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stevenlevel

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Everything posted by stevenlevel

  1. Welcome John this is a fantastic site so have a great time here.
  2. Decided to visit "Disk Replay" by taking the bus and see if my 3 hour search could provide me with some new -old vinyl? Picked up "Dire Straits" Self Titled vinyl in near mint condition with a like new jacket.Was their last copy! Grabbed "RUSH 2112" with a beat up jacket but terrific vinyl copy and "Caress Of Steel" in a like new jacket and vinyl pressing. Also nabbed their last copy of up "Led Zeppelin's In through The Out Door" with a average jacket but super vinyl pressing. I then decided to not buy Simon & Garfunkel's " Book Ends" also the only copy I could find but found their latest and greatest digitally remastered Greatest Hit's CD in mint condition for a grand total of $25 Vinyl is back in a big way as I have never seen so many people there looking through all the used vinyl that's stored below the CDs in milk crates in a mixed up mess that requires some serious patience to sort through. I'm sure my knee's will be killing me for the next week or so but it was worth it. Sorry no photo's as I have no camera on my cheapo cell phone. I need to buy a cheap camera if anyone has one to sell? Just good enough to take simple photo's. Please PM me if anyone has a cheap camera they are no longer using since all smart phones have them built in. My cell is a free government Cell phone and beggars can't be choosers since I'm on a fixed monthly income.
  3. I figured out why or what was causing all these bad new LP's They have a glue type gunk on them that cause the pops and it can be removed with a soft eye glasses type of cloth. I also cleaned a few of the old records I bought from "Disk Replay" and 4 of them played back great after I cleaned them and used this cloth. So the only bad luck is the quality control of a few of these new pressings not being cleaned properly before they ship them out. My copy of "The Wall" had this gunk on the second record and I was able to remove it and get it playing like it should.
  4. I finally figured out the only way I can get this hard gunk off my new records. I use a very soft cloth for cleaning glasses and dry wipe the record in both rotational directions. Yes, I know your not supposed to go against the grain. However, it only takes a few rotations of counter clockwise dry cleaning to break free this gunk from the pressing process and then I dry clean it clockwise a few times. It worked perfectly. Now my Pink Floyd copy of "The Wall" sounds great along with my new copy of "Four Seasons" Direct To Disk. These new records are the only two I bought that came with this hard gunk on them. So hopefully this will not be something I need to do often. It beats using liquids that seem to just spread this gunk all over the record.
  5. Thanks for all the info. There are threads here and on Vinyl Engine about all the different mixes to make for good record cleaner and I have a good standard one for basic cleaning and use 91% alcohol for a really deep clean to get rid of the gunk. Alcohol will not damage vinyl in any way. It's an old wives tale or audiophile tale that alcohol ruins vinyl or as one guy here stated "gets rid of the protective inner groove coating" that is made of? You guessed it vinyl.
  6. Thanks I checked that out and it seems great for rare CD's. Please take a look at Sound Stage Direct out of P.A. They are a great vinyl seller and will check your records for warp and other issues if you ask them before they ship your records. There prices are very good if you buy $50 you get excellent packaging and free shipping. They also always have a 15% or 20% coupon with new vinyl sales on about 90% of the vinyl they sell. I made the mistake of not having them playback my new record before shipping it because I was in a rush
  7. I only have several old records from the late 70's and early 80's and they sound great. I have a very old Fleetwood Mac Penguins LP and it's thin vinyl but still sounds like its a new pressing. Only 3 new 180 gram weight records have had this issue: "The Wall" (Received a 50% refund) "Four Seasons" Direct to Disk( Full refund) "Aja" (Amazon sent a replacement that was super warped) (Next replacement had a piece of metal in-bedded in the first track so they told me to keep it with a full refund) kev mentioned using wood glue to remove the small metal piece and it worked great. However, I would not know how to remove any foreign object that was not located in the first track. All the rest arrived and played great. I had a few that were warped but was able to heat my kitchen and use a glass panel with weights to repair all my warped records. I mean my Miles Davis "Kind Of Blue" arrived from England in pretty thin packaging but sounds great and has zero warp. Kev, mentioned to me to avoid buying vinyl in the hot spring and summer months and I have to agree with him.
  8. I just received my new copy of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" on Direct To Disk 180 gram weight vinyl and it has some kind of glue or gunk on it that brings out tons of pops and clicks and is warped on one side pretty bad. This was a $35 record and I have tried cleaning it both with standard cleaner and 91% rubbing alcohol which helped but it's still too bad to keep. Such great potential in sound quality ruined by this gunk that I can't completely remove no matter how many times I clean it. Sound Stage Direct offered me a complete refund and I have no choice but to take it. Is that $79 record cleaning machine actually worth it? It gets decent reviews but supplies are costly for it. The only other new vinyl I bought that had this problem was Pink Floyd's "The Wall" I have since cleaned it enough times to make it play worthy but it's still disappointing. I bought new internal sleeves to limit static on the records I bought that lack good quality inner sleeves. It's weird when I have 3 or 4 records from Disk Replay that sound really good and are well over 30 years old.
