I was reading the ramblings on a Facebook the other day. I was on one of the many "record playing geeks" pages. It bothered me to see a newbie get trolled. We need to be more kind and loving when it comes to our knowledge and sharing of said knowledge to the rookies. I love our on line community. I especially love the friends on the Twitter or X or whatever... I'm not too down with "Threads" yet. Facebook has some good pages for us.
I get appalled at some of our indignant responses to questions on the "Vinyl" Pages on Facebook. The question that came up yesterday was what is the difference between a turn table and a record player? It seems like a dumb question to some. To me it's a great question.
Let's do a little peekaloo into this. What is the difference?
A record player is a self-sustaining machine to play records. It is powered and has it's own speakers typically. A turntable is a component. It also plays records but makes no sound. It has needs. A pre-amped speaker, or a receiver which will share it's fancy buttons and channels to make the magic happen. Very often this is what we had in the day. Onkyo, Kenwood, Marantz and Pioneer were the most popular and those sweet bastards still hold up today.
Where's your rack Jim? I gave my Onkyo rack to my niece. She bought a house and she started asking questions about my record collection. So, Carly has it now. She is enthusiastic and paying it forward felt right. I gave her a couple of records too. That's what it's about.
I bought Edifier speakers for me and my daughter Rae. She sent me a pic of her set up...it's just like mine. (So, proud) I love this set up. I have an Audio Technica LP-3 turntable. It hooks directly into my Edifier speakers. It's quite the minimalist set up. It sounds great and by golly that is what it's all about.
I had a record player and I hated it. I love this turntable. I went into Fort Walton Vintage record store a couple of years ago and went all of the turntables that Tim, the owner, had. The selling point to me was the automatic function. I do leave the room. This turntable offers me that freedom. If the arm doesn't return the stylus back home than your stylus can rub around the label for hours, days or even weeks. This could be problematic. I love listening and watching my licorice pizza spin around and make cool sounds. I don't always stay to the end though and that's why that feature is a must have for me.
I will get a component system again. But I do believe it will be separate from what I already run. I want to express how much I dig the Edifier book shelf speakers and their sound quality. Comes with a remote and just pairs perfectly with my Audio Technica. There are knobs on the champion that control volume, treble and bass. So, yes...minimal system with optimum performance. The total for this came in at $340. Thanks Tim!! The same turntable now goes for 300 a couple of years later.
To conclude, remember to be nice to our new fresh record collecting enthusiast. They may be your discogs customer. We all started somewhere. So help a brother or sister out. That is all.
