turntable

Sure, to some a record might be just a piece of plastic, but to me an LP is a beautiful object. It feels great in my hands, and looks amazing spinning on a turntable. There are dozens of LP cover art books, but just looking at light dancing on a LP's spiral groove is something I never tire of.

I own thousands of LPs and sometimes use them in my art. Of course the LP's prime attraction is its sound, so even as CD sales continue to decline, the LP looks like it will be around for the … Read more

Sound & Vision magazine's Michael Trei recently tested three turntables: the Rega Research P1 ($395), Music Hall mmf 2.2 ($449), and Technics SL-1200MK2 ($699). And guess what: the most expensive turntable wasn't the best-sounding one!

Mike's an old friend and a major turntable guru in his own right. His knowledge of all things analog runs deep, and he regularly sets up finicky high-end turntables for the rich and famous, including the president of a major record company, here in NYC. Mike set up the VPI Classic turntable I bought last year.

The three turntables covered in his report, the Rega, Music Hall, and Technics are all excellent, but I was more interested in the belt vs. direct-drive aspect of the reviews. The Technics is a long standing DJ favorite, for its powerful, direct-drive motor, which is a big plus when you're back cueing and scratching records. Direct-drive 'tables never wowed the high-end crowd, they favor belt-drive turntables. The appeal is mostly based on the fact that the belt "decouples" the motor from the platter. So whatever noise and vibration the motor makes as it spins aren't directly transmitted to the platter, and therefore to the record. No wonder the vast majority of turntables sold to audiophiles are belt-drive designs.

Mike may be a hard-core audiophile, but he's not closed-minded about direct-drive turntables, and in fact owns a Technics direct-drive turntable (and many belt-drives as well).… Read more

Ots CD Scratch 1200 is a fun and easy-to-use program that lets users play CDs in a virtual turntable environment. It's not as complex as some of the DJ software that we've seen, which may be a drawback for more advanced users, but this program is a great choice for those just getting started with turntable-style DJing.

The program's interface isn't the most intuitive we've ever seen, but it gets points for being fun. The design seeks to replicate the appearance of a real DJ deck, with two turntables and various cables and buttons. We … Read more

I have no idea why giant electronics companies like Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, or Samsung never really tried to enter the audiophile market in the U.S.

Sure, Sony's very first SACD player, the $5,000 SCD-1 was a spectacularly good-sounding component; Sharp made an exotic, very high-end digital amplifier a few years ago; and back in the 1970s Panasonic's Technics gear was pretty impressive. I'm sure those companies are still producing no-holds-barred audio for their home markets. So the know-how is there, but apparently little interest in sending it here.

The first-generation Marantz audio products were designed and built by Saul B. Marantz in his home in Kew Gardens, New York, in the 1950s. The company truly advanced the state of the art, and those early Marantz designs now fetch big bucks on eBay. By the 1960s Marantz started building gear in Japan, and the company was sold and resold over the intervening decades. But through good times and bad, Marantz stayed true to its roots and always made above-average-sounding products, bettering the offerings from larger companies like Sony and Panasonic sold in the U.S.

Robert J. Reina's enthusiastic Marantz PM5003 integrated amplifier review in the January 2010 issue of Stereophile started me thinking about affordable high-quality gear from mainstream manufacturers. Yes, it can happen.

The Marantz PM5003 ($450) is a stereo integrated amplifier; it puts out 40 watts per channel. It was designed in Japan and made in China.

Do you have a turntable? Great, you can plug it directly into the PM5003; it has a rather sophisticated moving-magnet phono stage that'll bring out the very best sound from your records. The PM5003 also has five line-level inputs, two record outputs, a balance control, a headphone amplifier, treble, bass, and loudness controls. … Read more

My pal Dave Clark, editor at Positive Feedback Online, took a lot of great pictures at CES 2010. After the jump, see but a brief sampling from his Web site.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--I know CNET pays me to cover MP3 players, but privately, I'm a sucker for my beat-up, old Technics SL-1200MK2. Compared with most of the flimsy, plastic, belt-driven, disposable toys that get passed off as turntables these days, my 1200 is a 20-pound metal beast that will probably outlive my grandchildren.

USB turntables are the worst offenders. Built on the cheap, to last just long enough to rip your old LPs into iTunes, most of the world's USB decks spend their lives stored in closets in garages once their owners see them for the bulky, eyesores they … Read more

Exoticism and the high-end audio aesthetic ought to be a natural combination, but that's rarely the case. There are exceptions, and when I find them I'll cover them in this blog.

Walking down Crosby Street in SoHo in Lower Manhattan with a few friends, we spotted a trendy shop, BDDW. The window display featured brilliantly designed furniture.

Once inside, it wasn't just the furniture that dazzled, there were quite a few vintage motorcycles on display! Looking further I came upon one of the strangest looking turntables I've ever seen. BDDW was definitely not your average boutique … Read more

When the CD was introduced in 1982, everyone thought the LP's days were numbered, but it's still here. Now it's starting to look like the LP might outlast the CD.

Of course "record stores" are also on the endangered species list; here in NYC, Tower, Virgin, and Sam Goody are long-gone, but J & R Music World in lower Manhattan is the last remaining full-size outfit. Smaller shops are hanging in there, too.

You can still buy CDs and LPs online, and vinyl's selection is getting better and better. So if you're a music lover, what should you buy, CD or LP? First, it depends on whether you can get the music you want on vinyl.

Sound quality issues aren't black and white. CD wins in terms of noise-free listening, though clean records, played on a decent turntable can sound amazingly quiet. But even then, there will be occasional clicks and pops. That's a deal breaker for some, but if you've never heard records played on a decent turntable, you don't know how quiet records can be.

LPs can sound warmer, fuller, and more natural than CDs, and way better than low-bit MP3 and AAC variants. LP sound seems to engage listeners in a very different way than digital recordings do. It's not that digital sounds bad, but vinyl is more fun to listen to. Music on LP seems more immediate and realistic than digital. Oh, and it's worth noting that most people who use vinyl actually listen to music, while digital listeners rarely do. Digital makes do as background sound. That's just the way it is. If you can't see yourself ever really listening to music--without talking, reading, working on the computer, etc--sure, CDs and MP3s are perfectly fine. … Read more