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.

Mono Cartridge Affordability?

I currently have a Grado MC+ Mono Phono Cartridge.  I was looking on ebay and found several mono cartridges for over $200 each, some were over $1000.  I want to step up to a better mono cartridge, but I cannot see paying that much for one.

Mono recordins sound sweet and are less noisy.  I have over 100 of them currently and expect that number to expand as I continue to collect older recordings of Jazz and continue to find mono versions of early rock and roll records.  I have found no loss of enjoyment listening to mono recordings, and seldom miss the stereo effect of records.  I found the mono releases of the Beatles to be more satisfying than the stereo versions because of the musical information that is lost in the stereo mix.  I have quite a few old Jazz recordings that are mono and I absolutely refuse to play a mono recording with a stereo needle!

The Grado is a good cartridge, but I am thinking that like the MC cartridge that I finally purchased, there must be more sound in the grooves that can be extracted with a better mono cartridge.  I have no beef with the sound of the Grado, but as always, I am looking for more!

I was on ebay and saw a Denon, which I have the DL-110 MC stereo cartridge, which I got for around $160, but the mono Denon cartridge was over $200.  Is it worth it?  Does it sound good?  Will it be a vast improvement in the listening experience of my mono recordings?  I wish I knew!

I read a review of a mono cartridge made by Ortofon and it costs over $900, I am not ever going to have the disposable cash to spring for one of those puppies, so I am hoping to find a reasonable mono cartridge that is better than my Grado for around $150 or so. 
Is it possible?

I HOPE SO!

Keep listening!

Jeff

Beatles Mono Box Set listener review

Let me start with WOW and continue on.  I am amazed at the stuff that the stereo mix of the early LPs hide!  Some of the music behind the scenes is sort of hidden by the stereo mix.  I get a larger sense of the musicality of the Beatles from the mono mixes of the songs.

I decided to use my Qinpu tube amp and my PSB Alpha T-1 speakers to hear the most from these CDs.  I am amazed at how front and center the sound is!  I am very happy that I got the mono box set instead of the stereo one!  How revealing, I am hearing things that I never heard on their songs before; and I am a HUGE Beatles fan, and have listened to these songs at least 1,000 times each before! 

Instead of the opposing vocals responses being in the other channel, they are behind the vocals.  I am impressed and what a difference in the interpretation that the listener would get from experiencing these songs the way that George Martin and the Beatles meant them to be heard.

Why CD and not the LP box set.  I do not wish to have these wear out from playing them a hundred times each, LP is still a fragile format and I would only get the LP box set after acquiring the CD box set to listen to over and over.  To pull out the LP mono box set would be a special treat and I may only listen to it a half a dozen times or so as that special treat! 

I love LPs, however I understand their limits, and each time you play them you wear them out just a little bit.  I do love things that last forever, thus the CD box set.

I also feel there is less distortion in the output in the mono versions.  I have noticed, now after hearing the mono versions, that there is a bit of strain as the mix equalizes the channels in volume and makes the vocals sound a bit strained.

Highly recommended!  Best in class!  I have acquired the Meet the Beatles US release in original mono on LP and I am very excited to listen to it when it comes with my Grado mono cartridge.  I will listen to it on the Tube Amp and PSB combination and compare.


It may be time to get a higher end Mono cartridge.  I like my Moving Coil Denon cartridge for Stereo, I should get something just as good for Mono.



Keep Listening!

Jeff

Qinpu 2.5Wpc Flea-Watt Tube Amp and PSB speakers

I love having options!  I took this little Qinpu Flea-Watt amp at 2.5 Watts Per Channel on vacation to drive a set of Polk mini-monitors.  It did a great job!  It went quite loud and sounded quite good.  I use this amp at home usually to drive some Paradigm mini-monitor V.5s.  It again, does a great job.  However I installed banana plugs today on my speaker connectors for two of my speakers, (One set of my speakers does not recommend banana clips when bi-amping), and I moved the speaker wires from the Paradigm to the PSB Image 6Ts.  It sounds awesome!

The banana plugs make moving the speaker connections just about as easy as using a speaker selector switch, with no electronics in between.  I will listen and see at some point if there is a difference in sound when connecting my speakers directly to the amps and moving the wires instead of using the Adcom speaker selector switch that I have hooked up to two of my amps currently.  I have been using the speaker selector switch for some time now.

