Matthew Harrison [dot] com http://www.matthewharrison.com - a website maintained by Matthew B. Harrison - Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:09:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 Vinyl http://www.matthewharrison.com/2012/12/25/vinyl/ http://www.matthewharrison.com/2012/12/25/vinyl/#comments Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:09:00 +0000 admin http://www.matthewharrison.com/?p=85 You can spend thousands on a turntable. I wasn’t going to do that. After some research, I settled on the Audio-Technica AT-LP120-USB Direct Drive professional turntable. ($253 on amazon). I liked this because it had a lot of manual abilities to compensate for the inherent flaws in the vinyl medium. If I was going to give vinyl the best test – it needed to be played well. Plus, this had a USB cord to hook into a computer.

I replaced the cartridge. I kept the stock one as it isn’t bad. But I replaced it with the Shure M97xE High-Performance Magnetic Phono Cartridge ($77 on amazon). Why drive a nice car if you are going to put crappy tires on it and gas in it. So I added that. It was a pain – because I needed to find a small screw driver to swap the cartridges.

From the turntable to headphone amplifier. After extensive research, I opted to go with the HiFiMan – Ef5 Tube Headphone Amplifier. It is a hybrid unit that contains both a vintage sounding tube AND digital circuitry. I figured it would be the best of both worlds for listening to my vinyl collection. The key to making it sound it’s best – turn the gain up. ($399 on amazon).

I replaced the tube, 12AU7, with one from Groove Tube. Apparently this process is known as tube rolling. Regardless, I figured I would give it some bite. $20 with free shipping from Amazon and a few days later it was in my headphone amp. It cleans up the fuzz from the overdriven gain. It was a “fix” you could hear immediately. I use quotes, because nothing was broken. The stock tube is also quite nice. This just happens to be my preference having heard both.

Lastly – the headphones. I have a pair of the Bose Comfort Quiets with the rechargeable battery. They are great for almost everything – but not to listening to vinyl. So I purchased AKG Q 701 Quincy Jones Signature Reference-Class Premium Headphones in Lime Green. They are incredible. ($233 on amazon) Comfortable. Have amazing frequency range well beyond the vinyl… but it’s sweet spot is where good vinyl shines. These are a great match.

]]> http://www.matthewharrison.com/2012/12/25/vinyl/feed/ 0 Update http://www.matthewharrison.com/2011/07/04/update/ http://www.matthewharrison.com/2011/07/04/update/#comments Mon, 04 Jul 2011 21:22:42 +0000 admin http://www.matthewharrison.com/?p=71 Check out the following websites:

The Leica Guy

Photos & The Law

 

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