I have been wanting to get my hands on a 10+ watt per channel (WPC) stereo tube amplifier. I have also wanted to get my hands on a decent record cleaning machine. The question has been, which do I want more? The cost for the inexpensive Spin-Clean record cleaning system is less than an inexpensive 10+ WPC tube amp, but I still cannot make up my mind.
The Spin-Clean is a manual record cleaning solution which has been receiving great reviews from all over the web. I see it for sale for $79, and I see the deluxe pack for $129. When I did the math, the $129 was a nice price for all the extras you receive when you purchase it that way.
An inexpensive stereo tube amp, which has the desired power can run around $300. When I do my search I see the vintage tube amps being sold. I have been wondering about one. My friend mentioned a couple things, vintage does mean old and it will need to have some work done under the hood. Plus, am I certain that it is not a fire hazard? He also mentioned something about the quality of the output transformers.
The sweet sound of nice and clean records will make my system sound awesome when playing records. However, it could sound sweet all the time I am listening if I choose to add a tube amp to my system. I currently have a flea-watt tube amp, 2.5 WPC. Most people would be surprised as to how nicely it plays through even decent sized speakers. I have some PSB Image Ts and the sound was impressive and actually is what convinced me in the first place to get more watts to see how nice a tube with some decent power would sound.
Back to the record cleaning machine. I listen to LPs nearly daily and when my mother asked me today how many LPs I have, I estimated it at around 1,000. It would take a while to get them all cleaned, but I would use a label to identify on my plastic liners which records had been cleaned. From what I have read this device makes quite a difference in any except machine cleaned records.
Right now I use a 4-brush wet method for cleaning my LPs. I use an anti-static brush to loosen the dirt, then I go over it with a discwasher brush. Then, if needed I will spray some awesome cleaning solution that I currently use, (Smart, available at www.needledoctor.com). I then use my flat, felt pad to spread out the liquid on the surface. Then I use the four Discwasher brushes, the newer ones are a different, more absorbent material than the original, so I start with that one. Then I move on from the most to least aggressive brush. Afterward it takes around 5 minutes for the liquid to evaporate. Some records only need the first two brushes and no wet cleaning, others are very dirty.
So you can see the positive attributes of either acquisition. I am still pondering which I will do. I will have to make up my mind soon!
Any Opinions?
Keep Listening!
Jeff
Friday, July 6, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Satellite Radio Lo-Fi?
Is it just me, or does satellite radio sound like crap? I am listening to a couple stations on sirius, and I am finding digital artifacts and crappy sound. Has anyone else noticed? The content is nice, I can listen to anything I want, but I like to listen in High Fidelity, not crappy sound.
I got a new car and I have 6 months to decide whether to extend satellite radio or not. Right now, listening to music, I am uncertain as to whether I should start paying to deliver crappy sound to my car.
What are your thoughts? Has anyone else noticed this?
I got a new car and I have 6 months to decide whether to extend satellite radio or not. Right now, listening to music, I am uncertain as to whether I should start paying to deliver crappy sound to my car.
What are your thoughts? Has anyone else noticed this?
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Vibration Absorption - The inexpensive way!
I was listening at club level volume at home one day and something that had never happened before occured. The CD player skipped. I had never had that happen before and it scared the heck out of me! I thought maybe the CD was messed up, something had scratched it or it was dirty. I inspected the CD and it was clean as can be. I take very good care of my media! At that point I started considering that maybe my old player had seen better days and it was malfunctioning. I took a look and everything seemed to be good, I played several more CDs that day and I was happy with the result, there were no more skips. So I pulled that near perfect CD and placed it on the disposal pile and went about my week. The next change I had to play the stereo at 11 was a couple weeks later. I was cranking some 80s Hair band rock and it skipped again. At the volume level that I had been listening to it was quite startling! Inspection revealed that this CD was nearly perfect too.
I was trying to determine what my course of action was, because I was pretty sure that the CD player was dying. I found it quite strange that both 'skips" happened during very loud playback. Before the first listening session where the skip occurred, I changed the location of quite a bit of my gear and moved it to a lower rack on a wood cabinet. I noticed that it was right in the dispersion field of the speaker that I was using when this happened. Hmmmmm......
Vibration! Oh no! I started looking on Ebay, Audiogon, checked out my local stereo store and read some articles on vibration control. I was bummed because the cost of even a modest vibration control scheme, was like $50 and they ranged to the hundreds of dollars to treat more than one device. So, I decided that I would go down a different route to eliminate the vibration. If the device cannot move, it should vibrate a bit less, so I added 10 pounds to the top of the CD player, in the form of a dumbbell. It worked! At least it stopped skipping during the very loud passages. I am not going to claim that I heard sonic signatures from the vibrations that I know were still attacking the component. I just did not know what my inexpensive options were.
