another tonearm again with two null point. And Probably an elliptical stylus for inner tonearm so as we reduce inner groove distortion.
Regards.
The people that designed the DD turntables certainly did. I'm sure some of those Freds in sheds as Bill called them did what they did out of love for the music but lacked electrical or mechanical engineering. It's funny how those propeller headed musically ignorant engineers are so dearly needed at times.
BTW you sound as religious in your beliefs as anyone here.
There is a TD 226 on ebay at the moment. If I was going to get into the trouble buying one of those would cause me would have to have the vacuum hold down.
billshurv,
the ideal would be 4 t/ts - really - in a normal living room/lounge - I don't think so, I don't know any partner/wife would put up with that - it's obsessive.
Hiten - with the KD series you can have 4 tonearms.
scott worcer - Read my post where I said the Kenwood engineers went back to the simple question - what does a t/t have to do? The Kenwood engineers answered that in spades. What they and the other Japanese engineers came up with was totally different to anything westerners had done in the past. Their was an awful lot of hubris and downright racism involved in the west's response which included many lies in most if not all the audio magazines in the west at the time. The only people who wholeheartedly saw the advantages of d/d were the Germans, that is why it was and is the best place to look to buy these D/D t/ts.
Belief syndromes are normally programmed into people from the cradle be they religious or political. Sadly many of those who are inflicted with one or the other always assume that everyone is - I am not. If i hear something - I hear it - I don't believe I have heard it. If I don't hear anything ergo I don't hear anything - thought is not reality, only reality is real.
I don't give a damn what kind of t/t people use or how many they have or want. To me one t/t is enough, though I do own two KDs as I want to experiment with one - going skeletal, I will then keep one and sell the other. I feel lucky that I happened to be a member of a forum that James Doddington was a member of at that time and I listened to his rational arguments based upon his professional knowledge - that's how I came to get into D/Ds. I have stated what I have found and that I could have saved a lot of money had I had this info from the beginning but as always - what ever floats your boat.
the ideal would be 4 t/ts - really - in a normal living room/lounge - I don't think so, I don't know any partner/wife would put up with that - it's obsessive.
Hiten - with the KD series you can have 4 tonearms.
scott worcer - Read my post where I said the Kenwood engineers went back to the simple question - what does a t/t have to do? The Kenwood engineers answered that in spades. What they and the other Japanese engineers came up with was totally different to anything westerners had done in the past. Their was an awful lot of hubris and downright racism involved in the west's response which included many lies in most if not all the audio magazines in the west at the time. The only people who wholeheartedly saw the advantages of d/d were the Germans, that is why it was and is the best place to look to buy these D/D t/ts.
Belief syndromes are normally programmed into people from the cradle be they religious or political. Sadly many of those who are inflicted with one or the other always assume that everyone is - I am not. If i hear something - I hear it - I don't believe I have heard it. If I don't hear anything ergo I don't hear anything - thought is not reality, only reality is real.
I don't give a damn what kind of t/t people use or how many they have or want. To me one t/t is enough, though I do own two KDs as I want to experiment with one - going skeletal, I will then keep one and sell the other. I feel lucky that I happened to be a member of a forum that James Doddington was a member of at that time and I listened to his rational arguments based upon his professional knowledge - that's how I came to get into D/Ds. I have stated what I have found and that I could have saved a lot of money had I had this info from the beginning but as always - what ever floats your boat.
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