Just rescued a whole bunch of vinyl from my old man (who knew he was such a prince fan LOL) . Need a cheap turntable, idealy one that I can hook up to my lappy to put them into my itunes.

any ideals? (not mega expensive please!!

X

Any vintage Direct Drive Model from Japan in good nic.

Rega Planar

OR – If you have no Pre-amp

Pro-ject Debut USB

BEWARE WORN NEEDLES if the device is secondhand.

Clean and dry the LPs first.

Check Hi-Fi World Olde World Buying Guide

errrr, what does ANY of that mean…? LOL

Putting vinyl into PC takes aaaaaages!

they are vinyl and you really should listen to them
I have no idea how you put them on a laptop but I have a turntable that you can have for postage
If you are interested I will check it is ok needle wise etc
You will need something that takes audio in – the red and white leads. No idea what modern device that is as my stereo is older than you

Shall I give it a clean first 😉

My dear – you will have to do quite a bit of research! TBH if your budget is <£150 or so then borrow a TT [or pop ’round with your laptop] because if you use a crap TT you’ll havd a crap sound.

Hi-Fi is full of snake-oil, to be sure, but TTs are exquisite engineering, and must be in good condition to get a decent sound and not to bugger up your LPs. Sadly there is no quick and cheap way to help you out.

Check out

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/ – quite serious, but real advice available.
and
http://www.whathifi.com/ – lots of modern kit reviewed.

http://audiokarma.org/ is a great forum.

JY – if theres no pre-amp in the TT then she needs one. It’s not Line-Level output!

JY – if theres no pre-amp in the TT then she needs one. It’s not Line-Level output!

Lol, that’s really going to confuse emsz; I know what line-level input is, but I’ll bet 90+% of the population don’t. 😀

they are vinyl and you really should listen to them

yeah…I’d like to but…. 😆

I wanna put them on my lappy to mess about with, but that’s not a goer?

Junky, thanks, I’m really after something I can use with my lappy

Laptop and [normal amplifier] inputs will be around 2V AC maximum – “Line Level”

Turntable cartridge outputs a few millivolts, so you need a PreAmplifier to boost the signal to Line-Level.

As I suggested, if its only for ripping the discs, you’d be better using a mate’s deck, all set up etc. Save the audio as FLAC, Apple Lossless, or at a push AAC 320kb – vinyl sounds good, don’t waste it!

IIRC the wikipedia article on Turntables is a good place to start.

Just going through of my dad’s vinyl he has given me. Some great stuff in there.

Seriously – have to argree with JY. Get a good but inexpensive turntable (look on ebay for a good Rega Planar 2 or 3), a phono amp if you need one and kick back and listen to music as it should be listened too.

I have a pretty good CD player (£1200) and a Rega Planar 3 (can be had second had for around £100) and the planar 3 blows the CD player away.

Warning though – vinyl listening is addictive…

chvck – Member
Putting vinyl into PC takes aaaaaages!

?High Speed Dubbing? 😉

gofaster, I’ll have to play them, right? you can’t rip vinyl like a CD can you?

there is a warmth to analogue that digital losses IMHO

They sound different for sure but not better

I assume you can just get a deck with a usb and some software then

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=turntable+with+usb&oq=turntable+with+usb&aqs=chrome.0.69i57j0l3j69i62l2.3074j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Its still wrong …bloody yoof with their modern ways

shakes head in disbelief,mutters has another Wurthers

Yes, you have to play them. £50usb TTs will sound pants.

Better get a well regarded deck, like the Planar 3, with a small good preamp and listen to them.

Google the terms/brands in my earlier posts for more…

I GTG, sorry.

there’s something quite “right” about listening to vinyl on a decent (or even half decent) hi-fi & turntable. Ok you have to get up & turn it over every so often but hey, what the hell.

if you have a half decent hifi system you should be able to get hold of a CD burner that takes an input from the amp & records the input from the TT in real-time, just like we oldies* had to do with a cassette recorder back in the day, if we wanted to listen to it in the car…

* I’m 48. not that old, really…

For example

Turntable

Phono Pre Amp

Cheers

Danny B

http://www.richersounds.com/product/turntables/ion/ilp/ion-ilp

this one?

You’d be better off buying the CDS new than buying that…..

I am with them to get something to just digitise the LP is pointless just download/acquire source the digital version

I did it ages ago with Mini discs with my LP’s and ot was ok but if i had to do it again i would just get some MP3 rather than actually do it myself

That said that device will work but how good it will be who knows but think supermarket bike.

the stylus for my arm costs more than that

Thanks for the info, I’m off to find a rega for the wifey.

