[goldenratiophi]

A few days ago my copy of Arcade Fire's "Funeral" came in (vinyl of course). Most of the record is fine, but in the middle of the first track, there was a lout POP; didn't sound like the average surface noise. A few seconds later, it totaly skipped a groove. This really bothered me, so I googled to find how to fix scratched records. Long story short, they didn't work and due to a mistake I probably made, I also have nice big scratch directly after the skip. So in the middle of the first track on my very favorite record, I have a loud POP-SKIP-SCRATCH.

I really want to love vinyl. I really do. I just spent $6 on a 12" single today. But when my very favorite record arrives at my house with a skip in the CLIMAX of the first song, I can't help but worry if I really should upgrade my cheapo turntable and continue buying vinyl.

 

[auris]

Quote:

he solution is not to regress back to an equally barbaric playback technology.

oh please . . .

 

[Todd R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by noseallinit /img/forum/go_quote.gif why does a stylus made of a very hard substance have a much shorter life span and replaced much more often than the medium it's intended to play which is made of a much softer substance of which is devoutly guaranteed to last decades at as high of quality as it was when purchased even though it's been played over and over again? I just don't get it..

Simple physics.
You have the entire tracking weight (average of 2) grams focused on an extremely small area (the stylus contact points). The weight is on the stylus entire time the record is being played, and is also generating heat from the slight amount of friction. I think I saw the approximate calculation once, it equaled several thousand pounds per square inch.

On the other hand, the grove is only in contact with the stylus for the brief moment the needle passes by it, and the vinyl is somewhat flexible.

That's why the wear is much higher on the stylus. Almost all of them are diamonds, otherwise they wouldn't last very long.

 

[38special]

As an avid music listener who grew up in an era of cd-players which transitioned into mp3 players (think Clinton-era), my fascination with vinyl has grown hand-in-hand with my interest in different music genres such as jazz and blues.

Although I have a rather poor vinyl hi-fi setup (I'm a college student) and like most other students - use an ipod on a regular basis, I still think music really comes alive on vinyl. Sure the audio can be muddied by unwanted noise, but there's an aesthetic with vinyl that cannot be rivaled by mp3/cd's. Here are the top 5 reasons (in no particular order) why I enjoy music on vinyl:


5 Reasons Why Vinyl Still Rocks!

1. Aesthetic
Artwork on vinyl is just more beautiful. From Cream's Disraeli Gears to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon the artwork is large and bold, not inhibited by a plastic case or a jpeg/gif file.

2. Historical value - it's physical
I was once interested in building a time capsule for some reason or another and came upon a website by an Oglethorpe University, a university that created a time capsule that was sealed in 1940 to be opened in 8113 A.D. Among the items listed in the capsule were phonographs such as the "History of Mines."
This university chose the analog format, such a format that will allow future generations the ability to extract audio from a physical object, not have to extract/convert/compress the audio from a digital source.

3. Historical value - the artist's history
My interest in classic rock grew to a point where mere mp3s and cd's could not communicate the artist's message. I unfortunately was not alive during the 60's and 70's when many artists performed and recorded, and so my understanding of their music is mediated and is based primarily on their works on studio album recordings. And vinyl allows me to see and hear how the artists intended their music to be published - not converted down to digital files to be sent from computer to computer, but as objects of their own creation in vinyl, the medium of their time.

4. Vinyl Digging
In a 2002 film about hip hop entitled Scratch, DJ Shadow's meticulous interest in vinyl digging and his use of samples from vinyl is featured (Youtube link) He describes a particular music shop he frequents in Sacramento/Davis, California as an incredible archive of music culture. He connects the physical aspects of vinyl lp's with the personal search for beats and hooks. And DJ Shadow also respects that many of the unwanted vinyl housed in the music store are from artists who never "made it."

For me as a college student, you can't beat the price point for vinyl. Yes it's easier to pay a dollar a track on itunes, but there's nothing like finding an awesome vinyl from an unknown artist for under a buck. (Or in my case finding Les Paul & Chet Atkins "Chester and Lester" for $3)

5. Vinyl has a future
This may be disputed by many in the current Ipod age, but vinyl continues as a niche among audiophiles. As music becomes digitized, modified, remixed, and downloaded - it's nice to know that music can still be accessed in a physical format.

