McIntosh Preamp hopes re-railed by a McIntosh C27

I finally saved up enough to try again to upgrade my aging and failing Yamaha C-70 preamp.  The last time I attempted this, if you read my posts, a McIntosh preamp was destroyed by UPS.  It took three months to work it out and I had a very helpful seller!  The C-70 has been giving me trouble for about the last year.  One of the controls kept dropping one of the channels until it was actuated a few times.  You would think this would be cleared up by using it over and over, it was not.  I hate sitting there listening to music and have a channel drop in volume.  So it had to be replaced, I will try to find a good home for it who is knowledgeable in how to repair such things.  I finally managed to have opportunity and funding intersect and was able to purchase another McIntosh preamp.

Yesterday I took delivery of a 1977-1983 McIntosh C27 Preamp.  It was in awesome condition and I purchased it from a repair facility in the Carolina's.  I took a chance with the seller as they had Zero feedback.  I was pleasantly surprised when the boxes arrived and were not damaged.  The packing job done by them was excellent!  The item was just as pictured, which was clean with no damage and very little of the bubbling paint under the glass.  Like I have said before, I don't play the looks of an item, I play the item, so I am usually OK with a bit of cosmetic issues on the equipment I own. I left the seller very positive feedback and sent him a message thanking him for his efforts to get it to me undamaged.

This preamp seems to be legendary in a couple respects.  It was released right about the time the C32 was in production.  The C32 at that time was the baddest-ass preamp you could purchase, IMHO.  It had equalizers, filters, and a bunch of controls to shape the sound in any way you could imagine except reverb.  Interesting that a C27 would be released at the same time as a C32, since it seems to be released out of sequence.  What I have gathered so far is the C27 is a new technology product for McIntosh at that time and had the "new" controls which would become standard from that point on.  These controls are supposed to give excellent fidelity while lasting much longer than the "old" controls would, which is a pretty long time when I consider my MC250 amp is almost 50 years old!  Instead of putting all those equalizer and filter functions and so forth on this product, it is closer to a purist product.  The variable loudness control is interesting and can be defeated when set to flat, but what it does is enhance the lower frequencies at lower volumes to make up for apparent sound loss at lower volumes.  The C27 is more of a pure Preamp, people seem to love this particular model does as it not come up for sale very often, as a matter of fact this was the first one that I had saw on eBay for sale since I started looking.  Once I did some research, and asked a knowledgeable friend, saw the condition and who was selling it, I figured I could not go wrong.  I was right! 
This preamp has a ton of inputs, two phono inputs, (which was the most important factor for me), two aux, two sets of tape deck connections and a tuner input.  It also outputs to two separate amps in stereo and one in mono too, which I love!  (I am thinking of getting my hands on a mono tube amp and running a very efficient set or a single speaker on to simulate the old mono days). The controls feel awesome and very high quality, very precise, no noise and something you would expect on a very expensive product.  No wonder these things last forever and hold their value!  I paid about what it cost new to buy it restored to factory specs.

I think the speaker connectors are a bit on the strange side, but I can understand.  Quite a few amplifiers of the time only have connections for one set of speakers.  What this preamp does is allow you to connect the output from your single set of speaker connections to the inputs in the C27 and then connect up to two sets of speakers to the preamp, allowing the flexibility of playing and controlling an additional or different set of speakers and the headphone jack from the preamp, (the headphone jack is not active unless you have an amplifier's speaker outputs connected to the speaker inputs on the C27).  Very cool idea for the time, but today I think it is unneeded.  I am probably not going to bother hooking it up, although I have an idea or two on how to use that flexibility to play my Christmas party music without too much grief. 

So far the way it works is very nice and I was able to figure most things out pretty quickly.  I spent some enjoyable evening time reading the owners manual before it arrived so I would be familiar with how the controls worked and the features of this preamp.

