Yesterday I bought a brand new turntable! It is a Pro-ject turntable, a model called Debut Carbon. I bought it from Clef Hi-Fi, a home entertainment store located in North Melbourne.

Here is my lovely new Pro-Ject turntable, connected to our surround sound system. You can see the phono-stage on top of the sound system.
Since buying and setting up the turntable, I have learnt a lot about records, turntables, and sound systems. For example, if you want to connect a record player to a surround-sound entertainment system, you need to buy an accessory called a ‘phono stage‘. This is because modern amplifiers do not have the necessary phono components built into the system, because 99% of people do not use record players. The phono stage has a port for USB connection, so I can record the albums onto my computer.
There are many parts to a good turntable. The tone-arm holds the cartridge, which houses the needle (also known as a stylus). A good tone-arm is lightweight and well-balanced (like my Pro-Ject, it might use a tone-arm counterwight) so that the needle gently glides along the record, picking up all the vibrations in the groove. Because the record pulls the tone-arm towards the center of the record as it rotates, there is a tendency for the needle to not sit exactly in the centre of the groove. To fix this, there is a weight attached to the back of the tone-arm called an anti-skating weight.

Here you can see the tonearm. At the back of the arm is the tonearm counterweight. On the left-hand side of the counterweight you can see the anti-skating weight.
It is a bit of a challenge to set the system up properly, but I think I have done a good job! Over the weekend I have spent quite a few hours listening to records! I was very fortunate to recieve around 150 records from my father-in-law. They are quite old records, some from the 1960’s and some as recent as the late ’80’s. Some of the bands include ELO (Electric Light Orchestra), INXS, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Australian Crawl, George Harrison, The Bangles, George Michael, Leo Sayer, Dire Straits, Billy Joel, Madonna, and Kylie Minogue!

These are just some of my beloved records! I have many more, but I have selected my favorites for this old wine box!
Records might seem a little dated, but I think vinyl has a sound that CDs cannot match. Although records take a little more work to listen to (you cannot simply push a button to skip a song, and it is important to brush the record with an anti-static brush. You also have to very carefully and gently clean the needle on the cartridge. The cartridge needs to be replaced every couple of years. The tone-arm counterweight and the anti-skating weight need to be adjusted every now-and-then…), I really think the effort is worth it.
Please share this post with your parents. I would love to know what they think! Encourage them to leave a comment!
Justin

My sound system is new, but my records are RETRO! So I made this retro picture using an app called ‘Pop Dot Comics’. Pretty cool, huh?