Hello everyone,
I've been reading a lot of the posts in this forum and just want to say you guys seem like the nicest group of people. That being said, I'm going to post the standard "new to vinyl" story and ask for some advice 
Okay, so I collected vinyl from my favorite artists through my teens in the 90's and every once in awhile would play it on my parents big old crazy yamaha setup. Fast forward 10 years, now I am a special education teacher, with all the money and power that title engenders ;p. So that gives you a good idea of my current budget.
We received a Technics Sl-1300 in excellent condition from someone who had it in a recording studio environment. I got really excited to get into vinyl because it was such a new and exciting way to access music. I have spent the last two years building up my av center with all the latest video game systems and hdmi receivers and what not. I ripped all my cds to crappy 128 aac when I got my first 40 gig ipod (it cost $599 back then). And have them stored on a little mac mini that I use as my jukebox. Now with all my music following me around everywhere I go...I take it for granted. I realized i had stopped listening to music on a daily basis without doing something else simultaneously and that made me very sad.
Anyways, the stylus was toast on the technics so we ran out to guitar center, and bought a numark groovetool...basically the cheapest of what we could find there, under the recommendation of a store salesman. We came home and through internet guidance got the whole cartridge changed out. Now...we hooked it up to my Sony "Bravia" home theater receiver with the 5.1 tiny baby speakers with 3 hdmi inputs...and I freaked out because the volume was so low.
Yeah I learned about the difference between "line" and "phono" at that very moment 
Soooo....I went back out to buy a pre-amp. Of course back to guitar center we go (I had this insane NEED to get the system up and running that same day) and I got a gemsound pl-usb preamp to hook up to my stereo because that's the only one they had for some weird reason. We spent forever trying to figure out how to calibrate the auto-play mechanism to land on the right spot. We also read tutorial after tutorial on balancing the tonearm and using the counter-skate mechanism appropriately. Finally everything was working.
Things sounded okay to me that day, but as I listen more and more I hear so much clipping and distortion and though I'm enjoying the warm quality and the whole lovely ceremony of putting on a record, I've grown intensely dissatisfied with my setup. I listened to records on my friends pro-ject debut hooked up to a yamaha receiver and a couple of bookshelf speakers, and I was amazed at the difference. I want that sound! I've bought probably $400 worth of records since this madness started up 3 or 4 months ago. I love 90's girl rock / folkie type stuff. Indie / trip-hop / some electronic.
So here is the setup I've put together after researching different suggestions from lovely people like you:
Onkyo A-9555 - Integrated amp...seems to get great reviews. I like the price point.
Epos-Els3 speakers - I live in an okay sized apartment...i already have a 5.1 system in. I'm going to put this on the side of the room along with the record player and have a dedicated little record corner. These also got amazing reviews and seemed to be good value for the price.
Cartridge - Ortofon 2M Red, Stanton 681 EEE Mk III, or Grado Black...or any cartridge at around $100.00. Unless you think putting a cartridge on this old technics is silly and I should actually get a new turntable instead....(gulp)
Will all of this work together to bring me to vinyl nirvana? Or am I just wasting money like I did when I bought four Wii steering wheels for Mario Kart?
Thanks for listening to my ramblings, I await your kind and patient responses
Hello everyone,
I've been reading a lot of the posts in this forum and just want to say you guys seem like the nicest group of people. That being said, I'm going to post the standard "new to vinyl" story and ask for some advice
Okay, so I collected vinyl from my favorite artists through my teens in the 90's and every once in awhile would play it on my parents big old crazy yamaha setup. Fast forward 10 years, now I am a special education teacher, with all the money and power that title engenders ;p. So that gives you a good idea of my current budget.
We received a Technics Sl-1300 in excellent condition from someone who had it in a recording studio environment. I got really excited to get into vinyl because it was such a new and exciting way to access music. I have spent the last two years building up my av center with all the latest video game systems and hdmi receivers and what not. I ripped all my cds to crappy 128 aac when I got my first 40 gig ipod (it cost $599 back then). And have them stored on a little mac mini that I use as my jukebox. Now with all my music following me around everywhere I go...I take it for granted. I realized i had stopped listening to music on a daily basis without doing something else simultaneously and that made me very sad.
Anyways, the stylus was toast on the technics so we ran out to guitar center, and bought a numark groovetool...basically the cheapest of what we could find there, under the recommendation of a store salesman. We came home and through internet guidance got the whole cartridge changed out. Now...we hooked it up to my Sony "Bravia" home theater receiver with the 5.1 tiny baby speakers with 3 hdmi inputs...and I freaked out because the volume was so low.
Yeah I learned about the difference between "line" and "phono" at that very moment
Soooo....I went back out to buy a pre-amp. Of course back to guitar center we go (I had this insane NEED to get the system up and running that same day) and I got a gemsound pl-usb preamp to hook up to my stereo because that's the only one they had for some weird reason. We spent forever trying to figure out how to calibrate the auto-play mechanism to land on the right spot. We also read tutorial after tutorial on balancing the tonearm and using the counter-skate mechanism appropriately. Finally everything was working.
Things sounded okay to me that day, but as I listen more and more I hear so much clipping and distortion and though I'm enjoying the warm quality and the whole lovely ceremony of putting on a record, I've grown intensely dissatisfied with my setup. I listened to records on my friends pro-ject debut hooked up to a yamaha receiver and a couple of bookshelf speakers, and I was amazed at the difference. I want that sound! I've bought probably $400 worth of records since this madness started up 3 or 4 months ago. I love 90's girl rock / folkie type stuff. Indie / trip-hop / some electronic.
So here is the setup I've put together after researching different suggestions from lovely people like you:
Onkyo A-9555 - Integrated amp...seems to get great reviews. I like the price point.
Epos-Els3 speakers - I live in an okay sized apartment...i already have a 5.1 system in. I'm going to put this on the side of the room along with the record player and have a dedicated little record corner. These also got amazing reviews and seemed to be good value for the price.
Cartridge - Ortofon 2M Red, Stanton 681 EEE Mk III, or Grado Black...or any cartridge at around $100.00. Unless you think putting a cartridge on this old technics is silly and I should actually get a new turntable instead....(gulp)
Will all of this work together to bring me to vinyl nirvana? Or am I just wasting money like I did when I bought four Wii steering wheels for Mario Kart?
Thanks for listening to my ramblings, I await your kind and patient responses