Vinyl Newbie In Need Of Enlightenment... Is this it?

[AudioNut]

Esteban, I think you have made a wise decision.

I still love vinyl and play records often - but - more and more, I find myself playing CD's and SACD's primarilly because of the convenience (as well as the good sound).

Last night I was in my pool house, music listening place, playing a Chopin LP. During side one of the thing, my telephone rang seven (7) times and it was my obligation to answer the damn thing. So, I had to mute my system, talk with whoever called (mostly my wife and children) and then un-mute the system. I probably heard 3 minutes of the 20+ minute record.

Had it been digital, I could at least have paused the recording, answered the phone, and just continued where I left off, not missing any of the music.

You can't pause a record with your remote.

Then too, there are other "downsides" to vinyl.

1. You have to clean many of the records before you can play them (a real hassle so far as I'm concerned.

2. Pops, ticks, and surface noise - I grew up with these things, but they are still annoying.

3. Changing sides - every 15-25 minutes, you have to get up and turn the record over - and when you get older this is more and more trouble.

4. Storage and display of the things. With about 14,000 records, I have a major problem with storage. I have many thousands of LP's in semi-permanent storage and I may or may not ever see or play them again.

5. Major cost if you ever move Because of the bulk and weight of LP's, it is a really costly event to have a moving company move them for you. Three years ago my wife and I moved and the cost of packing and moving the records was a lot of hard earned cash. (at least a couple thousand dollars)

6. Perfect Cartridge alignment - After many, many years of messing with turntables, tonearms and cartridges, I no longer feel that I'm a vinyl hobby-est and I don't think it's fun to spend hours aligning a tone arm or cartridge. I'm now a music lover that just wants to listen to music on my pretty good stereo stuff, rather than fiddle with my system - so this has become a pain.

But, all this having been said, I still think that records give the listener something that is missing with digital - so I'll keep on listening to the things for as long as I can still get up to turn the things over. . . . .

[W9TR]

Esteban,
I am glad to have participated, to a very small extent, in your journey.

Julian makes some very good points, as usual! There are a multitude of ways to enjoy our avocation.

Now it's time to enjoy some 24/96 on your Oppo!

Tom

[esteban]

Thanks, Julian and Tom.

Julian, I agree with all your points, but particularly with this one:

5. Major cost if you ever move Because of the bulk and weight of LP's, it is a really costly event to have a moving company move them for you. Three years ago my wife and I moved and the cost of packing and moving the records was a lot of hard earned cash. (at least a couple thousand dollars)

Never realized how heavy a small collection would be until I purchased about 20 or so records at the same time and could barely carry them with one hand. I can not even begin to imagine what it would be like to move hundreds, let alone thousands! And since I am not the type, it'd be wise if I do not find out!

[esteban]

I certainly never saw this one coming...

If you followed this thread from the very beginning, you might very well think I'm crazy by now. Can't say I blame you. But here goes a bit of news and an update anyway, with a nice twist at the end...

As I've been describing all throughout this thread, the road to analog nirvana has been a bumpy one for me so far, and first impressions were not precisely the greatest. After my less than thrilling experience with a local analog-only dealer, I got on the phone with my other dealer (the one who originally sold the Pro-Ject turntable to me, and with whom I had nothing but great experiences in the past). We spoke for a while about the whole ordeal and he pretty much agreed with my sentiments and even confessed that analog is too much of a hassle for him nowadays, and that he's currently more than satisfied with his own digital front-end (I don't blame him, since he has a dCS Puccini!), but he wanted me to discover all of this for myself without interfering with nor coloring my own decisions. Thumbs up there. He again mentioned that I could keep the table until after the Rocky Mountain Fest (so that I could listen to, and experience first-hand, other analog systems, and use that as a guideline), but he again assured me that he would take the table back if after that I still had my doubts about the format. Finally, and like many of you folks here, he also suggested I give some old used records a try, just in case.

This is where things got really interesting.

After that last piece of advise, I went shopping for some used titles at a local store (Radioactive Records in South FL, the only place in the area I know of that specializes in used and collectible vinyl).

