STEREO AMPLIFIERS with phono preamps:
        Marantz, Yamaha

TONEARMS: Ortofon, Rega

TURNTABLES with built-in phono preamp: Audio-Technica, Denon, Pro-Ject

4,000+ LPs: Rock, Jazz, Classical, Opera, Big Band, Country & Folk. Local sales only.


VINTAGE TURNTABLES

LOCAL SALES ONLY. WE DON'T SELL TURNTABLE PARTS.

All of our vintage equipment we buy locally. None are from e-bay or any on-line sites. Buying locally, we can see & listen to equipment before buying. We only buy the best; most equipment does not meet our high standards. Often people bring in a turntable for us to buy & say,"Oh, it just needs a needle." Before even plugging it in, it is apparent that that it needs five or ten more parts. Many old turntables that are sold on-line, in estate sales, etc., are like a 40 year old car that has never had any maintenance & lost many essential parts.

People have shown us turntables that they "just had to buy on-line, since they were such a good deal". Often these turntables don't run, since almost a thousand dollars of parts were missing. The cost of parts and install labor can be far more than the cost of a better, brand new turntable. Some small missing parts can be far harder to find & more expensive than the semi-complete turntable. On most older turntables, a good dust cover, headshell & cartridge will cost more than the rest of the turntable. Turntables have seven or more bearings in the tonearm, platter & motor. Some older automatics have over 1,000 parts.

Occasionally someone claims that their old turntable is perfect because it hasn't been used for 30 years or is "new in the box." These can have even more problems. When oil or grease sits for decades, it turns into tar. The motor can be burnt out if someone tried to play it. On our vintage turntables, we replace any parts necessary. We make sure that every function works properly, the speed is constant & the music sounds right.

Some companies exploit the interest in vintage turntables with low quality plastic copies of old turntables. A European magazine rated one as having the worst sound quality of the hundreds they've ever tested. Even more troubling is that a record will be destroyed after just one playing. With most new or older turntables, the needle is a diamond with only one to two grams of force on the record grooves. Some new "vintage-look" turntables have up to 12 grams force. Even worse, there is no way to adjust this weight and the plastic needle needs replacing every 30 hours. Diamond needles can last one or two thousand hours. It makes little sense to destroy valuable new or old records.

When we test an older turntable, we make sure that the tonearm has little or no loose play. Some new turntables sold on the internet have worse tonearm bearings than most 60 year old models. Just because something looks cute in a picture on the internet or in a department store, does not mean that it sounds good, treats records well or lasts very long. Our 40, 50 or 60 year old turntables have longer warranties than some new "vintage-look" turntables.

WHY LPs ARE SO POPULAR

CD sales have steadily dropped as turntable sales have strongly increased. People of all ages and backgrounds buy turntables. Some are in their teens or twenties buying their first sound system. Some are much older and have had records and turntables for many years.

1] LPs SOUND BETTER
An LP sounds much better than digital recordings. Neil Young and many other musicians greatly prefer the sound of an LP over a CD. A musician who has made many analog and digital recordings said that analog sounds better for strings, voices and piano.

"The most dramatic revelations [of turntables' superior sound are] 3 areas.
DYNAMICS much closer to real instruments.
STAGING LP dimensionality highlights a sense of space dramatically better. It's not even close.
INSTRUMENT TONE The LP sounded much more genuine. SOUND & VISION 

"The same music on a good condition LP sounds better than a CD and far better than MP3 or i-Pod. An LP has better imaging, soundstage and a warmer, more natural sound. A violin or piano sounds more like the real instrument, instead of an electric violin or piano." TIME

"I wanted to see if a table could truly outperform CD players costing many times more - a statement I'd often heard. There was never a question of telling the CD/SACD from the LP; the record being fuller, more organic & 3 dimensional. Individual instruments embodied more reality & distinguished themselves more clearly. Trumpets & other brass had all the "blare," but none of the "glare" I was used to hearing. A more defined & solid sound stage emerged time after time, due to the LP's higher information density. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of "clicks" or "pops" & the very quiet background." HOME ENTERTAINMENT

"Between LP and CD, there's no comparison! The LP breathes life into the sound, a far-from-subtle difference. Vinyl communicates the music's emotional pull better than any digital format.

You enjoy the music more on LP. One of the great Audiophile Truths: The best way to enjoy digital is never listen to analog. If you want to know why vinyl is still going strong nearly three decades after the introduction of the CD, listen to a great turntable." HOME ENTERTAINMENT


"You'll be in for a shock when you listen to a 1st class turntable. You'll hear oodles of texture, body and harmonics that CDs never fully convey. The best analog is more transparent, its dynamics livelier and more life-like." STEREOPHILE

"The vinyl record is the only widely available, truly high definition home format, sonically and emotionally superior. CD's 20k bandwidth limitations, 44khz sample rate and 16 bit word length is not enough to satisfactorily resolve the complexity, delicacy and emotion alive in the notes." HOME ENTERTAINMENT  

     WALL STREET JOURNAL 
   "When the CD was introduced, it was called "perfect sound forever." The problem was that CDs sounded thin, harsh and unpleasant. Records are a pretty good way to store info. Sound is inherently analog; converting sound to record grooves doesn't involve the information loss as their conversion to digital. With the turntable, there's hardly any background noise; sound is 3-dimensional, detailed and has a liveness that CDs or iPods cannot begin to match."
   "MP3 is a digital compression technology that throws away lots of information to reduce file size. It's quantity over quality. Listening to an iPod through a high-end audio system is painful and a big step backward from CDs." 