Sorry but that =

If you just want to listen to the recordings from the PC then I understand if you don’t want to shell out for a record deck and other bits [which, by the way will need to include a purpose-built stand for the deck – that can be a >£100 easy]. Do you have any other HiFi gear, will this be in addition?

If not, I suggest, again, that you make a deal with a friend who has the kit already and use his/hers. Where are you based and how many records do you want to copy?

jkomo = emsz’s hubby?

Rega Planar 3 for £100 you will be lucky – get s/h cd of the ones you want – it will be much cheaper

To be honest if you aren’t going to use the turntable and build up a vinyl collection of your own, you may as well stick all the LPs on ebay and spend a fiver a month on a Spotify sub!

You need to buy one of these audio to usb converter

same as above but cheaper

That goes between your turntable and PC/Laptop.

gofaster, I’ll have to play them, right? you can’t rip vinyl like a CD can you?

Nope, it’s record in real-time, so every one is going to take 30-40 minutes a side, just like making mix tapes on cassette.
I used to reckon on a C90 taking three hours to put together, whether it was from cd or vinyl.
The other thing is, it helps to run the recordings through some software to clean up the worst of the pops and crackles, as well. There are ways to actually edit the waveform, and remove individual clicks, but that way can lead to madness…
😀

Emsz – don’t listen to the audio snobs.
You’ve got some vinyl you can’t get on CD/MP3 and you want to digitise it. Sound quality isn’t the be-all… you want to hear the music on your mp3 player, not disappear up your own backside revelling in the sound quality?

As said it takes a while, as it can only be done realtime. You know, record it to a .wav file as you play it.
I bought a Sony from Richer to convert some stuff. Does the job nicely, you get a bit of software with it for cleaning up and separating the tracks.

Here’s a sample http://youtu.be/mUj0HMyg3To – converted from the wav to an mp4 to upload and still sounds ok.

For only transfers and if you don’t have a mate with a decent deck to do it for you, then an option would be to buy something pretty decent from ebay or somewhere similar, do the copies, and then sell the kit again for not much loss.

The better the TT/arm/cartridge the better the signal to noise ratio so you won’t hear the noise on the record so much.

The main reason people TTs seem to sound better is that the sound is more compressed than from a CD player, and the separation between the channels is also less – like blending the channels and perhaps compensating for your speakers not being the best at ‘imagery’.

Here’s a sample http://youtu.be/mUj0HMyg3To – converted from the wav to an mp4 to upload and still sounds ok.

I have just listened to that with some headphones and ‘ok’ is pushing it…

The ‘audio snobs’ as referred to probably realise that, unless the sound quality is half decent, you won’t bother listening to it as it won’t provide you with much pleasure, so it was a waste of time transferring it in the first place.

😆 I knew that was coming. Personally, it’s hearing the music that gives me pleasure.

And I posted on this thread to help Emsz, not to show how anal I am. 😉

gofasterstripes – Member
jkomo = emsz’s hubby?

Yes, and I’m her son 😆

Well – I guess that’s the demarcation line. I’d never listen to a record that has been encoded to sound like that. I think it sounds horrible and full of compression artifacts, but if you are OK with that then I see your point.

I’m not though, sorry.

Emsz though – the thread is for Emsz!!

It’s ok, I believe Dez listens to music from his neighbours house via a bean tin and some string. You two aren’t on the same wavelength…

For the O/P, I believe there may be companies that will take your vinyl and encode it for you. Can’t remember any names though, anyone?

Plastic cup, if you don’t mind

Where the ‘eck is she then? What is she doing? Did she get a Rega? I’m confused….

Emsz though – the thread is for Emsz!!

so why give her junk advice?

Considering the time and initial expense involved she could probably buy MP3 versions of the recordings from Amazon for less and end up with vastly better results than that recording if she followed your advice.

You need a good TT setup if you want to approach CD quality, and then you will have to deal with the noise issues on the vinyl. So unless there are some recordings of particular merit that can’t be sourced digitally then consider selling the vinyl and purchasing the digital equivalents – or renting them if you use iTunes…

Considering the time and initial expense involved she could probably buy MP3 versions of the recordings from Amazon for less and end up with vastly better results than that recording

Yes.

I’ve got most of the music on my iTunes anyway, I just wanted to have some as vinyl as well so I could mess about with them and maybe turn them into something a bit cool, it was just a little idea.

I borrowed a turntable and speakers from parents if my flatmate, they sound pretty cool 😀 . But I’ve not got any money really to be buying amps and I didn’t really want all that stuff. Most if my music I listen to on a pair of £5 computer speakers or cheap tesco ear phones anyway!!

Thanks for the help though

X