I have a love for vintage stereo equipment. Nowadays a phone and Bluetooth speaker more than suffice and saves us a lot of space. However, nothing beats the sound of those classic hi-fi stereo systems and the warm sound of vinyl complete with those soft pops and crackles 🤣 Seriously though, it's just a completely different sound.
I've been thinking about picking up a turntable. Although I haven't had a record player for some time, I never sold my vinyl records. It's been a long time since I've listened to my records and many of them are discontinued and really hard to find in MP3 format.
Today, while cleaning out the basement I found one of my old turntables tucked away in the corner covered in about an inch of dust. I plugged it in and to my surprise, the turntable began to spin. This thing must have been in my basement since I was a teenager and long forgotten.
I brought it up to my apartment and plugged it into my Yamaha HTR-5630 receiver that I picked up at a garage sale for $5 and nothing. No sound. I used the auxiliary connections and figured I needed a pre-amp. I dug around in some old electronics I had piled up in a junk drawer, plugged it into the pre-amp and there was sound!
I figured at the very least I'd need a needle, but even that seems to be fine! I may order one anyway. It's a Pioneer turntable with a Stanton needle on it, I'm guessing I should be able to find a replacement. Fingers crossed. I had an old Fischer turntable from the 70s that I had to let go of because I couldn't find a needle for it.
My musical tastes lean more towards jazz, blues, and big band when listening to vinyl. In the greater scheme of things, it's how the musician and studio intended it. You're hearing it the way it was produced when it was first released. On top of that, as I mentioned earlier, vinyl just has a much deeper, warmer sound. Some people can't get past the occasional crackle and pop of an old record, but I believe it just adds to its charm and the general ambiance of the vinyl experience.
Another thing I love about vinyl is that you can usually find really inexpensive albums at thrift stores, garage sales, and even at some of the lower-end used record shops. I once came across a vintage copy of Donovan's Season of the Witch in a record store for $5. At the time, you couldn't touch that album for under $500! That one got resold though 😁
So I guess I have one more thing to collect and post about now. Expect some vinyl posts soon as I add them to my collection. I may even start reselling vinyl online. I currently only have about 50 records or so. I'll post more about those in a future post.
Well, that was my lucky find of the day. Now I'm just going to chill out, clean the house a bit and listen to some vinyl! Cheers.
Living that High Fidelity life :)