Vinyl record players

Pro-ject makes good turntables.

I have a Technics turntable from the early 80s which I would recommend. So yeah I recommend to get a used Technics, preferably a direct drive but doesn't have to be a top of the range DJ one for just listening. There are probably other good makes out there from the 70s or 80s too. Providing it has a new stylus and everything works it'll be better than buying a new turntable in my opinion. You'll likely need to buy an amp separately if you buy something like a Technics.

I think most of today’s new turntables are very cheaply made and aren't really for an audiophile experience, unless you wish to pay a small fortune. I have a newish one by Steepletone and my parents have one by Sony from the 90s, the old Technics blows them both away.



The world is your lobster.

"I've not been satisfied with the way music sounds on any CD player I've listened to in the last few years or on my laptop - it has this really harsh, kind of metallic sound that's unbearable at a high volume..."

That harsh metallic sound is amplifier clipping. Either turn down the volume, or buy a more powerful amplifier.

I'm not saying that I doubt you, but your stated experience sounds suspiciously like hipster marketing designed to part fools from their money. Unless you have tested and eliminated each and every other part of your music playing system, I don't see how you arrived at the conclusion that "CDs sound harsh" all by your self. Mine sound very nice. And back before there was mass market digital audio, I would have made a deal with the Devil to get my hands on the quality of sound reproduction that a CD gives today. If I want to relive my LP days, I can just unhook the tweeters in my speakers and put cotton in my ears.

But if you must...try a Rega turntable. They are well engineered and a great value. Your first upgrade should be to replace the MM cartridge with a MC one that should cost about twice what you paid for the turntable itself. You'll need a good phono preamp if your existing stereo lacks one. (Even if yours does, buying a separate one is a worthwhile upgrade.) ART is a brand I know that I respect and makes a few models. $100 should get you a good no-nonsense model new. That's about the only component that can be had for cheap.

After you've spent a few grand on a new record playing system, and a few grand more on records to play on it, if you're very lucky all that time and money will have at least taught you how to set up a good music playing system regardless of input medium.

Whenever I talk about this, people always respond with ' it's something in your system that's wrong ' but I'm really just talking about portable CD players rather than a more complicated music system setup with different parts - I don't really understand what anyone means when they talk about amps or receivers, call me a philistine! I've never really been able to afford anything more than the kind of relatively inexpensive portable CD players you'd get in the high street - I know the response to that might be ' you get what you pay for ' but for years those kinds of CD players that I got from places like that sounded great, including listening at high volume - the strange thing is, from about the 2000s any CD player I've tried has had the problems I describe, that may be ' clipping '. I also seem to hear this on anything else, eg on my computer on websites, songs from Amazon/ITunes - to some extent, it all seems to suffer from this kind of harsh ' clipping ' effect but I swear I NEVER heard this before around 2000 - I'm sure even cassettes sounded better than music on anything I use now . I know this must sound strange, but I can't believe I'm just imagining this

So you say CDs sound great to you - Could you possibly tell me what CD player you use? I take it you have a setup with different parts , or have you just got an allinone CD player? The thing is I really can't afford anything that expensive so I wouldn't be able to get some setup with different parts like a separate amp or whatever.

A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free

Well I won't say "I told you so" but the fact is that those boom box-style CD players are of inferior quality. I can't explain why there would be a sudden drop in quality c. 2000, but because the Compact Disc is a "mature" product with low profit margins for those who make and sell them, it only follows that there will be more and more cost-cutting measures by the manufacturers.

Now that I know what kind of gear that you're using, I suspect that as well as clipping distortion, that the tiny loudspeakers in those boxes also make a great deal of distortion. And because harmonic distortion makes higher frequencies, and the speakers can't reproduce the lows, that is what's causing that harsh sound.

What CD player do I use? I don't use one any more. I rip all of my music CDs to files that I keep on a computer. I use a software media player, usually VLC, to play the music files. The computer has a digital Toslink output that I use to get the music out of the computer, and send to a stand-alone DAC, which in turn feeds a power amplifier that powers my large and costly loudspeakers. I can afford the expense, and excellent sound quality is a high priority for me.

