I’ve been fascinated by analog audio gear for some time now. Recently, I got to check out a friend’s Technics 1210, a well known turntable used by DJs. It flipped a switch in my mind — OK, that’s it, I must resolve this now. The picture above is my new turntable on its first play yesterday.
After talking to an audiophile friend (who happens to be an excellent photographer), I decided to try the same player he has, the Pro-Ject Debut III. The deck is an entry level piece from Pro-Ject, which makes high end players. This model is fully manual, very simple but clean design, and the glossy black finish is very slick. Setting it up was pretty easy. What wasn’t so simple is getting it to sound good. My receiver (a Denon AVR-3310ci) sounded very tinny. It took me a while to realize what to do. I switched the speaker size to ‘large’ for the fronts, enabled LFE on both the speakers and sub, set a crossover frequency, and then everything sounded much better. After the first few tests with records, I was able to set the needle right down between tracks without a problem.
Often I’m putting on some music at home to relax. I have a feeling this is going to be a really good thing.
