u/yor4k

I’ve lived practically next to it for nearly 4 years and only just decided to check it out for my wife’s birthday. Weather was great!

I may have been playing the long game by buying her vinyls of albums she likes for about a year to let her come to this conclusion 😂

Of course, since it was her decision she got to pick within a certain budget and so I narrowed down a bunch of decent vintage players on Hard Off’s online store here in Japan (a long process of research on my part). She saw this Micro Seiki Solid 5 and really liked the design aesthetic. It was at a great price too - ¥24,000 in “B” condition located in Sapporo, serviced, though without a cartridge or headshell. It turned out really clean overall even at the rear ports, and the belt felt new-ish (at the very least not sticky or loose). I’m assuming it was not rated mint cuz of some scuffs on the wood and dust cover.

Decided on a Nagaoka MP-110 with an included headshell, and an iFi Zen 3 that would pair easily with my trusty Edifier R1800TIII speakers (they are pushed to the back of my sitting table to fit in the frame for this photo).

Initially there was some speed drift but a bit of non-conductive contact cleaner and knob fiddling sorted that out. I also had to learn how to align the cartridge which was a surprisingly therapeutic process and audibly rewarding for inner groove distortion on certain records.

We’re both very happy with the setup and have been enjoying listening sessions together for the past few months! She’s turned out to be way better at record digging than I am and some of our most unexpectedly replayed albums are ones that she picked out.

I can’t wait for her to come to the conclusion that we need passive speakers after moving into a house next year…