Jennyemily

The stylus should be a replaceable part and will be cheaper than replacing the whole cartridge. Effectively this is just the needle bit at the end of the cartridge and should just be a push fit (certainly mine are as I keep a spare worn one which I swap in if I am trying to play a damaged record). They do wear out, and will degrade over time. If you let the stylus wear too much and keep playing records with it it could start to damage your record.

Surprised to read that Stanton cartridges should be avoided like the plague. I've always used Stanton 500s, and two of the commercial stations I worked at had turntables with these for broadcast use (though they didn't get used a lot as this was the late 1990s and CDs had mostly taken over). The third station used Ortofons (Concorde? I can't remember the exact model but they were very slender and shaped almost like a hook) and these were the Rolls Royce, but very prone to getting damaged in the hands of ham-fisted DJs. The big thing I have found is that genuine Stanton needles sound tons better than copies. However they have become almost impossible to find these days. I still find that an LP sounds better than a CD played through the same system, and I have tried this flicking between a CD and an LP copy of the same album.

Fair enough. The Eltax were purchased when I was 19 and I think cost was probably the biggest consideration for me! I've been more than happy with them (and they're currently doing Katy Perry justice) but I was really taken by the quality of the Q-Acoustics. I would certainly buy another pair of them (plus they have the advantage that they were available in a wood finish that was a perfect match for the shelving in my library).

Up - first fifteen or so minutes is a tear jerker every time The Railway Children (1975 version with Jenny Agutter) - I always cry when she gets reunited with her Father and runs along the railway platform shouting "Daddy! Daddy! My Daddy!" Toy Story 3 - the bit where they are facing the furnace in a line on the mound of rubbish always gets a tear. Bambi - haven't seen this film since I was about 5 years old because it made me cry so much.

One thing to watch with speaker cable is if it is multistrand, one of these strands could get loose from the terminal and make contact with the other for the same speaker causing a short. If your amp has speaker protection for when you first turn it on does this turn itself off after a few seconds? (You'll hear a click from the amp when it does) A little thought in my mind says that if there is a short on the speaker cables, the speaker protection may not cut out to protect the amp from the short.

I put my floor standing speakers on spikes and that helped the sound quality a lot. I agree that putting speakers hard onto the same surface that your turntable is on is a recipe to endless hum and rumble. I'm still using Soundlab DL-P1R turntables from my old DJ days. The Stereo mixer went in the loft when I moved on from that and I plugged the turntables direct into the amplifiers. I have in my lounge: Soundlab DL-P1R Stanton 500 Carrtidge Sony TA-F448EB amplifier Eltax Titanium floorstanding speakers (on solid spikes) In my Library I have: Soundlab DL-P1R Stanton 500 Cartridge Pioneer A-10 amplifier Q-Acoustic bookshelf speakers on flexible rubber pads Despite being tiny by comparison, the Q-Acoustics give a better sound quality than the big floor standers. I bought the little speakers recently, but the floorstanders are 15 years old and date from when I was at University. I guess speaker technology moved on a lot over that time.

Looking forward to the At The Gates album. I saw them play live back in around 1994/5 in Manchester and they were great. I currently only own their second album on vinyl and keep trying to find their fourth.

For my sins I recently acquired 1989 by Taylor Swift, Teenage Dreams by Katy Perry and One of the Boys, also by Katy Perry. I feel like I'm hanging with the cool kids now because I'm actually getting into a lot of new music. The age of the iTunes download seems to have actually helped the quality of albums as artists can't get away with packing an album with filler otherwise people would only download the good track.

Yes, that's the one. I saw that listing, but also another that listed only CD and cassette. I've yet to find anywhere else listing an actual copy to verify that it was pressed or was just slated for release then cancelled. I remember from the time ordering a few albums that were slated for a vinyl release but were then cancelled last minute on that format presumably because the demand wasn't there.

I'm trying to hunt down a pair of vinyl versions from a set of albums that were released in the early 1990s. They came out right at the time that CD sales eclipsed vinyl, so whilst I have tracked down the first two in the set on LP, the other two have proven far more elusive. I found a copy of part III on Amazon marketplace so I know that definitely came out on vinyl, but I have struggled to find any firm proof that part IV did. I have searched discogs and the information I have found there seems possibly a little contradictory as one listing lists formats availbale as only CD and cassette, but another lists information for a vinyl release. I can find no trace on either Ebay or Amazon marketplace and I have never seen a copy of this turn up in over 20 years of record collecting. I wondered therefore whether anyone else might know to confirm whether this album did appear on vinyl in the early 1990s or whether the one listing I have found might be just from a planned release that may have been pulled through lack of sales? I have come across a couple of vinyl albums before which have catalogue listings from their release dates in the 1990s which were subsequently never pressed on that format, so that could be possible. Thanks in advance.

I collect too many things. Biggest things other than vinyl are model trains, books and vintage lingerie from hand made Elizabethan corsets through to stuff from the Gothic revival of the late 1990s. A cat collected me ten years ago. I'm still on its staff and provide feeding and attention on call 24/7.

Real name: Jennifer (or Jenny, Jen, 'J', oi tosser!, and so forth...) Favourite Bands: It would be quicker to list the ones I don't like; I have very broad tastes. What's your Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr etc.?: www.jennifer-kirk.com Hobbies (outside of record collecting): Building model railways, collecting vintage lingerie, sailing, collecting books, writing books (8 published) Play in a band? Run a record label? Link us!: No, but I used to work for the BBC and a few commercial FM stations ten years ago. The money was rubbish but it got me in to interview some cool bands and meet a lot of great people. Oh, and being on promo lists for a decade was awesome for all the free records in return for sending back the reaction sheets Random things you want us to know about you: I knew Ralf Little before he was famous, and saw Oasis in some dive in Manchester before they released their first record. I also played Coldplay on UK radio a full year before their first album was released courtesy of a six-track white label promo 12" I was sent.

If the problem is anything like the one I had on a Soundlab DL-P1R, it's a glitch with the electronic board that controls the pitch adjuster. Somewhere on the turntable there should be two small holes through which you can insert a jeweller's screwdriver and adjust the turntable's speed via a little potentiometer. The 45rpm one is probably glitching, though sometimes twisting the speed up then back down can fix it.