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Returned to the vinyl listening fold last year, and I'm glad I did. I think it can be a healthy and vibrant niche of the music world, but I love my iPod too.
Downloads are taking off and it has been 25 years since CD was launched, yet audiophile demand for turntables and vinyl continues unabated. When did you last spin a record?
I got back into vinyl about two months ago, and I've been having a great deal of fun recording my LPs to CDR. Some of them have turned out quite nicely. Now, I have nothing against CD. I do have something against CDs with crippled dynamic range. That, plus the unavailability of certain titles in any digital format, has driven back to the big black plastic disk.
I listen to vinyl virtually every day. Whenever I buy new music I always buy vinyl if it is available. Vinyl is true hi rez and the sound is more natural, more musical. Serious listening is always with vinyl unless the music is unavailable on vinyl. A lot of labels are including a CD or a download code when you buy the LP so you can have the LP for serious listening and a digital format for the iPod or car. Spokane is fortunate to still have a brick and morter record store that carries new vinyl as well as used, plus he will special order. He has seen vinyl sales skyrocket past CD sales. There are a lot of 25 and under customers who are buying used vinyl from the '60s, '70s, and '80s because "they want to hear what the music sounded like when it was originaaly recorded." Vinyl sales are keeping him in business.
I only listen to vinyl at the moment I record LP tracks into my computers. Using FLAC, I store my LPs on hard drives for more convenient listening at other times and places. While I can understand that some vinyl listening can be more satisfying to others than CD listening, I don't believe all LPs always sound better than CDs. In addition, I remember (and often dread) all the cleaning and setup steps (record cleaning machine, VTA and stylus force adjustments) required to optimize my LP-listening experience. In my youth, I had to do this because I had no choice. Even with care on my part, the occasional click, pop, mistrack, etc pulled me out of the music experience. I'd feel as cheated then as does the modern listener now when he or she listens to a poorly-produced CD. When the CD came out, I welcomed the lack of tape hiss (on the few properly-mastered made in 1982-1983), but some tracks discs did seem "lifeless" compared to a small few of my best LPs. Over years of recording industry development, many of my newer CD purchases sounded as engrossing as the best LPs in my collection. Mind you, I'm talking of classical music and acoustic jazz. With pop music, all bets are off. The nearly AM-radio-level of compression of pop music make CDs sound very lousy, indeed. I can't point to a pop LP recorded and mixed and manufactured in these modern times and days that sounds better than an equivalent CD, however. I'd have to blame bad production values for bad CD sound, and the same is true with bad LP sound, too. Maybe both pop LP and CD producers figure they can cut corners because their efforts may just as well go for naught because we consumers will just throw their works into our crude computers and MP3 players.
I've been all digital for quite some time now. I don't feel I can afford what is apparently necessary for a truly high quality analog set-up. Which includes record cleaner, devices for measuring and mounting a cartridge, clamps, destatisizers, the list is endless. That on top of a multi-kilobuck turntable, cartridge and phono preamp. And don't tell me I can do it for much less, we both know that's not so. My brother spent a $1500 on an "entry level" analog rig last year, that was supposedly all set-up correctly and ready to sing, and we listened intently to a brand new pressing—it was terrible! We were so surprised, is this the great analog sound so many are crowing about? As we tried to fix whatever was wrong, we discovered we didn't have the correct appliances and tools for doing all the fussing and adjusting that is seemingly necessary. Throwing more money at the problem just added to the frustration. The grand experiment failed and the turntable's dustcover is doing its job as we speak, collecting dust. I have yet to hear one of these amazing analog systems that beats SACD or even Red Book CD. I will say we both own high quality digital gear. I simply do not hear what is so special about the analog LP. My ears are open and waiting...
I am skewing the vote by saying "A year or more" because my LP12 has been put safely into storage whilst I renovate our house. (We bought a derelict property—a true"'fixer-upper.") But I have still been buying vinyl and the answer would otherwise be "Today." Oh, and yes, the project will in the end give me a dedicated listening room!