 

[matt fury]

For me, there's ups and downs to vinyl. For actual useage, I hate all sorts of physical media. DVDs, CDs, LPs...they're all pains in the ass. I gotta store 'em, take them out to play them, and then put them away when I'm done. And that's if I'm lucky, and they don't need to be cleaned, sorted, etc etc. I don't listen to CDs at home at all. If I listen to music from a CD it's either because I ripped it to MP3 or I leave it in a case in the car, as a backup for those rare times when my DAP won't work in the car.

All that being said, I have a few hundred LPs, and maybe a hundred or so CDs. I have all these LPs for a few reasons:

1) Sometimes it's cool to see what it was like to discover something new thirty years ago. The Ramones started, peaked, and (basically) broke up before I ever chose my own music to listen to. The music scene has evolved since 1974 and I can never undo being exposed to all sorts of music. But I can recreate a little of what it must've been like to get an album by this crazy new band called the Ramones and drop the needle and experience the *album* for the first time.

2)As others have said, when you listen to a cd, you can hit a button and skip through a track you might not enjoy. And being a child of the digital age, I often take advantage of that option, which sometimes limits my exposure to new things, just because I might not like them at first. It's a freaking pain in the ass to skip tracks on a LP, so 99% of the time, I end up listening to the whole LP.

3) As far as most of the world is concerned, lps are D-E-D dead. So there are tons of great albums out there to be had for pennies. I'm not talking rare stuff, or the perfect edition of the perfect master or whatever, but just good, solid albums. And there everywhere. Record stores don't even really want this ****. I went to my buddies record store one day and bought every Herb Alpert LP he had in the store, like 10 or 15 albums for $3.50. So I can try new music for very little money. And you know, as far as Herb Alpert is concerned, I might as well be downloading it for all the money he sees from my purchases of used LPs, but hell, a lot of this stuff I couldn't even find to download if I wanted to. Which brings me to my next point...

4) I can't find a lot of this stuff on CD. I listen to a lot of pretty obscure old punk music, and it's hard enough to find on LP, and even if the occasional album has been remastered onto CD, it's even harder to find than the vinyl!

5) The RIAA doesn't profit one penny from my used LP purchases. I can spend $10,000 tomorrow at a record store on used albums, stimulate the local economy and music scene, and even support the bands (in a way) and the RIAA won't make a dime. That makes me feel warm inside. It's like having my cake and eating it too.

6) Even though they can be a hassle sometimes, records are more fun. I feel like I'm doing something when I make the time to take out an LP and play it. Plus, they're way more enjoyable to browse, with their heft and big artwork. And hell, worst case scenario, even if I hate a record, the cover usually looks good enough to hang up on the wall! Or I can melt it down and make an ashtray or something.


I gotta tell you though, after reading this thread, I'm actually concerned about the state of my vinyl. I know it's not scratched, but how the hell do I know if it's worn out?!

 

[Todd R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by matt fury /img/forum/go_quote.gif I gotta tell you though, after reading this thread, I'm actually concerned about the state of my vinyl. I know it's not scratched, but how the hell do I know if it's worn out?!

You'll hear it as a constant distortion, especially on louder sounds and closer to the inner grooves.
Can't miss it.
Good post BTW.

 

[paulllaser]

For me, vinyl is another medium to explore. There are certainly ups and downs to this medium - cleaning LPs, equipment set up and maintenance, need for intermittent work to enjoy the sounds (worse with the better 45 rpm recordings), but the payback? Sound that I have not yet heard bettered by the best digital has to offer, extensive library in many genres, bargains to be had in used recordings that others don't want to bother playing any longer.

I think it's unfair to say vinyl is better or worse than another format but it does have a place in my life. Can't beat the simplicity of digital for long, unattended stretches of listening. For critical listening, I'll take vinyl through good stats phones any day.

