Home Vinyl Asylum

Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ.

To be totally honest

my own interest in LPs actually had a reawaking in early 2004. I'd never abandoned the format, rather my gear was mothballed upon the arrival of my children; a common occurence it seems, especially for the LP side of things.

First attempt to get back at the hobby started somewhat earlier (by a year or maybe more) when I got a very good CD player (Arcam CD92), my first CD player from post "CD-sucks" era; I have no idea when that era started as I had lived from the early 90's with a heavily modified custom player that at least didn't hurt my ears, but most (95%+) of my listening was LPs anyway.

However the CD92 never really did it for me, it wasn't nasty or anything, hard to explain really; I've since learned the benefits of resonance control footers and power cords, especially for CD players, and wonder if I hadn't held back the CD92.

Anyway I picked up a Dual 504 in spring 04 that got my LPs spinning again and then it was only a matter of time beore I restored my main player to working condition.

However the CD92, while not a perfect fit, was certainly plenty good enough to tell me that the format had arrived and in spring 05 I got a Jolida JD-100 that is just amazing IMHO. It didn't hurt that even with Foculpod footers (they're cheap, 4.50 each from Parts Connection) and a good power cord (local design, approx. 300US) it still only cost about half what I paid for the CD92. I never thought that I'd hear a budget (sub $1000US) CD player that is not only enormously listenable but can actually accomplish "twinkling of the ivories" with a level of sophistication and subtlety that would cause many even a very good TT to blush.

My experience with CD players, including some very expensive ones listened to in audio shops, is that just like TTs it's most definitely *not* a one size fits all world. I've heard players that I've no doubt would run rings around my Jolida in objective terms, e.g. resolution, extention, etc., etc. that I'd pass over (for the Jolida) without hesitation. Mind you I heard other that would likely cause me to wave bye-bye to the Jolida just as fast, including an earlier 20-bit generation TOTL Copland model, but I'm in no rush.

--

Interestingly I was given a rather nice jazz collection on cassettes (home recording of LP and CD originals) but have found that getting a good sounding cassette player from the thrifts is harded than I assumed it would be. Thus far it been a steady seriers of "Ugh, this thing sucks". I've actually given up realizing that to get a good one would require some research (and a few more bucks) but can't find the inspiration to bother with it.

Cheers,
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  VH Audio  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups


You can not post to an archived thread.