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Jon's Post Categories: Music
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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
Pat Martino - Baiyina
Beatles Esher Demos and the Mag-lev turntable
John Coltrane - The Lost Album
Rolling Stones, Cream, Monk & Trane
The Marantz 2285B
Click for the rest.
70's Prog Rock
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.
Ortofon Turntable Cartridge
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.
Pat Martino
Christmas Vinyl
Magical Voivod Booker Radio
Pink Floyd Beatles For Sale, E-Bay purchases
Led Zappa Rolling Petty, E-Bay purchases
In the Court of the Yes Album
Red and Roach
New Music related posts
Budgie, Never Turn Your Back On A Friend
Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, new arrivals
Eric Kloss, Herbie Hancock, new arrivals
Abbey Road, old and new
Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Horace Silver, new arrivals
White, Back in Black
Speak Low
Ray and Milt
Killers
Budgie, new arrivals
Classical LP Clean-up
Pink Floyd, Willie Nelson, new arrivals
Green Onions
Survive
Freddie, Willie, and Eric
Blondie and Sonny Rollins
Old Recordings (March 6, 2006)
Sonatina
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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.
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.
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
