Any old Amp is ok?

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XSPR

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Is any amp ok to use with gear like turntables, CDJs, mixer and an SP-303? Are some not compatible?

For example, if I use a Sony bookshelf stereo DHC-MD373 that has an HCD-MD373 amp, can I hook that up to to an SP-303 or turntables etc. and that won't start a fire and will work fine?

I downloaded the SP-303 manual but it doesn't seem to specify which amp/speakers to use with it, so I'm thinking the only thing that matters with amp/speakers is how much power (how loud) the amp you plug it into will be able to make it? The manual just says to turn it all off before plugging things in and what order to turn the different things on. (btw I need to know these kind of bare basics too... does anyone know a good website with tutorials or schematics of things I can study up on like "make sure you don't do this or it will blow your speakers" etc?)

The specs on the DHC-MD373 are:
2.5cm dome tweeter, 13cm woofer. 25W x 25W. Radio frequencies from 76 to 90MHz. 55W electric consumption. (sorry but I can't post links yet; more info if you search on minidisc dot org for MD373.)
I have the manual in Japanese, it mentions "6 [Omega symbol]" in parentheses after the 25W x 25W, and for the LINE IN it says 250mV, 47k[Omega symbol]. I don't really know what much of this means, except maybe I take it the 25 Watts means it has that much power, is that the only thing I need to know?

If I didn't have access to the Sony stereo, could I just use a TV's red and white input plugs, pretend the SP-303 is like a VCR and turn the channel to the auxillary and get sound from the TV's speakers? Or is that just crazy nonsense?
 
you sound like your tweakin out or somethin, chill.

jk, but you could use it like that, but turntables generally need a phono preap to work right, they usually come on a standard dj mixer, and if there is a line in on the tv you could prolly hook the sp303 to it, but make sure you don't plug anything into the video in.

but really you should get some monitors and maybe a mixer.
 
Thanks- yeah I figure better to be paranoid before damaging equipment.

Unrelated but a big snag I came across yesterday that might make working with my usual PC that I planned to with all this audio stuff; it has an onboard SoundMAX for audio, and it looks like it doesn't like the asio4all driver (can't get sound out of MuLab, even with 44khz checked)... might need to get a dedicated PC setup for that side.
 
odd,, My Laptop (Toshiba - A10) has an on-board Soundmax soundcard. Asio4all v2.8 works a treat in cubasis and samplitude with it. Since it's onboard on your system, just adding a pro sound card might be better than buying a new PC. Even a low end Sound Blaster Audigy EX 2 will give you less than 5ms latency as well as 24/96 recording/playback.

With regard to amps... It takes a while to separate inputs from outputs... lol. Ohms is a measure of impedance. So for your system if you put 4 ohm speakers on, the amp would eventually cook itself.

Yes you could use the line-in on your TV once your signals are at line-level. w*w.roland.co.uk state that:For playback, the SP-404 offers line outputs (L, R) as well as a headphone output for privacy. This is the replacement for the discontinues SP-303. I'd be pretty sure that the SP-303 has the same output level, so should work fine on any line-input device (including TVs). I am sure at some point you'll move up. For example I have Edirol MA-10Ds (Nearfield monitors). The SP-303 could plug directly into those if needed. I dont reall yknow what you are using it for. If it was mine, it would probably go into the line-input of my sound card on my Music PC. And for stage work, the line-ins on the PA.

Most stuff will work at line level which is what you mentioned. 250mV, 47k. This will be things like CD players, MP3 players (that have line-outs). Cassette Decks.

Main execeptions are:

1) Record players. These need to put out an odd frequency range due to the physics of vinyl, and therefore need to be pre-compensated for their RIAA curve. Basically lower frequencies were recorded with less amplitude to amongst other things conserve space on the vinyl. General purpose amps (well they did in the 80s) should have a special input for these. Usually labeled PHONO I think.

