#verticalturntable

I found the obscure 1990 UK picture disc of The Sundays’ classic debut, “Reading, Writing and Arithmetic,” years ago and picked it up at the time, even though I thought it was steep at $25. It turns out that was a bargain, as I looked it up on Discogs and these days it runs $60-ish and sometimes as much as $135!

Yesterday was a rare day off, so did I get out of my home office for once? Of course not (sigh). I made the mistake of attaching my “new” vertical turntable (directly behind me when I took this photo) to the rest of my stereo system (the black boxes above all those records). “It’s a 10-minute job,” I told myself. Sometimes I really am an idiot. I didn’t recognize that it would be a multi-hour plod packed with recursive issues that included, in no particular order, dusting, choking on dust, carefully moving hundreds of records, labeling speaker wires, losing said speaker wires behind that wall of records, moving MORE records while in search of those speaker wires, removing a Technics EQ I’ve used maybe twice since I found it at a garage sale 15 years ago (seen here on the couch), inventing a number of new expletives while troubleshooting, and most notably, falling off that $&@#%!! stepstool, which, all jokes aside, hurt a lot more than my pride. Today, everything is back in place and it all looks Zoom meeting-ready once again (I always angle the camera to cut out that Thomas Dolby poster; brilliant though it may be, it’s too loud for a meeting). The vertical turntable now comes out the same speakers as my regular turntable (far right, fourth square from the bottom). I’ll A/B test them soon enough and it probably won’t sound as good, but for now, I’m just happy this disaster is cleaned up and it didn’t kill me in the process (though it tried).

As a public service announcement: If you are researching Mitsubishi X7s because you might buy one where the automatic arm moves to the center and stays there, DON’T. It can not be fixed Very bummed. The vertical turntable that I bought over the net “as-is but probably only needs a tune up” is kaput for good. I’ve now taken it to several stereo shops over the last two months, and the verdict was the same: It’s toast. There is a busted light sensor on the CPU and that part is pure unobtanium. In the end, it became an expensive reminder about A) never buying used goods at a substantial cost over the net; B) never believing the guy who swears incessantly that he can fix anything, man; and C) about throwing good money after bad (multiple bench fees at the shops added up). In short, I knew better and I took a bad bet anyway. We all get taken for a sucker at some point, but it stinks when the person who played you was yourself. .

A few weeks ago, I bought a second-hand 1982 Mitsubishi Interplay X-7 vertical turntable and while it may look gimmicky, they are renowned as amazing tables and the cool visual of being able to watch your record spin only makes it even better. It only partially worked—the platter spins but the needle doesn’t track—so I took it to our local audiophile shop and they knew they could fix it. Two weeks later, they still know what’s wrong but so far can’t find parts, so I may be up the creek. That would be a shame as these are impossible to find in such cosmetically good shape, plus It wasn’t cheap and having it in the shop isn’t cheap either. Fingers crossed that they can find the parts.

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Closing out my cavalcade of Christmas records, here’s the self-appointed Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey, on 10” picture disc. I won’t lie — I love “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” so go ahead and judge and we’ll do it all again next year.