I need a new vinyl record player!

If its memories of the music that's driving you then streaming is worth considering. Ive relived my youth many times streaming music that I owned and music that I wanted to own back then.

Sounds like you are starting from scratch pretty much with the old gear not being at its best. Its worth comparing what you get for your money both digital and analogue. I listened to a stunning set up while my streamer was being upgraded at the shop but at £23K for the speakers and silly amounts for the streamer and amp, its not something that I'll be buying any time soon. I'm sure that a similar record setup would sound equally good.

Ive got all of this on a NAS drive, with plenty of space to spare (kept them at the top of the stairs 'just in case')



And now play pretty much anything that I like on this, without the clutter of CDs

 

Seems like you have a couple of ways.

First would be to borrow a decent turntable and Rip all your records onto the PC as @andrews has done. ( this would be a good move either way as if anything happened to the Vinyl you still have a backup )

The other way sounds like you need a new turntable and speakers, though no idea what your amplifier unit is and if it really needs updating as well for modern connectivity / streaming etc ?
The only way to be able to help more on this path is to know your approximate budget.
The choice is so wide and varied from all in one systems to separates , let alone all the sizes and types of loudspeakers.

Sure you could get some good recommendations from the forum members once we know which direction you want to go ?
(eg @Fat Controller put me on the right path for some good headphones)

 

Back in the 90s I had a small audio company.
I went into partnership with a chap from IMF (TDL) and we created advanced transmission line speakers.
We then moved forward and created the Forrest filter to show how sound can be projected with a passive filter system.
The draw back was cost but I’ve had equipment from Theta to Musical fidelity to Mod squad, including some nice EAR valve amps.
I’ve still got the big 49kg 2.5k Musical Fidelity amp, DMN pre amps and my Meridian gear and a rather lovely set of advanced transmission line speakers.
Above is a picture from the London international show. The large box in the middle is the worlds first Forrest filter and still the largest ever produced passive filter system. We had fun getting it through the doorway to the room.
Unlike regular speakers back then where the soundstage was between the speakers we could project the sound beyond creating a huge soundstage. The Dolby lads loved them.
24 speaker cables and and 2k worth of drivers alone went into the units. Final price was 35k. With the equipment in the show we had a mouth watering 60k plus system.
Nowadays I’m happy to listen to sound from my iPad but I still put the system on at times.

 

@Liz the pot - that sounds like interesting work. How did the filter work (simple terms) ?

 

Each driver had its own circuit and was able to the alter the phase output of each driver. The low end unit had an adjustable chamber to alter the air volume but the mids were sealed units so could sit in the small metal structures. They were £400 each and were perfect.
A normal filter found in the back of a conventional speaker would consist of maybe a dozen or less components and was based around keeping the frequency range as level as possible and adjusting/compensating for enclosures . Our filter not only compensated for the enclosures but also had to do the work of the sound staging. Very similar to what the Dolby lads were doing but where they were using electronic means we were using passive components.
We had over 50000 components in the filter working and poor me had to spend weeks working on printed circuit boards fitting each component.
The way the forest filter worked is very much in line with what Atmos and other sound reflecting speakers that try to create a soundstage found today but whereas we simply tried to expand the soundstage keeping to the level of the recorded material. So if for example you were listening to a live recording and the person was walking around the stage then the voice would also work around the soundstage beyond the enclosures of the speakers.
The downside was you relied heavily on the source material and equipment so you would need a great recording and a great source to get the full benefit from the speakers.
Sadly though the industry keeps on using the good old drivers whereas we were thinking on the lines of a magnetic field suspending a fragmented sphere so that a single drive unit could produce a wide soundstage from a single unit.
We wanted to produce a new type of driver away from the old type drivers. We also wanted to decrease the size of the filter and worked with a chap who created a lot of the chips inside many of the well-known CD players but it was all to do with voltages and he could simply not produce what we wanted .
Unfortunately my poor old pocket was not deep enough and we run into trouble with the suppliers of the drive units as back then British hi-fi was very much a secret squirrel organisation.

Other countries like Germany would share technology but over here it was very much a close shop.

 

Its a shame that you couldn't continue the technology, given the popularity of home theatre today - sounds like the same principles could be applied to that field.

A chap I know built a pair of speakers back around 1980 as a school project and I remember him telling me about the calculations for the cabinet and for porting the low frequencies. His speakers were huge and heavy and had normal crossovers. Sounded good though.

 

A few more pics, me at the show when I had no grey hair and a picture of the first advanced transmission line speakers and some of my test equipment.
The wooden ones are the ones I have here with a small version of the large filter.
The large amp takes a nice 2.5kw of electricity to power it! DNM pre amps, meridian cd, mod squad passive pre amp. I’ve got other amps and pre amps too so we could swap around to test sources.

 

I use to love it, spent hours messing around then slowly as time went on and with the company side of things I found the enjoyment disappeared as you were constantly fighting suppliers who also had companies in the same field.
Also at the same time the HI-FI industry was suffering, the days of huge speakers and separates was fast disappearing.

 

That was an imposing bit of kit - looks much bigger in that image.

Interesting about the company side taking the enjoyment away. I have no real interest in computers after spending over 30 years repairing them or managing the support service.

 

I like the sound but realise that some don't - its a subjective area.

I was first introduced to the Cyrus one by my then neighbour, 31 years ago. He blew an amp chip by shorting the output and I searched everywhere to find one - finally got one from Bardwells in Sheffield - HA13497 I think it was.

Then bought a Cyrus 3 amp about 20 years ago which died a while back so I had to get the Cyrus 8 and an external power supply seemed to fall into the shopping trolley. The 3 sounded good but the 8 and power supply made such a difference.

I know that there is much higher end stuff out there but I know that I cant afford the next step change so I try not to look.

 

TDL which John help to start formed after IMF were just a few miles from me. A real sad end when John died and the company closed around the same time. We had our designs with them at the time and it was heart breaking getting the drawings back from the company handling their closure. They also had ELAC which produced some lovely high freq units which we used.
There was a lot more cottage sized companies where people built speakers to valve amps that were gorgeous.
One of the TDL chaps, Clive started a small company then he sold on to PMC hence their identical transmission line speakers.

John Michell Was another sad passing, we got to know him well and he produced some very nice turntables but he also produced some gold connectors which we loved. Like John he had a huge passion.

So many companies now gone and yet today many of the old products are still used and enjoyed.