Hitachi PS-14 Turntable

Everyone knows I have a soft spot for Hitachi gear. They are well built, excellent performers, they sound great and you'd be surprised to find that many other Japanese companies used Hitachi components.

However, this is one of the oddest turntables I've seem in quite some time. This is a Hitachi PS-14 turntable. It's a belt drive and semi-automatic. However, it's a 4-channel or quadraphonic turntable with the ability to play in 4-channel or stereo (2-channel). There are 2 pair of RCA connectors at the back, 4-channel separation attenuators in the front and the ability to select between direct, stereo and 4-channel play back. Very neat turntable.

It's also fairly large as it has to house several PCB for the 4-channel feature. But, it's housed in a nice wooden plinth and nice aluminum accents. It also features a suspended platform, very typical Japanese of the early 70s to help with vibration as well large rubber feet. Not to mention the original LOD or Hitachi headshell!

It has a new belt and an Empire 5000MKIII cartridge. That's right an Empire 5000MKIII. Very nice sounding cartridge. But, the stylus is meant for stereo playback. I don't think I have any 4-channel cartridges. Either way, it's a very nice sounding cartridge and was pretty close to the top of the chain of that series.

Yamaha YP-66 Turntable

The rosewood vinyl wrapped twin sibling of the Yamaha YP-221, they are the exactly the same other than the colour of the plinth and instead of silver plastic bits on the YP-221 the YP-66 has black bits. This is your typical belt drive turntable of the mid to late 70s. It's a 2-speed with automatic return (semi-automatic). It's a nice entry level turntable with all the decent built quality that you find on majority of the Japanese made tables of that era. It has a good sized motor and a decent weight. Yamaha tables are like Sony tables, they always have decent quality components and they always look nice to the eyes. The slight smoked dustcover and the rosewood plinth makes it quite unique to look at. Sadly, the antiskate weight on our isn't original. It was missing when we got it. After a bit of research we found the appropriate weight and found an appropriate weight to retrofit into our table. We found a nice brass weight to fit with the design. And, as usual,

Energy Encore 2 Speakers

My family were the original owners of these speakers. We actually had the entire Energy Encore 5.1 surround set, minus the integrated stands. Slowly, the rear speakers were sold. I kept the subwoofer to use with my sound bar, and the center channel broke. All that remained were these little guys sitting on the same shelving unit for the past 15ish years. I used them for a bit for my computer setup but, opted to use my Mirage Omni 350 instead. While these are considered "big box store" speakers, they are still great little speakers. These were made in Canada. Used their hyperdome aluminum tweeter that made Energy famous from the Pro22 days (thank you Burhoe!). A super nice black piano finish and sealed box, with a 4" long throw woofer. Some Specifications that I took from the web: System Type: Magnetically shielded acoustic suspension satellite Tweeter: 1" (28mm) Aluminum dome with cloth suspension Woofers: 4" (112mm) Multi-laminated aluminum polycarbonate c

Micro Seiki MR-622 Turntable

This is one of my greatest prize possessions, well for turntables. The Micro Seiki MR-622 is a fabulous turntable, and definitely has been one of my favourite tables that I had the pleasure of owning. Everything about this turntable screams quality. Even the 45rpm adapter seemed to be milled aluminum. It has adjustable feet, a side pocket for accessories , a nice heavy die cast platter and even the top part of the plinth is cast. All wrapped in a beautiful smoked dustcover and real wood sides. The Micro Seiki MR-622 is a fully manual, 2-speed, direct drive turntable. This means, it's low maintenance and high reliability as there is less moving parts within the turntable. It's just a huge motor, speed controls and Micro Seiki MA-202 tone arm, placed in a overly built plinth just like what one would expect from Micro Seiki. The MA-202 tone arm is a S-shaped tone arm with excellent tracking ability. It has an adjustable counterweight and the tone arm pipe is filled w

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