I had the Yamaha preamp unhooked and the McIntosh hooked up and running in just a few minutes.  I have the cabinet and it is in awesome condition, but I decided to leave the cabinet in the packing box to protect it and run the preamp in the rack without the cabinet to save space and to increase cooling efficiency as it is in tight quarters.  I isolated it from the cabinet with some home-made vibration control feet that I mention in another blog post.  Overall, I was just happy not to hear noisy controls or strange noises.  When I did some late night listening, the glow of the tubes from my Musical Paradise MP301 MK3 tube amp along with the green glow lettering from the McIntosh had a hypnotic effect on me as I sat there listening to jazz at 130 in the morning.

This morning I am using my McIntosh C27 with my McIntosh MC250 amp and the combination sounds excellent!

I was thinking how I am the budget audiophile and this piece cost quite a bit, and how does that fit with the Budget Audiophile Philosophy?  Well, first off, I had to save for nearly a year for a chance to upgrade. Also, when I look at the fact that this may well be my last preamp, then the overall cost for the next 25 years becomes negligible in my opinion.  It is the value of the item sometimes and not the sheer cost that determine the overall budget fitting properties of a purchase.  This is a long-term investment in equipment that does not go down in value. So, if I ever have to sell it, I am pretty confident that I will receive at least what I paid for it. VALUE!


I will be reviewing this more in the future as I do some critical listening.  I just wanted to post that I finally got my preamp upgraded to something flexible enough to remove a few items from the signal path that I had connected prior to this becoming my main preamp on my main system.

My main system now consists of:
Yamaha RxV-2700 home theater receiver
Musical Paradise MP301 Mk3 7WPC Tube Amp
McIntosh MC250 50WPC Stereo Solid-State Amp
McIntosh C27 Stereo Premplifier
Two Turntables - Technics, JVC
Two working Reel to Reel decks - Pioneer, Teac
Nakamichi Cassette Tape Deck
Klipsch KLF-20 three-way speakers
PSB T6 Three-way speakers
Boston Acoustics T930 - Three-way speakers
Paradign Mini Monitor V.5 - Two-way speakers
Computer running JRiver media software through a Schiit DAC connected to the preamp

Stay safe and get some listening time in!

Jeff

Tube Mania - Musical Paradise MP-301 MK3 Tube Amplifier Review

I just acquired a new tube amp.  It is a Musical Paradise MP301-MK3.  It sounds great, you may be surprised like I was how great 6.5 watts of tube power sounds!  If you have read any of my posts, I love variety.  This amp is right up my alley!

This amp takes tubes.  Two different sets, one set is for power and the other is the pre-amplification tubes.  Both type of tubes can make a difference in how the music sounds.  The maker of this amp has made it quite flexible with both sets of tubes.  Lots of variety!

This little amp takes four tubes, like I said a pair of power tubes and a set of preamp tubes.  Here is a list of the power tubes that it accepts:

6P3P, 6L6, KT66, 5881, EL34, 6CA7, KT77, KT88, 6550

Here is a list of the pre-amp tubes that it accepts:

6SJ7, 5693, 6SK7, 6SD7, 6J8P, 6*8

WOW!

So far I have indulged myself and purchased a few sets of tubes.  I have his this amp less than two weeks and I am on my third trade of tubes.  Why?  I am trying to eliminate the tubes that suck from my growing stockpile of tubes.  I have purchased a set of RCA preamp tubes from the early 1960s.  As much as I would love to use a glass-tube in this application, the RCA 6SK7 tube is rated very high and quite inexpensive! However they are metal tubes and black and not as cool looking as a glass tube with the heater showing.  I was able to get my first set for $7!  They were matched!  I was very hopeful, and when they arrived I changed out the stock Chinese tubes that came with the amp.  I am listening right now to those RCA metal tubes.  The system sounds very good!

