I bought some vinyl today at a flea market. 14 titles for $14, to sell on ebay, but some of them I'd really like to hear. Any advice on brands of direct-drive USB turntables to purchase?
I bought some vinyl today at a flea market. 14 titles for $14, to sell on ebay, but some of them I'd really like to hear. Any advice on brands of direct-drive USB turntables to purchase?
I have heard the USB turntables are inferior to regular turntables in terms of sound quality. I don't have the details/specs, but I'm sure you can find them.
I have never owned a USB turntable, so cannot advise on those. My current turntable is a several-year old Hitachi direct drive HT-45. I have no complaints.
We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973
You can get HiFi turntables with USB too.
Here is a cheap one from a good brand http://www.project-audio.com/main.ph...tables&lang=en
We sell the TEAC TN-300. A great turntable with built-in pre-amp and also USB capability. It's not direct drive(belt drive)
and the sound-quality is AMAZING. As far as Spellbound's post above regarding inferior sound quality, I can't see that
having USB attachments has anything to do with the actual sound of the turntable although I don't think the quality of
the download through the USB is anywhere near the player's same quality.
We are the grandchildren of apes, not angels
But only we are gifted with the eyes to see
On days without FEAR, when our heads are clear
That angels, we could be
(Marillion 2016)
Since you're only buying the table to "hear" the albums, not to play them forever -- and since you only have 14 of them -- and since they were only a buck apiece -- go for the cheapest set you can find.
the point of acquiring a turntable is to make sure they sound better after cleaning than they do now. It's also to transfer 3 of them to my hard drive for my collection. Depending on sales, there may be more purchases
In that case, hit the used market, buy a real TT.
I'm sure that you don't need a good one to turn out perfectly detestable-sounding mp3 stuff..; I've seen some going as little as 60€ a few years ago
Well if you're like an ok-sounding electronic file and are going to buy one of those, you may as well get a good one and make it lossless...
I have recorded vinyls directly onto CDr, and I've gotten some really reasonable results when using a hi-fi burner.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
There are lots of decent used turntables out there. Your concern is being able to record them for digital playback. Here is your solution http://www.sweetwater.com/store/deta...FZI8gQod-mQFlw
I have one of these, and it works great. It's a great sounding pre-amp also, as long as you set the output properly. Too much volume and the overloaded signal distorts. Too low a signal and it sounds like mud.
I think a better question would be what albums are you listening to that you found for $1 each? Are these rare finds, or things that have never been on CD? I'm as crazy as most any other vinyl collector out there, but my suggestion would be to just stick to a CD you can rip if we're talking about common records. If you truly want to capture what makes vinyl great, it's not going to be done by recording some dollar albums on inferior equipment and playing them back as MP3s.
I'm not saying this to be a snob, but to be perfectly realistic about the results you're likely to see. To get anything approaching the quality you'd want, you're talking an investment of at least $500 just on the low end. Unfortunately for the wallet, vinyl is not something you can do on the cheap if you want results.
--
Mike |
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I've used a basic Ion one for several years and it sounds fantastic on the transfer.
Transferring trashed records on cheap equipment to crappy digital formats is bad enough, but "recording vinyls directly onto CDr" without any cleanup, filtering, editing track markers, reducing rumble and restoring lost dynamic range is just as bad.Originally Posted by Trane
I certainly achieve better results than those labels (bootleg or legit) doing vinyl rips onto CDs by adding crap clean-up effects or even first generation transfer CDs
Of course, I'll get to hear the snaps, crackles & pops from the vinyl, once I play the CDr, but this is about as close to a vinyl-esque sound you can get.
You oughta try it yourself (use a good state vinyl and a hi-fi burner), and you'll be surprised how good the results are ...
I believe I'm not the one doing this here
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I live within earshot of a railroad track. always have managed to. I find it very soothing.
I'm in an extremely small town (pop 800) that like all towns out here hugs the railroad tracks. We're on the Seattle-Chicago line. LOTS of freight traffic, at least a couple every hour. We're a block away. It gets old. Really old.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
LEGO turntable
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8...-legos-is-here
Buy a good turntable, then buy an external USB adapter.
Like the Behringer UFO202. This will allow you to buy any TT you want, instead of being limited to those with built in USB.
You might find that you enjoy vinyl and collect more of it in the future. Those cheap tables have horrible conical styli, that will ruin your records. And they sound like crap.
They have bad frequency response, tend to accentuate surface noise (make clicks and pop much more noticable), have higher distortion, need more tracking weight (more record wear), lousy stereo separation, and more.
But if you must buy an all in one TT, go for the Audio-Technica AT-LP120. They are direct drive, and they come with a legitimate phono cartridge, an AT95E with an elliptical stylus, not a conical one.
It will set you back about $300, but with turntables, you do get what you pay for.
Last edited by simon moon; 04-10-2019 at 11:20 AM.
And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell
- but if you bought the good turntable, then buy a good AD converter (and phonostage)
https://www.whathifi.com/rega/fono-mini-a2d/review
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