Confessions of a Fanboy

It should have been a glorious victory.  I should have stood in triumph before mine enemies… but that’s not my life.  Glory?  Victory?  Triumph?  What the fuck was I thinking?

So my turntable made it to Huntsville yesterday.  Close, but not quite to my apartment because the shipper accidentally left the apartment number off the the shipping label.  I knew this was a bad omen.

I drove out to the UPS Depot to pick up my package.  Unfortunately, the driver was having a bad day and had sent up signal flares to other drivers to help him get the day’s deliveries done.  In short, I got back to the depot before my package.  I went and got something to eat and returned to the depot and to my shock and amazement, the package arrived before they closed.  So I drove home, frustrated, but in possession of my turntable.

I got home, cut the box open and looked at it.  It was not the most aesthetically beautiful object upon which I’ve laid eyes, but style isn’t something I concern myself with.  What I was concerned with was getting the device hooked up properly.  The first thing I looked for was the handy switch that changed the RPM speed from 33 1/3 to 45.  Yeah, there isn’t one of those.  This is a manual, belt-driven turntable and you manually change the belt location to change the speed.  A small touch of panic set in at this point as I feared this small device might be smarter than me.

I took a deep breath.  I attached the RCA cables to the phono input on the back of my receiver.  I plugged the turntable in.  I carefully extricated the first LP of R.E.M.’s Accelerate from the cover and placed it on the turntable.  I gently placed the needle on the record.  I took two steps back to enjoy the glorious sounds of vinyl, only to hear something else instead.  Fuzz.  Static.

I was a bit crestfallen.  My first suspicion was that my speakers connections were again failing.  I double-checked the connection and tried listening to a CD.  To my shock, both speakers were outputting clear audio.  Hmmm.  Okay.  Let’s try this again.

Fuzz.  Static.

I began thinking murderous thoughts aimed squarely at one Mark Saleski.  I e-mailed the motherfucker.  Motherfucker all of a sudden went stupid on me, claiming ignorance on what might be wrong.  I’m normally quick to accept pleas of stupidity, particularly where Saleski is concerned but right then I was dealing with a turntable that didn’t play records.  Now was not really the time to fuck with me.

I got his ass on the phone and commenced to cursing.  After some debate, we determined the following:

1)My Onkyo receiver doesn’t have a phono stage, despite indications to the contrary.
2)My Onkyo receiver does have a phono stage, but the phono stage is fried.

I could try taking my receiver back to HH Gregg, but I don’t have the box any more.  I didn’t want to throw it away.  TheWifeToWhomI’mMarried is responsible for that.  She asked me if I wanted to throw it away.  I said, ‘No.’  She gave me a look that read something like, ‘I wasn’t really asking if you wanted to as much as I was telling you that thing is gone.’  Right, then.  So, I don’t have the box.  I don’t think HH Gregg is going to do anything for me and even if they do, I’m still not sure they’re the source of the problem.  My problem could still be #1.

Where does that leave us?  With a turntable that doesn’t play fucking records.  I guess I’m now going to have to buy a phono stage for the turntable.  I love it when the answer to the question is to spend fucking more, but that seems to be the only way out right now.

If the day comes that I ever meet Saleski, the first thing I’m going to do is give him a kick sqa’ in the nuts.  The handshake will just have to wait.

Filed under: Tags: ...I'm Collecting Vinyl, R.E.M.