Record Players and Vinyl Music...

Posted by cowpuncher
No working record player at the moment (that will happen this winter), but I do have a bunch of old vinyl that was my Dad's Buddy Holly, Simon and Garfunkel, etc.
As another poster observed though, if you really want to be in tonal heaven... you need a tube amp. If you're handy with a soldering iron and know how to keep from shocking your testicles off when playing with high voltage, I can direct you toward some simple project plans... and probably help you troubleshoot your way through any problems that arise.
Also, if you are handy with tools: Electrostatic loudspeakers - http://jazzman-esl-page.blogspot.com/ The most low distortion drivers yet devised.
If a full set of ESL's seems like too big a project, and a full sized tube amp seems too expensive or intimidating... but you aren't afraid to have 1000V or so a mere centimeter from your ear, you can make electrostatic headphones as well: http://www.esldiy.com/index.php?topic=14.0

I'm going to be messing with all of that this winter myself. In fact, I just ordered some 6 micron Mylar (40 meters of i x 24" on a roll), and found a source for thin perforated sheet aluminum that should make an excellent stator, for that purpose. I'm going to start small making a set of ESL headphones, and maybe a triode or ultra-linear pentode mini tube amp to drive it, figuring I'll make my big screwups with smaller size, expense, and voltages.
once that's successful, I'll be making a bookshelf system with small ESL panels around 12" x 18" or so. If I can manage that without electrocuting myself, some big ones with a hybrid woofer transmission line cabinet like those at Jazzman's site, to pair with my Harmon Kardon tuner.
Any of you guys who ever want to DIY some stuff that I could help you with, I'd be happy to. Building my own hi fi speakers has always been a goal of mine, and there's nothing better than ESL's for pristine, transparent mids and highs.

Posted by cowpuncher
btw, for those interested in some of the nerdiness behind audio and our perception of it:
Vacuum tubes still reign supreme for audio because to this very day they are the most linear amplification device ever made. This means for a given input, they produce an output in direct linear proportion to that input, and they do this more precisely than any solid state device (transistors), provided they are biased properly and used within the limits of the linear portion of their transfer curves.
Also, the human ear actually wants to hear just a little bit of distortion. 0.2% to 0.1% is about right, and will be perceived by the human ear as warmth. More than that becomes increasingly objectionable, and less than that sounds sterile and cold.
Also, there are different kinds of distortion. Vacuum tubes tend to distort with even order harmonics, the 2nd harmonic mainly. Solid state devices tend to distort with 3rd harmonic distortion. 2nd harmonic distortion is perceived as warmth, 3rd harmonic distortion is perceived as harshness. THis is another reason why tube amps tend to sound better to people.
Both solid state and vacuum tube amps can sound amazingly good, or very awful, depending on design. However, when you get into the big $ $ $ $ Audiophile snooty stuff, expect to see a lot of vacuum tubes. I've heard plenty of solid state amps that sounded amazing too though, and would please anybody's ears.
I have also heard that a very high end record player, properly set up, with vinyl properly cared for, can give superior fidelity to even CD, but I've never had the chance to hear a system like that myself. A college prof who was a hifi audio nut and an industry leading RF Engineer had a system like that though, and swore by it.