To get into vinyl, or not?, I was set on constructing an analogue system, but.. Options

[almostmitch]

I was set on constructing an analogue system, but I have seen several users criticize the various aspects of the vinyl medium.
(sound quality/accuracy, cost of equipment, effort to play/digitize)

I'm 20 years old and have never truly experienced vinyl. However, I am extremely intrigued by it. I very much like the idea of setting up an affordable but quality system to listen to vinyls on. Also, I would be digitizing my dads old albums and some of my own. I look at it as more of a hobby/interest than its practicality regarding current tech and sound quality. I like the idea of starting a record collection and listening to them with my friends. The nostalgia and audio technology are other aspects that interest me (big tech geek here). I'm aware of the imperfections of vinyl's sound and this is why I want to make sure I get a quality system to achieve the best possible sound the LP will produce (within budget). For my system, I had the Pro-Ject Debut Carbon and a pair of decent floor standing speakers in mind but was not set on which components I wanted to use with it (pre-amp + receiver, integrated amp, or just a receiver w/ phono inputs). This was originally the question I was going to ask you guys. Something I could connect my computer to in order to play music files is something I'd like to be able to do. I have always cared about sound quality and the majority of my albums are perfect CD rips (.flac). I currently do not have a hi-fi system to fully enjoy my music on which is another reason why I'm looking to purchase one. Also, this is something I plan to take with me and enjoy for many years to come.

-So I ask, how do you like the vinyl experience compared to the CD experience? Can the added complexities with vinyl add to the experience?
-Also, if I decide to go for a system, which device(s) combination might produce the best sound quality at a reasonable price?

Thanks for any input!

[DVDdoug]

One thing I'm still unsure about is impedance...

I second what pdq said... You shouldn't need to worry about impedance. The unofficial standard for home speakers is 8 Ohms. It's all pretty-well standardized and virtually all amplifiers will work with 8 Ohm speakers. (Car speakers are usually 4 Ohms.) With lower resistance (or lower impedance), you get more current with a given voltage. So typically, you'll get twice the power with 4 Ohm speakers.

An amplifier rated for 4 or 2 Ohms will work fine with 8 Ohm Speakers.

However, if the speaker impedance is lower than the amp's impedance rating, or if you hook-up too many speakers, you can "pull" too much power from the amp and damage the amp.

Or if you hook-up two pairs of 8 Ohm speakers, you'll have 4 Ohms (on each channel) and you'll get (about) twice the power... Makes sense, right? 100W from each speaker means 200W with 2 speakers and 400W with 4 speakers...

... and how to correctly match wattage between the amp and speakers. If this amp is rated at 60 watts a channel, my speakers will need to handle at least that much, correct? Or is there more to it?

This can get really tricky... So, I'm going to give you several different answers answers...

For most living room situations and most home speakers, 100 Watts is more than enough. If you double the power you get +3dB more volume (or half the power is -3dB). That's "noticable", but it's not a big difference. If you want to rattle the walls, that usually takes big woofers/subwoofers and big amplifiers.

It's pretty much impossible to predict how much power you need in a home situation... We don't know the SPL level you like to listen at. And, speaker efficiency varies all over the place. One speaker might be 6dB (or more) more efficient than another, and it takes a power factor of 4 to make a 6dB difference (4 times the power is +6dB, or 1/4th the power is -6dB). So a 50W amp/speaker combination may be play louder than a 200W amp/speaker combination. If you feel like you need to go louder, it's often better to get more efficient speakers than to get a bigger amp (or both ).

Pro PA speakers tend to be very efficient, so a PA speaker rated at 500W (maximum) might "blow out the windows" in your house with a 25W amp.

I generally wouldn't worry about connecting 25W speakers to a 200W amp, as long as you don't drive the speakers into distortion. To much power s rarely a problem. But if there are loud parties and beer involved, you might want to be more cautious.

For professional music/performance installations, JBL recommends using an amplifer with twice the rating of the speaker. For guitar/instrument applications where there is often intentional distortion, they recommend the opposite... an amp with half the power of the speaker rating.

Speaker power ratings are complicated (and sometimes just plain made-up or exaggerated). They are rated for undistorted music which has an average power that's about 1/10th the peak power, with a particular frequency distribution (approximately pink noise). And tweeters cannot handle the power of the woofer, so you can burn-up the tweeter in a 100W speaker with less than 100W if you run high-power, high-frequency, test tones into it.

Sometimes the speaker manufacturer will have a "recommended minimum power" rating. This could be useful information, but its often meaningless. I've seen two speakers from the same manufacturer with same efficiency/sensitivity (the same loudness with the same power), yet the bigger speaker with a higher maximum power rating will have a higher recommended minimum power.

This post has been edited by DVDdoug: Nov 29 2012, 20:15