So far I have purchased a matched set of Mullard EL34 tubes, three matched sets of the RCA 6SK7s that I mentioned above, a matched Quad (Which is four tubes with the same electrical ratings when tested) of these Russian 6L6 tubes for a really good price, a matched quad of ITT 6SJ7GT tubes, a matched pair of Tung Sol 5881s, a set of Sovietek 6550s.  I find that I liked the RCA so much that I found and purchased two more matched sets.  

So far I have about 40 hours of running time on this amp and from what I hear it will sound even better going forward.  Moving around the tubes has been enjoyable as I get to sit and do some intense listening to see what I feel about the sound of each set of tubes that I install.  

I found these el-cheapo Russian 6L6 power tubes for $15 for four of them, all new and matched!  I was pretty surprised at the price and that shipping was not jacked up to make up for the low price.  Nope, shipping was reasonable, 14-day return policy too.  How could I go wrong with a deal like that?  I got them Friday and put them in place of the Mullard EL34s I was running in it.  They sound mighty respectable with no burn-in time.  I am hoping to find them a good enough sounding tube that I will get another matched quad of these tubes for day to day driving.  Special days I will do some tube swapping. I checked for background noise and these tubes had not raised the noise floor.  I can hear the amp when nothing is running with a very faint hiss.  I am working on eliminating this.

I had a big problem with hum when I first got this amp and set it up.  I was able to get it under control using a method a friend advise I try.  I do not recommend this at home unless you or someone you know is knowledgeable about such things.  I removed the grounding pin from the computer cord that I use to connect this to power and added a three-plug to two-plug adapter.  I started with it in the normal configuration and I still heard the hum, but when I powered it down and turned the plug over and essentially plugged it in upside down the hum was totally gone, replaced with a very faint hiss type sound.  This I can live with until I can reduce it further, but now is the area with diminishing returns occur.  The effort to eliminate that little bit of hiss will cost quite a bit of time, and I have actually made it worse messing with things in the past.

Well, I wanted a variety and I wanted to tinker, woohoo!

I will post a review at some point in the future.  

Keep on Listening!


Jeff


Here is a link to what I now own and am loving so far!  

http://www.musicalparadise.ca/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=54

Update 1/25/15:
This little amp is awesome.  I am running some EL34s in it right now and listening to it in the background.  Excellent build quality, I have had it for a couple years now and have had zero issues with it.  I think that I like the power and sound of the KT88 tubes in it.  I like 5881s, and the EL34s too!  Really worth the money, in my opinion.

Update 12/11/15:
Nightly driver amp, runs nice, trouble-free.  I am running some Tung-Sol 5881s in it now, along with some metal RCA preamp tubes.  It sounds excellent, very reliable and I have used it for probably a few thousand hours easily by now.  I run it every night as my bedroom system, so it gets 6 - 8 hours a night of use.  Still highly recommended!  My only wish is that it could be bridged mono and I could pair a couple up as a stereo system, it would be awesome!

Good thing for cheap RCA cables

Recently, I had an adventure at home.  Actually I am still not quite done getting everything back just the way I want it.  What massive project did I undertake?  I disconnected, cleaned, re-arranged and moved my entire audio system.  If you have read any of my posts you can probably see that there is a ton of stuff to move.  Right now, after four days I have one of three systems completely operational and I am listening to the completed system.  These "three" systems are actually my main system.  I have two other systems in the basement alone. Technically, I only disconnected my main system.  I like a variety!

The disconnect went less nice than expected.  The nest of wires was significant and there were wires tangled up all over the place.  The rubberized coated ones seem to be the most difficult to untangle.  It took me about 2 hours to disconnect and sort through all the wires before I could even begin the task of removing equipment, cleaning it and beginning the moving of furniture.

The re-connect was less difficult, I used short cables wherever I could.  I tried to keep it as clean-looking as possible.  The unfortunate issue that I have right now is I re-positioned the rack about four feet over and some of my cables are too short.  I plan to re-add the Adcom speaker switches that I had used before to switch around speakers and amplifiers.

