Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

That was amazing. If only there was a larger version to demagnetise the ink on my vinyl labels...

There appears to be a subculture of people who demagnetise vinyl LPs:
https://www.analogplanet.com/content/you-can%E2%80%99t-demagnetize-vinyl-you-can-demagnetize-record%E2%80%94-furutech-demag-alpha-and-stein-de3

Inevitably it ends up with the writer arguing that his "original pink label Island copy of Jethro Tull’s Stand Up that’s been repeatedly played since 1969 still has better high frequency extension than any CD". The other musicians he enjoys include Bob Dylan and Pat Metheny.

every true Tull head knows the CD book editions are the definitive and superior format for all of their releases up through the Broadsword and the Beast

* demagnetised tho

That's classic audiophile snake oil, taking something that is real (demagnetizing tape heads) and applying it to mediums that have nothing to do with magnetic tape

It never claimed to be a deultramagnetizer!

All you Pro-Ject people with the manual 33/45 change: does your platter not have a hole in it so that you can make the switch without actually removing the platter? On mine (don’t remember the model but it’s probably 25-30 years old now) you just rotate it so the hole is over the shaft and can then move the band with the little key thing. It’s never bothered me but having to actually remove the platter probably would.

After 2+ years of working at home I finally decided I needed a system in my basement office, and have lucked into three vintage turntables for a total of $10. All initially in rough shape but working well now after disassembly and cleaning/lubricating/some new parts; still need to take care of the cosmetics but I’m looking forward to comparing them. Dual 1219, Thorens TD165, and Pioneer PL-12 — all with speed selector switches!

definitely no hole on my MMF-5, somehow I lost the key long ago so I use 45 adapters

I really don't mind it so much, I knew what I was getting into when I bought it (in 2006, wow)

Listening to 45s is kind of annoying anyway so I don't care that much

No hole in my Debut Carbon platter - whole thing has to come off. All part of the ritual, yeah?

otm

No hole on my 15-year-old RPM5. IIRC you could buy a separate switch system for changing speed, but I play CDs now mostly and, when vinyl, 33 1/3 the vast majority of the time and don't mind switching manually.

I had never heard of this ridiculous method of changing speeds until looking at modern turntable options. Going to keep my garage sale Realistic working as long as possible!

My Debut II does have the platter holes but I don't have a doohickey to adjust the belt. I figured out how to do it with my fingers but it's a tight fit. Irrelevant if I get an acrylic platter, which I'm planning to do.

Iirc the point of manual switching is to reduce the number of moving parts, thus increasing reliability and reducing speed variance, wow and flutter etc. Worth the hassle in my book for a better sounding turntable that won't break the bank and is easy to service.

correct, I willingly made the tradeoff

and I def play more 45 rpm things than the average listener

I just use a technics 1200ish and rely on magic quartz crystals

xps I loved the sound of my TD160, but eventually found it unusably fussy. It was horribly susceptible to footfall (mounting it to the wall was the only way to kill that) and it was frustratingly creaky to start up — the table itself may have been a bit of a lemon rather than the model; the people I sold it to sold it on themselves after a short time. Then I ran Duals for a while, and I loved the automatic functions, but every one of them developed a quirk of some kind or other that rendered them each in turn unusable. I eventually settled on a Technics 1500c, brand new, in defiance of 30+ years of being a “vintage equipment guy.” It’s ok, although I think I’m going to have to get someone to beef up the lift mechanism which is unforgivably limp for a $1000 turntable.

I did get all the Duals fixed and I’m running the 701 as a secondary table.

For $10 you got an insane steal by any measure, though!

Ended up on the 1500c too when I returned to my vinyl last year - more than I hoped to spend but I love it. ikwym about the lift but for the most part it just feels so solid - I look at it and think 'I trust you'. Sounds good to me but I've been away from turntables for a while. May change the cartridge soon-ish, see how that changes the sound, and then demagnetise a few records after that.

This speed-change talk reminded me of my old 1970s Crown music-centre - my first "hi-fi", a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law.
I was convinced that it was playing vinyl too fast, so I spent an afternoon sometime in summer '90 adding layers of self-adhesive tennis racket towelling grip to the sub-platter to change the ratio and slow it down. Obviously it wasn't audiophile-grade tennis racket towelling grip but it did the job.

Recently I found some old tapes I made on that system, likely pre-tennis tweak. They were hilariously fast. I played my C90 of Faith by The Cure on my gf's Technics tape deck; Primary runs about six seconds shorter than on Spotify :) No wonder everything was so exciting back then. Even The Cure.

