Probably the boredom and the desire to buy a new musical “toy” (rather than making an up-grade), also thanks to the great “return” of vinyl and its the never-ending charm, I have a big doubt that I have to get rid of:
since I only listen to CDs (I believe that my source is right and balanced as per profile) and I have no incentive to enter the “trip” of ripping and storing all my music (at the moment I have about 700 CDs), do you think it makes sense to start buying, listening and collecting vinyl records from scratch now?
Please help me understand how to make a sensible and intelligent decision not motivated by the simple and childish impulse to buy and own something new!
Thanks in advance to those who will contribute to the debate.
I can only share my experience as I did start from scratch about two years ago.
With streaming getting better, and Tidal offering CD quality, I was using CD’s less and less. But I did like owning the physical thing and the process of having to go over, put on an album etc. So I kept buying CD’s and then rarely playing them. There’s quite a few I probably only played once and have streamed tons.
In a way CD’s and streaming are too close together for me.
A turntable is more of an extreme, more laborious, more factors to play with as well if that’s your thing. And the physical media is much nicer. So I still get to buy physical media, and actually play them more than I would with CD’s.
But, it is expensive. Records are, styli wear, you need a good turntable, phono pre-amp, cartridge.
What proportion of new records have to be returned because they’re faulty in some way? (Warped, scratched, noisy, anything.)
I used to hate all of that back when I had a turntable.
I went from vinyl, ending up with top Linn turntable straight to streaming as I considered CDs would have a limited life. I now just stream. No clutter, and very practical. No way would I go back any extra investment would be in current system, so in my opinion, no.
So far I’ve been lucky. I have one records which has some kind of pop/tick in the first 10 seconds of the first track of both sides on each revolution, although visually it looks fine… This was a gift, so didn’t want to complain to about it. One I’ve had to return one because of being warped, although I have accepted not all records are perfectly flat.
@Airdavid Interesting question…
Ultimately, the answer might be guided by your ears.
As a minimum, access to equivalent level sources in all three formats - Vinyl - CD - Streaming - might help. Perhaps your friendly local dealer might assist with that? Do a comparison and find out.
Also, the “user experience” of buying, selecting, storing, handling and using each of the formats might influence your decision too. Physical media needs space, as you probably know, (700+ CD’s)!
My own experience is none are “best”, each are just different.
As the saying goes : “Pays your money, takes your choice”…
I say this despite spending thousands last year updating my Linn LP 12 and buying a phono stage and made to order Chord Company phono to BNC cables. And a RCM… I do, however, have 1800+ LPs and singles bought,acquired and inherited over a 50 year period.
I mostly stream Spotify (albeit I am looking forward to their higher fidelity stream to start) and buy CDs, often second-hand CDs, often as a result of streaming (Radio Paradise is good here).
Rightly or wrongly, I look askance at the "remastered on heavyweight audiophile vinyl " reissues for £££
I find very few contemporary artists of any interest so I tend to go for older material. Even the last few CDs I have bought (Kendra Smith, Japan, TVOTR, et al) have been minimum 7 years old.
Streaming: either on my main rig in the listening room, on the Alexas, in the car, in the lounge via a cable to a little stereo.
I do envy those with the money and space for a turntable collection though!
Do you like playing vinyl and what comes with it - answer is yes
Will you only play CDs but like the larger covers - answer is no, but buy the album anyway
Will you only play CDs and don’t care - answer is no
I have recently, very recently, decided that hi res streaming does everything I want in terms of listening pleasure,. BUT, I just love the sensory pleasure of watching that vinyl spin around on a piece of engineering art that is the turntable. It is an experience in a way that cd/streaming just isn’t for me.
Records that were mastered as analogue and not digitised sound best on a turntable. So unless you want to spend time finding these old LPs in good condition you may want to skip the turntable as a source. My turntable is my preferred source and I have invested a lot in it and I have lots of LPs from the 70s and 80s.
In case you read my other reply, I was confused and thought I was answering to something else. Sorry! please ignore.
I figured that you don’t follow my “questions-to-answers” procedure, that’s why I posted it. You asked for opinions and “help me understand how to make a sensible and intelligent decision”, I think asking and answering these questions does that
Oh What I meant was to answer for yourself these questions and you may be closer to making “a sensible and intelligent decision not motivated by the simple and childish impulse to buy and own something new!” Because in your opening post these considerations did not seem to have played a role yet.
If you like playing vinyl, owning the stuff and maybe collecting it, caring for a player, don’t mind vinyl noise, then the answer to your original question is “yes, it does make sense to start from scratch now”
If you don’t like owning and playing vinyl, will play CDs anyway, are offended by warps and clicks, the answer is “no, it does not make sense to start from scratch now”
I was never tempted to sell my vinyl collection (thousands) when CD went along in the 80’ies, I simply added the silver disc on other shelfs.
I’ve had paused replay and had various turntables through decades.
Would I ditch vinyl replay now: NO
Would I start from scratch: NO (well maybe yes, with vinyl from garage sales etc. and a Planar 1+, new vinyl is far too expensive)
absolutely agree - LPs recorded/mastered digitally are missing something in my experience. unless you can source pure analogue LPs - very difficult to know except with ancient LPs - AAA wasn’t much of a marketing advantage in the early days of digital and doesn’t seem to be a feature of re-issues- For me a DDA LP is not really worth the various downsides of turntables etc. hi-res streaming seems to me to overcome many of the shortcomings of CD.
@Airdavid from my experience and my system over the years
Vinyl when I had my first system from school was the only source, so for me may be a romantic of following vinyl which I have never lost.
do you need to spend many ££££, €€€€€ or $$$$$ on a deck play no, but all I would offer is the money you put in get’s you to a deck which matchs your current source
I happily used a 202/200 with my LP12 for a number years, and yes both the Lp12 and system has grown since then
I would go an lisen to some decks around your chosen budget and then and only then purchase
all I can say to me some of the remastered vinyl being released today match with a good deck and system is a mucial delight - but I would say that
