infobong.com

I am not an audiophile. My motivation for listening to vinyl is part romantic and part pragmatic. Vinyl's tactility and, in some cases, surface noise lend it an aura that makes me feel like I'm toying with artifacts from an ancient era. On the pragmatic side, I can check out a lot of classic music cheaply by buying used vinyl rather than CDs. Just today, I picked up an OK copy of The Songs of Leonard Cohen for $2.98 plus tax.

Its probably not surprising, then, that I have cheap stereo gear. I bought my amp for $50 at a pawn shop and spent less than $100 on my turntable. With this in mind, I was a little mystified by this article, "Dude, Where's My Cartridge?" that describes the ins-and-outs of phonograph cartridges. I think my favorite sentence from the story is, "By the time you reach such cartridges as the $750 Dynavector 17D2 mk.II or the $800 Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood, you're dealing with someone's careful and educated ideas about cartridge design." I should hope so.