Friday, January 17, 2014

Cool Yule Gift

I have a significant number of record albums (remember, I'm old). Years ago, my old turntable had issues with a grounding problem and was humming when the unit was on. The unpleasant hum coupled with a couple of cats who would jump from a nearby bookcase onto the turntable so they could attack the spinning vinyl really put a damper on listening to old music. I started noticing turntables a few years ago that were designed to plug into your computer so you can digitize the albums. This was a very exciting idea for me except these turntables were always sold at places where electronics show up on the shelves just before Thanksgiving and are gone by New Years (think Macy's and Kohls). Whenever I saw these, I would check the on-line reviews which were generally very bad.

As we looked to upgrade our television from the 1995 Panasonic we purchased when the Cleveland Indians used to have a major league team, I made rare appearances in a couple of electronics "superstores". While in one, I noticed they were selling multiple turntable models. My curiosity led me to the display where I spotted a Sony model with USB capabilities. The on-line reviews were very good so I wrote my letter to Santa. I must have been good this year since look what showed up under the tree.

It works! Really well! The software had a learning curve, but is very useful. As an added bonus, the USB Sony also has capabilities to be plugged into the stereo for listening to the records as the were meant to be played. No more hum. Just lots of great music. :)

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Happy New Year

Having a Holiday in the middle of the week just means there's two Mondays.