To my surprise, I found lots of ultra-rare cult soundtracks from the likes of Ennio Morricone, Riz Ortolani, Luis Bacalov, John Barry, Piero Umiliani, Francis Lai, Nino Rota, John Williams, etc... All original pressings, all very much used, and all dirt-cheap. Some were $4, some were $7.50, none of them exceeded the $12 mark. An example of the latter was a original, mint, new and still-sealed copy of Morricone's "The Guns Of San Sebastian" soundtrack that usually sells (used) for around $80 on Amazon Marketplace. I could not believe me eyes and grabbed it right away.

"Why the heck no?" I thought, and also bought a bunch of the rest, plus some used Yes, and Ralph Towner. The best part? I actually sold most of the releases that I mentioned throughout the thread and that I had been having issues with (Yes, Pink Floyd, Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Agalloch, one Chet Baker, etc.), and exchanged that for the "new" used titles. In other words, they were basically free, so I really had nothing to loose.

You probably know what happened next... I do not know if my cartridge was now broken-in, or "opening up", or the stars were finally aligned in my favor... I am not going to go quote the usual audiophile-jargon, but, simply put, MOST (not all) of this stuff sounded very nice indeed. Just plain musical, with a relaxed "flow" and no damn distortion anywhere to be heard. Not as precise, focused, detailed nor expansive as my digital, and without the "impact" that I am used to getting from the Oppo, but still very listenable and inviting, and much better than the distorted mess I had originally experienced. EXCEPT for the odd record or two that was scratched beyond repair, or the few instances where the dreaded "inner groove distortion" reared its ugly head. More on that later...

I am not a full convert yet, by any means, by I can now definitely appreciate some of analog's strenghts. This is the sort of "relaxed", musical experience I had been anticipating all along. And I can't believe that today's releases can not do better, specially considering the ridiculous prices some labels are now asking, and also after realizing that all the titles in this last batch were pressed on plain ol' regular 150 gms vinyl.

Don't get me wrong: After basically living with CD's all my life, I'm still a little annoyed and unsure about vinyl's inherent idiosyncrasies. Still can't handle some of the background noise, still find it difficult to adjust to the idea of having to stand up every 20 minutes or so, I'm still trying to figure out the whole storing and cleaning ritual (I only use a brush for now), plus this and that, but, hey, I understand this is part of the fun for some folks, even though I do not include myself in that group.

More importantly, I still believe that $1K worth of contemporary digital kills $1K of contemporary analog pretty much in all areas, but at least now I can get a taste of the analog signature while being able to play albums that are almost impossible to find anywhere else, period. Yes, I still am of the opinion that my Oppo 95 sounds better. No, I probably won't play vinyl records every single night. And no, I most definitely will not fall into the whole "cleaning" ritual. My wife has enough cleaning products in my closet already, thank you. You know, a vacuum cleaner, toilet paper, dishwasher detergents... that sort of thing. And no, I don't think it's worth spending more $$$ on this and go crazy with a gazillion accessories, specially if you do not have an existing collection to begin with, if you listen to both classical and contemporary music a lot (like I do), and not at the dawn of the hi-res digital frontier. But, yes, vinyl does have its moments and I can finally appreciate some of them. And it is certainly nice to be able to hunt down obscure stuff that nobody else seems to want anymore, and pay peanuts for it. But you won't find me spending $40 on a crappy new pressing ever again! Amazingly enough, I have had better luck with used albums than I did with new ones! In fact, I called one of the record stores (Specs, in Coral Gables) were I bought one of the Morricone albums that was defective, and they told me they do not accept returns nor exchanges. All record sales are "final", because they get calls complaining about quality issues "all the time". Their words. Pretty scary stuff.


Now, regarding the "inner groove distortion"... I still get this in a few records. I was not even aware of the term nor the problem until I started googling for things like "record distortion" after I was going crazy trying to pinpoint the issues I was having with the albums I described above. I have been hearing and reading conflicting information regarding this subject. Does the fact that I experience this in some records mean that I still have some set-up and alignment issues to deal with? Or is it pretty much a "just live with it" design flaw inherent to the format and/or the type of arm I am using (that is, one that is not linear)?

(Feel free to throw the tomatoes at me if you feel that sort of punishment is deserved )

[Alberto]

Originally Posted by esteban

...
(Feel free to throw the tomatoes at me if you feel that sort of punishment is deserved )

No tomatoes from me.

Keeping an open mind and changing one's position in light of newly acquired information is a sign of intelligence and mental flexibility.

Kudos to you.

