Turntables with USB audio interface?

[revolt]

thank god for pure clean analog sound! 

That's a surprising statement, coming from a non-believer. 

[mike65]

finally got my technics SL-1200, after lots of delays.
it took a while get all the adjustments done and the cartridge performance optimized...

...but i just LOVE it how you can play 'disintegration' and literally turn the volume up up up and PLAY IT LOUD and it sounds freaking marvelous. something one cannot experience with lot of newer music anymore.

Glad to hear that you seem VERY satisfied with your new "Toy".
I bought a used not SL 1200  but an SL 3210. maybe It´s a bit "light" besides yours but it plays real nice and sounds real good. I paid 125 swedish kronor I think that´s about14-15 euros,(And as you said earlier you´ll never know with used stuff, but for that price I just couldn´t resist).
I was at a second hand shop supposidly looking for some furniture.....
But I recognised it from must be at least 20 years ago, then I wanted one but just couldn´t afford it.

And then this summer I was at an action outside the village where I live, and then I bought A brand "New" Yamaha Reciver CR - 820 for the fasionoble price of 3 Euros!!!!

It was just perfect, as I the week before asked my neigbour to take a look at my old Matantz reciver (only one channel working).
He said "It would be much cheeper if I buy a new one"" and so I did.

My wife wasn´t to happy though. (Maybe it´s because the other 5 turntabels ,some amps and 5 or 6 tape decks But Í don´t really know.)

cheers Michael

[japanesebaby]

 

I bought a used not SL 1200  but an SL 3210. maybe It´s a bit "light" besides yours but it plays real nice and sounds real good. I paid 125 swedish kronor I think that´s about14-15 euros,(And as you said earlier you´ll never know with used stuff, but for that price I just couldn´t resist).
I was at a second hand shop supposidly looking for some furniture.....

hey nevermind the furniture haha.
anyway, that unti doesn't sound too bad, especially for that price 
good to hear you got a good unit there with such a bargain. 

But I recognised it from must be at least 20 years ago, then I wanted one but just couldn´t afford it.

that sounds all so familiar.

but yes, i've been really happy with my new toy, just getting happier every day. it's also great that you can find a good selection of vinyl, both new and used, these days. i remember sometime in the mid/late-90's how difficult it was to try find anything really, vinyl just seemed to have been disappear all around - if you asked about it they said it was called "progress"....hmm. anyway it's great to see it back on the shelves.

(by the way the cartridge alignment is/was trickier than i thought, it's not easy to get it exactly correctly thanks to the way the two small screws holding the cartridge to the headshell are positioned.)

[mahood]

glad to know you finally bought it !
although our opinions may slightly differ, the technics is for sure a great turntable.
what cartridge do you use ? i empathize about all the time it took to adjust it, whatever it is.

for instance:
Wow and Flutter:       
0.01% WRMS
0.025% WRMS (JIS C5521)
ą0.035% peak (IEC 98A Weighted}

show me a turntable that can beat that!

i admit i can't (i won't even try).
but i can show you the records that will ruin this :
http://www.audioh.com/releases/wow.html
http://www.audioh.com/releases/skatelp.html
i have both, and i can tell you they work, in their own twisted way 

[revolt]

glad to know you finally bought it !
although our opinions may slightly differ, the technics is for sure a great turntable.
what cartridge do you use ? i empathize about all the time it took to adjust it, whatever it is.

for instance:
Wow and Flutter:       
0.01% WRMS
0.025% WRMS (JIS C5521)
ą0.035% peak (IEC 98A Weighted}

show me a turntable that can beat that!

i admit i can't (i won't even try).
but i can show you the records that will ruin this :
http://www.audioh.com/releases/wow.html
http://www.audioh.com/releases/skatelp.html
i have both, and i can tell you they work, in their own twisted way 

Just when you think you've already seen it all there comes a weirder thing out of the blue... 

