Gasp (This Is Not a Tech Nerd Blog)

Besides having a shoe collection in the triple digits, Junk Thief has an obscenely high count of MP3s (over 50,000) and multiple times that in source materials. Sadly, more of those are on CD than the far superior vinyl, but at least he has held onto at least 3,000 or more of the original vinyl 33.3s and 45s. And then there are the heirloom and vintage store 78s.

Junk Thief has thought himself pretty clever over the past eight years or so for being able to convert these to MP3s with varying and never completely satisfactory results. It's rare that Junk Thief will gush over 21st technology, but this time he is going to make an exception with today's purchase of the above Ion USB turntable. Forget plasma screen TV and Blue Ray, this baby is eargasmic. He'd held out on a USB turntable, still being partial to his still fully operational 1977 original issue direct drive Technics turntable (one driver, high mileage, in mint condition) and a back up standard Ion turntable purchased about a year ago.

He recorded his first track on the new USB model with mild optimism, but when he hit "next" for to begin the save process and it started connecting to Gracenote, found the appropriate track into and within a fraction of seconds was booming through Airtunes to the mixture of 20th and 21st centuries speakers, he let out an audible gasp and shed a tear. The quality is impeccable and require so little work compared to past rigging and mixing of old/new technologies. The thought of being able to have his original issue Abbey Road (age 13 birthday gift from Grandma Polley) streaming through his iPod as he walks the mean streets of the Mission is bone chilling.