Quite a long time ago I sold my turntable (a gorgeous Linn Sondek LP12) and all of my vinyl. We were moving to a smaller house and the vinyl was taking up a lot of space, not to mention the space needed for a proper rack for the turntable, amplifier, speakers, etc. I found that I was mostly streaming music, even if I owned it on vinyl or CD, or playing files ripped from that media.

Actually I did keep a few bits of vinyl; two albums and a handful of 7″ singles by various incarnations of Spizzenergi and a couple of 12″ singles by Viva Lula/Uropa Lula.

This year I decided to treat myself to a new turntable as a 60th birthday present. The intention is not to go over the top but to stick to a small collection of vinyl for proper mindful listening, where I actually sit down and listen to an album without doing three other things at the same time.

I have decided to not go and replace albums that I used to have. It is tempting to get Close to the Edge again, but I have the CD version from a couple of years back, remastered by Steven Wilson in stereo and 5.1 so I will not go there.

So that I had something new to play I bought the Gary Numan album Intruders and the Anna Calvi album Hunter to start the new collection. I am happy with both of them, but it feels really strange having a ‘collection’ that only has a handful of items so far.

One of the real benefits of this is that now have plenty of options for when the family ask me what I want for xmas or birthdays, because previously there was nothign I really wanted. Now I can just point at some album that I covet.

The turntable itself is pretty impressive. It is a Bluetooth turntable from Sony. It has a built-in phono stage and line out so I could connect it to an amp if I decide to get one, but in the meantime I can ply the music through the TV’s soundbar, through a standalone Sony Bluetooth speaker that I have or through some very nice Bowers & Wilkins headphones that have otherwise been woefully under-used. I decided to go the Bluetooth route after hearing a similar turntable with built-in speakers that really did not do the vinyl justice.

It all works well enough and was easy to set up and pari with everything. The one thing I do not undertand is why the power/standby button is on the back of the unit.