Finding your groove: getting into vinyl with Audio-Technica
I’d like to think that I could’ve been friends with the late Hideo Matsushita, founder of Japanese Hi-Fi powerhouse Audio-Technica. If I could, I’d travel back in time to 1960’s Tokyo, where a young Matsushita curated “vinyl listening sessions” at the Bridgestone Museum of Arts, exposing visitors to the sounds and possibilities of high end audio and the warmth of vinyl records. I imagine sitting with him in a mod coffee shop, listening to the stories of what he witnessed in those sessions, the conversations he had with visitors, and what ultimately motivated him to head back to his small apartment above a ramen restaurant and start an audio company of his own. In the histories I’ve read regarding AT’s humble beginnings, Matsushita’s motives seem clear. Produce high end audio at affordable prices, bringing audio excellence into spaces and to customers that simply didn’t have access to it before. His first two products, the AT-1 and AT-3 phono cartridges did exactly that, and...
Dec 6, 2023
Now, my problem is that most people doing similar projects are pretty esoteric, and many articles are written in a way where the easy steps (opening the console) are explained in detail and the harder ones (eg. replacing the cinch connectors) are not. So I'm not sure which modifications are helpful and which just increase the danger of me breaking something.
My main questions are:
- Does modifying the PSU make sense when I already have the metal slid on the reading-head?
- Or will it really make a difference to put it into its own enclosure?
- Does replacing the six resistors right below the sound processing chip and removing the BIOS modchip (was pre-installed when I got it) improve audio or just destroy the potential of gaming on it?
- Is there a good affordable manufacturer for female cinch connectors? I only found "high end" cheapo ones
I'm looking forward to discussing some of these (and maybe more) points and if anyone is interested I'll post some photos/impressions when I'm done with the cosmetic and non-cosmetic changes.