[japanesebaby]

nice to see you back, mahood.

what cartridge do you use ? i empathize about all the time it took to adjust it, whatever it is.

i've currently one of these:

http://www.needledoctor.com/Shure-M97XE?sc=7&category=917

i've also become curious to try some ortofon cartridges, i've heard some good stuff about them. also audio technica.
i'm also curious of what cartridge do you have?

also, i have find myself thinking of getting one of those external phono pre-amps which offer a better quality RIAA correction. i'm just quite convinced that my current old stereo amplifier's in-built RIAA fix just isn't any good at all.
so something like this, etc.:

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=CA640P
or
http://www.project-audio.com/main.php?prod=phonobox&cat=boxes&lang=en

i was interested in the project audio box first because it has direct USB output, but i was pointed out that the USB out is fixed to 16-bit only. a bit weird that they couldn't have made at least a 24-bit digital output available for otherwise such a sophisticated device.

but i can show you the records that will ruin this :
http://www.audioh.com/releases/wow.html
http://www.audioh.com/releases/skatelp.html
i have both, and i can tell you they work, in their own twisted way 

ok you win!  

[mahood]

nice to see you back, mahood.

i've currently one of these:

http://www.needledoctor.com/Shure-M97XE?sc=7&category=917

i've also become curious to try some ortofon cartridges, i've heard some good stuff about them. also audio technica.
i'm also curious of what cartridge do you have?

also, i have find myself thinking of getting one of those external phono pre-amps which offer a better quality RIAA correction. i'm just quite convinced that my current old stereo amplifier's in-built RIAA fix just isn't any good at all.
so something like this, etc.:

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=CA640P
or
http://www.project-audio.com/main.php?prod=phonobox&cat=boxes&lang=en

thanks, japanesebaby ; it's nice to be here again.
the shure cartridge seems quite good, better than the audio technica AT440 in that range (depending on what you're after : i found the latter to be very precise, but almost CD-like sounding, which is not what i'm after for vinyls).
i use a phonosophie chiave (MM), which was included (used) when i bought the systemdek. basically, it's a version of the ortofon VMS20 they did for phonosophie. i think it's a little bit old now, but i really can't afford another new one, it costs around 450 euros (more than what i paid for the entire turntable, actually!). but i like its sound so much that i don't want to buy another model (well, i tried and was disappointed). one advice : stay away from the rega cartridges !

concerning the preamp, i only know the first phonobox, which i used for a little time, and which is just fine, nothing great. version 2 may be nice, though.
but i have tried this : http://www.needledoctor.com/Creek-OBH-18-MM-Phono-Preamp?sc=2&category=401, and it sounded great ; i could advice this one without any hesitation. version 15 has the MC input, hence its price. but as far as you're concerned, there's no need for it.
now i use my previous harman-kardon amplifier (the creek preamp was a friends'), which has an integrated preamp that sounds as great, if not better, as the creek preamp, strangely.

[japanesebaby]

that creek box looks interesting. only just noticed that it's not available here locally so i'd have to order it from UK/overseas (which means custom hassles etc. extra costs). 
by the way, what harman-kardon amp were you talking about? just curious what model you were comparing the creek unit with.

[mahood]

even for such a small device, you have customs problems ? really stupid.
maybe you can try on ebay, with some patience (and this is the kind of machine you can buy used without any major trouble i think). and with the financial crisis, ebay seems to be very cheap at the moment 

i use this, a HK-630 :
http://www.audioreview.com/mfr/harman-kardon/integrated-amplifiers/hk-630/PRD_115818_2717crx.aspx
http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/hk630_e.html
this second guy doesn't think it's worth as a phono preamp, but i've been used to read so many comments like this on audiophile's sites, it doesn't bother me that much (and, well, if he ever compared to his 10000 £ preamp there's nothing i can do) ; my ears were here to tell me that it was x1000 times the phonobox, and equalled (the really nice sounding) creek preamp.

[japanesebaby]

thanks for the links.

even for such a small device, you have customs problems ? really stupid.
maybe you can try on ebay, with some patience (and this is the kind of machine you can buy used without any major trouble i think). and with the financial crisis, ebay seems to be very cheap at the moment 

it's not the size of a package but the value of it that causes a package being stuck in the customs. a package worth something like 200 euros will means at least 60-70 euro customs fees/taxes.
perhaps i'll keep an eye on ebay, but currently i don't see any ebay sellers from mainland europe offering this.

