re: Audiophile/Vinyl Thread - Post Pics, Advice, Questions, Setups, etc.

shite! I knew I forgot something at Best Buy!

It should be in tomorrow sometime so I'll go pick up some cables beforehand. Thanks for the reminder.

I bought some heavy duty book ends from office max and use those. They are really thin but have long weighty bases that are good for holding the records. On the right side I use the beatles box set as a book end of sorts because it's so heavy. I liked the orbit for its price and minimalist design. At this point it was my intro table and for that price it was a steal IMO. Not a showy table but perfect for playing 33 and 45 rpm with great sound quality. Not ideal for upgrades, but I'm not really looking to make many upgrades right now.

Budget?

I have 6 pair of phones, and they are vastly different. 3 are open back and 3 are closed back. If you will be sitting next to her, you should go with a closed back, as the sound from an open back will travel and she will hear what you are listening to.

With that, for under $100, the Grado 80i is hard to beat. They are extremely neutral. They are an open back design.

The least expensive closed back that I have are made by Focal. When I got them, Focal only made one model, and they were around $275 or so. That was a couple years ago and they have since come out with a couple more in the line up. I believe one is a little less $$ and one more $$. They are all closed back. They are my go-to phones when I fly. I usually run them with a portable ALO Audio amp connected to an iPod classic, but they are just fine without an external amp.

Beyerdynamic makes great phones as well, but are not cheap.

I also like the Bang & Olufsen phones as well--I believe they are in the $400-500 range.

And if you have the scratch, Audeze is the cat's meow!

I sometimes think I have a good setup and then see stuff like this. I just can't imagine owning that much high end audio stuff. It's like a dream setup for me. I'd like to listen to a McIntosh one day.

I don't know if this will work seeing as it's a tinypic URL but finally got it all set-up, Shark (if it does work, I apologize for the mess/speaker placement; waiting for our first home to be built still):

LINK

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They had a bunch of McIntosh setup at Best Buy when I went in my neck of the woods.

That video worked. Sounds like the preamp helped a lot. Does it sound good to you? Any audible humming or anything like that?

I will defer that question to Marco when he comes in here. I am sure he can help out with that, because I am not sure what that's for. And you will still have the pop and crackle of the record and honestly, I kinda like it.

That stands for "input capacitance"

On many phono Pre-amps, you will see load settings and capacitance settings. This "load" acts as an electrical damping on the voltage signal from the cartridge.

Resistive load settings are for moving coil cartridges (MC) and usually range from 10 Ohms to 1000 Ohms. The rule of thumb is to select an impedance that is 10-20 times the moving coil cartridge coil impedance (look this up on the spec sheet on the cartridge manufacturer's website). So find one or two or three settings in that range and pick the one that sounds best to you. There are very subtle differences here--you may detect bass tightening or loosening or the high frequencies being veiled or unveiled with changes in settings.

Capacitive load settings are for moving magnet cartridges (MM) and range from 50 Ohms to 47,000 Ohms (called wide open in audiophile lingo). Again, play around with with the load settings and listen for subtle differences in sound...has the high/low end changed and how? Which do you prefer?

There is no wrong setting, per se, just what sounds right to you.

Enjoy the listen...

Agent purple....go back to page 6 of this thread and read what I posted about phono stages and what they do. They do more than just "boost" the signal. It may also explain the crappy sound you got without one.

I personally don't own Senns.

I have heard NAD phones and they are fairly neutral as well.