Archive for the ‘analogue’ Category

New Turntable- The (semi?) Portable Love

Wednesday, January 25th, 2017

Looks like this design might actually make it to production (unlike other vapourware such as the Linos). A Kickstarter campaign is promised soon and those interested can sign up for a notification email.

Interesting concept and looking forward to reading more about its details and some reviews.

Find out more at Coming Soon Tech

Posted in All things vinyl, analogue, Related Devices, video | No Comments »


Ahhhh Freak Out!

Tuesday, January 24th, 2017

Check out this amazing turntable related art freakout!

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Gramovox Floating Record Player

Tuesday, September 29th, 2015

Can’t find a PS-F5/9? This looks to be a good alternatve at a reasonable price. After a successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, it is now available for general purchase through their website (link below). Way better than some of the budget vinyl wreckers that are on the market. Did they take the vertical inspiration from the Sonys? Seems I’m not the only one who made the connection.

(more…)

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WARNING- Read this if you collect records

Friday, February 20th, 2015

I recently saw a link to this article about PVC sleeves and how they might be affecting the records within:

Can PVC record sleeves damage vinyl

Comparison of good vs damaged records

Reading through pretty much the whole thread has just convinced me to throw away many hundreds of PVC sleeves that I’ve had my most prized/expensive records stored in.

Searching around, this knowledge has been around for a while, but none of the people I’ve spoken to who collect records were aware of the issue, so it seemed sensible to write this post to help spread the word.

If you can’t be bothered with reading through the whole thing, I’ll summarise: it’s mainly the outer sleeves that are the issue- the thick, fairly rigid ones, normally textured around the edge. Yep- the very things that we’ve bought to protect our records could be irreversibly damaging them. The consensus seems to be that something (plasticisers, oils?) is leeching out of the PVC, transferring through the cardboard & inner sleeves (even plastic inner sleeves in some cases) over time and affecting the vinyl of the record itself. This is referred to by some as “off-gassing” or “out-gassing”. Some people say that plastic inner sleeves are a potential problem too. Acid free paper inner sleeves are safest from a chemical perspective. Other people avoid paper like the plague due to the the dust it transfers to the record. It seems the whole subject of record preservation is a minefield.

Sure, it’s inconclusive and seems to be more likely in hotter/more humid climates and seems to depend on the manufacturer of the record, but there’s around 10 people from around the world in the thread that I linked to above that have lost lots of records from having them stored in PVC sleeves. I decided the safest bet is to ditch all of mine. Just not worth the risk.

Thin polythene sleeves like they often have in record shops are fine. Mylar (trade name for polyester) are the best, but expensive and hard to find. According to people in that thread who sound like they know what they’re talking about, the most inert and cost effective are polypropylene. I’ve just bought 100 of these to try and I prefer them to the polythene sleeves as they are slightly thicker, so don’t tend to slide off so easily when putting records back into place on the shelf. I’ll be getting more.

Sadly, the PVC sleeves are still widely available. I used to prefer them as they offer more protection to physical damage. Let’s help spread the word about these potential vinyl killers. Please pass this on this to anyone you know who collects records. Too much vinyl has been lost already.

Further reading

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Posted in All things vinyl, analogue | 4 Comments »


Vinyl Sales in UK Highest for 15 Years

Monday, January 13th, 2014

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Sales of vinyl LPs reached a 15 year high in 2013 thanks to Record Store Day, and new albums from the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Daft Punk and David Bowie.

Read the full article on 2013 in vinyl on the Official Chart’s news page:

http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-10-biggest-selling-vinyl-albums-of-2013-2721/

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Vinyl to Vinyl in 50 Years

Saturday, September 21st, 2013

Recently spotted this doing the rounds – some great info here. Having trouble finding the source of this, but well worth a post.

vinyl-50-years

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Hack an old Boombox to give line in

Saturday, September 21st, 2013

The execution’s a bit sloppy and as some commenters have pointed out, he could probably have just used the DIN socket, but the concept’s good:

Hacking a line-in socket into an 80s radio and cassette player

As well as allowing connection of phones and other media players, it will allow playback of the PS-F5/9 through the boombox speakers.  A relatively inexpensive way of getting good quality sound (good quality boomboxes can be had for some very reasonable prices on eBay) with the bonus of keeping your kit in the right decade 😉

Posted in Accessories, analogue, ebay, Retro, Weird & Wonderful | No Comments »


TNT Triple T Speaker Cables

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

Over 10 years ago, a friend of mine (the original Og) gave me a pair of splendid home made speaker cables that he’d made from CAT5 network cable that was being thrown away at his work. They sat waiting to be used until about 2 years ago when I purchased a pair of Heco Victa 201s for a steal on a local pick up only eBay auction.

triplet_3

These speaker cables tick all of my boxes- they look good, are reusing old tech which would have probably ended up in landfill, and best of all they sound great.

If you’re after some inexpensive speaker cable, see if you can locate some used network cable and plait yourself some audio clarity. Somewhere like Freecycle (or its new guise in your location – mine’s called Greencycle which is part of the Freegle network: the best bet in the UK) would be a good place to ask, or maybe try calling a local networking company to see if they’ve ripped out any old cable lately.

 

Check the instructions and further info here.

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Super Midget

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Not seen one of these before. I like the design, but the build quality looks pretty crumby.

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Cuttin’ Vinyl

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

This has been doing the internet rounds lately.

(Read about the process of making this on Ishac’s site)

 

Then I saw a link to this:

Which predates the first by a long, long time!

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