You can’t imagine a book collector without envisioning them sitting in a leather wingback chair and a book in their lap. Classic car collectors are cruising down the highway in their restored Mustang, silk scarf around their neck and aviator sunglasses blocking the wind. Record collectors have their vinyl strewn around on the floor, dropping the needle on select 
tracks and dancing unabashedly when required. Well, that last part, that’s not me…but I admit that, until recently, most of my records remained unplayed.
That’s because I didn’t have a good listening area. At any time, I probably had two or three record players or turntables somewhere in the basement, but nothing set up where I could listen to them. When we rearranged the living area recently, the best of my turntables moved to the top of the electronics stack. I’m sure there’s a bunch of you who have a bunch of records and only sparse ability to listen. Many “entertainment centers” have been condensed down to a TV, a DVD player, and the cable box, and that’s a shame. Here’s some tips to bring your records out of the basement and into the living room, whether you’ve got hundreds organized by genre, or just a box left over from your high school days.
First, the turntable: If you haven’t got one, or if that BSR player you bought in the seventies is showing its age, it might be time to buy a turntable. As I’ve mentioned before, record album technology has been pretty consistent over the past hundred years or so, and that means that you could borrow a brand-new turntable from that budding DJ down the street and play your Herb Alpert disks. The advantage of buying a new turntable is to benefit from the little advances in technology, like better speed control and better needles. If you’re after a player to listen to your 78s, be aware that just because a turntable can spin that speed, it might not come with the appropriate needle. Records made since the late 1950s use a smaller needle, and the sound quality might not be up to par when playing the larger-groove 78s…and there’s a good chance of damaging the needle. Adequate turntables can cost in the $60-$70 range, and the price goes up with quality as you might expect.
Whether you buy a new turntable or hook up an older one, you’ll want replacement needles. A simple fix and almost always an improvement to the sound quality, but often the most frustrating to find a compatible one if you’re using a vintage turntable. There are so many varieties of needles, connectors, and quality that it might take a bit of research to find out which turntable
manufacturers are compatible, what the Radio Shack catalog number was for the replacement, etc., etc.
To avoid replacing your needle too often, first make sure you’re playing a clean and undamaged album. Fragile 78s may still have cracks, even if not broken all the way through, that can catch a needle and damage it. Dusty records may not cause sudden damage, but prolonged playing of dusty records can cause needles to degrade. The basic cleaning brush has very short bristles on a 3″-4″ wide bar, allowing the entire album to be covered during one rotation of the turntable. While most brushes come with a secret-formula cleaning fluid, various formulas (mostly diluted isopropyl alcohol, although the Library of Congress recommends Tergitol) can be found online. Be extra-careful, though: things safe for vinyl might not be so good for lacquer 78s. An antistatic brush is also helpful in discouraging dust from further accumulating on your clean albums. Though I own one for nostalgic reasons, I do not recommend using Ronco Vacuum Record Cleaner seen at the right. It uses sponges to wipe the surface of the record, which could push more dust into the grooves than it removes.
To get your turntable hooked up, you might need a phono preamplifier. If you’re not lucky enough to have a phono-compatible receiver, you’ll need to get one of these. OK, here we get a little technical. If you’ve ever hooked up your DVD player to your VCR, you’ve met the red and white RCA cable — this kind of cable, carrying the right and left stereo channels, runs with a low-level voltage that carries the sound. Record players, including many manufactured today, do not operate at the same “line level” voltage as the rest of your audio equipment. Even though most record players have RCA-type cables sprouting out of their rear, the signal is not compatible with the AUX input on your reciever. In order to plug in a record player to your stereo, you’ll need something called a “Phono Preamplifier.” This is a little box with the record player inputs on one side, and line-level outputs on the other. Simply plug it in between your turntable and your stereo, and you’ll be listening to your records in no-time. Audiophiles usually recommend a separate preamplifier, rather than turntables with a built-in one, because the preamp can add noise to the low-level record player signal. Those same audiophiles will also recommend you buy a $200 tube preamp, but that’s at your discretion. An adequate preamp can be bought for $20 online.
If you’re not sure where to hook it up, check the back of your television. Many TVs have two or three auxillary inputs on the back, designed to hook up the various players and videogames in use today. Give their use some thought: if you can banish the videogame to the upstairs television, replacing it with a turntable, you’ve not only added space for the turntable but also removed a distraction from the room. The purpose is to make it easier to listen to the records, allowing you to decide on a whim to drop the needle on some classic vinyl, so connect it in the most accessible way is the best.
A clean, dry corner in the basement might be acceptible for long-term album storage, but it doesn’t make the records easy to get to when you want to listen to some tunes. Visiting rummage sales might be the best place to find classy racks, like the one on the left, in many different sizes, shapes, and styles. You might even briefly wonder where to steal some milk crates from, but any sturdy set of shelves with a 13″ or greater depth will work for LPs. As everyone’s heard, always store your albums vertically to preserve their shape, so you may need to perform some modification to hold the records upright without putting undue weight or pressure on them.
So, if you’ve talked yourself out of making your records more listenable because it seemed like too much work, or wouldn’t fit into your current entertainment center, take another look at it. For a hundred dollars, you could plug a brand-new turntable into your current system and be listening to your records in the time it takes to make a couple connections and clean the vinyl — and with one handly album rack, you’ll have hours of listening right at your fingertips in the room where you spend most of your entertainment hours. Nothing’s sadder than records that haven’t seen the light of day since the eighties; give your collection a chance to be heard again.
