Is vinyl a PITA?

OK maybe

 

Vinyl is way more of a pain in the ass than other formats.

Until your wifi drops out.

Or your HD suddenly won't mount.

Or it mounts but iTunes lost your library and you have to reconnect it.

Or you broke the hinge off the jewel case and the CD slipped out and is lying underneath the desk, having been ground into the floor for the past two months.

 

I'm undecided now. Please help me.

 

Cooking a nice dinner is a pain also, but it sure beats the crap out of a microwave meal!!!

 

Pain In The Ass but worth it for the results. Vinyl is home cooked food while digital is a supermarket ready meal.

 

I can personally confirm from recent experience that East Tennessee is still a fertile hunting ground for nice vinyl bargains. However, how long will that situation last?

 

Well . . . I suppose that's a start . . .

I wonder when we'll have twenty pages of back and forth on CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/SACD/DVD-Audio Buffing to remove surface defects. I predict there will be those that will hear 'reduced focus' on Polycarbonate discs of all descriptions and formats when the surface is trimmed down a micron or two.

 

I suppose no one has mentioned integrating high res 24/192 PCM or 5.6MHz DSD computer audio into one's main system. There are quick ways to do it. But, I'm talking about doing it right. Now, that is a PITA and then some.

 

...such fun trying to explain to folks who just want to listen to music what DLNA is, what a subnet is, and why the scratches in the TOC area of CD have rendered it completely unplayable...

 

Not for me. Paying taxes is a PITA. Caring for and listening to records is not.

 

Kind of, but worth it. Also glad for more conventiant options when I can't be bothered with a mini ritual every 20 minutes!

 

Reel to Reel is a far more time consuming PITA than LP's.
You have to clean, demagnetize the deck, worry about print through, store tapes in the right climate, etc.

 

I guess to me personally, hanging over the question is "...compared to the current de-facto standard, CD". Maybe that isn't how I'm supposed to read it?

Just reading all these "vinyl isn't a PITA. Now wrestling alligators, THAT is a PITA." posts, I'm thinking there needs to be a baseline for the question somewhere.

 

The point is, for people who actually enjoy LP's, the PITA question is largely a joke. If you really enjoy doing something or really enjoy the results of doing something, then the PITA aspect is virtually meaningless. And the functional difference between playing an LP and playing a CD is razor-thin. When people seem to complain about having to flip an LP, I just can't take that seriously.

 

Agreed. We should be reminded that music on vinyl is a hobby for most people and they don't mind the process.

 

Forgive me but we are talking about rock music right? For classical I actually prefer CD's. Classical recordings are done right and for quiet passages I don't want to hear scratches and pops.

 

This statement isn't always true. A good setup with clean vinyl can play really quiet. I doubt you've heard such a setup.

 

When one buys a new CD player, they plug it in, insert a CD, and press play. This takes a minute.

When one buys a new turntable, they level it, mount the cartridge, set VTF, VTA, maybe SRA, etc etc etc. Then they hunt down out of print records, deal with cleaning them, etc etc. This takes a lot of time. Flipping the LP to the next side is the most trivial aspect.

"PITA" implies an undesirable chore. You're rebranding it as labor of love, I do too - I enjoy all of this as well. In that sense, it's not a "PITA". But if you define PITA in a more general sense of "requiring a lot of time", especially compared to the alternatives, vinyl checks that box. That's the angle I'm coming from. Like most folks here, I definitely feel its worth the time.

 

LOL well done!

 

It becomes a PITA when rings, clamps, weights, etc get involved.

 

I bought a turntable that was already set up. No PITA there.

Hunting down OOP records and hunting down OOP CD's is the same amount of PITA.

Cleaning LP's is usually a one and done situation. I place a record on the platter, dry-brush it, and lower the needle. No PITA.

 

So you're actually willing to argue that there's NO DIFFERENCE in complexity between playing an LP and playing a CD? I'm not going to debate this any more, I'm just going to be fascinated by the lengths people go to defend preferred formats against perceived attacks.

 

I follow the same procedure, except the dry-brush part only happens on rare occasion. (My turntable has a dust cover, which I always have down when playing records.)

No, I think the point being made here is that playing records is not a PITA.

That is, unless you want it to be so.

 

I just described the process that I use. Does it sound like a PITA to you? Does it sound like I'm stretching the truth? I'm perplexed that you think you know more about my experiences than I do, but that's a common theme in these cd/vinyl debates.

 

Yes. It's exactly like this with no exceptions whatsoever.