[mahood]

a package worth something like 200 euros will means at least 60-70 euro customs fees/taxes.

but not if it comes from inland europe, if i understand well (i mean, finland is not that far, so what the hell) ?
because here it is : http://www.phonophono.de/YCreek5.php3?Kennung=

[japanesebaby]

a package worth something like 200 euros will means at least 60-70 euro customs fees/taxes.

i don't think it's surprising. i bet it would be the same for you if you ordered something from the US to france, for instance: you'd buy the item tax free and then the customs would collect the tax according to the value of your purchase. only if you buy within EU you don't need to pay the tax at the customs (since it was already included in the price you paid when you made the purchase).
i think this is the same thing all over EU, not just around here.

but not if it comes from inland europe, if i understand well (i mean, finland is not that far, so what the hell) ?
because here it is : http://www.phonophono.de/YCreek5.php3?Kennung=

yes, of course within EU means tax free so the customs wouldn't bother you at all, however expensive the unit was.
so indeed, these links would be something i'd look for.

(but you know, i've made some price comparisons and in this case it looks like if i'd order this from the UK, the price would be around 190-200 euros + those appr. 70 euros tax. from mainland europe it's around 270-80 euros. so there's no difference in the price really. the prices in mainland europe a re already higher because they include the same tax that the customs would squeeze out of you, should you order overseas etc.).

[mahood]

i bet it would be the same for you if you ordered something from the US to france, for instance: you'd buy the item tax free and then the customs would collect the tax according to the value of your purchase. i think this is the same thing all over EU, not just around here.

yes, of course.
but i meant that, with small or not so expensive items (so to speak), the seller might indicate it's a gift on the package, which afaik prevents you to pay extra customs fees. even when ordering from the USA, i think.
whatever i bought from there, the "gift" option was always checked.
although i never ordered a car, a boat or weapons. so i wouldn't tell for sure.

[japanesebaby]

but i meant that, with small or not so expensive items (so to speak), the seller might indicate it's a gift on the package, which afaik prevents you to pay extra customs fees. even when ordering from the USA, i think.
whatever i bought from there, the "gift" option was always checked.
although i never ordered a car, a boat or weapons. so i wouldn't tell for sure.

yes i know what you mean. but official stores always tend to send with the official invoice/value visible on the package, and i have an experience that they don't often like it if they are asked not to include this and don't like being asked to check the "gift" option. i've asked this some US stores sometimes but they've always clearly told me that they simply must include the customs invoice with the value on the package and that the customs at this end are my problem, not something they want to help me with (this is also often mentioned in advance on many overseas stores' FAQ pages, so that people wouldn't even ask about it).
strange if they always did it (=checked the "gift" option) for you. but of course i don't know what sellers you are referring to.

so unless i purchased from an individual person selling his own personal unit, i don't think this trick easily works with overseas purchases.
in those cases (individual seller) it might work for a very small item but even though this amp isn't very big, the unit still weights about 3 kilograms so it's not exactly something very tiny and it might easily catch attention anyway. 

although i never ordered a car, a boat or weapons.

would be nice to try and order a car from ebay US. "how much shipping costs for this item??"

[japanesebaby]

but i have tried this : http://www.needledoctor.com/Creek-OBH-18-MM-Phono-Preamp?sc=2&category=401, and it sounded great

i found a german online store that had a quite decent price for this unit:
http://www.dienadel.de/cgi-bin/cosmoshop/lshop.cgi?action=showdetail&wkid=15413&ls=d&nc=1227899528-15730&rubnum=&artnum=29114&file=4&gesamt_zeilen=0Tsuche--creek

i just received my unit yesterday and i've just been setting it up - and i think i'm quite pleased indeed.   

blows away my old amp for sure!  :eek:

so forget the USB!: i really like it that i can plug my edirol directly to the creek amp and i get 48/24 transfers of my vinyls! 

thanks a lot for this tip mahood