Turntable or Ipod!?

[tvhead]

I'm thinking about getting either a turntable or an ipod. They are definitely polar opposites. One is super convenient and portable. The other is super inconvenient and uh unportable.

To you turntable owners out there. Do you feel that the inconvenience of cleaning the records, aligning the cartridge, or whatever else that needs aligning, and the other drawbacks is worth the payoff?

Also, I only own a handlful of records (small handful), but I would like to start a vinyl collection. Should I even bother collecting?

I like the ipod, but like most computer related products, has an expiration date of 2 years or so. I could effectively use the turntable for a very long time without worrying about any advances in analog technology. I won't have to think, "Damn, if I only waited 6 more months, I could have gotten the turntable with 20 more gigabytes."

Also, is the MMF 2.1 and Pro-ject 1.2 really about the same aside from the cartridge? I read on here that the MMF 2.1 has the ac plug and RCAs permanently attached. Is that true of the Pro-ject 1.2? Any of you guys have recommendations? And why does Michael Fremer praise the MMF2.1 and not the Pro-ject 1.2. Is it that much better?

BTW, I've looked in my recycler (used goods ads), and they don't seem to have anything used except for a whole bunch of SL1200s.

Thanks.

 

[kaiwei]

Personally, they both do totally different things really well. You should focus on your needs. Which one are YOU gonna enjoy & use the most?

 

[RickG]

tvhead,

I'm way into vinyl and have been since I was just a small fry. I started with an RCA Victor record player that played only 45 RPM records (many of which I still own) in the 1950's. Over the years, my collectin of LPs continued to grow. When I moved here to Santa Cruz in 1999, I had a spare room in my townhouse converted into a "media" room with nothing but built in shelves to contain all the albums, tapes, and cds I have accumulated.

I have owned many turntables in the past and I love"tweaking" them in order to provide better sound and performance. I enjoy going to funky record shops and garage sales to rummage through stacks of LPs in hopes of finding a "treasure". There are huge record shows around the country to attend. I go the one in Austin, TX. Collectors from all over the world bring thousands of records to large convention centers and auditoriums. They sell everything from rare mint condition, expensive items to inexpensive copies of records of all musical styles. The last time I went, I came home with around 30 lps which were by my favorite artist and spent less than $100.

Point is, record collecting can be a very enjoyable hobby and it does not have to be expensive. Some of my favorite albums in my collection were purchased for under $5 each (some for a buck or two!).

I hope this gives you a little insight into the fun of locating and listening to vinyl. While it 's definately not for everyone, I find it to be very rewarding.

Rick

 

[KurtW]

Wow Rick, I started with that same RCA 45 RPM player! I concur with your comments on record collecting, it can be fun. Also, not only are the LP jackets nicer to look at but you can actually read the liner notes, unlike on some CD reissues where they have just shrink the 12" text down to 5". And there is still a lot of great material out there on vinyl that isn't available on CD.

tvhead, setting up a turntable usually doesn't take that long and once it's done it doesn't have to be tweeked unless you change something. Keeping records clean just becomes natural after a while so it's not even noticeable. There are drawbacks of flipping the record half way through to play the other side but if I know that's going to be a problem I just put on a CD. As far as having the AC and Phono wires permanantly attached, the Rega P3 at $750 also has that and people still think it's a good value, so I wouldn't worry about it on a lower cost unit.

 

[Hardhead]

Since you do not have a record collection at this point I wouldn't start down the path. New, clean releases are few and expensive. I have an extensive vinyl collection, a very good turntable (Rega Planar 3) and believe that a well-recorded record will sound better than a well-recorded CD. Yet I find myself listening to CDs 95% of the time. Bottom line - 15 minutes of music between necessary record changes (lifting tonearm, cleaning record) is only worth the effort when one can really focus exclusively on the music. At those moments, vinyl rules!

 

[joelongwood]

Quote:

To you turntable owners out there. Do you feel that the inconvenience of cleaning the records, aligning the cartridge, or whatever else that needs aligning, and the other drawbacks is worth the payoff?

No!

 

[RickG]

Hmmm, 3 people on the same post with the same turntable!!

Rega P3/Benz Glider here.

 

[dngl]

I am studying when I listen to music, so turntables are inconvenient for me. I agree with whoever said that you should get whichever one you'll enjoy the most.

5 CD changers are great because I just load it up and once the 5 CDs are through I take a break and hopefully am done

 

[chadbang]

Well, there is a certain romance about records - but if your one of the younger generation and don't already associate them with the "good old days", you might as well stick with digital. The time I spent cleaning records with a Discwasher! (never really worked perfectly, always left that ONE PATCH of accmulated dust.) Or spent trying to track down a new stylus at radio shack, or trying to ignore that SCRATCH on my favourite track have since been forgotten - But I'm sure would be rekindled if I tried to return to vinyl. The other day I bought an old favorite album (Roxy Music live "VIVA!") on CD. I popped it in and noticed the running time: 42 minutes? Oh, yeah... it was an ALBUM first. Yes, flipping albums after 20 minutes would be a pain now. (How many hours did I daydream about building a turntanble that would flip records for me! The future!) But the number one reason not to go turntable is that you'll wind up buying the iPod a few months later, anyway, to make a copy of the records that you like before they get ruined by fingerprints and scratches. That's why you always needed a tape deck to compliment a record player. Go iPod.

