"What a refreshingly honest blog about listening to music through hi-fi. So happy to see views based upon the enjoyment of music rather than so-called sound 'quality'." - Peter Comeau, Director of Acoustic Design at Mission / Wharfedale

Thursday 24 November 2011

The King Is Dead...

.. long live the king (kind of).

No more Linn LP12 means no more playing vinyl discs.  So on sorting them out and valuing them, I really found myself not wanting to part with about 20 of them.  What's the point?  Well its mainly sentimental - there are some that are just too good to part with, in terms of their quality such as the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs Studio Masters and there is the Sniff n the Tears collection that took some putting together then there are a few that were gifts and therefore have some meaning for me.

So a few weeks of hunting on ebay and missing a few near bargains and missing lots of nowhere near bargains I've ended up with a "new" turntable.  Its a late 80s / early 90s simple deck from Thorens - a TD280 MkII.  Belt drive, lightish alloy platter, two speed via an arm that lifts the belt up and down the pulleys, a lightweight very plastic looking arm and three bouncy feet for isolation.  I put on a new belt (£7.50), and a Goldring Elektra cartridge (it came with an Audio Technica of some sort of unknown origin and condition) and all for the princely sum of £24.  The photos on ebay showed the deck as being very dusty, but as can be seen below, its cleaned up remarkably well and plays tunes nicely.

Result.