3) Electric Guitars/basses: These babies put out a very low level signal that sounds really bad if plugged into a line-in... A workaround is to use a guitar pedal (Boss Me-30 or Zoom etc). These will typically bring the level up to line level nicely.

4) Headphone sockets. These really put out more level than a line in is supposed to handle so you can get a lot of distortion if you run the signal too hot.

I solve my problems by running into a small mixer prior to any amp (in my case a small club PA or the soundcards in my PCs). I use a Behringer Eurorack UB802.
It's a pity the site doesnt allow links or images. go to

w*w.behringer.com

and search for UB802 for details in the mixer/preamp I used. Change w*w to www of course.

This is a smaller one in their range only having 6 channels. (I also have a 20 channel one we use on stage). Channel 1 & 2 have Balanced ins for microphones as well as unbalanced. Input gain for balanced is adjustable from 10 to 60db and for unbalanced +10 to -40dbu. This means I can boost an electric guitar signal up to line level or reduce a headphone out signal to line level. However this still does not address record players.

I googled for +record +player +preamp and came up with some useful hits. I tried to link them here but I am not allowed. just google it yourself.

w*w.decibelhifi.com.au/prod234.htm
w*w.zdnet.com.au/reviews/coolgear/electronics/soa/XPSound-XP201-Phono-Preamp-Power-struggles/0,139023382,120266343,00.htm

A friend of mine tackled this another way and pruchased a record player that had line-level ouputs.

Lol. cant give a specific answer to a general question.... Hope this helps.
 
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Thanks Whiteking! That was great, I will google (and wikipedia) exactly those terms to understand more about line-level with turntables and preamp. I'm really starting at the basic level here so that helps a lot. I've been reading along at Tweak's Guide to the Home and Project Studio. I'm trying to find more sites like that so I can just read up on the basics.

At this point, I'm just looking to get at most the sp-303, a turntable/CDJ (leaning towards CDJ simply because of sheer amount of source material available to me), and a mixer. I want to use the Sony bookshelf stereo speakers/preamp so I don't have to buy some and save a little cash. Also if there are things I can do on the PC to save money that would be good too. I imagine most of the time I'd just want to mix two things at a time like to make remixes or new beats for accapellas.

I know a lot more about PCs in general, I just have old equipment. My main PC with the onboard SoundMAX would be a lot better with a sound card, only the stupid PCI slots/case are low profile (shorter slots) so that really limits my options of which cards to get (unless I run it without the case on). There's USB but I've read that it is significantly slower for sound work (not sure how much it matters for my needs just yet). In a store in my city there is actually what looks to be a low profile PCI card, the Onkyo Wavio SE90PCI but that just has left/right output and digital out... if I get a card, I figure, might as well get some kind of input capability as well.

I'd still have to look into what I really want to do with it and make sure it's compatible with my older PC (1ghz 128mb ram win2000). Another PC I have is 500Mhz 256mb ram that has the more standard PCI slots. The store also has these cheaper cards:

Envy24HTS-PCI
CMI8738-6CHLP
Cobra AW850 Deluxe

and for a little more:
SE-200PCI Onkyo
SE-U55SX
Creative SB-XFI-XG
(also -XA and -XAPE models)
SBDMUSX
SBDMUPX
SBDMULX
 
With the advent of USB 2, there seems to be no problem I can see with 2 channel recording of 24bit/96 khz signals. If you are going to continue to explore getting audio signals into the PC digital world, an investment in a good USB2 Audio interface will work on many PCs to come and not have the physical problems you mention. For you older PCs, the purchase of a PCI USB2 card may be needed, but these are relatively cheap and come in many different form factors.

If I could afford it, this is proably the sound card I'd go for:

Roland UA-25

w*w.blackdot.com.au/ProdDetails.asp?Product=708

(google +USB +audio +card +roland) Mainly because I have a Duron desktop and a Toshiba Laptop. The devices would work equally well on either.

I also have a soft spot for M-audio:

w*w.musiciansfriend.com/product/MAudio-Fast-Track-Pro-Mobile-USB-Audio-MIDI-Interface?sku=241710

My Novation Speedio is a USB device and I've never had any issues with quality/latency (The headphone amp is a little noisy, but the included ASIO drivers work very well for me). So USB seems to be pretty rock solid. If you need more than 2 ins may need a PCI card though for the throughput.

w*w.computermusic.co.uk is a fine source of information as is their magazine.

And so is Sound on Sound:

w*w.soundonsound.com

I'm sure the links are around elsewhere on this forum. Please forgive me if I have double posted them.

For now running your SP-303 line out into the line in on your sony should get you started :)

On the other side of the coin... If you are heading to DJing:

You could put 2 sound cards in your PC and used Software to do your mixing:

w*w.program4pc.com/dj_mixer.html

There are many many PC applications to do this. I think the cream of the crop might be Native instruments Traktor.

w*w.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=traktor3_us

Or a Hardware DJ mixer:

w*w.storedj.com.au/products/product.php?id=897

Or even Direct into USB:

w*w.goodgearguide.com.au/index.php/taxid;2136212951;pid;4932;pt;1

Good luck sorting out which way you want to go :)

Cheers!
 
Thanks so much - I still have to read up on the first posts' links but I appreciate all the links and advice. Yeah I don't imagine I'd need much more than one input into the PC for my purposes.
 
Thanks again. Wikipedia entries on line level and impdence matching seem to require some kind of engineering degree just to follow along, with all the theory so I appreciate the practical tips/important numbers to know.

I finally picked up the SP-303 last Saturday and I'm still going through the manual... it seems there's a lot to learn just with that unit itself. I've got it working now with the Sony bookshelf system, to both sample from a CD playing on it to the SP-303, and play samples back out on it's speakers (ins and outs). It did take a few tries to get it right though because on the Sony it just says "A" and "B" instead of LINE IN/OUT. Before, those RCA red/white jacks were hooked up to its own tape deck module. Also connected to the tape deck unit was an AU bus, so I unplugged that too. Strange thing was I still had to set "function" to "TAPE" instead of "LINE-IN".

So is line-level usually what's done by the RCA red and white (and yellow for TV/visual) cables? Consumer electronics like TVs, VCRs, Xboxes, Playstations etc? The Sony manual mentions it'll accept other components besides its own tape deck module and specifically mentions a turntable, but I might have to do something extra to get "Attenuate ON" in it if the turntable (or mixer I imagine) has no built-in equalizer amp (preamp I take it). If getting a turntable requires me to get a separate amp unit, it's one more reason to hold off for now on it and just look at a CD-J instead (assuming that doesn't need one). As for which CDJ, that'll take more research on my part, it seems I have a number of options around here but I'm liking the low price and pitch controls on the Numark Axis9 I saw... just hope I can just scratch half-decently with it. From what I've found on youtube vids, looks ok but most other people here say pioneer/denon/others.

I read the links you posted, lots of great stuff there... interestingly enough the Behringer UB802 was at the same store I got the SP-303. I was hoping to get a different kind of mixer though (I think), basically the cheapest one I can find with a crossfader for 2 inputs, and ideally a send/return for the SP-303. I might pick up this very cheap mixer AW-MX25G (no info online whatsoever that I could find on it). I don't think I need much more than that, and a CDJ and/or direct drive turntable, again cheapest but I do plan on scratching sometimes. When I first saw the USB mixer, I was thinking it had a USB OUT to a PC- that'd be awesome. The XP201 looks nice, wonder if I can find that cheap.

Anyways my plan now is to plug the SP-303 and CDJ/turntable into the mixer, and the mixer into the Sony bookshelf system for its amp/speakers. I'm hoping to make beats with the SP-303 and mix that with instrumentals/accapellas or even isolated sequences of various instruments. If the quality of the audio isn't pristine that's fine. Oh, and I was able to get MuLab working quickly on my other PC. I don't think I want to spend too much more money at this point.
 
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