Need Advice....Please

[Grey Ghost]

Hello to all,
I am new to this forum and have been into Hi-Fi about 3 years now. My background is in the print industry and I am 31 years old. This is what I have....
46" Hi-Def Platnum Mitsubishi TV.
DVD Player: Sony-DVP9000es
B&K Ref 50 Processor
B&K Ref 3220....3 channel amp 225 watts per channel
2- B&K Ref 2220....2 channel amp 225 watss per channel
Main speakers & Rear are Boston Acoustics VR-970's
Center channel Boston Acoustic VR-12
Subwoofer: Velodyne Spl-1200 series 2
All wires are Monster cable M-Series

Now I need some guidence from you elite thinkers. I have the opportunity and the funds to upgrade my speakers to Von Schweikert audio speakers being the VR4jr for my fronts and Vr-1 for my rears and a LCR-center channel. Now will spending right at $6,000 for new speakers will they sound any better than my Boston's?

Second question should I upgrade my cables from M Series Monster to the River Brand cables?

One more thing I recieved at my grandfathers death his record collection numbering at 700 records. All Jazz, classical etc. I need to buy a decent record player. What kind would you suggest.

Thanks for your help!
Craig Elder
Grey Ghost

 

[zipper]

Dude,just make sure nobodys' walkin by as you chuck the Bostons out the window. Yes, it will. I've never heard Von Schw. speakers myself,but hear lots of good things about them. With the other equipment you have you should be able to drive any speaker you want. Shop around & have fun.

 

[Dan]

I agree with the zipper. For 6K you can have a lot of fun shopping. I would also think about Vandersteen 3a Signature( my personal fave), Ariel Acoustic and Meadowlark (if you have a good sub and I think you do).

I just saw Thorens turntables in audio advisor catalog for good prices today. Don't forget that if you use B&K like me you will need a phono stage preamp for it. My papasound was $120 which is near the bottom end, there are several oters less than $300. 700 jazz albums wow. Better check to see if any are 78s!

 

[Grey Ghost]

What are 78's?

Not being stupid but what are 78's. I have the orginal Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd in a blank jacket as it was sold. I would say most of the records are from the 70's. I do have some from the 20's and thirty's. Do you guys know of any companies that take records and burn them onto CD's? I have a Star wars demo record that kicks ***. It was a promo record for Panasonic thruster speakers from the early 70's. If I can find a place to take the record and put it on a CD I will burn anybody that wants one a CD to have. It is truely sweet. Thanks for giving me some good feedback.....

Grey Ghost the newbee

 

[zipper]

78's are old records that play at 78 rpm's. They are somewhere between the size of a standard LP (33 rpm's) & a 45 (45 rpm's, most single hits came out on 45's). Save them all,some could be very valuable. Not sure but I think they quit making 78's in the 1950's.

 

[Mudcat]

Burn it yourself! You can get a decent CD Player/Burner for under $400 (This does not sound like it will break your budget). You can probably even do it with your computer.

Of course all this is after you get a turntable. May I recommend a Music Hall. I have the MMF 5, I beleive I spent around $600, which is probably way too much for a turntable considering all the crap hidden in the groove (I'm not one to believe that vinyl is the end all of high end audio like a lot of self proclaimed audiopiles who think there is more music deeper in the grooves. The only thing deep in the groove is toejam.)

The Music Hall MMF 2.1 can be had for about $350. Oh yeah, they do not play 78's.

 

[zipper]

Mudcat is right,you could do it yourself. I've heard,however,that getting a CD burner that will convert analog (records) to digital (cd's) & do it good will run $700-$1000. They may be cheaper now but just be advised that it's not the same as burning cd's to cd's.

 

[Unregistered]

How to burn a CD from Vinyl

Just thought I'd add some info on making cds from vinyl.

There are a few companies that will do it for you. You have to send them the records and they record them for you and send back the records and the cds. I did this a few years ago for a single 12-inch single and now a few years later, I've learned alot and I now know that they did a lousy job. They didn't set the record level properly and the waveform is clipped and sounds hollow. Since you have a large and probably valuable collection, I wouldn't risk sending them to an unknown company.

To do it yourself on your computer you need:
1. A turntable. Any decent low-end turntable will do fine. Circuit City sells some for $100 that include a built-in pre-amp (you need a preamp to connect to the line-in of the computer soundcard, unless you connect the turntable to your stereo and then go from the stereo to the soundcard).
2. CD burner for the computer. $40-$100. I recommend Yamaha - reliable and include a feature they call 'AudioMaster' that they claim sounds better because it enlarges the size of the pits and lands it burns to help the laser track it better.
3. Soundcard - $60-$100. Turtle Beach Santa Cruz or one of the Soundblaster Audigy cards. You can get by with the built-in soundcard on many motherboards, but they are more noisy than even the cheap soundcards.
4. Software. Recommend SoundForge Studio 6 or 7. About $60. You can find free software on the internet, but SF Studio is a professional audio editor and easy to learn to use. You will need to be able clean up the recording a bit, split into tracks, etc and SF works very well.
5. Burning software. Anything you like. Recommend Nero ($60) or Roxio Easy CD creator. SF can burn too, eliminating the need for additional burning software, but it can only do Track-at-Once which means you will always get 2 second gaps between tracks (like a store bought cd). The others can do Disc-at-Once which allows you to set the gap to anything, including zero, if you want it to play continuously.

You hook the turntable to the line-in of the soundcard. Start SF and put it in record mode. Start playback and hit record on SF. When the record is done playing, stop recording. You now have a single large waveform that is one side of the record. Use SF to split it into individual tracks and burn to CD. It is time-consuming but fun and you can do alot better job than these companies that charge a high fee.

 

[Mudcat]

Zipper,

I'm not in total agreement with you. I have a sony RCDW500C ( or something like that), it is connected to my Yamaha RX-V1400. I also have a Tascam 122 MkIII and a Music Hall MMF 5 connected to the RX-V1400. I have made CDs of both cassettes and vinyl records buy just playing them on their respective machine and recording them on the Sony. They sound fine. I do have both analog and digital audio out of and into the Sony though, so I assume the Sony is converting to digital internally because the RX-V1400 will not convert the signal, it will output what is input (i.e.analog in - analog out, digital in - digital out)

 

[zipper]

OK. I've never tried it but I was in the market for a CD player/burner & only had 2 choices where I was at. One was $300,the other $700. I was told that the Denon player($700) was much more adept at converting analog to digital because the other only had a 10-12 bit processor or something to that effect.

 

[boe]

Hello to all,
Now I need some guidence from you elite thinkers. I have the opportunity and the funds to upgrade my speakers to Von Schweikert audio speakers being the VR4jr for my fronts and Vr-1 for my rears and a LCR-center channel. Now will spending right at $6,000 for new speakers will they sound any better than my Boston's?
Craig Elder
Grey Ghost

I love my Von Schweikert's!!! If my place were to burn to the ground they are the ones I'd buy again. Mine are about 4 years old, they've redesigned mine since then but they are sweet. They image very well and have plenty of natural sound even though they are very accurate. I think you've made an excellent choice but shop around - prices vary a great deal depending on whom you get them from.