I see that you don't have the same budget as I do. I've been there most of my life too. Switching to vinyl is costly, so there's another reason to keep your CD collection.

If you lived close enough to me, I'd be able to give you some of my spare equipment and help you set it up to best effect. I love music, and am all too happy to share the love when I can. I'm guessing by your use of "high street" that you're in the UK though.

Here's a setup that you might consider:

- An inexpensive CD player. The portable kind that's used with earphones. Look for the ones with skip protection. The skip protection feature has the added benefit of jitter reduction. Look for models with "line out" and/or a Toslink digital output.

- A pair of powered speakers. The Edirol / Roland MA-15D are no longer made, but have lots of features that make them ideal for a minimalist setup: line and digital inputs, a subwoofer output, front panel volume and tone controls and even a headphone jack. They don't have much power though, so if you like to play loud, you should look for more powerful models. Look for "active near field monitors" which are prosumer grade and usually the best value.

- A cable to connect the CD player to the powered speakers.

If you shop carefully and buy gently used, you can have a cracking little system for less than £80. I'll be happy to assist you in your search if you like.

Actually I meant the smaller portable CD players rather than the boombox style ones. I had ones by Sony and Panasonic in the 90s that sounded great but the similar modern ones by those same brands don't sound anywhere near as good

I considered your first point about costcuting by manufacturers . Around the time I noticed this drop in quality, DVD Audio and Super Audio CD were being introduced and the conspiracy theorist in me wondered if the makers were deliberately somehow making their CD players sound crappy to force people to buy new technology. I've wondered that again since IPods came in but that was several years later

Although I've tried using modern portable CD players, eventually I gave up and just use my computer and IPod Touch to listen to music on - there's a site where loads of albums are there to hear for free that I use a lot, also YouTube - again, the sound's not great.

It's strange, but I don't seem to enjoy music like I used to years ago as I'm constantly aware of the defects in the sound - also a weird thing is when I've tried buying used CD players on EBay from the 90s that are the same as I had back then they sounded bad too - I thought maybe this was due to their age, like the the sound quality kind of goes down after years of use though?

I like to listen through headphones rather than speakers and yes, I'm in the UK - do you get better sound through speakers? You just listen through speakers rather than via headphones?

I 've also looked at Marantz CD players which get rave reviews but as I said, I can't afford that much and would have to save up for one and would have to get it on faith that it would sound good as I'd only be able to buy it online via Amazon or somewhere - have you tried this brand?

Getting a vinyl record player was kind of a last resort as everything I've tried has these kind of sound problems and I assumed vinyl doesn't suffer from this clipping effect as that affects digital forms of music?

A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free

Where to start... Maybe I should define "clipping" first; I fear you might misunderstand what I'm saying about that. The clipping that I'm talking about is when someone turns up the volume beyond the capacity of the amplifier's power supply. The input waveform is nice and curvy and sinuous, but when the amplifier runs out of volts that waveform gets its top "clipped" off, distorting it and generating unpleasant harsh noises as a result. Clipping is always something that amplifiers do, not CDs or vinyl records.

When you get into the digital domain, it's the other way around--you want a digital waveform to be nice and square so that every last bit can be read properly. So there are clipper circuits that are desirable, but those I'm not talking about.

No matter how your music is stored, when it gets to the place where it moves a speaker cone, you want the waveform to be as close to identical to the original as possible. There are many exceptions to this rule, but for the sake of simplicity I'm going to ignore them.

If you've ever looked at a vinyl record under a microscope, you'll see the audio waveform in the grooves--that's what "analogue" means, that the music is stored and transported as something that's analogous to the vibrations in the air that was recorded. The analogue recording process is very careful to preserve that waveform at any cost. Unfortunately the end user doesn't have the same budget for electronics gear that the producers of the music have, and that is where most things go awry.

