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so...im resisting the urge to get a turntable/record player and start up a collection.
ive grown up in an extended family of "audiophiles" and know how sick in the head they are (more so than guitar players) and have a cousin has spent $$$$ just on blocks to raise the player/cable risers and needles etc

i have a pretty decent/above average set of speakers/amps (cambridge Audio + B&W) for my CD collection...and pretty much love late 80s-90s and onwards music on cd...but i think i ahve it in my head that "old shit"...ie 50s,60s,70s just dont sound as good on cd?

thoughts? talk me out of opening up another black hole in my wallet

records are cool.....

I have a shit record player but a a pretty nice record collection

i had to unfortunately share a room with my older brother
and he wanted to be a dj in the 90s and that idea quickly bombed and his records and turntables collected dust so when i was about 14 i inherited the collection.
i was too broke for cds in the 90s like 40 bucks a pop so all the music i liked anyway was on vinyl for like 99 cents
so i started buying records and pretty much cut class in high school to snoop through record bins with my meager budget and havent stopped since

now records are the same price as cds now

i remember when i bought the entire smiths back catalogue for 10.00
i knew i hit the motherload in that store

i bought half the shop literally

I like records, but I actually prefer buying CDs--especially now that CDs are cheaper.

Records are for the albums I really like. CDs are for driving in the car.

Been collecting nearly 10 years. Over 25 crates deep at this point, spanning 6+ decades and countless genres...and 2 different locations...with a selection of hand-me-downs, freebies and cherry-picks.

Up until about 2007, it was commonplace to find curbside crates (and even turntables) on trash day. That ship has sailed, thanks to hipsters...and 8 years of Bush.

Since rediscovering "the way recorded music can sound" it's been my preferred listening format, at home.

I've been a thriftshop audiophile for the majority of that time...snatching up whatever quality gear I could find from decades past.

One doesn't need a 5 figure budget to properly enjoy vinyl...but I will say that it *sounds significantly better* through a hifi tube amp IMO.

But it's not needed...and the phono stages in 70s/80s integrated amps from Kenwood, Marantz, Pioneer and Yamaha etc also sound great.

Their turntables from that period are also superior to the gimmicky, plastic crap of today.

Just make sure to get yourself a "turntable compass" to balance and square your stylus, and set the proper tracking weight otherwise your frequency response will be inconsistent and the groove in your records will wear unevenly...rapidly...or worse...

A moving coil cartridge isn't needed...quality moving magnets can and do sound great AFAIC.

In any event, I'd recommend getting a "micro-line" tip as they greatly cut down on record wear and provide a very nice, full frequency response with exceptional tracking.


And crate digging is very fun...as are garage sales and flea markets. Happy hunting

I used to be HUGE into record collecting before I got into pedals. Sold a lot of my records to buy pedals and pay bills. But I still have about 200 that I listen to when I can

I will say the experience of crate digging is a whole lot more fun than browsing cd racks.

i had to give up vinyl at the point that everything had to fit into the back of a car. i'm in the middle regarding vinyl vs. CD. i think there's a point in time when record production, which had been engineered around the problems of vinyl (particularly the dynamic range and in/out of phase problems that will literally make the needle pop out of the groove) and its benefits (the sort of slight soft-focus the mechanical aspects of record/needle give as compared to the razor-sharp transients of digital, the rich and velvety [if dynamically limited and EQed half to death] bass sound) for decades, changed drastically in approach to accommodate the differences in digital recording. (how's THAT for a run-on sentence?) the RIAA EQ curve, which was a specific adaptation to vinyl's inadequacies, is now dead, replaced by a broader range of tone and pitch that, unlike vinyl, gives equal weight to the dissonant harmonics/overtones as to the consonant ones. in an analog studio you could just throw up some mics and go; with digital mic placement, technique, and mixing become more important because of the range of reproduced detail.

I will say, though, that CDs of the old Rolling Stones albums are unbearable because the bass is so mushy and buried...i assume they went to the mixed-for-vinyl 2-tracks for the CD transfers. startlingly, CDs of dub reggae, especially on the Blood and Fire label, are quite bass-friendly because those guys are meticulous--some would say obsessive--dub people and work diligently on their transfers.

D.o.S. wrote:I will say the experience of crate digging is a whole lot more fun than browsing cd racks.

This. Record store day this saturday will consist of at least 6 hours crate digging, cannot wait

Also, I find vinyl kinda forces you to listen to the album the way it was intended because you cant just press a button to skip songs. Definitely a better listening experience
For me CDs are useless now cos I'll just rip it onto the computer and put it on an ipod for the car

i miss flipping through record bins like crazy...i started plying the cutout bins when i was 12 or 13 because it was the way to get records for 2/3 off. as a result of this, my listening in my early teen years was warped by the fact that, e.g. Mothers of Invention and Ravi Shankar records used to show up for $0.99 much more frequently than popular stuff.

backwardsvoyager wrote:

D.o.S. wrote:I will say the experience of crate digging is a whole lot more fun than browsing cd racks.

This. Record store day this saturday will consist of at least 6 hours crate digging, cannot wait

Also, I find vinyl kinda forces you to listen to the album the way it was intended because you cant just press a button to skip songs. Definitely a better listening experience
For me CDs are useless now cos I'll just rip it onto the computer and put it on an ipod for the car

I'm actually going to be completely broke for Record Store day.

Also, not to get too pedantic/esoteric, but any album that has a song longer than the ~20 minutes that a record side will hold means that you can't listen to it the way it was intended. The same is true for tapes. And, of course, there's no one forcing you to push the skip button.

The benefit to vinyl, I think, is that it encourages an active listening experience precisely because it isn't set and forget--it keeps the music in the forefront, rather than acting as wallpaper.

i'd have to count again but i have like 500 records. love vinyl. but i have to love the music before i buy it. last band i was in put out a three song 7".

it cracked me up when the Sigur Ros ( ) album came out with the pause between tracks 4 and 5 that was about exactly the amount of time it'd take to get up, turn an LP over, and re-cue the tone arm.