Jon's Post Categories: Music

All music related posts will show up in this category. I used to play a lot of music but these days, it's less of that and more listening. Though, there are some posts of me playing on my Google+ page.

 

Tone Poet and Music Matters
A few years ago I bought a couple of Blue Note's 75th Anniversary re-issues and thought they were kind of cool. They were albums I didn't already own on vinyl and they were inexpensive, didn't seem like anything special except that they were new. It wasn't long after that when I heard about a new series from Blue Note called the "Tone Poet" series which is supposed to be of much better quality.
04/17/2020

 

Pat Martino - Baiyina
I had this album on my discogs "Want List" for a while, and some have showed up on sale a few times over the years but mostly didn't seem worth it, was prohibitively expensive shipping-wise, or didn't seem like the quality was worth investing in...
10/14/2019

 

Beatles Esher Demos and the Mag-lev turntable

1/2/2019

 

John Coltrane - The Lost Album

7/25/2018

 

Rolling Stones, Cream, Monk & Trane

2/8/2015

 

The Marantz 2285B
For a while, I've occasionally noticed what sounds like a little bit of distortion coming from my left speaker. It's only slight and hardly noticeable, my wife thinks I'm crazy. When I realized that it was actually there and intermittent, I started to hear it more and more, or sometimes I'm thinking I hear it at least. I've gone through the speaker cable, re-cut the ends, cleaned the banana plugs, still there. I've opened up my Nakamichi receiver and cleaned out the speaker connectors and also a few of the knobs which would generate some noise when I turn them, specifically the Balance knob. That knob in particular had to be cleaned once before, when I noticed that my left channel was slightly quieter than the right and traced the problem down to that knob. This time, cleaning it didn't make the distortion go away. I then further narrowed it down to only the Phono input. I don't hear the noise when I play music through the computer. Immediately, I chocked it up to just my LP's being dirty or some of media related issue. But having a direct drive turntable, I went back a few times to when I thought I heard distortion and wound back the LP and played the same bit over and over again and it was still intermittent. I then took the turntable out of the equation when I plugged it directly into a small USB A/D converter and played several LPs, ripping them into wav files, and playing it back through the computer, where I found there was no distortion. It wasn't the greatest of tests but it made me more confident that it wasn't the Technics that was generating the distortion in the left channel. I also tried swapping the left and right RCA cables coming out of the turntable and still heard the distortion on the left speaker. So the only things left is maybe the Phono pre-amp or some other circuitry related to the Phono input. I could try buying a separate pre-amp and plugging that into another input, but I really don't have the room for another component, or ultimately be wrong about the root cause and still have the distortion after buying a pre-amp, though there would probably be a better sound coming out of my records.

Click for the rest.
5/20/2015

 

70's Prog Rock
A few weeks ago, I was browsing around and noticed a couple of other seemingly very affordable copies of Led Zeppelin I. There was one copy in particular that looked kind of nice but the price was still a little higher than I was willing to pay for an LP. Out of curiosity I also checked on E-bay to see what the current going rate was for the first Led Zeppelin album, any pressing. They all seemed kind of expensive so that was that.

The next night, I again happened to be looking through Discogs and noticed that there was a late pressing that was advertised as near-mint/mint for pretty cheap, so I looked through some of the other albums the seller was selling. Was pretty surprised how much 70's progressive rock was in their catalog, and all in near-mint/mint condition so I was pretty excited.

Click for the rest.
3/22/2015

 

Ortofon Turntable Cartridge
A little while ago, I was talking to my old roommate (who's also into turntables) about the cartridge that came with the Technics SL-1200mk2 that I had bought, and how much I spent on it. The cartridge that came with it was the one that I was using, the Shure SC-35C, which is a budget cartridge and seems to mostly be used by DJ's. I bought the rig from someone who used it for DJing so that's not unusual, and although it was a low-range/budget cartridge, it was better than the Audio-Technica cartridge that was on my old turntable.

After the short conversation, I got to thinking. The turntable probably could use a better cartridge and it's purely for at-home use so it's not going to get bounced around or anything. In the past, I've thought that I've heard noise over the higher range on certain songs, probably more noticeable on some songs than others. It's something that I've never noticed when listening to the CD counterparts. Additionally, I've always felt that the high range was kind of lacking when it came to comparing my LP's with their CD counterparts. It all sounded a bit too mellow, and not as crisp as on CD's. Initially I chocked that up to either my system (Nakamichi isn't known for being high end, or having a great phono pre-amp) or the fact that it was just the LPs or the way they were mixed/produced. One day, after hearing some of that noise on a Beatles album (can't remember what song), I decided it was time for an upgrade. If the upgrade didn't make a difference, then so be it and I'll know that it's not the cartridge but own a better one anyways, however if it did, then it'll mean that I wasn't just hearing things.

Click for the rest.
3/2/2015

 

Pat Martino

2/8/2014

 

Christmas Vinyl
1/12/2014

 

Magical Voivod Booker Radio
12/03/2014

 

Pink Floyd Beatles For Sale, E-Bay purchases
11/07/2014

 

Led Zappa Rolling Petty, E-Bay purchases
10/02/2014

 

In the Court of the Yes Album
9/26/2014

 

Red and Roach
9/23/2014

 

New Music related posts
I've been making various music related posts, about vinyl and stuff in other places and neglected to also include them here. I've gone back and added all the content and cleaned up some of the front page to make it less cluttery.
9/22/2014

 

Budgie, Never Turn Your Back On A Friend
9/18/2014

 

Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, new arrivals
9/4/2014

 

Eric Kloss, Herbie Hancock, new arrivals
7/29/2014

 

Abbey Road, old and new
7/29/2014

 

Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Horace Silver, new arrivals
7/9/2014

 

White, Back in Black
6/10/2014

 

Speak Low
5/22/2014

 

Ray and Milt
5/16/2014

 

Killers
4/16/2014

 

Budgie, new arrivals
4/15/2014

 

Classical LP Clean-up
4/11/2014

 

Pink Floyd, Willie Nelson, new arrivals
3/7/2014

 

Green Onions
2/5/2014

 

Survive
1/31/2014

 

Freddie, Willie, and Eric
1/5/2014

 

Blondie and Sonny Rollins
12/22/2013

 

Old Recordings (March 6, 2006)

 

Sonatina
Here is a link of me playing Lennox Berkeley's Sonatina, 3rd movement, saved as an mp3. Perhaps more music to come if I get around to getting the stuff I play recorded digitally...

 

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