The start up was slow.  Do to the re-positioning of the system I have to either splice or replace some cables.  I first hooked it up and ran it for a day and thought that I was hearing some noise on the left channel.  So I disconnected everything, re-distributed some cables and power hookups to see if I could clear up the noise.  I replaced the cable from the Schiit DAC to the Yamaha C-70 pre-amp and the noise was eliminated.  At that point, feeling awesome, I hooked up the grounding wire to the pre-amp from the turntable and switched over the the phono input.  The buzzing was tremendous!  I tried moving the ground wire, and moving the power around once again.  No change at all.  CRAP!

So, what did I do?  I turned it all off and slept on it.  Today, when I got home I decided to move the cabinet to the current location from one about 8 feet further away from where it was.  I disconnected all the inter-connects between the devices and the preamp and started over with the shortest cables that I could manage with.  I powered it up and it still had a buzz, so I moved it once again out so I could access everything.  I decided to replace the higher end connecting cables from the two turntables with el-cheapo Radio Shack generic RCA cables.  The buzz was nearly totally eliminated.  I was pretty stoked.

Continuing on toward re-connecting the home theater receiver and the tube amp to everything will take me the remainder of the week to accomplish.  I am hoping not to introduce any more buzz into the system as I add more connections to the mix.

Keep on Listening!

Jeff

How much is too much Audio Gear?

I was just thinking that I have quite a bit of audio equipment.  I certainly have more than most people.  My daughter informed me that none of her friends' parents even have a home stereo, perish the thought.  I use most of my equipment most of the time.  I love having options and systems in different locations throughout the house.  I made a list of the equipment that I have and it turns out to be quite extensive.  I am wondering if I just have too much stuff, or if it is normal for audio-crazed individuals to have a few working stereo systems in their homes.

Here is a list of my equipment as it stands in January 2013:

I have a few amplifiers:

McIntosh MC250 - 50 WPC Stereo amp - Purchased used 2011
Onyko 5.1 Receiver – 75 WPC - given to me by a friend in 2011

Parasound HCA-800-II - 100 WPC stereo amplifier - Purchased used in 2011

Quipu 2.5 WPC stereo tube amp - Purchased new in 2010
Yamaha RX-V2700 - 140 WPC Home theater Receiver - Purchased demo unit 2008

  

I have a few sets of speakers:

Bose 10.2 series II – Purchased new by my Father in 1988ish

Bose 301 series II – Purchased new by my Father in 1988ish
Boston Acoustics T930 – purchased new 1988

Klipsch KLF-20 – Purchased used in 2008

Paradigm Monitor 5 – Purchased used in 2011

Polk T15 – Purchased used in 2011
PSB Image 6 speakers – Purchased used in 2012

 I have a few tape decks:

Nakamichi CR-1a – Cassette Deck - Purchased used in 2009 - rescued
Pioneer RT-1020L – Reel to Reel Deck - Purchased used in 2008 - rescued

Sony TC-377 – Reel to Reel Deck - Purchased used in 2005 - rescued

Teac A-6010 – Reel to Reel Deck - Purchased used in 2010 - rescued

  

I have a couple turntables:

JVC Straight Arm Turntable – Purchased used 2010
Technics SL-B3 – Traded with a friend for a 17” computer monitor in 2004 - rescued

I plan to build a custom turntable using an old garrard mechanism and a Technics arm

I have a few more assorted items:

ADCOM speaker selector switches - Purchased used in 2010
Bose Noise Cancelling headphones - Purchased new 2008
Grado 80i headphones - Purchased new 2012
Hafler preamp - Purchased rebuilt by a friend in 2011

HRT Music Streamer DAC – Burned up December 2012 – Bought new 2009
Mitsubishi 55” rear projection TV – Purchased used 2010

Quinpu tube buffer / preamplifier - Purchased new 2010
Sony  Blu-Ray player – Purchased new online
Sony CDP-C445 Cd player – given to me by my brother
Sony ES 5-disc changer that just started acting up – Purchased new 1991

