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

Welcome to the Audiophile and Turntable thread. Ask questions about setups, technical topics, favorite albums and anything else you want. Post pictures of your setup and the album your listening to.

Marco Esquandolas has established himself as the most knowledgable poster on this topic and he is extremely helpful and responsive to questions. He also posted a thread of a good bang for your buck setup here: Bang for Your Buck Audiophile Setup


Thought it would be cool to see what everyone is using, feel free to post pictures, I will soon.

Also would really like to hear suggestions of some albums I should look into in this format.



FOR THE BEGINNERS JUST LOOKING FOR THE BARE BONES SETUP:
If you have a receiver with a phono input, then all you need is the turntable, receiver, RCA cables, and speakers. However, if your receiver does not have a phono input, you will need what is called a phono preamp. The purpose of the phono preamp is to amplify the sound created by your turntable (which is naturally extremely low), and back when records were the primary listening method, receivers all had a built in phono pre amp. These days, it is less common to have a turntable as a primary method of listening, so less receivers have the PHONO input, thus, a phono preamp is necessary. Instead, you hook the turntable into the preamp and THEN into the receiver. Here is a pretty simple diagram.