I have a fellow audiophile friend and we visit each others' houses to do listening and to learn about new music that either of us have discovered, or re-discovered. He has a smallish listening room with a bunch of speakers mounted on the same shelves as his components. We were in there for hours listening to all his components, through various speakers, quite loud too, and not a single piece of equipment did so much as hiccup in all that time and as loud as it was playing. I was pretty impressed, so I spoke about my experience with the skipping of the CD with him and he agreed it was vibration that most likely caused the issue. So I asked him how the heck he was able to have all his gear co-exist on the same shelving structure as some of his speakers.
He Showed Me!
I was floored, what an awesome solution that never even crossed my mind! I figured that if it worked for him it would work for me since my equipment is at least physically isolated from the sound source and not sitting together. I went to my local sporting goods store and purchased a large pack of a dozen racquetballs, yes racquetballs! He told me to cut them in half along the mold line which is straight and use them like a cup and put each under the feet of the desired component to absorb vibration coming from the room, the furniture and some of the vibration coming from the speakers. I did this and have not had a single problem with skipping CDs since, and I have listened quite loudly since. Plus I got rid of the dumbbell.
I found this "tweak" to be one of the most effective and cost-efficient methods out there to control vibration, which is the enemy of your components, and can cause issues with the sound. The cost was $12.99 for 12 balls. When you consider that I can cut them in half and put them under 6 components for that price, it truely is the cheapest thing going!
I have used my first dozen balls up, so it is time to buy some more. I have placed them under my solid state and tube amps, my CD Player, my home theater receiver, and my preamp, I will probably use them in my other systems in time.
Again, I am not going to say that I heard more detail, better sound or any of that malarky, although it could be true, I just have not noticed. I am just resting assured that the vibration control will allow me a few things, the ability to play my system very loud, to protect the sound from being altered by all the vibration, and it should help my tubes last longer as they are not being assaulted by vibration when being used.
Unless you point it out, no one notices.
Keep Listening!
Jeff
I was trying to determine what my course of action was, because I was pretty sure that the CD player was dying. I found it quite strange that both 'skips" happened during very loud playback. Before the first listening session where the skip occurred, I changed the location of quite a bit of my gear and moved it to a lower rack on a wood cabinet. I noticed that it was right in the dispersion field of the speaker that I was using when this happened. Hmmmmm......
Vibration! Oh no! I started looking on Ebay, Audiogon, checked out my local stereo store and read some articles on vibration control. I was bummed because the cost of even a modest vibration control scheme, was like $50 and they ranged to the hundreds of dollars to treat more than one device. So, I decided that I would go down a different route to eliminate the vibration. If the device cannot move, it should vibrate a bit less, so I added 10 pounds to the top of the CD player, in the form of a dumbbell. It worked! At least it stopped skipping during the very loud passages. I am not going to claim that I heard sonic signatures from the vibrations that I know were still attacking the component. I just did not know what my inexpensive options were.
I have a fellow audiophile friend and we visit each others' houses to do listening and to learn about new music that either of us have discovered, or re-discovered. He has a smallish listening room with a bunch of speakers mounted on the same shelves as his components. We were in there for hours listening to all his components, through various speakers, quite loud too, and not a single piece of equipment did so much as hiccup in all that time and as loud as it was playing. I was pretty impressed, so I spoke about my experience with the skipping of the CD with him and he agreed it was vibration that most likely caused the issue. So I asked him how the heck he was able to have all his gear co-exist on the same shelving structure as some of his speakers.
He Showed Me!
I was floored, what an awesome solution that never even crossed my mind! I figured that if it worked for him it would work for me since my equipment is at least physically isolated from the sound source and not sitting together. I went to my local sporting goods store and purchased a large pack of a dozen racquetballs, yes racquetballs! He told me to cut them in half along the mold line which is straight and use them like a cup and put each under the feet of the desired component to absorb vibration coming from the room, the furniture and some of the vibration coming from the speakers. I did this and have not had a single problem with skipping CDs since, and I have listened quite loudly since. Plus I got rid of the dumbbell.
I found this "tweak" to be one of the most effective and cost-efficient methods out there to control vibration, which is the enemy of your components, and can cause issues with the sound. The cost was $12.99 for 12 balls. When you consider that I can cut them in half and put them under 6 components for that price, it truely is the cheapest thing going!
I have used my first dozen balls up, so it is time to buy some more. I have placed them under my solid state and tube amps, my CD Player, my home theater receiver, and my preamp, I will probably use them in my other systems in time.
Again, I am not going to say that I heard more detail, better sound or any of that malarky, although it could be true, I just have not noticed. I am just resting assured that the vibration control will allow me a few things, the ability to play my system very loud, to protect the sound from being altered by all the vibration, and it should help my tubes last longer as they are not being assaulted by vibration when being used.
Unless you point it out, no one notices.
Keep Listening!
Jeff
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)