Sony Reel to reel 3-way deck selector switch - Purchased used in 2010

Yamaha CR-70 Preamp - Purchased used 2010

Yamaha DVD Player – Purchased at a sale at paulsen's audio in Farmington Hills, MI

Zenith Trans Oceanic 3000-1 - Purchased used in 2010

Zenith Trans Oceanic Royal 7000-1 - Purchased used in 2012

I have just purchased a Schiit DAC to replace the burned up one - the Modi

I have a few Record Needles:
Denon DL-160 MC - Purchased NEW

Grado Black - Purchased NEW

Grado Blue - Purchased NEW

Grado Mono - Purchased NEW

Grado 78 RPM - Purchased NEW
Pickering XV-15/625 - Rescued
Shure V15RS (Radio Shack version of the V15) - Original Stylus - Purchased Used

Shure M97xE - Purchased several NEW

Shure M91ED - Rescued

Shure M95 - Rescued

Shure 78 RPM - Purchased NEW

How do our wives feel about all the gear?  I know that my wife does not like it one bit.  My equipment has been banished to the basement regions since we bought our home.  My equipment would not fit very well upstairs and the rooms are not suited to good listening.  Hard walls, hard floors, square in size and not suited well to running wires. 

I haven't even discussed my media collection, hundreds of Cd's.  I have over 100 Reel to Reel pre-recorded tapes, with around 100 more home made and blank tapes to be used in the future.  I have about 150 movies on DVD and Blu-Ray, I hate to think about the VHS tapes I am about to donate to the Salvation Army.  I have around 120 - 45 RPM records, around 80 - 78 RPM records, and around 1500 or so LP's in my collection.  

I also have most of the support gear associated with having the hardware and the software to play these recordings.  I have custom oilers, degreasers, deoxit, cleaners, lubricants, brushes and so forth just for the rejuvenation of the hardware.  I have reel to reel tape splicers, tape and media so I can add leaders to my tapes.  I have head cleaners, head lubricants, swabs and a demagnetizer for the reel to reel decks. I have storage bags for the reels and the records.  I have created custom sleeves for my 78 collection.  I have taken the artwork from nearly destroyed sleeves, and added it to new sleeves to at least preserve some of the information from the original sleeve.  I am adding my collection, a little at a time to Discogs so I have an accurate accounting of my collection.  So far I only have 400 or so entered.  I also purchased boxes for my collection of stuff from bags unlimited, which specializes in preservation.  I am trying very diligently to maintain my collection of gear and media so it can make it to the future for someone else to take care of into the next 50 years after I am done with them.

So what do you think, do I have too much gear?  Like I said I use most of it all the time.  I am playing the record players most days, the reel to reels most months, the amps at least weekly and I change up the speakers using banana plugs or the speaker selector switches depending on the configuration.  I use the TV the least of all the items on the list, but keep it for playing movies.

I am thinking it is time to turn it down a bit so I can listen longer, this will be a post at some point!

Keep on listening as long as you can.  

Peace out and Happy New Year 

Jeff

Analog, collections mortality and posterity

Good day everyone, I am writing today about leaving my extensive analog record and tape and music playback collection to my daughter one day.  It is a sad reminder that our time on this planet is limited.  We have to think about what is going to happen to our collections and equipment at some point.

I have been playing records with my daughter since she was about 4 years old.  In the past two years or so I have taught her how to mount, clean and start a record playing.  She is very careful with the records and Cd's she plays as I have taught her since she was very young the proper handling of media.  She is about to turn 11 and loves music and we listen to music throughout the house and the year, she also has a LP and CD collection of her own.  Christmas time is special as I have about 200 Christmas albums and we try each year to get through them all!

I have been wondering what the best way to get my collection to my daughter, as my wife will want to throw out, sell or consign all my stuff if I pre-decease her.  How can I ensure my collection, in its' entirety gets to my daughter without being thrown out in the meantime?

