Beast from the east

[treehugger]

Well, having been bowled over by a giant tumbleweed after rudely jumping on someone else’ s turntable thread, I’ll begin my own.

I have a bit of a fetish for over-engineered Japanese machines from the 70’s and early 80’s, with direct drive turntables being my biggest weakness. I’ve tied a few, but this Pioneer PL-70L2 is the keeper, it requires no modding or tweaking like Technics 1210/ sp10 as it’s fully sorted from the footers through to tonearm. I am using a DENON 103R moving coil cartridge as there is a very good mechanical match, the 103 was made for high quality 12" tonearms like this …when they were more prevalent back in the seventies, and therein lies the reason why the 103 sounds poor in modern lightweight 9" arms such as rega’s and get’s such bad press for it.




I love switching from the mac/dac back to the analogue rig, I have a fair amount of reggae on vinyl and the 103 comes into it’s own with heavy rhythm and chunky beats; for this particular genre of music analogue is hard to beat IMO.

The rest of my system consists:
Mac mini with SSD running Ayrewave
Arcam Rdac and HRT streamer 2+
NVA phono / headphone / preamp
AKG 702 with ALO cable.
Sony SA-S1 active hybrid speakers

I am currently trying an x-can v3 for headphone, having found the ss NVA headamp a touch hard with some digital music and since coming across this here great forum, I’m hoping I can get the x-can pimped.

[Deleted]

Nice to see more members enjoying there vinyl setups, i still enjoy listening to mine, though i must admit, not as much as i should really, as its more of a "hands on" experience. Must be getting lazy in my older age, as its hardly an effort to place a 12inch dia piece of thin vinyl on to a platter, push the start button, lower the arm on the outer edge and sit down and enjoy. Mind you 20 or so minutes later you have to get up and do it all again, apart from pressing the start button. Making me sweat thinking about it

Mick.

[Will]

That's a lovely looking turntable you have there, Treehugger. I did think so the first time you posted, but forgot to post

Maybe I'm looking back through rose-tinted glasses, but putting the record on, the gentle click as the needle kisses the vinyl and the walking back and sitting in your chair, just as the music flows out of the speakers is massively more involving than plonking a cd on.

It's just not the same.

[treehugger]

Thanks fellas
I'm a relatively new convert to computer audio, and was a full on vinyl head up until recently. What with dual mono volume controls on my pre (no remote) and flipping records every 20 or so i was up and down like a yoyo, especially when the girlfriend was around the house and the dog was nagging for a walk, so the last few months have been very interesting, not only do these aiff's sound bloody good, I get to chill out with the music ...but now and again, when the house falls silent there's nothing like it - a cold one from the fridge and i'm ready for the ritual, that initial click as the needle touches down somehow charges the air and the senses. I think I appreciate it more now having enjoyed the lazy convenience of playlists for a couple of months. a definite downside of having the mac connected to the tv is that I cant stay of this blessed internet...very distracting! I can see why the gaffer refuses to have computers in his listening environment.

What to do when I find something new and cant decide which format to choose!...hmm

It's all good.