I appreciate that you took a look at it. At this point, I agree. My best digital chains and my best analog chain offer what I feel are technically more or less equivalent listening experiences. I find analog to be generally more enjoyable, and the mastering/production decisions to be better most of the time.
Like you and others here, I find high resolution digital to be at least as good as digital, and far less prone to artifacts caused by mishandling and environmental issues.
That video… I wince at the views of ancient metal stylii (styluses?) and the general depiction of what I am pretty damn sure doesn’t represent the modest VPI Prime Scout/Ortofon 2M Bronze, or even my earlier AR Xa / Shure V-15 type III reproduction capabilities. Not to mention the equivalent treatment it gives to shellac vs vinyl.
And if they’re trying to compare analog v digital, there is always 15 or 30 IPS half inch tape to consider.
And I like your comment about a whole album. When done on vinyl, the bands/producers tried to give thought about that album format. Not so with digital. Digital seems “song” oriented, and vinyl oriented toward a larger piece of work.
This is getting at an adjacent issue. It’s not so much about the medium as the effort and economics of the classic vinyl era.
During vinyl’s heyday, it was hard and expensive to produce viable commercial music. It required studio money, distribution money, production talent, and genuine performance talent. Everyone teamed up, paid up, and made millions of dollars from most of what they released. And during the classic vinyl era there were far fewer entertainment choices and much greater competition for the few ‘star’ slots available.
Per this story, at one time people spent a relative fortune on pop music:
Today there’s much more diffusion of access, and very weak content can be commercially viable (at far lower profit levels). I do find a few art or “indie” productions that put in a high degree of effort to indeed produce genuine, thoughtful albums. But, real albums are not common and not so easy to find. And the economics of the era means that strong producers and songwriters can’t fix the weaknesses of independent artists. Nor are there A&R positions to turn mediocre artists into great ones.
Very nice article. Piracy for music was a bogus issue. Yes, I used Napster, and eventually didn’t. I have a couple of bootleg vinyl albums. That was expensive piracy. Eventually, the cost of physical media - CDR, quality tape, became so significant in relation to digital streaming, that legal distribution just won out.
Which does not explain why I still buy ALBUMS at the same time I spend $20+ per month on legal streaming. I have even found times where I listened to a stream and decided I needed to buy the album. More often an album comes up in re-release that I wish I had bought originally.
I used to - and still sometimes do - read album reviews and buy the vinyl. Storage is a bit of an issue, or I’d probably buy more.
I am enjoying Vinyl more than I thought I would, it makes me slow down and enjoy the “Band”… I am usually a bounce around and listen to random music from random bands/artists… but having the Vinyl playing…When I want to skip a song or move to a different band…it is just enough of a task for me to stop and just let it play…I will probably be more particular about what albums I buy on vinyl moving forward… and choosing albums that have a track list that over all I can just sit and enjoy.
Yes, that’s the whole idea of an “album”. Although it started with 78’s. Somewhere I have an album binder of Carmen Miranda. And some Gilbert and Sullivan. But changing 78’s is just a bit disruptive so the long play was most welcome.
If you’ve gotten in the habit of listening to songs as single tracks, you will enjoy it as you go back and listen to some favorites in the album context.
Yes, of course I know you know this. But at 11:25 on St. Paddy’s some of us are prone to verbal diarrhea.
ha… yeah, I have had a couple drams of Irish spirits… now time to crash… long day at work tomorrow. Hopefully I can finally get some solid listening time in with some of my new toys… I need to put out some content soon lol.
It is exponentially better. I finally got some time with it yesterday. My past few weeks and weekends have been…not the most conducive to listening to music, hopefully this week will allow for me to remedy it.
Just found this thread - have just received the Cambridge Duo, which supports both MM and MC (and also includes a little headphone amplifier) - see pictures on the What‘s in the Box thread.
You will eventually find something pretty decent, and it WILL have been gone over. I recently upgraded my turntable and haven’t put my old one up for sale yet. Totally manual AR Xa. I suggest the above link because when I serviced my old turntable, I went there for AR parts. If you look on Ebay, I would suggest you look at one of the newer AR models with a better tone arm than the original. You can then go to the above link and slowly upgrade it - all for cheap money.
It’s certainly possible to get started with vinyl without breaking the bank. It’s harder than with a digital system, and there’s more to consider in doing so, especially if you want digital and vinyl replay in the same setup.
On the turntable side of things, if you’re completely new to vinyl replay, I would skip all the vintage and used stuff and go for a new, ready-to-run, table package. You might not get quite the same level of performance doing it this way, but it’ll work, properly, out of the box and has far fewer pitfalls than used gear (which might be mechanically fine, but still has to be setup properly).
You’ll need a turntable with arm and cartridge, a phono preamp (or a table that has this built-in), and ideally a way to wash your records (even new ones), to brush them before play and to clean the stylus. The cleaning aspects are important to get satisfying results that aren’t an absolute nightmare of clicks and pops.
And then either an amp that has two inputs (one of the DAC, one for the output from the phono pre-amp) or a built-in DAC/phono-stage and an auxiliary input.
If you want to define “inexpensive” for a complete setup, I’ll give you some thoughts on how I might go about it (with specifics). But one viable, new, ready-to-run table is the U-Turn Orbit + OM5E cartridge upgrade for $214. There are some other good options up to the $500 mark, including things like the Pro-Ject Debut Carbon DC, that has a better arm, much better cartridge and a nice platter … for $399.
But it’s really all the gubbins that you need on top of the table that makes “entry level” vinyl more expensive than most people expect (or results in a mess of clicks, pops and other undesirable artifacts).
I’m sure this will get some gulps and gasps, but I’ve been wanting to try some of my vinyl that’s been moved from place to place and mostly setting in storage since the 70s or early 80s. So for Christmas my wife gave me an Audio-Technica AT-LP60USB turntable that includes a pre-amp and automatic arm. It may not be a turntable for audiophiles, but it sounds pretty good and plays my 60s and 70s records just fine. I don’t plan on using the USB portion to burn vinyl to digital, but it works just fine for listening to my vinyl. For $99 to $149 (depending on the version) I don’t see how you could go wrong. They also make the AT-LP120 which gets a lot of great reviews. It’s supposedly a DJ capable machine. Check them out on Amazon.
One modern thing is a record clamp. If you have records with any degree of warpage, having a turntable that works with a record clamp is an advantage. Most vintage tables don’t do that.
Pro-Ject and Music Hall are, I understand manufactured by the same people. They are competent, but I’m not a huge fan. You can also find good entry level turntables from Rega, Marantz, and AudioTechnica. If you want to gaze online, Needle Doctor, Music Direct, and Audio Advisor are all among “the usual suspects”.
@jflores476 did say a “used” turntable. Audiogon is the primary auction house for used equipment. But, you should have a good idea of what you are looking for. Possibly looking at some recent new stuff and finding someone that just couldn’t resist upgrading.
I 2nd the Audio-Technica AT-LP60 Fully Automatic Belt-Drive Turntable $99. It is a very good value. It has a belt driven plater which I favor. It comes equipped a Audio-Technica Cartridge which can be up graded later should you wish. The only thing I don’t like about it is does not do 78 RPM. This would be useful for transcribing 78 RPM records to a digital format. By fully automatic the tone arm is lifted off the record and parked, it should be described as semi-automatic.