xxmartinxx

If I were looking for a budget table and I lived in the US, I'd buy a U-Turn.

I happened to see the email a few minutes before an MRI for a brain surgery I had last week and grabbed it. Thank God for technology... I mean my cell phone, not the MRI machine. I guess both.

Well, the gods of FedEx Ground decided to reward my bad decisions with a gift. They brought it a day early. I honored them with listening to side two of Dinosaur Jr.s "Green Mind" (the reissue). I picked this because it's not a great sounding album and there are some potentially horrible sounding guitar parts. As I pulled it out of the carton, I couldn't decide if I should be happy or disappointed with the build quality. The speaker jacks appeared much nicer in the pictures than they looked and felt in person. There was some decent weight to the thing. Whatever. I gave a quick listen to the ARC to give me some context. I dislocate my ARC, plop it into place on my rack, and plug it in. And then I look for the power button. Um... Power button? Seems kind of imperative to one of those. Finally I find it under the giant input select knob, which completely hides it from my vantage point. Great placement. Finally, I power it on. Lights blink then black. Hmmm... Press the button again. Nothing. Check both sides of the power cable. Seems fine. Now it works. I guess it needed a moment? I dunno. I hope that doesn't become a thing. Now I have power but no sound. I check the phono preamp. That's on. I press the speaker select button. Ah... wrong speakers. I decide I should compare the ARC to the Marantz with the EQ out of the chain, because that makes sense. Well, that sounds like dogshit. It sounds better with the EQ on. Okay, if not no EQ than a flat EQ with the bass and treble at 50%. Not distractingly different than the ARC. As I start listening, things start sounding harsher, more rigid, and I start to get a throbbing headache. I get the solo on "Green Mind" and it is physically painful. I put back the ARC and listen. Within 30 seconds, the sound washes away the headache. The solo sounds like a real guitar and not power drill. I decide to try again with the Marantz but EQ it more towards what the ARC sounds like. I bring the treble down to about 40% and the bass up to about 60%. This sounds alright. The fatigue is practically, if not completely, gone. At this point, I'd guess most people would only hear a subtle difference between the two, but that difference is where the magic is. While sounding better, it still didn't have the air or the width of the music through the ARC. The holographic 3D sound is gone. The realness is gone. You have a, dare I say, good sounding amplifier but not great. As I sat, sort of conflicted, I realized I had done actually what I sought out to do. Tears for everyone.

Better quality speakers and amps will always give you their impedance specs. Most all hi-fi speakers are 8 ohm. Some are 6 or 4 ohm. If you're not using a tube amp and you're not running speakers that are higher than 8 or lower than 4 ohm, it doesn't matter.

Not sure why I can't add text to the above message. Anyway. Do I really have to give back my card when I plugging in a $2000 turntable and $1000 preamp into it? Actually, that might make it worse. Nevermind.

Friday... and my tears can be imbibed by all.

I think there's some truth to what he was trying to say. For sure thereare people who are more into the gear or hunt for better sound than listening to actual music. I don't think that's the majority of "audiophiles". I agree with your basic premise that if you love music you're cheating yourself if you don't upgrade to decent stuff (whatever level of "decent" you feel comfortable with). When I stuck my foot into hi-fi fifteen or so years ago, I bought a vintage integrated tube amp that I completely overhauled and a Musical Hall MMF.5. I found the sound of that table fairly underwhelming. When I upgraded to my VPI Scout a year or two later, that's when I was really impressed with the sound quality I was getting out of vinyl. Until then, CD's sounded better and I was only buying records for things I couldn't get on CD. After that is when I preferred to buy vinyl, eventually refusing to buy CD's at all. It's a fun and rewarding hobby, I just don't have the time to dedicate to it that I would like.

Slinch and Kannibal are both correct. There's a few mitigating factors that influenced by decision to try to "downgrade", but lack of time to listen is at the top. I'm basically listening to records once every few months. That being said, I do have a history of buying gear. This is the first time I'm going backward though. Most moves have been up or at least lateral. It's interesting that people are listening to music less after upgrading their turntables. I wonder what that is? Are you guys going from automatic tables to a manual tables?

I've found that I'm spending very little time actually listening to records so I decided to downgrade my Audio Research VSi55 to something cheaper. Initially, I wanted to stick with something with tubes, but there just isn't anything out there that would put enough money in my pocket that isn't really cheaply made Chinese junk. So, I started looking at lower cost solid state amps. It was between an Emotiva TA-100 and the Marantz PM6005. I couldn't find a single review of the Emotiva, so I went with the Marantz, since it wasn't much more money. This will be interesting since I haven't owned a solid state stereo amplifier in over 15 years. I'm scared. Hold me.

Aside from the somewhat nonsensical philosophical argument that you shouldn't have an EQ because it should just be pure source and what is on the record (or CD, or MP3, or whatever), there is a real reason to not design an amp with an EQ. An EQ degrades the audio signal, even if EQ'ed flat. I guess if you have a defeatable EQ (depending on how that's designed) that would work, too. Why I think the "source purity" thing is horseshit is because everything you do changes the equalization. Changing amps, or speakers, or turntables, even cables, is essentially re-EQing your stereo. Assholes like me with tube amps swap out tubes for the same reason. I've owned a bunch of tube amps, and I finally settled on the one I have now because the preamp tubes were only ever made by one place in Russia and the power tubes are too expensive to buy a bunch to see which ones "I like". I used to spend more time moving tubes than enjoying music. Ultimately, if it sounds good to you it's fine.

Same with the last LP, I hate the production.

I loved this band until "Up In Them Guts". The new song is pretty good.

The Descendents have been my favorite band for like 25 years and I'm pretty bummed by the two songs released so far. It's like they're not even trying.

I would probably save your money and buy something like a Rogue Sphinx v2 used for around $1k. It has a built in phono stage and it will be a pretty huge upgrade from the app/phono preamp you're currently using. The suggestion to get new speakers is a good one, too.

Price added.

The now discontinued HifiMan HE300. It was a open back non-planar headphone. In great shape except for a slight bend in the plug. $125.Shipping and Paypal included in price.

Thanks to Near Mint for replacing my bad copy with a good one!

As I recall this was - verbatim - how Einstein presented his theory. I have more evidence for my theory than there is for the "multiple universe" theory.

As I recall this was - verbatim - how Einstein presented his theory. I have more evidence for my theory than there is for the "multiple universe" theory.

Is it really so wild considering the the comments made and that half of their songs include drug references? And to reiterate, it's simply an educated guess and not based on any real information.

Having seen Weston a half dozen times and having seen Beach Slang, James isn't the same person. There's something off about him. The overly positive, lovely tone has always seemed to me to be a cover for something. I love this band, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that James has a substance abuse problem and needs help. Don't quote me on that, it's not based on any knowledge or facts, it's just the vibe I get.

Well, I can do you one better (or worse). I just cleaned mine with my Record Doctor cleaner to get all that weird sandy stuff that covers so many GZ pressed colored vinyl and I have major surface noise. I cleaned it a second time to the same result. And it's constant, through the whole record making it pretty much unlistenable. It sounds pretty nice, despite the continual frying chicken sound.

My copy is covered in GZ "sand". You should try cleaning it, if you haven't already.

The Descendents are probably my favorite band off all (No, ALL!) time, but this will probably be a continuation of that last clunker LP.