h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes; some of the rare 78s, are worth money, but the mass mass produced ones, which sold thousands and thousands of copies at the time; which basically includes anything classical on a 78, (well not everything of course), are worthless ; William had a good look through it all and caught most of the ones worth saving; then a friend of his, who's a vinyl boff, and basically makes a living going to 'record fares' etc, looked through too... there was masses of 33s, and 45 RPM records too, which they've been through (and yes, I put in my requests for anything of worthless value, but that would be non-worthless for my rag-a muffin collection of assorted acletic vinyl)

Paul; as regards using your turntable, with whatever this amp/music thing is (bos?) I don't know the bos system, you've got; it may be as easy as a cable, to connect it up; more likely you'd need a phono stage preamp; to take the low level signal, from teh turntable, up to a line level input, that the amp in your device could then handle properly.... P phono stages come in all prices and flavours.... I've seen some less than £40, and they certainly go way way up from their to the insane heights of madness.... I went for something near the lower end; I think from memory it was a bit over £100, but less than £200, this was a handmade unit, and oughta last me a lifetime But, as I said earlier, some of the older hiFi amps, in particular, even just* going back to the 80s, often had really rather decent phono stage preamps built in (the one in my bargin £37 EBay purchased Pioneer amp, is so* so* nearly as good as the seperate, handbuilt one I bought... actually that old pioneer amp is really very decent.... I think it dates to early 1980s, and all I had to do to it, was clean up the pots and knobs with some switch fluid, and its performed fine since err... even if its currently residing in my pile of 'spare HiFi equipment, as I'm using the external phono stage preamp, plugged into the more recent expensive Arcam power amp, that a friend bought, cheap, second hand, and (as hes allowed to play with electronics), fixed up and made good before he flogged it to me...) I need a house with more rooms in it.... so I can put more of the HiFi gear to use seriously consider getting rid of some of the amps and other HiFi stuff I have, as there's just going to be too much of it... I might even give some of it away, to any friendly HooTooians who desperatly want some... if they can collect or otterwise arrange to take the stuff off me hmmm.... anyone want a few hundred meters of assorted lengths of speaker cabeling? I'm sure I've boxes of the stuff, somewhere in the back of the loft

It's likely that I will be too lazy to get to this any time soon.

Oh... that I can well believe; I didn't use my turntable for about five years..... Because it had a seemingly perminant pile of clothes on it Glad now I made the effort though (and this even whilst it was plugged into the HiFi, and ready for use, etc.... just the top surface was perminantly used as a storage area )

As you don't already have a hi-fi system and if buying both a record player and a hifi to plug it into stretches your budget too far, you could just buy a turntable 2nd hand (dual, pro-ject for well under £100 as suggested above), and a phono amp (£30ish) and plug it into the audio-in on your PC.

Then all you need is some software (some is free; I use polderbits ~ £30) to convert the analogue sound to MP3 if you want to save it digitally rather than just listen.
With this set-up, you could then in the future add a separate amp and speakers to up the sound quality significantly.

This all assumes you currently have some method of hearing music from your pc.

I would also avoid the all-in-on USB turntable thingies you can get from Maplins and the like. There's a world of difference (sound and build quality) if you up your budget from the £60ish these usb things cost to around £100 (2nd hand) to get into the world of real HiFI. This is not hi-fi snobbery or suggesting you must spend £25,000. Like many things the law of diminishing returns flourishes in the world of audio reproduction. There are only a few £tenners difference between cheap mass-produced audio toys and proper hi-fi, that's why wee hifi snobs keep banging on about how worth it, it is to stretch your budget or save a bit longer to buy the latter.

I discovered a local audio shop when I was out running last night. It was dark inside but I could definitely make out turntables. Looking forward to going back when it's open some time!

Buy? No, I hope not...

A quick look around (not yet a search) came up with, in the laundry cupboard, a pile of about 20cm/6" of LPs (stored flat) and a Technics SL150 turntable. I seem to remember that it was quite a good setup in the day... that would be upwards of 5 years ago, before moving to NZ. (haven't found their speakers yet).

And then, and then... I found that No1 Son left behind a set of speakers: front, back, middle and woofer along with some kind of player (but haven't found any CDs yet). They look fairly recent & I'm looking forward to trying 'em all out in my new little wooden hut in a few month's time.

...
I've heard that it is not a good thing to store LPs flat - any comments?

oops, forgot to say that Technics now make a SL 1200 MkII deck & I'd suggest you could do a lot worse than one of those...

Well convention says you store them vertically and certainly it's easier to access them this way (as with CD's or any flat objects really), but can't really think off the top of my head of any reason not to store them flat if you wanted to.. Oh wait, the advice probably refers to the potential for warp damage as you lift the pile to access a record underneath others.. so not so much an issue with storage, but safe access.

Winnoch2, that makes sense.

It'll be a few months yet before I move. When I do, it'll be a case of "Where do I put this? It fitted into my scale drawing but..."

Then, after a 'brief' settling-in period it'll be the HiFi (I'm looking forward to it as a change from TV) and figuring out where to put the speakers.
Not only place them but how, without nails/screws in the wood walls (removable sticky strips maybe).

There's a wealth of info on the web for speaker placement - rather too much perhaps - and I'm working my way through the 'better' ones (i.e. those with good drawings.


Oh deary me, I've derailed the convo

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You could do worse than a (more than 10 year old) Technics deck with SME arm & head.