Do I make out a will and specifically mention in there that my collection goes to my daughter and is not to be destroyed, parted, sold off, thrown out or put in a storage locker?  I am not sure.  I do want my collection to stay together and make it to my daughter in the future sometime.  I am hoping that someday my collection will make it to my great-grand kids and I have great hope that there will still be record players in 40 years due to the recent increase in popularity of turntables and companies making LPs again. 

Here is a little history of me and my audio hobby.  I grew up in the Detroit metro area and I received my first stereo around my 16th birthday.  It was a gift that I received from my parents around the time I received my drivers license.  My parents were smarter than they realized as that kept me satisfied for a number of years and I did not purchase an automobile until I was nearly 20 and out of college.  That first stereo was from Tech-Hifi!  I received the most inexpensive 1978-79 featured system the SX-450, with the Kenwood 200B speakers with the BSR three speed semi-automatic turntable.  It may have been inexpensive but it certainly was awesome! 

The first new record that I bought was the late 1970's stereo re-issue of the Beatles American release of Meet the Beatles.  I still have this record and play it from time to time.  During those years when I lived at my parent's house, I acquired about 150 records, mostly from used record stores.  My favorite when I was growing up was Sam's Jams in Ferndale, MI.  The store was about 20 miles from my house, and when I had money I would hop in the car with a few friends and head out there to buy mostly .25 records.  Gas was .79 cents a gallon which at 9 miles a gallon made it a $4 round trip.  It was awesome, and if I found something that I really liked, I might spend as much as $1 for a record, but that was pretty rare.  I still have most of those records and play them once in a while.  They were mostly oldies records and some rock and roll.  I took a bunch of years off from collecting records, then once I got a decent turntable working, which was around 2005-06, I started purchasing used records on Ebay.  I now have approximately 1500 records, quite a bit of Jazz, Christmas Music, Blues, etc. 

As much as I loved that early stereo and wish I had not given it to some girl who either sold it or destroyed it, my current stereo is much nicer though.  It is the culmination of 20+ years of assembling the parts.  I have a couple items that I purchased when new.  I have a Sony 5 disc changer that I bought for the high price of $500 in 1991, and it is still running, I also bought new a pair of Boston Acoustics T-930 speakers in 1988, which I have re foamed a couple of years ago.  I also have some used equipment that I have assembled; a McIntosh MC250 stereo amplifier, a Yamaha RX-V2700 home theater receiver, a nice little flea-watt tube amp and 4 sets of speakers.  The Boston Acoustics, a pair of Paradigm's reference monitors, a Pair of PSB Image T1's and a pair of Klipsch KLF-20 speakers for my main system, and two pair of Bose speakers in my other systems some 301 series II and a pair of 10.2 series II, and a pair of Polk's for my computer room system.

I had a working turntable for a couple more years after I moved away from home in the mid 1980s, then the needle went bad around the time I moved in with my to be first wife.  At that time I had limited finances so I could not purchase much, I got a new pair of speakers to compliment the Kenwoods when I moved into my apartment and a replacement stylus.  I had a working turntable for about another two years or so.  When I got divorced, I moved the stereo to my new house and at that point the record player went into disrepair.  I purchased a JVC tuner and amplifier from a friend and gave away my original system, which I am still bummed about to this day.  I kept my record collection though and moved it around with me for the next 20 years.  I got married again, and we moved in together and my entire stereo was stored, OMG!  My current wife does not like the looks of stereos and especially hated mine.  With the large Boston Acoustics speakers, and the sub woofer that I used to have it took up quite a bit of the room and the wife wanted the room for her decorative stuff.  So reluctantly, I stored my stereo for a year and a half, I was miserable and didn't realize how much until I decided that I would hook my stereo back up around Christmas time 1999.  I put in a CD of Christmas music and listened to my then JVC integrated amp and those Boston Acoustics speakers and the beauty of the music brought tears to my eyes.  I then realized what I had been denying myself for a couple years.  I left it hooked up through the time I was at that apartment, through the next apartment until we bought a house.  My wife said my stereo could not be setup on the main floor due to space issues.  I agreed with her and hooked up what I had in the basement. 