"In 2021 & 2022 far more records were sold in the U.S. than CDs. For years, far more turntables have been sold than CDs and DVDs combined. Many companies that had made many CD and DVD players have dropped these models and now have many turntables. Records are the favorite physical music format.
There are several reasons for this. Music lovers always valued LP's warm, organic sound, but it may be the rise of digital music that contributed most to the rise in vinyl sales. Services such as Spotify commoditized music and took away the pleasure of owning a physical album. To those who prefer to own a tangible product, an LP adds more value than a CD. CD sales have been crushed. As many labels ship LPs with download codes, buyers get the best of both worlds when they buy an LP - they get the convenience of an MP3 download and the physical and acoustic pleasures of an LP." PRO AV TODAY

2] VINTAGE RECORDINGS Most music on LPs is not available on CD. Whether you enjoy rock, jazz, classical or country, there's lots on LP that you can't find on CD. There's many new LPs made. Record printing plants are working 24 hours to meet demand.

3] NEW MUSIC CHOICES DJs, audiophiles & collectors love vinyl. CD sales have dropped steadily & new record sales keep increasing. "More & more labels are pressing vinyl & not just reissuing old stuff. Young bands are releasing LPs. Jack White, of White Stripes fame, loves analog, so his band Dead Weather's new record, Horehound, is on LP." HOME ENTERTAINMENT

4] BONUS FEATURES LP's larger size gives you better cover art, liner notes and sometimes posters and lyrics. There are books devoted to LP album art and posters. Reading a record's liner notes written by Leonard Bernstein or the performer is a real treat.

GROOVIN' ON VINYL, Turntables cool again with young, is in Washington Times. "A new generation of music lovers grooves to the sweet sound of vinyl. Turntable sales topped 32,000, [60% above the] 19,000 sold the same month last year. CD sales dropped 15%. Record sales increased 70%. A record's sound quality is superior to a digital file. Analog sounds much warmer & more natural than digital.

Madonna, U2, Led Zeppelin, Wilco, Amy Winehouse and others release vinyl albums. If you want a record collection that lasts a lifetime, you need a real turntable with a good needle that won't damage the record. It will bring so much more from the grooves that it will leave your jaw on the ground."

CHOOSING a TURNTABLE

We have over 45 years of turntable experience. The turntables we stock are excellent values, durable and earn praise from many reviewers. As turntables increase in price, their many parts improve, including the motor, power supply, platter, base [or plinth], tone-arm and cartridge. Each part makes a definite difference. Just putting a better cartridge on a lesser turntable won't provide the sound of a better turntable. The turntables we stock have all withstood the test of time.

DENON, GRADO, MARANTZ, ORTOFON, over 65 years.
REGA, over 45 years.

Loading LPs to CDs, MP3s & iPods

Our Pro-Ject phono box USB for $159 is a quality, European-made, Moving Magnet/Moving Coil phono preamp with a built-in, analog to digital converter with a USB output. This lets you connect the turntable directly to your computer and easily transfer your LPs onto your computer hard drive or to record on to a CD.

Compared to othet 'tables at its price, Pro-Ject T1 has a:
1] Better cartridge.
2] Better, more precise tonearm.
3] One piece, solid mdf wood base [plinth], not plastic.
4] Three year parts/labor warranty
5] Handmade in Europe.  

With a Pro-Ject turntable, an LP will sound better than the same recording on CD. Your records will last longer. The turntable will last longer.
.

CLEANING RECORDS

"A good record cleaner is a vital tool for any good collection. ABSOLUTE SOUND

We stock affordable alternatives.
1] The $15 Brush-it is a carbon fiber & velvet brush, which removes dust while reducing any static charges.

2] The $80 Spin-Clean totally submerges your records in a cleaning bath. Next to the VPI record cleaning machines, the Spin-Clean is the best way to clean records.  

SPIN CLEAN RECORD CLEANING SYSTEM

CARTRIDGE REVIEWS

GRADO ALL MADE IN N.Y.
BLACK, $99, "Admirable detail and treble with good bass and ambience." HI-FI CHOICE RECOMMENDED

GREEN, $125, "Thoroughly enjoyable for nearly all kinds of music." BEST BUY, HI-FI CHOICE
"Warm, pleasant balance, sweet treble; Lively overall presentation." ABSOLUTE SOUND
"Produces rich, open and expansive music. At its price it simply can't be beaten!" SENSIBLE SOUND

GOLD, $260, "Rich, open & expansive." BEST BUY, HI-FI CHOICE RECOMMENDED "Warm, pleasant lively; dynamically expressive midrange; engaging openness. Cost-conscious buyers will appreciate the user-replaceable stylus mechanism." ABSOLUTE SOUND EDITOR'S CHOICE

PLATINUM 3, $400, "Nice midrange, lively; cartridge of choice for the most cost restrained." EXCEPTIONAL VALUE, STEREOPHILE RECOMMENDED
"Markedly more refined sound than the Gold. Increased resolution; competes nearly equally with m.c. cartridges 3 times its price. Compared to the Gold, tighter bass, more neutrally voiced and much more authoritative; significantly better tracking. More top-tier performance attributes and delivers greater musical enjoyment per dollar than any other $300 cartridge." ABSOLUTE SOUND

SONATA 3, $600, "Improved detail, transient speed, more seductive mids & improved hall sound very noticeable."
STEREOPHILE RECOMMENDED
"Wonderful; naturally sweet treble, refined tone; very good detail, particularly in the mids." ABSOLUTE SOUND, EDITOR'S CHOICE