Got Vinyl?

[Radioboy950]

With the story out this week about a continuing decline in CD sales, (heck half the kids don't even buy CDs anymore) it got me thinking about how I personally listen to music.

I have purchased a number of digital downloads...and I don't like them. To me the audio sounds inferior, and I miss the artwork and liner notes. Most of what I listen to these days is on CD, but I'd like to get a decent turntable to revisit some great classic rock and fusion records I have in the collection.

How many of you still do at least SOME listening on vinyl?


Bloomberg News / February 27, 2008
NEW YORK - US consumers spent 10 percent less on music in 2007, reflecting declining purchases of compact discs, according to a survey. Sales of downloads rose as Apple Inc.'s iTunes became the second-largest music retailer.

About 48 percent of teenagers didn't buy a CD last year, up from 38 percent in 2006, Port Washington, N.Y.-based researcher NPD said yesterday.

Compact disc sales declined 19 percent in the United States last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks retail sales. Downloads and mobile ringtones weren't enough to make up for the drop. Apple's iTunes store became the second-biggest seller of music in 2007 after Wal-Mart Stores Inc., passing Best Buy Co. and Target Corp., NPD said.

[Lunaray]

How many of you still do at least SOME listening on vinyl?

Hey, vinyl is alive and well at my place! I just spent $500 on a new turntable, I have two now! A lot of stuff is not available on CD, and never will be available on CD. Used vinyl is one of my passions!

The reason online purchases sound lousy, is because of the low sample rate that they use.

FYI: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n3813468.shtml

[mrmudcat]

I also love vinyl and have plenty!!

[Bloozcat]

Still have 100 or so records on vinyl, and my Pioneer direct drive turntable with the strobe tuning. Nothing like a little snap, crackle, and pop to conjure up those old nostalgic feelings.

I've kept all my old vinyl in great shape all these yerars. Still got my Disc Washer to keep them that way too...:

[sunvalleylaw]

Pretty regularly. Currently, an old Chicago album is on the turntable. Same old straight arm belt drive Technics turntable I have had since back in the day. I have replaced the stylus in recent history though.

[just strum]

I still have a Dual turntable packed away somewhere and a lot of albums. The only problem, my wife has a ton of Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow albums and I don't want to encourage her to play them. I also think she can join the Karen Carpenter Fan Club located in Waco.

[Tone2TheBone]

Alright...bbq and beers over at Blooz's. He's got the reh chords man!

[Bloozcat]

Alright...bbq and beers over at Blooz's. He's got the reh chords man!

Good timing too! My wife's going to a Mets spring training game tomorrow with a friend. *Since watching baseball puts me to sleep*, I'll be home cranking the amp up, working on a couple of guitar projects (spraying two necks and re-wiring another guitar), so throwing some meat on the Barbie and blasting a few LP's on the stereo sound pretty suitable. Did I mention the ice cold beer?


*BTW: I was listening to the news on the radio last week, and they had a report on about a recent study that said you burn more calories watching a soap opera for a half hour than watching a baseball game for three hours. I'm just tellin' it like it was told to me, as they say. Strange yes, but I can believe it. After all, how many calories could I possibly burn while I'm asleep? *

[tunghaichuan***]

This thread reminds me of when I used to work in a library about 5 years ago or so. I worked on a public Internet access desk. One day day this proto-hipster dude walks in and off the cuff told me: "Yeah, I'm into vinyl." So I'm thinking to myself: sonny I can remember when record store had mainly vinyl albums and a few cassettes on the fringes. This guy couldn't have been more than 20-25. It cracked me up. It is kind of cool that a new generation is discovering vinyl, though.

I still have about 50 records from when I first started listening to music in the 80s. I used to play them through my vintage Dynaco and Eico tube stereos, but I ebayed those off a while back. It was too much effort to maintain them, they didn't really sound all that good despite numerous tweaks, and they generated a lot of heat in the summer time.

I personally never liked records much. They are fragile, no random access like on CDs, and LPs generate a lot of pops and clicks. I think the bad sound of the CD is mainly due to the mastering process.

tung

[Bloozcat]

Yeah, you sure can't justify vinyl in practical terms, except where a record is only available that way. But, when you've got them and have the equipment to play them, it's fun to occasionally do so.

I'm not into collecting vinyl just for the sake of owning it. If I'm going to spend money on recorded music today, I want the best sound quality I can get. Modern high tech is great for stereo's and CD's, but when it comes to guitar amps, I'm stil a 50's/60's analog/tube kind of guy...

[sunvalleylaw]

I do not go out and buy more, that is for sure. But I try to take care of and enjoy the ones my wife and I have. Varying condition, as they were collected when we were quite young. The stack of 45s is the worst!! What a pain to play one song! But it is fun. I used to make party tapes for my fraternity, and have a ton of old 45 singles for individual songs popular at the time (Relax, don't do it . . . Thump Thump, Mix that in with Photograph from the Pyromania album, some AC/DC, some Stones, Clash, Costello, Joe Jackson, you get the idea). CD's were out, but expensive, and you could not get individual songs anywhere of course.