At the time that I had this setup; a JVC 5.1 channel receiver, the Sony 5-disc changer, the Boston Acoustics speakers, which was around 10 years or so ago in the basement and I wanted to upgrade.  I mentioned this to my wife several times during a 6-year period and each time the response was that we didn't need it, what goal does this satisfy, this is not what we need, no, and so on and so forth.  I was getting frustrated as my system was old and starting to act up, the JVC receiver would make noise and you could get the high-pitched noise to stop by smacking the top of the unit.  I searched for a while after being fed-up with being told no time after time, so when I found a great deal on the Yamaha home theater receiver, which was a demo at my local hifi dealer, I jumped on it and brought it home, I had to sneak it into the basement.  When I hooked it up, I realized that it was too powerful for the Boston acoustics speakers I had for all those years.  This was around summertime 2007, I realized that it was time for new speakers.  So, I started looking for a set of speakers that I had been denied by her when they were in production, a set of Klipsch KLF-20's, I considered buying them while they were in production, but the wife said no.  By the time I found some I had been saving for quite a while and in late 2008 was able to pay cash for them.  I then had to sneak them into the basement so my wife wouldn't see these giant speakers coming into the house as I had them shipped to work.  It was difficult but I was able to get them down there.  The story is the same for the PSB and the Paradigm speakers, I saved up, found great deals, paid cash and snuck them into the basement.

I am very blessed with the equipment that I have assembled over the years.  I also have two turntables, a belt-drive Technics and a direct-drive, straight-arm JVC turntable and three Open Reel decks.  A Pioneer, a Teac and a Sony.  I have acquired a good archival cassette tape deck, which is a Nakamichi.  I have a 55-inch HD TV that the wife also hates.  She will not come into the home theater area of the basement to even watch a DVD.  My daughter and I love to use the stereo and the home theater!

I have over 300 Cd's and over 100 reel to reel tapes that need to make it somehow into the future.  Now do you see what I am concerned about?  I would like my daughter to have all this stuff.  Should I be concerned, or just let my collection be dis-assembled and sold off to the highest bidder in an Ebay auction, or sold as part of an estate sale?

What do you think?  What would you do?  Any suggestions?

Keep on listening!

Jeff

Christmas Music

I have quite a large collection of Christmas LPs, Reel to Reels and CDs.  One curiosity that I have especially when I play an LP is who owned this, how did that scratch get there and what the story of this record is.

When I think of Christmas, I reflect on the good times, the people and the memories.  How many different things each of these records have "seen" over the years.  Some of the Christmas albums are 50 or more years old.  Imagine all the family changes that went on over that time period.  How long did this album sit before I purchased it with the intent of playing it.  How many memories are contained in this record?

I am digitizing some of these recordings and posting them on my YouTube channel called XmasWonderland.  I am finding that quite a number of people are quite happy to see these videos of some of the less known seasonal music.  I have some comments that they hadn't heard that particular song in years, or tell me of their memories.  It is awesome and gave me the desire to post more music on the site to excite other people looking for certain songs.

I have about 250 Christmas albums ranging in quality from Good to Near Mint.  Sometimes I wonder if the album that I am playing has even been played more than once or twice.  One thing that I think about is how many of these were purchased in the bargain bins of the local store and forgotten about.  Or played that first year and their record player broke, or they received their first CD player and the records were filed in boxes in some dark corner of the basement.

The treasures held in these old records are pretty significant.  Some of the music has not been moved to CD, so except for those of us digitizing the songs and posting them, they may wind up forgotten songs.  I would hate to see that, as I am disappointed by the trend of radio stations to have a month or so of Christmas music by playing the same 40 songs over and over again.  When was the last time you heard the Lennon Sisters, or Lou Rawls, or Ed Ames, or Lynn Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, Ella Fitzgerald or Wurlitzer Organ Christmas music, which used to be very popular on the radio stations playing Christmas classics?