I was surprised by the amazing sound earlier this year when I used the Qinpu with the PSBs so I decided to re-visit the combination in case I was just dreaming.  I was not, the sound is quite excellent, albeit not very loud coming from this combination.  I listened to a couple records and so far have been very impressed with the depth and sweetness of the sound.  At lower than loud volume levels the sound is captivating, nice and warm and very revealing.  Quite a bit of bass from this little amp!  The highs are sweet and solid, and not too bright; I was worried about the sound being too bright from this low power amp.

I am going to listen to the combination of the Qinpu and the PSBs for a week or so and see if I still think it is sweet sounding.  As of today, I think it sounds just a little bit better than my McIntosh MC250, which sounds pretty nice with the PSBs.



Thanks
Jeff


Update 03/23/13:
This little tube amp has impressed me so very much and turned me onto tube technology.  I decided to upgrade to a more powerful tube amplifier, the new one has 7 wpc.  This Quinpu amp will be moved to my office and travel with me as my vacation amp as it is an awesome little amp!  Beware, this is a gateway drug type of device, once you hear it you will be amazed at the detail and great sound this little amp gives at modest volumes.  Well worth the price at $150.

Take a stereo on vacation?

Yes, I take a stereo and a radio on my vacations.  I alter what I take based on who I am traveling with and where I am going.  I find that having music available to be played at a decent, good sounding volume level is a necessity when traveling.  I was able to get a couple days of listening in on both of my summer vacations this year.  I get a bit tired of only having the music they play on the radio in northern Michigan and need a variety!  I also take one of my Zenith Trans Oceanic radios, either the 3000-1 or the 7000 series radios.  I like the reception from both of them as I can pick up AM and SW from all over the place! 

When I go up north to the cabin I take my small flea-watt amp and a pair of Polk mini-monitors to listen to.  Placement of the speakers is a bit of a pain in the butt.  I choose the Polk's as they are front ported and can be placed up against a wall, if necessary.  I use my laptop with a music streamer DAC to play the music.  I find the sound pretty good for such a smallish setup.  The 2.5 Watts of the tube amp play the Polk's to a pretty decent sound level.  The sound is pretty good too! 

When I travel with my best friend to play video games and listen to music up north in a house we rent. I take my Sherwood 70WPC integrated amplifier and my pair of Paradigm Mini Monitor V.5s with a pair of stands.   I also bring my laptop and the music streamer, of course.  I find the sound pretty satisfying and it goes quite loud.

I have relegated the Sherwood to duty in my garage system, so I cannot bring it this year.  What I am going to do this year on guy's weekend is take the Paradigm's, a pair of stands, my Hafler pre-amp and my Parasound HCA-800II power amp.  I still plan to bring the laptop, but I want to be able to choose other sources like when I take the Sherwood.  I don't want to be switching cables all over the place, so I will take a couple decent cables to connect media players to the pre-amp and play different types of music than what I have on my laptop.  I expect the sound to be vastly improved as the Parasound is a very clean sounding amp, it is newer and it has 100WPC.  I certainly won't be able to turn it up all the way with the Paradigms, but with their decent efficiency they should go quite loud and sound very clean! 

What do I listen to when I travel?  I try and switch it up a bit, so I listen to some old Jazz, Rock, Soul, Funk, R&B, and Oldies.  I have some old radio shows that I have recorded over the years and they are fun to listen to as I have digitized them.  I have also digitized some of my old Cassette tapes that I made years and years ago.  I did this to basically be able to listen to them for years to come as cassette lifespan varies from brand to brand of tape.  I have music recorded on old El-cheapo tape, but mostly I have the old Memorex tapes then I upgraded to using Maxell High-bias tapes , some TDK's and Sony's along with some Scotch and Denon tapes that I started using when I realized that they would last longer.  Quite a bit of my tape collection is over 30 years old and they still play.  I bought a Nakamichi CR-1A tape deck a few years back to allow me to record from these old tapes.  I still had the first tape deck I purchased until a couple years ago, but it wasn't even that good when I bought it.  I plan to digitize my tape collection over the next few years.  That will take a while as I have hundreds of tapes. 

Why do I take a stereo on vacation?  Pure enjoyment!  I have found that I am less stressed out when I get some listening time every couple days.  Otherwise I get crabby and I am in a hurry to get home.  Listening to music is one of my favorite things in this world!  Thank you to all who make music, without it life would certainly suck a whole lot more!

Keep Listening!

Jeff