 

[Hershon2000]

One of my main beefs with Vinyl is being forced to listen to some lousy tracks unless you are willing to get up & lift the needle to play another track which in all likelyhood will eventually cause some damage to the record. If you think the vinyl experience is not skipping tracks & thus being forced to listen to the whole record no matter how bad some tracks are is a good thing, you are trying to romanticise a sucky experience. Likewise, if there's a track you really like, then unless you lift the needle, you are then forced to listen to say another 20 minutes of stuff before you can hear your track again on one side of an album.

When groups recorded released records in the 60/70's, almost every single album followed a pattern that the best songs would be on side 1, particularly the first 2 tracks & the worst stuff with one or 2 exceptions would be on side 2.

My personal experience & that of all my friends in the 60/70's would be that
after several playings the vinyl records sound quality would deteriorate & alot of people back then went through several copies of the same records because of this. The initial playing of a record would feature a "Hot" sound & the subsequent playings would not be as hot & progressively get duller. CD playing maintains the same sound as the initial playing.

If you collect reissues of old recordings from the 60/70's such as I, there simply are not many of them on vinyl, particularly of cult type groups.

I can see if you never were exposed to vinyl that it is perhaps a fun novelty
on the short term. But if all you had was vinyl like we had back then, it became a tedious, frustrating experience & also somewhat expensive too as we were constatntly having to purchase multiple copies of the same records & constantly replacing record needles.
I liken the experience to the PBS series where people of today tried to live in houses of the past in years like the 1850's under the conditions of those times. Initially it was a delightful experience for most of the people but as time wore on became a frustrating annoying one.

 

[matt fury]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Todd R /img/forum/go_quote.gif You'll hear it as a constant distortion, especially on louder sounds and closer to the inner grooves. Can't miss it. Good post BTW.

Ah thanks, on both counts.

 

[Todd R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif One of my main beefs with Vinyl is being forced to listen to some lousy tracks unless you are willing to get up & lift the needle to play another track which in all likelyhood will eventually cause some damage to the record.

You mean to tell us that you are not capable of changing a track without causing damage

Unless you have a tremor, or are extremely intoxicated while playing records, there should be no reason for that.
(Even if you are, there's a thing called a "Cueing Mechanism" look into it)

 

[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Todd R /img/forum/go_quote.gif You mean to tell us that you are not capable of changing a track without causing damage Unless you have a tremor, or are extremely intoxicated while playing records, there should be no reason for that. (Even if you are, there's a thing called a "Cueing Mechanism" look into it)

That was one of the things I never liked about TTs, even with a cueing mechanism I could sometimes get the needle to skip slightly when changing tracks, so I didnt change tracks much.

 

[matt fury]

OK, so what about linear tracking tt's? Don't they let you skip tracks?

 

[Rameish]

Gives you better sound for the $. A few year back I purchased the very nice Copland CDA-289. I made several comparisons with toher CDPs before I bought it. Bringing it back home it didnt hold a candle to my CEC ST930 turntable with Grado Platinum cartridge. Plus a turntable allows you to tweak the sound in many ways by varying the VTA for instance or when it's time to change the cartridge. You do need to keep your vinyl clean though and I do have a VPI 16.5 record cleaner that does the job. In fact you do need to keep CDs clean as well. And since I have more LPs (about 1,000 to 1,500) than CDs (about 300) I think I'll stick to it. I do admit that listening time is a bit short esp when playing 45 RPM records.

 

[uofmtiger]

Quote:

One of my main beefs with Vinyl is being forced to listen to some lousy tracks unless you are willing to get up & lift the needle to play another track which in all likelyhood will eventually cause some damage to the record. If you think the vinyl experience is not skipping tracks & thus being forced to listen to the whole record no matter how bad some tracks are is a good thing, you are trying to romanticise a sucky experience

Personally, I have vinyl as a compliment to CD/Flac/SACD,so it is not my only source. This gives me the freedom to buy vinyl albums that I like from beginning to end.. (Kind of Blue, DSOTM, Albert King's Born Under a Bad Sign, Johnny Cash Sun recordings, BB King Live at the Regal, Beach Boys Pet Sounds, etc.... I could go on and on).

 

[Hershon2000]

I agree it makes the most sense if you are happy to listen to the record from beginning to end. I'm convinced though that no matter how good your player, the sound quality on it will decrease the more you play it.