When controller DJs ask you to get with the times

Saw this online. And I will just leave this right here

Belt-driven ceiling fans

I found this while browsing a random place on the Internet a few days back. Talk about whoa! I have never seen belt-driven ceiling fans before. Looks like the person took his or her inspiration from either a belt-driven turntable or a belt-driven flour mill. It look fiendishly simple but I bet in our humid climate, the rubber belts will not last. Whatever it is, I love this concept. Rather artistic if you ask me!

Bought the Stanton ST150 for my new house

I bought this Stanton ST.150 a couple of days back. I wrote a post about this turntable some time back so all the info is in that post. I love this turntable but there are a couple of bugbears. First of all, the stylus that came with it. The Stanton Groovemaster is totally shit. I do not know why they bundled that stylus with it rather than the Stanton 505.V3. Oh well, I suppose something is better than nothing. I will bring my Stanton 500ALs over for further testing. The second issue I had was with the “pop-up” light. It was not even a pop-up but the best way to describe it is an RCA plug with a lamp. Plus, it was pretty sticky. I do not know why it was like that. In any case, I was warned about the plastic parts of these Stanton turntables before I bought mine. Oh and another bugbear is the 45 rpm 7″ single adapter. There seem to be no place to put it! There was no sunken hole (like the SL-1200) or even a pin to place it on. But all in all, my wife loves it and that is more than enough.

Is the technics SL-1200 GR suitable for DJ-ing?

To be honest, I had my doubts when they first came out. They are pretty expensive to buy and they are aimed at the hi-fi market. But it makes me wonder why the audiophile market would want anything to do with direct-drive turntables. Do they not go for belt-drives? Anyway, I watched this video on YouTube and I must say it is pretty informative. I do not think I can afford one of these turntables anytime soon though.

Vibration damping for turntables

I am due to DJ at a party that uses turntables. One thing that worries me is the sound console and the vibration caused by speakers and their high sound pressure levels, or SPLs for short. The turntables that I am using, or will be using, are the Technics SL-1200 MKIIs. While these turntables do a pretty good job of resisting acoustic feedback due to its design of a rubber base and adjustable feet height, it is not enough. This is especially so if you are using a wooden console and not a flight case. I was wondering what would work when I saw this in the Klipsch Audio Community and I thought that it was a great idea. Will it work? The poster said that it has worked for his brother. I do not know but I think I have nothing to lose. Going to buy some tennis balls now.

Vinyl Styl briefcase turntable

I bought this Vinyl Styl turntable for my wife on her birthday. My wife has many records left over from her childhood days and she wanted to listen to them again. So when a friend of mine, who brings them in here in Singapore, told me and showed me this turntable, I was instantly hooked. I had to get one of them for her and for her, this turntable is perfect. This is an excerpt from their website:

In a variety of custom designs, the Vinyl Styl™ Groove portable turntable comes equipped with two full range stereo speakers, stylus with protective cover, 3.5mm headphone output jack, RCA outputs and a belt driven platter allowing you to choose from 3 speeds; 33 1/3, 45 & 78 RPM.

I have never been a fan of belt-drive turntables but to be honest, direct-drive small turntables like these are little hard to come by. I suppose this will have to do. But then again I am sure my wife will not do hardcore DJ’ing and scratching on this one!

Get one. It is relatively inexpensive and sounds pretty good

The Technics SL-1200 turntables have been re-released

It was all over the news yesterday. DJ forums online and on Facebook had people posting pictures of the prototypes of these turntables. A few years back, Technics said that they were stopping production of these turntables because of the declining volume of vinyl sales. But after the resurgence of vinyl, I think the head-honchos at Panasonic / Technics realised that maybe their decision to retire these iconic turntables may have been a wee bit hasty. After all, vinyl sales went up by 56% last year alone.

Apparently, the new turntables are specifically designed to remove the “weaknesses of direct-drive turntables”, and they eliminate “cogging” by removing the iron core within the motor. Not only that. The motor has been re-designed with sensors and the like. And that is not all. The tonearms are different too. The SL-1200G employs a lightweight aluminum construction, while the SL-1200GAE uses magnesium.

Two models were released, as mentioned in the paragraph above. The first is the 50th anniversary limited edition Grand Class SL-1200GAE, with a limited serial number plate in a quantity of just 1,200 pieces. The standard Grand Class SL-1200G will be available in late 2016.

Frankly, I cannot wait.

Philips OTT2000 micro sound system

There have been a lot of these all-in-ones surfacing recently and this Philips OTT2000 is one of them. This one is pretty impressive. It can play back sources using Bluetooth connectivity, you can play back from a USB drive. It has a built-in tuner so you can turn to your favourite radio stations. It also has a CD player and a turntable….all played though built-in speakers. And therein lies the reason why I do not care for it. First of all, the plastic tone-arm. Any tone-arm made of plastic sends warning bells ringing. And the built-in speakers. This is gonna set the rumble stats of this player, when it is playing vinyl, through the roof

If you ask me, If you want to get a good vinyl player, get a good set of speakers, an amplifier with a built-in PHONO RIAA preamp stage, and a turntable. Those Audio-Technica ones which are direct-drive only go for slightly more than $400 at Mustafa in Singapore. Then at last, you will have a good sound-system to enjoy your vinyl.

Golden Technics SL-1200 turntable

I saw a post on Facebook about this guy who sent his Technics turntables to the platers and had them gold-plated for about US$4000. Egads! That is a LOT to pay for a turntable to be gold-plated but I must say that you get what you pay for. The end result is absolutely stunning. See the picture above. Isn’t it fantastic?

DJ’ing on Micro Seiki DDX 1000 turntables

I saw this video on YouTube and I must say that it is one helluva inspiration. That is the way I started out…not on these beautiful Micro Seiki turntables but on hi-fi turntables no less. Check out the mixing…smooth. And that Tascam mixer. There used to be one just like that installed in the church near my home back in the day.

But anyway, back to these Micro Seiki turntables. These direct-drive beauties had a platter that I simply could not tear my eyes away from. Many back in the day used to make fun of us, stating that only Technics SL-1200s were the turntables for DJs. I proved them wrong. Hi-fi turntables can be good if not, just as good as the Technics. They did not have the torgue of the Technics but they could work the business.

I got this picture from VinylEngine.com which shows the exploded view of these Micro Seiki beauties. Check out the size of the motor. Its huge! There is a separate controller that controls the pitch. That is why when you see the guy above in the video, he is fiddling with a box with a knob on it. That is the pitch control. It does not have the slider like the Technics SL-1200 MKII but it works.

Call me quirky but if I ever see these Micro Seiki turntables being sold online and for the right price, I would snap them up