I was thinking of a title with a bit of humor and to grab attention as well.
I am wondering if I am wasting money on vinyl and instead of saving for an NDX5 XS 2?
In brief, the setup is a Linn LP 12 Akurate (please click on my identity to see more details), Nait XS 2, CD 5XS.
Having very little vinyl of my own at the time compared to my wife’s 70’s and 80’s music collection and a wish to include my wife in my HIFI hobby/lifestyle. Which, by the way, has not worked.
I was happy spinning CDs and then for some reason I had to purchase a record player for my wife ( really for me ) and went from thinking about a Rega 8 and jumped in the deep end and purchased the Linn LP12 Akurate after reading posts here and my dealer revealing he had spent $30k AUD on his vinyl HIFI setup. I also had the idea of upgrading all my NAIM components to match sources one day. In reality with my bank account, this will never happen.
I have a few Dire Straits albums which are 45 RPM and a handful of other records though 99% of the vinyl which I have acquired is 33 1/3 RPM. There are 180-gram vinyl records amongst this collection, though nothing I would go out and say MOFI One Step $300 AUD albums or the such.
The question is, should I restrain myself from purchasing vinyl and save for an ND5 XS 2 or keep the leaking bucket hole scenario going by purchasing a vinyl record once a week/month?
I thought I would never sit down with an iPad at the time I did not have or could justify, now do and makeup playlists and the such to play music via an ND5 XS 2. It being a foreign/new technology that I was afraid of learning and still am. I do have an Apple Music Family account for my wife and nothing else though expect I would have to purchase some other online account to play/stream music through such a streamer as the ND5 XS 2. The idea is sounding more appealing because of all the (coloured) vinyl impulse purchasing I am doing at the moment. Mostly releases of music that I had back when I was in my teens and twenties that is now being re-released these days. I am 59 years old as of last week.
I do like collecting vinyl and CDs though will very shortly run out of space and have to build another flatpack bookcase to store my books that are being replaced by vinyl and CDs.
Some people think vinyl sounds better than any digital. Others have the opposite view. That is something only you can decide for yourself. (It does of course depend of the gear, not just the medium - and while in the early days gigital was a new and very much developing technology, it has matured greatly in the past few years so comparison from some years ago of course are no longer relevant.
Personally my experience is that good digital sounds better than vinyl, and comes with many practical advantages to boot. Streaming, either online or from one’s own store, offers the availability higher resolution formats than CD, and so can sometimes sound better (though not necessarily so!). Streaming from one’s own source has the potential to be best of all, avoiding read errors possible with CD, and free from the glitches that can sometimes affect internet streaming, likewise is independent of catalogue and licensing limitations or changes. On the other hand streaming from online sources offers an instant huge catalogue from which to choose.
There are plenty of threads discussing digital vs analogue, and online vs own store streaming - and of course they are not exclusive - other than occasional stylus changes your vinyl can continue alongside streaming.
I have over 2000 cds and 500 vinyl. I spend huge amount each year on the physical article but since buying nd5xs2 I confess my purchases have decreased rapidly.
In my opinion Vinyl is special, offering the highest sq but I use sparingly because I find it is best listened to with a total commitment I can’t always give.
Cd purchase is now for very special reissues.
I have 2 subscriptions. Qobuz and Apple Music and happy to stream most of the time.
I love the idea of a turntable. So many things appeal to me. The beautiful engineering, the romance of putting the needle on the vinyl, the simplicity of a just bouncing needle, the wonders of ownership, and the fact that every component can be upgraded for ever more. However for me I suspect it would become an obsession, and a money pit.
I did enjoy the act of putting a CD in my old CDX, but realised that I rarely used it. I am now fully digital, and I can just enjoy the music, not to mention any music at my fingertips, and I can do it just for a coupe of tracks, rather than feel I have to make a proper session of it. Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t stopped me upgrading, but I feel I am closer to my end of that process.
I’ve gone quite heavily into vinyl over the last few years and my experience is you have to be very careful on selection of albums as lots of poor quality pressings out there
I’m still a vinyl and cd advocate albeit also have a national naim core where have ripped all my CDs into ( in another location where I also live)
Vinyl takes dedication but to me still the best SQ quality medium ( won’t go any further than that)
It really depends on where you see yourself going in the future
Thank you everyone so far. I think I am between a rock and a hard place. Vinyl is becoming a money pit for me. Though I do enjoy it so much. Removing the LP from its slip, picking it up, and flipping it between my fingers to play the other side. Placing the needle on the record. Nostalgia vs money vs ND5 XS 2. I think I like worrying about problems that are not problems.
If I can stop impulse purchases and only purchase quality albums as Bevo mentions. I suppose, in the end, it is a good place to be.
I make vinyl interesting by hunting down good quality first pressings for records known to engineered to a high quality. But you do need to invest in cleaning equipment. And remember good records are an investment, value generally goes up.
