Rediscovering Vinyl

b.c.

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It all began when we happen to be browsing through a BestBuy and I saw them. A display of ALBUMS!! Record albums! The missus looked on as I went thru the stacks with all the glee and awe of a kid in a candy shop. I picked up a fat (remasted) package of Are You Experienced saying "I had this" and then Disraeli Gears and next Synchronicity, tempted to buy them all on the spot.

But then I remembered I had never tried to see if the Luxman I saved from my flood damaged livingroom still worked. It was high enough to escape direct water damage but I had to cut off the wiring. I even ordered a replacement stylus a year or so ago that was still in a box.

So I set to work rewiring the audio connectors and attaching a new electric cord, and mounting the stylus to the cartridge, and adjusting the turntable speed to an exact 33 1/3 - all that old technical mumbo-jumbo and equipment fiddling one had to do before the advent of plug n play CD mediocrity... The moment now at hand, a press of a button, some lights, HAH!! It still worked!

Then it occured to me I only had about 7 or so beaten up LP's I had stripped from their water logged covers or had plucked from the floor (those that weren't cracked, warped, or smashed beyond salvage). I remember cleaning them up best I could but where were they now?? I set about looking for them when the missus said, "What about those we have upstairs?"

We have albums? Upstairs?? And so we did. More than I thought we did, that apparently weren't damaged, including older versions of some I had seen in the store, and others I had thought long gone. I tell ya, it was like Christmas all over again. Well, almost...

Because, when I hooked the turntable up to my received I could barely hear it. Why? Because my newer Pioneer, the one that can play all kinds of digital configs and optical shit, and dolby xyz and lmnop, had everything BUT a phono imput. And turns out a turntable needs boosting above that of today's standard imput.

Well, I bought a dohicky from R. Shack made for just that sort of thing. And in days I was listening to vinyl again. Complete with all its "snap, crackle, and pop".

And know what? It does sound better than digital. :wink:
 

Skull Mason

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It is like the difference between a tube amp and a solid state one. Especially if you get one of those record players with tubes in them. The sound is so much more live, open, raw...
 

HellsKitchenmanNYC

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I have a vintage Blaupunkt floor model stereo/hi fi/w/am/fm and sw/ w/a built in bar. I have factory sets on it for the Vatican and Russia...it's al fun and great. There's nothing like a record being played by a needle.
 

faceking

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For what it's worth... I still have a pair of Technics 1200s...which I broke out last night for a party. A highlight being both loaded with New Order's 12" mixes of Confusion... seriously ran it for close to 30 minutes. with the Technics 1200 "battle mixer"...Fun fun times.
 

b.c.

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yes, the sl-1200's... a d.j. fav back when. Reminds me of James the d.j., Jody with the incredible ass, and Saturday nights at Deja Vu... with Benny (and the Jets).
 

Phil Ayesho

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vinyl recordings have a much wider dynamic range and reproduce more accurate sound.

CDs sound like hammered shit compared to analog LPs

SACDs sound far more like vinyl than does CDs... twice the sampling rate and 4 times the dynamic range...
But for a long time after the initial release of CDs, the Japanese courts placed an injunction on any Japanese company making digital players with a sampling rate higher than CDs... this was to protect the huge investment in trying to supplant vinyl with a japanese owned technology.

This was aimed at killing a High Fidelity DAT system that was ready for market the year after CDs first hit the shelves... I know, because I had one on pre-order... and that order that was never filled. The japanese audio factories were constrained to only offering 44khz DAT.

This protection of the 44khz CD sampling rate for nearly 15 years created a huge gap in consumer's experience of high fidelity music.

But now, folks raised on CD sound are beginning to come across the hard core audiophile sector, where ultrawideband amps, discrete circuitry, and highly sensitive pick ups and tonearms can still make Vinyl sing like the real thing.
And they are discovering what they have been missing.

Other than some rare and expensive tube equipment, Its hard to even find hi fidelity power equipment anymore. No point in making ultrawideband amps for CDs... they don't even reproduce the full range of human hearing... much less the high and low frequency harmonics that color the sound we can hear.

But if you've never heard it... try and find a Mobil Fidelity Sound Labs virgin vinyl half speed mastered recording of Dark Side of the Moon, played on a higher end analog system... and be prepared to be blown away.

I would love to see vinyl make a comeback.
One of the best things about vinyl, is that is device independant. The same record that will sound like crap on a close and play record player, can be cleaned, put on a good table and played thru a good system, and you can get the most amazing sound out of it.

You could ALWAYS upgrade the sound of your analog gear..... something digital music makes impossible.
CD sucks
Vinyl rocks

SACD is a pretty good compromise.

And BTW- SACD sounds far better than that 5 channel bullshit on HDVD Which is merely more channels of CD quality noise.
 

nudeyorker

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I have replaced most all of my vinyl albums with CD's. However I still have one album...The Beatles White album...still in the plastic. ( I had a friend who was wise enough at the time that suggested we each buy two and not open one of them)
 

b.c.

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I have replaced most all of my vinyl albums with CD's. However I still have one album...The Beatles White album...still in the plastic. ( I had a friend who was wise enough at the time that suggested we each buy two and not open one of them)

Yep...White Album was one of my "survivor" albums. Lost Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road and a BUNCH of other shit. (Thought I had once loaned the latter to a guy who was in a band, and they must've played the SHIT outta it because by the time I got it back half the music was stripped from it). And T.from T.O. on vinyl with volume ramped up?! (whoa! goose bumps...high the memory).

But anyway, a bunch of vinyl lp's recently showed up in a local Best Buy, so it may be something we'll be seeing more of.