I have an older direct drive automatic turntable and it is wonky, the manual change thing is much more solid

I don't personally find it onerous

I personally feel like people like having 45s way more than they listen to them

The speed on my low-end Technics DD table had recently started acting really wonky with random slide-whistle changes during play. I opened it up to try and clean the guts of the switch (one of those metal slider toggle things), but while following the advice to click it back and forth a bunch of times, the plastic bit connecting the metal switch to the inner workings snapped in half. D'oh! I Krazy Glued it back into place, but some glue got somewhere it shouldn't have and now it's just fused in the 33 position. I never actually listen to 45s on it, so, hey.

Similar thing happened to my Rotel turntable (which is close to 30 years old at this point). The speed would fluctuate in a wacky manner. Took it to get fixed, and the guy said, "How often do you play 45s?" Almost never. "The switch became oxidized from never being used, which is causing the speed issues -- you should click it a bunch of times every time you use the turntable." That was 10 years ago and I haven't had that issue since.

Well that's why I like manual belt drive turntable like a Pro-Ject. These kind of issues could never happen. Speed issues? Buy a new belt for under $20, problem solved.

Plus these decks really punch above their weight with the right cartridge. Recently upgraded to an Ortofon 2M Red and the difference is night and day. I'm tempted to check out the Blue but I'm also not a millionaire and I've read it can be fussier. I'm pretty happy where I've landed tbh.

7”s should only be listened to in marathon sets one after the other on those portable 7” players while lying on living room carpet

This is correct. Also, 7" records should never be stored in any kind of order. They must be be in random piles that sprawl over the floor as you try to find that one banger you haven't heard in years, but you swear you have a copy of somewhere...

You must also never clean a 7" record. The sibilance and inner groove distortion are simply part of the charm.

brimstead otm

https://frinkiac.com/img/S05E06/554002.jpg

Here's a new one: email from mail order customer who bought vinyl 3 years ago. The complaint, the record's actual weight is 173g, not the advertised 180g. He literally weighed the record on a digital scale. Only response I could come up with is that we have a 30 day return policy

— undertow (@UndertowMusic) October 19, 2022

Those last 7 grams is where all the best sound is.

It loses a half a gram every time you play it. You really got to get it down to 165g before it's broken in. And then never play it again.

“You weighed it on a digital scale? There’s your problem right there: you need the warmth and accuracy of an analog scale.”

lol

lol that's the perfect response

lol, i agree

listen what i want to know is, how does it do with detail retrieval

specifically on natalie merchant's 'tigerlily'

tigerlily deserves only the best detail retrieval

i once bought a linear power supply for my turntable from a local maker, and on his request posted a (positive) online review

i could definitely feel myself reaching for the shopworn phrases - bass was better-defined, midrange gained an extra level of expression, less constrained higher frequencies, an overall increase in what you might call "musicality"

like, while i was writing i could feel a demon sitting on my shoulder trying to convince me that it was legit to have dropped a few hundred bucks on a PSU

(i did have an actual technical reason for buying it, but i was absolutely also straining to perceive the sonic improvements that i secretly hoped for)

lol i've literally never heard of linear power supplies before. thank you. it's just incredible what exists out there

god help me I got lost in the world of record cleaning.
I basically learned a) for my needs hand-cleaning with brush, cloth and a homemade solution would give adequate results and b) no force on earth was going to stop me buying the cheapest ultrasonic record cleaner I could find on aliexpress because why wouldn't I want an ultrasonic cleaner around the place?

Some good discussion of various methods can be found itt: Cleaning Records

If anyone's thinking of ditching vinyl, now's definitely a great time to cash out. I just sold my turntable, which hadn't been used in a while but was in much worse condition than when I bought it, and I actually made a pretty good profit. Glad to be rid of it, space has become a premium so even clearing that made a significant difference. (I can now stack a bunch of stuff in that spot, freeing up quite a bit of floor space in the process,)

xp thanks for that link! I never even thought to look on ilx for some reason & instead spent my time digging around audiosciencereview and stevehoffman

xp not ditching, but definitely culling

xxp I think I missed the boat for peak resale but the two technics 1200 mk5's in the house may yet be my retirement fund

I had both of my 1200s (a mk2 and a mk3) serviced at the beginning of the pandemic - just in case they moved, got sick, or otherwise went out of business - but they should be good to go until I finally give up.

lovely, lovely piece by sasha frere-jones

https://harpers.org/archive/2022/12/corner-club-cathedral-cocoon-audiophilia-and-its-discontents/

Great article. I've heard the Fleetwood Sound speakers mentioned in the article at a shop. I was curious since I went to hs where they are made. Sounded phenomenal, but they had some pricey tube amps driving them.