[Lunaray]

Modern high tech is great for stereo's and CD's, but when it comes to guitar amps, I'm stil a 50's/60's analog/tube kind of guy...

As are many audiophiles when it comes to audio gear, just price some of the new tube equipment that is available, it'll blow your mind what it sells for. As well as what good vintage tube equipment is going for these days.

I grew up tinkering with old vacuum tube radios when I was a kid and some of the high end tube audio gear that's available today, I would love to be able to afford. Also, it looks cool, no more hiding all those vacuum tubes, now they're flaunted like a work of art and placed on marble pedestals.

[Bloozcat]

As are many audiophiles when it comes to audio gear, just price some of the new tube equipment that is available, it'll blow your mind what it sells for. As well as what good vintage tube equipment is going for these days.

I grew up tinkering with old vacuum tube radios when I was a kid and some of the high end tube audio gear that's available today, I would love to be able to afford. Also, it looks cool, no more hiding all those vacuum tubes, now they're flaunted like a work of art and placed on marble pedestals.

I remember the old McIntosh tube driven stereo power amplifiers like the MC225, MC240, MC352, MC2255 (I think that was one of their bigger units), and some of the pre-amp like the C26, C41, and a whole bunch of others I can't remember any longer.

When you hear music from some of these beasts, it makes your little 100 watt solid state home stereo sound really puny....especially when those old units were run through some good speakers.

I happened upon a high end audio/video systems place in an outlet mall somewhere around the Orlando area once. They had a model home video room set up in this place with three leather recliners perched at the optimum distance from this screen that must have been 8'-10' wide and 4'-5' high. Powering the sound for this set up was a tube driven McIntosh pre and power amp stereo. I don't remember the models, what kind of speakers they used (B&W maybe), or how many there were. As good as the picture was, the sound presence was just so powerful that it seem to pin me in seat as I watched. No mere movie theater was this, with sticky seats, gabbing teeny boppers, flickering audio, and bass heavy unbalanced sound. This room was like a virtual experience. Every scene was like you were in the middle of it. Not just a sound system, but a huge, all encompassing, sound effect system.

I was there with my wife and two other couples. I went out, grabbed the two guys, and while the women shopped for who-knows-what, we melted into the three leather recliners and became one (or three) with the virtual world. I had never heard sound re-created as vividly and larger than life than that system did it.

It was a definite, "I gotta get one of these" moments.... :

[Lunaray]

It was a definite, "I gotta get one of these" moments.... :

Yeah, I know what you mean Blooz, I always used to drool over McIntosh equipment but I could never touch it. Even the refurbished vintage McIntosh stuff that's available, is beyond my budget. I have a really nice system that surpasses what most people have, but it doesn't live up to my dreams. It's a rich man's hobby!

[Bloozcat]

Yeah, I know what you mean Blooz, I always used to drool over McIntosh equipment but I could never touch it. Even the refurbished vintage McIntosh stuff that's available, is beyond my budget. I have a really nice system that surpasses what most people have, but it doesn't live up to my dreams. It's a rich man's hobby!

I probably should have pre-qualified that statement with a "I gotta win the lottery", first.

Now, those other two guys I mentioned who were with me are both doctors. One of the two definitely has that kind of income (they probably both do), but he doesn't have the technical appreciation nor the desire for a system like that. He has the means, just not the needs...at least in that catagory.

I already have two expensive hobbies. I can't afford another...but it would be cool if I could...

[WackyT]

I personally favor vinyl over digital. I think the sound is so much warmer and pleasing.

[KrisH]

I'm archaic. The Sony turntable I got about 8 years ago gave up the ghost last fall, I used it so much. With several hundred albums, it would've been a shame if I hadn't gotten a new one. Right now I've got Rick Wakeman's "Six Wives of Henry VIII" on the turntable . . .

[Lunaray]

I'm archaic. The Sony turntable I got about 8 years ago gave up the ghost last fall, I used it so much. With several hundred albums, it would've been a shame if I hadn't gotten a new one. Right now I've got Rick Wakeman's "Six Wives of Henry VIII" on the turntable . . .

Hey Kris, I've got that album, now I'm gonna have to go pull it out and listen to it, maybe I'll even throw on "Journey to the Center of the Earth"!

[Childbride]

I still have a Dual turntable packed away somewhere and a lot of albums. The only problem, my wife has a ton of Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow albums and I don't want to encourage her to play them. I also think she can join the Karen Carpenter Fan Club located in Waco.

ACCCKKKKK... [hairball]

streisand?

my mother loves that stuff... ewwwwww...

and strum, brother, i really like you, my friend, but qualify your statements about the fan club in waco.

[must go listen to tony iommi and randy rhoads... must go listen to good music now... ears bleeding from bad memory music]

o, and we have lotsa vinyl. loves it, we does... my precious....