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The Joys of Vinyl - at a price...
Jan. 5th, 2008 09:32 amDiane and I still have several boxes of LPs in the attic, and sooner or later they're going to be burned to CD, transcribed as MP3s or whatever. About three years ago I even bought a turntable with a built-in amp and various direct-to-computer connections, but the fact that about 90% of the recordings remain untouched gives some indication of the lack of urgency. It's one of the "I'll do it when I get around to it" things that everyone means to deal with eventually.
The notion wandered through my head again last night, when I wanted to listen to a particular piece of period music while writing - Pox on You for a Fop (yes, really) performed by The City Waites, and I realised it was still packed away in one of the LP boxes.
Out of curiosity I trawled the Net for any reference to my old hi-fi stuff. That was when I discovered that I couldn't remember most of their names...! All the low-to-mid-range amplifiers and tuner-amps ("receivers", as they were sometimes called) are gone, so there's no jolt of memory. The first and cheapest was an Amstrad, I'm sure of that, but its successors have vanished beyond recall.
Turntables are easier, because some of them - such as Garrard and Rega Planar, both machines I owned - are still going strong. The final one, a Goldring-Lenco, seems to be a bit of a collector's item; mine spent about 20 years in my Mum's attic and has probably been dumped by now, along with my Wharfedale speakers. It's funny to think that the couple of hundred quid I paid in the mid 1970s for a very basic system translates into enough for something very high-end nowadays...
I remember seeing a Punch cartoon years ago, of a chap staring at an entire symphony orchestra in his friend's living-room, while the friend tells him "On the whole, it's cheaper than a really good hi-fi system."
You can still try for that joke. Start with a turntable, a tonearm, a cartridge, an amplifier, a system rack to put them on, some cables (you'll need more than just one pair); and a set of speakers. Oh, and a record cleaner. It's good to see we've advanced beyond those little anti-static squeezy guns. Correction. I spoke too soon. However, the last time I bought one of these it cost IRL£4.99. Even allowing for inflation and a lousy rate of exchange, Ouch...
I found all those items on just one website, and decided not to look any further. For one thing, I was starting to get an image of all this kit being bought by someone with a single armchair in just the right spot between the speakers, and a solitary test record. He then manages to scratch his record, goes stark raving Doctor Phibes looney bonkers and commits a series of interesting hi-fi-themed murders.
How long would it take to scratch someone to death with a gramophone needle at a constant 33.3 rpm?
Once again, Ouch...
The notion wandered through my head again last night, when I wanted to listen to a particular piece of period music while writing - Pox on You for a Fop (yes, really) performed by The City Waites, and I realised it was still packed away in one of the LP boxes.
Out of curiosity I trawled the Net for any reference to my old hi-fi stuff. That was when I discovered that I couldn't remember most of their names...! All the low-to-mid-range amplifiers and tuner-amps ("receivers", as they were sometimes called) are gone, so there's no jolt of memory. The first and cheapest was an Amstrad, I'm sure of that, but its successors have vanished beyond recall.
Turntables are easier, because some of them - such as Garrard and Rega Planar, both machines I owned - are still going strong. The final one, a Goldring-Lenco, seems to be a bit of a collector's item; mine spent about 20 years in my Mum's attic and has probably been dumped by now, along with my Wharfedale speakers. It's funny to think that the couple of hundred quid I paid in the mid 1970s for a very basic system translates into enough for something very high-end nowadays...
I remember seeing a Punch cartoon years ago, of a chap staring at an entire symphony orchestra in his friend's living-room, while the friend tells him "On the whole, it's cheaper than a really good hi-fi system."
You can still try for that joke. Start with a turntable, a tonearm, a cartridge, an amplifier, a system rack to put them on, some cables (you'll need more than just one pair); and a set of speakers. Oh, and a record cleaner. It's good to see we've advanced beyond those little anti-static squeezy guns. Correction. I spoke too soon. However, the last time I bought one of these it cost IRL£4.99. Even allowing for inflation and a lousy rate of exchange, Ouch...
I found all those items on just one website, and decided not to look any further. For one thing, I was starting to get an image of all this kit being bought by someone with a single armchair in just the right spot between the speakers, and a solitary test record. He then manages to scratch his record, goes stark raving Doctor Phibes looney bonkers and commits a series of interesting hi-fi-themed murders.
How long would it take to scratch someone to death with a gramophone needle at a constant 33.3 rpm?
Once again, Ouch...
