Vinyl is BACK?!

http://whoknew.news.yahoo.com/?nc&vid=26245521

I think it'll always have it's fans but coming back? I doubt it.  there were too many inherent problems with it.

Broke easily, warped in heat, rough handling resulted in scratches, and it wore out (degraded) physically over time. Requires sufficient storage space and care in storing them.

I guess the same could be said of CD's.

I still have a decent collection of my old LP's and 45's, and a nice JVC direct drive turntable with a low tracking weight stylus. I don't often play them anymore. Every once in a while, my wife and I will be talking about the old songs and decide to spin one.

Vinyl never left at my house.  There are tons of arguments about sound, fidelity...I have 5 reasons I prefer it.

(1) LPs had tons of visible artwork (ie - you didn't need magnifying glasses), lyrics or cool pictures inside the gatefold, and sometimes (such as with the Beatles White Album) cool bling inside.  CDs rarely have things to that scale.

(2) I have maybe 60 or so CD cases where my kids took the guts and all I have is the memory.  That is about $2k worth of missing music.  My kids (actually adults now) have no idea what to do with the black stuff.  

(3) A lot of the stuff I enjoy rarely makes it to CD.  I have a few areas I like that are a bit off the radar screen - particularly the "second tier" bands that came out in the midst of the spacey end of Prog Rock like Yes-Fragile and Pink Floyd DSOTM.  Many of these second tier space rock bands never came out on CD. Vinyl is the only way to get there.

(4) I like to get picture disks and colored vinyl.  I do not know why.  I just think they are cool.  I do not think the fidelity on Picture Disks is that good. Colored vinyl is a different matter though.  Amongst my favorite colored vinyls are 2 complete white albums on white vinyl, Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt Peppers on Yellow vinyl and a splattered vinyl of the Ramones doing 60s psychedelia covers.  Colored vinyl is cool.

(5) There was a time when albums were meant to be listened to from start to finish - or at least one side from start to finish.  Concept albums like Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star - Side one, starting and ending with International Feel, needs to be listened to all at once.  Tommy - the Who - you need to dedicate 75 minutes or so to listen from start to finish.  Gong - You - another that needs to be listened to in its entirety.  While initially CDs were structured in a similar way, I believe that CDs - and worse now digital downloads - have put the song in front of the album.  As such, i would conjure that much less music is produced for the album's sake than for the song's sake.  That is a shame.  

I have a couple k LPs.  I would not trade them for CDs under any circumstances.  

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Or Strawberry Fields.  

Tell me this isn't beautiful

....and if you really like the sound of vinyl, Izotope has a free plugin to do just that........http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

I love vinyl … somebody recently posted something here about your G rated pleasures and I threw out listening to classic 70’s albums on vinyl as mine (I think I listed Van Morrison’s Moondance with its perfect album side).

Currently, my turntable collection has been pared down to consists of an early 80’s Dual 606 and a 50’s era monophonic Garrard RC88.  The Dual I bought new and the Garrard was a restoration project and both of them have cost me oodles of time and money to keep functional.

With respect to the way people listen to music, the ‘wax cylinder’, which ultimately morphed into ‘vinyl’ started as a single and ultimately ended up as a grouping of songs … as vinyl reached its triumphal peak as the LP with its adorning artwork. If you’ll allow me to state the obvious here, my interpretation is that the Average Joe music enthusiast wanted to listen to a continuous grouping of good songs and the LP gave him that in the form of a perfect album side (such as Van Morrison’s Moondance) but the song order and choice was not that of Average Joe.

The digital age of music has brought us full circle (back to the single) and technology (short of having some sort of cranial implants) has given the music industry a music delivery system that fulfills the listening requirements and preferences of Average Joe … essentially, unlimited control over song selection and order.

The upshot is that we will probably never see a return of vinyl and the concomitant turntable to the mainstream simply based on its inability to function as an Average Joe ideal music delivery system, not in terms of its fidelity, but in terms of the continuity of play.  The turntable, for all of its electro-mechanical glory will remain in the hands of the obsessed aficionado.

Hopefully I have not offended anybody named Joe.

I actually only buy albums on vinyl.  I won't buy CD's anymore typically I'll pick it up digital first and then if I really like it, it gets a spot in my living room.

I actually just picked up a Robert Randolph album on vinyl - it actually irritates me when groups don't release on vinyl I see zero value in a CD, those stupid plastic cases crack, the little booklets are all little and then you have that giant binder of CD's from the 90's that's in the trunk of your car that you rarely use. 

Mesh


....and if you really like the sound of vinyl, Izotope has a free plugin to do just that........http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

I spent a small fortune on a very good record cleaner.  It digs deep into the grooves, then vacuums out the trash.  I have a separate anti-static system.  If I do everything right, my vinyl only sounds if there is a scratch on it.  If there is, it is because it was there when I bought it, not because of me.  

I've been looking at a return to lo-fi to give my ears some exercise. In the MP3 world I think records are the bomb.

Has anyone noticed that the current vinyl releases don't seem to have a standard thickness?? Some LP's are rather thin, while many are like the old 78 rpm disks. I suppose that the pressing of small batches opens the door to variability in the raw material supply.

I've still got my vinyl collection and a phonograph. Some years back after not listening to vinyl for a really loooong time I put an album on, and then another and so on. And I kept thinking: man these albums are really short. Forgot that they were pressed on two sides and I would need to flip it over to hear it all.

So for vinyl to gain any mainstream popularity there going to have to get a remote control 'flipper'.

Regards

Can anyone recommend a good and affordable turntable preamp?

My surround sound stereo system does not have a proper turntable input.

Thanks.

Can anyone recommend a good and affordable turntable preamp?

This is the one I'm using.  It's pretty decent

So for vinyl to gain any mainstream popularity there going to have to get a remote control 'flipper'.

I've actually come to really enjoy the silence (insert Depeche Mode reference here) between flipping sides.  Not all current music takes advantage of it but there is definitely an emphasis that gets put on certain tracks by the physical attention involved in getting up and turning it over.  Sometimes the space almost becomes part of the album.

Willy Jones [Cakewalk
]

Can anyone recommend a good and affordable turntable preamp?

This is the one I'm using.  It's pretty decent

So for vinyl to gain any mainstream popularity there going to have to get a remote control 'flipper'.

I've actually come to really enjoy the silence (insert Depeche Mode reference here) between flipping sides.  Not all current music takes advantage of it but there is definitely an emphasis that gets put on certain tracks by the physical attention involved in getting up and turning it over.  Sometimes the space almost becomes part of the album.

:-)

Can we be best friends?

:-)

I used to have Metallica's Fade to Black on the toxic green-colored album shown below: