Record Stupidity

This post is particularly boring and probably not worth reading. You have been warned.

So I moved into my new house a little over a week ago. One of the very first things I tried to do was set up my record player, since it was (in my mind) the easiest source of music. This was not, in fact, the case.

So the system has 4 components that all need to be connected for music to flow:

1. Turntable
2. Preamp
3. Receiver
4. Speakers

The turntable connects to the preamp with an RCA cable, which then connects to the receiver with another RCA cable. Finally, speaker wire is run from the receiver to the speakers. The turntable, preamp, and receiver all require power as well.

In the move I had misplaced my preamp and all of the wires. I had some spare wiring, but without a preamp there was nothing I could do.

My dad had a spare preamp and speaker wire, so that solved a couple issues. I managed to find a spare 12V power adapter to actually power the preamp, and things were starting to look good. However, I had no RCA cables.

I ended up finding a couple of weird component cables that I cut and half and soldered back together to create some janky (but functional component cables), before finally realizing that I had no power supply for the turntable.

At this point I decided to just give up for now since this really was becoming more hassle than it was worth. I tear everything down, admit defeat, and forget about the whole thing.

The next morning I am checking the status of my Dutch Oven (I planned on making something in it that night) and…

…

So I grab everything out of the Dutch Oven, plug it all in, and I’m listening to a Violent Femmes album in about 5 minutes.

The moral of the story is to use real (labeled) boxes when packing. Don’t be like me.