I am very glad to have a couple working turntables so I can enrich my holiday season by treating my family to some wonderful Christmas music that at least in my house, hasn't been forgotten.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Jeff

Denon DL-110 experience

     I am sitting in the man-cave and feeling that I have been neglecting my collection of vintage stereo phono cartridges.  I pull out a discussions in percussion LP which has some finger prints and other dirt on the surface.  I spend some time doing my cleaning ritual.  I spin dry these as I use an alcohol-based cleaner which evaporates without leaving residue.

     I look on the shelf and decide that I am going to play the JVC straight-arm turntable with a Shure M91ED cartridge.  I can hear you now, "that's not a fair comparison, what are you thinking..." and I agree.  It's not necessarily the comparison of the cartridges that this post is about, it is actually entirely different.

     I remove the Shure M97xE, which I use as the daily driver on the JVC straight-arm turntable, and inserted the head-shell containing the M91ED.  I ensured that the LP was dry and appeared clean, so I lowered the needle into the groove and what do I hear?  Snaps and pops.  I am tracking at .75gm with this cart, which is its recommended force on a clean LP.  I think to myself, darn, this LP is noisy, that is a very cool sounding song so I continued listening to it.  I could hear the promise of some awesome piano that seems to be shrouded behind other instruments on this record.  The LP was AWESOME sounding!

     I started thinking that maybe there might be a way to get better sound out of this LP so I got up.  I walked over and dismounted my Grado Mono cartridge from the Technics 'table while the JVC was still playing the LP and grabbed the Denon DL-110 cartridge and installed, balanced and set the VTF and the anti-skating.  I moved the LP from the other turntable and started it up.  What did I hear after the initial touchdown?  Quite a bit of silence, just the tiniest amount of background noise, but the pops and clicks were GONE!  I actually mean gone.  Oh, I could hear that little bit of background noise here and there between tracks, but it was amazing how much better the LP sounded.  This record was amazing, it was a jazzy-Spanish percussion-based stew of awesome sounds great rhythms and cool stereo imaging.  I could hear the piano that I faintly heard on the Shure loud and clear with the Denon, along with other instruments and percussive instruments that I cannot even guess.  It sure was cool sounding though!

    Nothing against the M91ED, Shure fans. This was not intended to slight that awesome cartridge maker and those fine stylus.  As a matter of fact I have M97xE, M91E, M91ED, M95ED, V15RS cartridges that are currently mounted on head-shells that I use every now and then.  Some of them even have the original stylus, and I love to listen to these on perfect or warped records in the case of the M97xE.  On not perfect but excellent records (unscratched but noisy) the Denon does wonders to eliminate those little pops and clicks! (SAS Aftermarket Styli are available, which should elevate performance of these carts! - edited 031614).

What did I learn, as I have mentioned before, is to use different needles for different things.  As it turns out, this needle was the perfect addition to my collection.  The largest bonus was this is exactly what I purchased this needle for!  Playing not so perfect on the surface but clean deep-down records that just need some deeper penetration into the grooves to extract the information.

Mission Accomplished!

Listen to some music today.

Jeff


Update 03/23/13:
This cartridge has become my daily driver for the most part.  I have put a couple hundred listening hours on this cartridge and I am watching eBay for a good price on one so I can have a backup.  The sound of this cartridge is very nice, I have compared it to a V-15 RS that I have, which is basically a V-15 III.  I have no problem using the cartridge on the MM setting on my preamp, it is quite loud enough for most phono inputs.

Update 03/16/14:
This cartridge is the finest that I have.  It is true to the music and has an ability to play records that other cartridges will reveal surface noise much quieter than expected sometimes.  If the record is damaged, you will hear it, but that nice stylus goes very deep into the grooves and bypasses much of the damage caused by earlier plays.  This would be an awesome combination for vinyl archiving.