Hello everyone, I am a new member
Hi everyone,
I have decided to join the forum after reading some posts for a while after researching a purchase of a Technics SL1200 MkII.
I have been listening to music from the 1970s when we had a radio in our living room and I would listen to radio 1 before (primary) school and then as I grew older top of the pops in the 1980s in my teens. It wasn't until I was 16 that I really got into music and a band which was ULTRAVOX in 1983. This was followed by Big Country, Bryan Adams, and then Garry Moore when I was learning to pay electric lead guitar which followed into heavy rock, glam rock, melodic rock and AOR. I had a music centre that my parents bought me and I used to record my albums the first time I played them and listen to the tape for the car. As you can imagine the music centre sounded pretty awful on vinyl replay.
When I started work in my second full time job as an engineer at 21 I would be in the staff room reading lots of What HiFi mags which was all turntable based before CD appeared. Eventually I was able to buy my first HiFi system at Seven Oaks Hifi in Seven Oaks. By then CD was here and I went armed with my What HiFi magazine looking to buy the award winners for that year. I was intent on buying a Philips CD850 which I think was the first bitstream player, a Mission Cyrus One amp and Cyrus 781SE Speakers. I ended up with a Marantz CD50SE (TD1541 16bit DAC) , Mission Cyrus Two amp (later bought a PSX second hand), and Musical Fidelity MC2 Rosewood Speakers on Partington Dreadnought stands, which along with the supra cable set me back nearly £1000 on my credit card which I paid off over 4 months. The HiFi journey had begun. To be honest though it was never great and a real disappointment. The music never sounded as good as the magazines used to write about, it was always fatiguing, and variable quality of recordings on CD. There was not even a thought of playing vinyl because of y music centre days.
After many so called upgrades over the years, including various amps, speakers, CD players, DACs, cables interconnect - you know how it goes, following the main magazines advice I pretty much gave up. The Vinyl Knob was my downfall and I ended up spending quite a bit and amassing a collection of retro HiFi on eBay happened and suddenly there was all this access to vintage HiFi.
I am glad to say that the HiFi internet forums helped me to see just how much the HiFi magazines were a vehicle to promote and sell HiFi and that many of the accessories which I had bought over the years were really snake oil.
I finally started exploring vinyl after walking into a charity shop and finding so much vinyl, my thinking was I could buy an LP for hardly anything and if I didn’t like it I could just give it back as a donation. This meant I needed a TT so I started reading various forums and eventually ended up with a Thorens TD160B which I replinthed and added a Rega RB251 with end stub upgrade. I also purchased a Yamaha YP800 DD TT which I love and I have two Lenco projects that have been on a slow go for over 5 years as I had a stroke 4 ½ years ago.
I am in the process of setting up my listening room again and have sold a lot of my collection, although there is still more to go. I have just bought a Technics SL1200 MK2 as a simple way to start listening to vinyl again and had it fully serviced and a new arm installed. I’m looking forward finally listening to music seriously again soon later this year when my energy allows me to.
Regarding the user name Eldavanyar it’s taken from the Silmarillion, which is the prequel to Lord of the Rings. The Eldar were the first born Elves and the Vanyar are the fairest and most noble of the High Elves. I love J R Tolkien’s writing and the idea of the firstborn elves who were almost immortal and had travelled to the undying lands held a lot for me in my teenage years or teenage angst as I was trying to work out what my life and place in the world was all about, and the later search for the divine. Music is one way that helps connect us as we travel on that journey…..
So looking forward to taking part in The Art of Sound forum now and again when time and energy allows
It’s about the music
70s Retro Yamaha YP800TT, CA1000Mk2, CT1010