Hi all,
My name is Lauryn, and I am very *NEW* to the vinyl world and was looking for some wisdom. I am an undergraduate senior at a small private college on a (four-student) senior capstone team whose objective is to optimize, rebuild, and add to a record player throughout the year. Unfortunately we have an old Crosley CR79, which I have read horrendous things about and is presently inoperative. Our objective is to buy new individual components (amp, pre-amp, ect.) and, within the six weeks, get the record player to start working. My team is wanting to establish baseline performance specs (expected noise levels ect.) and purchase/upgrade some components since the quality of the record player is so poor. For example, my team wanted me to go out and upgrade the tonearm from the generic one that comes with the Crosley CR79. I have several questions regarding this. First, while I have a technical mind, I am very unexperienced with record player anatomy and customizability. (If anyone knows of good educational resources, please share!) I grew up working on classic cars with my dad and know that if you are doing a resto-mod, there are some aftermarket parts that work while others don't. Also, depending on the car, there is purely some things you can or can't do depending on what you're working with. With that said, the forums I have read advised me that it's often more productive to replace a whole turntable rather than just the tonearm. Replacing the tonearm will often not make a difference with a poor system. Secondly, given that the Crosley CR79 is such a poor system, does it make sense to scrap it and buy another record player. My team would be looking for a system that is less than $300 USD and is highly customizable, given we will be buying and replacing individual parts, as stated before. Ultimately, we want to create our own audio filtering, as well, since digital signal processing is a core part of our curriculum as senior electrical engineers. Thanks so much for reading this post and being willing to share your thoughts! Lauryn
My name is Lauryn, and I am very *NEW* to the vinyl world and was looking for some wisdom. I am an undergraduate senior at a small private college on a (four-student) senior capstone team whose objective is to optimize, rebuild, and add to a record player throughout the year. Unfortunately we have an old Crosley CR79, which I have read horrendous things about and is presently inoperative. Our objective is to buy new individual components (amp, pre-amp, ect.) and, within the six weeks, get the record player to start working. My team is wanting to establish baseline performance specs (expected noise levels ect.) and purchase/upgrade some components since the quality of the record player is so poor. For example, my team wanted me to go out and upgrade the tonearm from the generic one that comes with the Crosley CR79. I have several questions regarding this. First, while I have a technical mind, I am very unexperienced with record player anatomy and customizability. (If anyone knows of good educational resources, please share!) I grew up working on classic cars with my dad and know that if you are doing a resto-mod, there are some aftermarket parts that work while others don't. Also, depending on the car, there is purely some things you can or can't do depending on what you're working with. With that said, the forums I have read advised me that it's often more productive to replace a whole turntable rather than just the tonearm. Replacing the tonearm will often not make a difference with a poor system. Secondly, given that the Crosley CR79 is such a poor system, does it make sense to scrap it and buy another record player. My team would be looking for a system that is less than $300 USD and is highly customizable, given we will be buying and replacing individual parts, as stated before. Ultimately, we want to create our own audio filtering, as well, since digital signal processing is a core part of our curriculum as senior electrical engineers. Thanks so much for reading this post and being willing to share your thoughts! Lauryn