CD digital audio is a different way of storing music that turns the waveform into a bunch of numbers. Your CD player reads those numbers and restores them to the original waveform. In the interest of brevity I'll simply say "trust me, it really works". You're not likely to get clipping distortion anywhere near the CD or the CD player, presuming that it's functioning properly of course.

OTOH I see that you've been buying used equipment that can be fairly old. In that case you may be buying electronics that have bad capacitors. While most solid state parts rarely fail, capacitors are the weak link, and its possible that you've been buying gear that has already begun to fail. After 10-15 years things get dicey. That's why I suggested that you buy a new portable CD player as these cost very little new. If you buy this one critical component new, you have some assurance that it will not be the weak link in the chain. Since there are mechanical bits inside, that's one more thing that can wear out and go bad with age.

You can use your computer to play music! Just don't count on the analogue output jacks to give good fidelity because the analogue circuits inside the computer tend to pick up junk from the digital circuits. You can try using it to drive powered speakers or headphones; perhaps it will be OK. If not, a USB DAC will move the analogue part outside the computer, and give you improved circuits as well. The "you get what you pay for" maxim does apply if you're buying budget parts. You may need to try a couple different brands and models before you find one that sounds good enough to keep, so make sure that you can return before you buy!

If you prefer headphones, that's great! Especially for your budget. I use both loudspeakers and headphones. In my living room I use speakers with my TV and the computer that I play music from. In my bedroom I have another computer, an old Lucid DAC and power amp (Crown "Amcron" D-75) that drives Audio-Technica ATH-M50. If you like to listen to loud music and strong bass, these will do it! When I travel I use cheap Koss earbuds (~US$15) that sound pretty good. Another advantage to earbuds is that they need less power than full size headphones.

This is probably a good time to note that warped voice coils in headphones or loudspeakers can also make distortion that can sound a lot like amplifier clipping. If you get a strident, scratchy sound no matter what level, you should borrow another set of headphones that you know sound right, just to see if yours are the problem. Troubleshooting means checking every link in the chain, and eliminating all suspects one by one.

You make a good point about manufacturers making their CD gear sound worse to boost sales of new gear. However I can't imagine it being a total conspiracy. you may need to shop around, read reviews and even buy and return before you find the best unit. You'll not be popular with the shopkeeper, but the only "sure thing" alternative is to spend lots of money, so...

How is the sound of your Ipod Touch? I have a COWON X5 that I bought in part because it has a good headphone amp.

I've also tried buying new portable CD players and they sound pretty bad too, at least listening through headphones - I've also tried different headphones, trying ones that have got good reviews on sites like Amazon . To be honest, the new CD players I've bought have sounded worst of all! In fact, they were unlistenable at anything above a moderate volume - I couldn't get my head round this, as even a fairly expensive £100 portable CD player I bought new several years ago sounded like this - like I said, switching headphones made no difference either - I guess ' clipping ' isn't what I'm hearing then?

I came across articles about the loudness wars recently and thought I'd found an answer to current CD players sounded bad - unfortunately, everything seems to suggest it's just in the way individual records are made that causes this effect, rather than the actual players. I assume you're familiar with this as you know a lot about music?

It's kind of hard to describe to anyone the difference between the sound I hear now on anything I use and how it sounded on CD players I had years ago other than saying it sounds ' bad ' rather than ' good '. There's these kind of harsh effects that make letters sound distorted, like ' s ' sounding like ' sh ' or ' h ' sounding like a kind of ' hkkk 'sound and it just becomes uncomfortable to listen at a high volume.

My IPod Touch sounds... OK, I suppose. It's odd, some things I use to play music do sound better than others, but there always seems to be the kind of harshness and effects I just mentioned to some extent

It's strange but I just haven't enjoyed music in the last few years as much as I did years ago - I don't listen to albums that I loved and listened to constantly years ago, or if I do have to switch them off, whether it's ones I still have on CD and listen to on a CD player, playing the same albums on YouTube, on MP3 sites - all I can think is how bad it sounds and how harsh the music is - I can't just relax and lose myself in the music like I used to - I know this must sound insane

A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free