The Unwound Third > Phonograph Blues

HOW Are You Listening?

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eric:
Home - On the computer, I copy tunes at the highest quality I can (CD) and play them through a high end sound card and Klipsch powered speakers and a subwoofer; it sounds great.  My computer was built by TracerTek for the purpose of digitizing my collection of 78s, which at my current rate I expect to complete in the 22nd century.  I also have a standard hi-fi set up with CD player and Technics turntable.  Love those Yazoo LPs!
Mobile - I don't listen much in the truck, its just too noisy.  I'll use the iPod when walking the dog, frightening passers-by by singing along with Rev. Davis.  Hallelujah! ;D

CF:
Wow, what a set-up River! I imagine you'd have everything you need right there.
Muck, are you listening to digital music at all?  
The rich 'acoustic' sound I mentioned was real noticeable to me especially when i listened to revivalist-era stuff, in fact a Sam Chatmon album I have as an mp3.
I too am converting most of my collection to Mp3 (but would rather know how to convert CDs to FLAC, a superior digital format to Mp3).
BUT, for you guys & or gals with these great systems, what do you do to get the richest sound possible from, say, Blind Lemon Jefferson's recordings? I would think that perhaps running some of that stuff through high-end audio equipment could be either great or just a magnification of lo-fi source sound.

I love this scene from the Joe Bussard doc 'Desperate Man.' Some say THIS is still the best way to hear 78 music . . . from 78s. Any Weenies have a 78 set up?

uncle bud:
Like a number of people here, most of my listening has been done via my computer or an iPod for the past few years. However, I just moved my stereo system in the room with my laptop, so am now once again listening to CDs part of the time. The sound, unsurprisingly, is far superior, even from a pretty basic stereo system, nothing fancy at all. I had been working on some Furry Lewis songs at the time and when I popped the CD in I thought, wow. I have some half-decent Altec Lansings for my laptop but it doesn't compare. I now want to get a turntable working again, or buy one of those USB turntables.

While I love the access to thousands of songs and multiple playlists my computer affords me, I must say being forced to deal with one CD at a time has many benefits as well. I tend to skip over songs far less and listen much more. Plus with my sieve-like memory, the liner notes become a brand new experience again.

I will be very curious to hear FrontPage report in on this thread eventually. I know he's been converting stuff to FLAC or some other lossless format for backup.

phhawk:
Personally, for listening to my 78's, I believe you start with the speakers and work backwards. About 25 years ago, I scored a custom made pair with (I'm not sure if I have the numbers right, so don't quote me on them, but) 15" JBL D135's (I think) and drivers from the JBL LE series (not sure of the number, maybe LE 175?). Everything is closed up in the speaker boxes so I can't see the numbers. Anyway, I absolutely love my speakers. Personally, didn't like Klipsch or Voice Of The Theater, etc. for 78's. The great thing about JBL's is: what goes in, is what comes out. They don't muck around with the sound.  

For an amp, I  use a McIntosh 240 and a McIntosh MX110 tuner/preamp. I also have a Mac1700 turner/amp that I use as a backup which I think actually works as well as the 240 et. al. I think the Mac 1700 is highly underrated and is about a sixth the price of having a 240 with a preamp.

For a turntable I use an Esoteric which I got through Nauck's Antique Records. Maybe not the best turntable but works for me and will play about any record ever made, verticals and laterals.

I've heard a few other systems of other well known 78 collectors and I like mine the best. I play everything with no filters and the controls straight up and down. Rarely do I feel that I need to switch needle sizes. The system seems to play most things perfectly, hassle free. All in all, the sound is the next best thing to having the musicians in the room.  

Mr.OMuck:
First Happy New Year to all.
I've never loved digital music Mike. I noticed early on that if I put on a CD I tended to get up and move around & get distracted and when I listened to LPs I tended to sit in one place and listen intensely.
That being said I'm a big believer in trying to tweak the most sound out of whatever you're listening to. There is a whole school of tweakology and I've extracted some significant improvements in sound over the years by trying cheap tweaks. Here's a good one. Buy a box of gum erasers (shoe box shaped tan, crumbly things used by artists mostly not the hard red rubber kind, and place them under the feet of all your components and under your speakers 1 in each corner. This has worked well for me and is a good substitute to the high end isolation gizmos that a lot of audiophiles swear by. The rubber seems to absorb enough of the components mechanical vibrations to focus the sound more effectively.
I also use and i-pod and have started looking into truly loss-less encoding like FLAC but have also availed myself of i-tunes.

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