  9. My fault guys, sorry about that. I thought that thread had been deleted so I thought I would start it up again. My mistake and could a moderator please link these posts to the other "Original" thread?
  10. Thanks for the feedback I'll try Discogs since I don't own a car and have very limited places I can go taking the bus.
  11. O.K. but like I stated these are all used records and all the used LP's I have bought in the past at "Disk Replay" all sounded like crap. This was after about 3 hours of sorting thru about 500 records and picking the one's that looked the best. Ended up with 3 playable records out of the 15 I bought for $40. Not worth the trouble unless I can get a new copy.
  12. O.K.so this is mainly used for 78's correct? All the records I'm buying are new enough to never need one of these components correct? Also what does a unit like this cost? Thanks
  13. If I was so inclined to collect some used old records which I'm really not going to do as the older the record, even used the more people charge for them. I have seen some unreal prices for records on Ebay. So how would someone go about getting a phono stage that has that EQ knob option to change the settings? For the love of vinyl I just want to know since I have never seen a preamp with any type of knob to control the output of a vinyl record. I was even looking for a old Gramaphone type of turntable and horn type speaker but the real one's cost a lot even when it's not working and for parts.
  14. So I can't just use the mono button on my C-1 preamp to get these older records to play correctly? If not I highly doubt I'll be buying any vinyl that is that old that has not been re-mastered like the version I of Kind Of Blue" I like Jazz and some classical but mainly classic rock. I just bought a Direct to Disk vinyl record of Vidal "The Four Seasons" that should be delivered by Friday. I think it's odd that a record ordered from England arrived 7 days before the record I ordered from Sound Stage Direct.
  15. I'll start with some Miles Davis that just arrived today!
  16. Just bought S&G "Greatest Hits" and it not only had uneven output but lots of noise during and in-between tracks. It also had some really bad warp on side two that had me worried about my DL-103 cartridge. Each track was recorded at a different volume unlike any record or CD I own with lots of back ground noise to boot. Are the two separate recordings: "Bookends" & "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" have a better overall sound to them? I don't mind buying both for $50 if indeed they will both sound better? My dad had them both back in the late 70's and played them all the time. I recall these studio versions sounding really good unless that was just age related as I was only 11 or 12 years old.
  17. Thanks, yes this all makes perfect sense. I'm glade I asked before playing it and maybe getting a single channel only playing that would have freaked me out for a while.
  18. Hi everyone. I just received my new vinyl version of Miles Davis "Kind Of Blue" from England. I didn't realize it was a mono recording when I bought it. When I play it back should I set the C-1 in mono mode using it's mono/stereo button or do I simply leave it in stereo mode for the mono playback? Common sense dictates that I should place the preamp in mono mode but I'm not sure since this is my first mono recording in 180 gram weight blue colored vinyl. Also is this record available in both stereo and mono or just mono? Thanks everyone.
  19. Yeah I bought some almost pure alcohol at a Chemical Supply Company after reading the thread on cleaning vinyl. Do you mean the friction from the stylus riding the grove of a record? If that's what you mean I had the cartridge set up to track as light as possible. The Shure M97xE was set at 1 to 1.25 Grams and I weighed it with a new digital scale. All I know is the Denon DL-103 tracking at 2 Grams gives me the best sound I have ever heard with all my vinyl. I had a few new records that I sort of gave up on due to static and pop issues and when I gave them a good deep cleaning, let them dry properly and played them back with my DL-103 they sounded like the new vinyl records I bought.
  20. They are garbage. The plastic ones are garbage as well. Everyone knows that you should only use record sleeves made from sun-bleached alpaca skin. They usually stock them right next to MIT cables! What about Unubtainium sleeves? Being friends with Mr. Stark has some advantages
  21. The standard paper sleeves are not bad but the rice paper lined Mobile Fidelity 50 pack for $25 are considered the best to use. They keep paper fibers from getting on the vinyl(Takes many years for this to occur) but the main reason is that they limit static. I have some new LP's with the standard paper sleeves, but most of my new vinyl arrives with poly based see thru sleeves that limit static buildup and seem easier to use as far as slipping the record in and out of the sleeve. I was having huge static issues with my vinyl and my Shure M97xE MM cartridge. It was picking up lots of tiny pops from static and nothing seemed to work to get rid of it. When I switched to the Denon DL-103 MC cartridge it limited static in a big way and also limited how loud some pops actually were during playback. I also discovered that some of my new LP's had some type of gunk(Probably silicon left over from the pressing) that needed to be deep cleaned off the vinyl. I use 99% alcohol and it works well at cleaning off gunk that your stylus will pick up causing small pops. I have also read lots of forums and online reviews that state "Using Isopropyl alcohol" "WILL NOT DAMAGE VINYL IN ANY WAY" Paper sleeves are not going to damage your vinyl but they do have static buildup issues that I have witnessed first hand. It's basically "To Each Their Own"
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