BTW, I also get the most pleasure from finding used vinyl and paying a few $ a piece. What's the fun of shelling out $40 to Music Direct for a new pressing and then wondering if you are getting a good pressing? On the other hand, finding a minty copy of, say, Led Zeppelin 1 for $4 is REALLY fun and rewarding.

[Jerome W]

You're beginning to see the Light Esteban !
Very good !

BTW, is there a used vinyl web store ?

[Alberto]

Originally Posted by esteban

Now, regarding the "inner groove distortion"... I still get this in a few records. I was not even aware of the term nor the problem until I started googling for things like "record distortion" after I was going crazy trying to pinpoint the issues I was having with the albums I described above. I have been hearing and reading conflicting information regarding this subject. Does the fact that I experience this in some records mean that I still have some set-up and alignment issues to deal with? Or is it pretty much a "just live with it" design flaw inherent to the format and/or the type of arm I am using (that is, one that is not linear)?

I forgot to add, that IGD (inner groove distortion) used to bug me quite a bit, but I discovered that some cartridges (and types of stylii) seem to deal much better with it than others. The AudioTechnica AT440mla was the first cartridge that made me forget all about IGD. In general micro-line stylus designs seem to deal very well with it. It may be there, but I literally never notice it anymore. So there's hope for that problem as well.

Alberto

[esteban]

Originally Posted by C220MC275

You're beginning to see the Light Esteban !
Very good ! BTW, is there a used vinyl web store ?

Thanks, Jérôme. At least the light at the end of the tunnel is a little brighter now. I am not aware of any online store that specializes in used vinyl, other than the usual suspects: Amazon Marketplace, e-Bay and Acoustic Sound's Vinyl Vault. But after having so many issues with bad pressings, I'd rather avoid the usual return shipping hassle and buy directly from the local store I mentioned in my previous post (Radioactive Records): friendly service, they are only 20 minutes away from my place, and they DO take records back, unlike SPECS.

Alberto, thanks very much for your words and also for the info about inner-groove distortion. Will look into the AudioTechnica.

[Still-One]

Good thread Esteban. There are no absolutes in this hobby. Just an ocean of opportunities to find what floats our musical boats.


Jim

[cmalak]

Originally Posted by esteban

Thanks, Jérôme. At least the light at the end of the tunnel is a little brighter now. I am not aware of any online store that specializes in used vinyl, other than the usual suspects: Amazon Marketplace, e-Bay and Acoustic Sound's Vinyl Vault. But after having so many issues with bad pressings, I'd rather avoid the usual return shipping hassle and buy directly from the local store I mentioned in my previous post (Radioactive Records): friendly service, they are only 20 minutes away from my place, and they DO take records back, unlike SPECS.

Alberto, thanks very much for your words and also for the info about inner-groove distortion. Will look into the AudioTechnica.

esteban...good luck with the extension on your "analog experiment." I totally agree with an earlier statement you made, which is $1K in modern digital will beat the pants off a $1K analog rig (vintage or modern), especially if you are new to vinyl and are not familiar with how to tweek your analog set-up. I think once you get in the $5K+ range in analog and it is professionally set up, you start giving digital a run for its money, IMHO.

As for being able to return LPs if they are bad pressings, you should know that Elusive Disc, Acoustic Sounds and Music Direct, will all take back LPs that are warped, bad pressings, damaged, etc...Just an fyi. I have not bought vinyl from Amazon (and won't) because I have heard horror stories about their packaging which is likely to result in receiving more often than not warped vinyl.

Finally, if you do decide to stick with vinyl, I would highly recommend getting an LP cleaner. It does not have to be an expensive RCM. You can buy the Spin Clean Mk II (Spin-Clean-Record Washer System-Record Cleaning Machine | Acoustic Sounds) that many here have tried and have raved about. Puma Cat (Stephen) has both a Spin Clean ($79.99) and a VPI 16.5 (approx. $500), and he used the Spin Clean 90% of the time. Cleaning your records is a pain but is a must if you decide to stick with vinyl. Just my 2c. Good luck and enjoy the ride.

PS: If you are still going to RMAF, I would definitely take Metaphacts (Bill) up on his offer to walk you through table set-up procedures. If I was going to RMAF, I would have definitely joined you on that training session. I think that sesion might be one of the most valuable things at RMAF