 

[tvhead]

I've kind of wondered this. Many people think that analog is superior to digital. What if a current album was recorded in digital and mixed in digital. A vinyl version is produced and a cd version is produced. Would that mean that all the advantages of getting the vinyl are gone, thus making the cd superior?

 

[Pierre Lambion]

I would suppose that your musical preferences are important here: can you easily find the music you like on vinyls?

However, I don't have anypersonal opinion as I am not a vinyl user ...

Pierre

 

[Joe Bloggs]

The obsolescence factor is irrelevant with the iPod IMO. Yes, with computer products the effective life is something like 2 years--if you're measuring by processing speed or storage capacity. But with music devices the yardstick is obviously sound quality, and I certainly don't think that there will be a device with 8 times the music fidelity 2 years after the iPod or anything like that. Heck, just look at how the quality of pcdps is going downhill...

 

[chadbang]

Well, there are a lot of reason why some people like vinyl over digital recordings. A lot of times it comes down to the "harshness" of CDs. So a digtal recording of a record will also suffer from that "harshness" since it's gone throught he process of digitising. I was really just noting how fragile records can be. Why would a record cut from a digital master sound better? Well, I heard a theory years ago that when a needle rides in a record groove it sometimes picks up part of a recording on one side of the groove a fraction of a second prior to playing back the information on other side of the groove, creating a delay or sense of "space" or "airiness". So that coveted sense of "airiness" on records may, in fact, be part of a record's limitations as a playback medium. Whether or not this is the final answer, I don't know. But I do know it does happen. I remembering having two album where, on the first track, I could hear a fraction of a second where the opening musical hit was echoed.

 

[JML]

I think you ought to compare the two sources with your associated equipment; I'm coming at this from the opposite end as you. While CD and MD and other digital sources have their benefits, they also have drawbacks. Right now we're looking at too many sources for digital music -- CD, DVD, SACD, MD, MP3, etc. Both the formats themselves, and the storage media, are not really compatible, and many postings I've read here suggest that's true. The manufacturers live off of the changes in media more than anything else. And it's ironic that SONY is now admitting that the "perfect sound" of the CD is really a pretty ghastly imitation of real music (low sample rate, etc.), and so they're pushing SACD and MD. While others are pushing MP3, WMA, DVD-Audio, etc.

I'll tell you about something I did only two days ago. I moved my equipment from one room to another, and now that my turntable (a Linn Sondek LP-12, bought in 1978 for $424 and updated only once) is in the same room as my computer, I connected the output from my preamp to a pair of $125 Monsoon desktop speakers (pretty awesome for the money). I compared sources.: CD, vinyl, cassette, radio. Guess what? The only time my feet started tapping is when the vinyl was the source. The soundstage was higher, deeper, and extended way beyond the outside of the little speakers. Yeah, it was a bit noisier, but not harsh, brittle, or flat.

You may hear differences on good equipment between CDs and MP3s. or you may not. Depends on your ears, your equipment, etc. But you have to remember that something is lost in conversion. The question is whether convenience makes up for the difference in sound. And you have to consider whether you're listening to recorded music or synthesized sounds.

Fundamentally, reducing the live sound to digital format, esp. when we're talking about 20+ year old digital formatting with 16 bits and low sampling rates, means something was lost. Many people have written about this over the years. It's worth hearing for yourself. You can even hear this if you get a decent computer mike and record your voice into .wav files of varying format.

And keep in mind the costs of media -- that's the real black hole for money.

 

[dgs]

I have an old B & O turntable. I use it to listen to my old jazz recordings and early rock stuff (some are original pressings). There is no question in my mind that vinyl, on ORIGINAL mastered material (not represses, rereleases, etc.), convey more of what the original sound engineer/producer intended. When all these recordings get remastered "for digital reproduction," they often sound completely different IMO than they did before. That doesn't mean worse or better, but different...

Buying albums (vinyl) is pretty tough these days, and finding a place to keep them is even tougher.

If you are about to go to school, live in a small apartment, etc., you might want to hold off on starting a vinyl collection. I tend to listen to my vinyl very infrequently, mostly because it's inconvenient--I work for hours at a time while listening to music, and to get up every 20 minutes to flip an lp would drive me insane.

Even having to change a CD every 45 minutes can be annoying. So the ipod? If it sounds as good as an MD, it's a nice way to have a significant portion of your music at your fingertips. Pretty convenient. If you are studying at the library, sitting in your office, going on trips, it's pretty sweet to have a TON of music always at your disposal.