Perhaps one option is to have both - for now. Bear with me on this, and I realise this may not apply in your circumstances
The aim would be to run both side by side for 6 months, then make a decision on which way you wanted to go. Get a pre-loved Naim and you wont loose much. Of course you will need to find the funds to cover this period, but at the end you would sell what you weren’t using.
Perhaps you can partially raise funds my selling old unused stuff in your house on eBay. I raised quite a bit on items such as my old digital cameras, old HiFi from University days, and an old Harry Potter Chocolate frog that cost about £4 at the time - never opened and sold for £20. You will be amazed at what someone might buy.
G’Day GM, you are spot on. I recently sold some old amateur radios that covered a number of bands to pay for the purchase of a new radio which did two of those bands at higher power levels and work amateur satellites and have another radio which already owned purchased secondhand to be repaired.
I will have a look around the house for some more old gear. I do have a lot of 35mm camera equipment, Pentax ME cameras, and Tamron lenses. Out with the old and unused and in with the new.
Been thinking about this, and please don’t think I am being harsh by what I say, just purely thoughts.
I’m quite sure this is the case, but who is the investment for. Unless you sell it yourself (which I expect you never would), then it is just a cost for you, but an investment for anyone who inherits your gear, assuming they realise the value and don’t just sell the lot for pennies.
I suppose it would be an investment for you if you became a hobby dealer.
For the money I don’t think that you can beat the value of a Qobuz subscription. Get an ND5XS2 and a Qobuz subscription and you’ll have more lossless and hi res music at your fingertips than you can possibly listen to. Plus internet radio. And really Qobuz lossless and hi res sounds very good. You’ll not need to buy any more music.
Keep the LP12 and your current records of course. And if there is something you REALLY want to own on vinyl, on a case-by-case basis you can buy it. The tt is not costing you anything…nor is your current record collection.
This is essentially what we do. I already had an 1800 album lossless and hi res music collection on a home music server. We wanted to be able to play my wifes old vinyl and discovered that it’s quite “fun” these days to play vinyl so bought a turntable and built up a vinyl collection of just those titles I really wanted to own on vinyl. About 150 lp’s total. Really not buying any more lp’s unless something super special comes along. And for new music releases we want to hear, it’s Qobuz. We have our cake and eat it too.
The streamer comes in very handy for checking out records before buying them. In theory at least but I find myself in a second hand record shop still buying discs on spec.
There was a time I could buy classical records 10 for £5 but the vinyl revival put paid to that around ten years ago and now it’s nearer £5 each if I’m lucky. A wet cleaner is very useful when buying used, as is a cartridge that doesn’t over emphasise the odd scratch.
Most things we buy depreciate like cars and most hifi gear. Good records, not just special editions, keep their value. So like other collectables you enjoy them and you always have the option to recover your investment if you need to. You obviously need to only buy records for enjoyment unless you do wish to make it into a business.
Vinyl still seems to be able hold it’s own, which given its 2022, i find quite remarkable… infact, in my system, for sq alone, I prefer vinyl by a very large margin. However, I think the benefits of digital, taken in the round, are indisputable. Access to new music, a truly massive catalogue with streaming, convenience and it sounds pretty good too. If I had to choose one source only, it would be streaming. If you’re able, my suggest too would be take the best of both worlds. Keep your tt for those special albums, but also invest in a streaming platform. Streaming simply gives you access to lots of music, which surely is what it is all about.
I gave away my Revolver record player several,several years ago and committed to cd. The lps recently were sold at a handsome price.
CD players came and went and I now own a cd5x flat capped and about 600 cds. But most of these are on a hard disc.
The CD player and cds are kept because I am simply reluctant to pack them up and put them under the spare bed. There are cds not available to stream but I usually find an alternative unknown listen on Qobuz.
I never thought I would say that the NDX2 and PSXdr now are responsible for 90% of my musical enjoyment.
I had the ND5 XS2 for a couple of years and was quite happy with it.
Dealers will however keep whispering in your ear about equipment you have been interested in that is now available at this knock down price.
To me, more enthralling was handling and looking at the album sleeve, and then the magic of the click as the stylus touched the record surface and entered the lead-in groove, the surface noise heralding the notes to follow…
But, I prefer the absence of that surface noise with digital, and the absence of having longer pieces of music broken up into 20 minute sections with a pause necessitated by turning the record… The better sound quality, and the other advantages such as virtually zero storage space and never a mis-placed album relegate the more tactile aspect of vinyl to nostalgia. I ripped my LPs intending to convert to CDs, to stop the gradual deterioration, but then CD player died and I recognised streaming was the future, bought an ND5XS (1), ripped my CDs, and was hooked. Adding external Hugo DAC improved sound quality markedly, then changing ND5 for another source improved slightly while saving money, and then changing DAC to Dave finished it off - that and converting amplification to active has meant no impulse to change anything at all for over 3 years…
Been thinking about this, and please don’t think I am being harsh by what I say, just purely thoughts.