OK, so many vinyl fans, but who's just DONE with it?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by head_unit, Jun 8, 2018.

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  1. James Glennon

    James Glennon Senior Member

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    I've been buying vinyl all my life (almost 50 years), never 'switched' to CD, 'hunting' year after year for something new to find on vinyl, improving my hi-fi system along the way as well. Amassing a big collection of vinyl and I absolutely hate the term collector because I listen to my vinyl no matter how rare the LP is. Crack open every LP I buy to listen to and enjoy. Don't trade LPs at all. I am just a music lover through and through.

    BUT and it is a big but over the last couple of years I have slowly but surely begun to lose interest in vinyl! WHY you might ask and my answer is simple.. for me it just doesn't sound like it used to!

    I am not stuck in the past, I buy current music as well as reissues. I don't know whether it is the vinyl formulation, digititus in the chain, mastering equipment being tweaked to death, the ability of the modern producer to 'capture' the music, but it just doesn't do it for me anymore!

    I will continue to buy vinyl but at a much smaller rate. I still get really excited by the music and sound that my hi-fi can create, but definitely not nearly as often with modern recordings!

    THERE I SAID IT, AND I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE!:shh:

    JG
     
  2. enfield

    enfield Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex UK
    Not talking about Singles/Ep's/12"...Talking about LP's..If you randomly pull out 100 albums from your collection.I doubt you will find one that is not available on CD.
     
  3. Bill Mac

    Bill Mac Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    This is my situation as well. I recently got back into vinyl and played quite a bit for a few months. Broke out my vinyl collection from over 40 years ago. Some of the LPs are in decent shape but some not so good. But after a few months I got tired of the surface noise even on new vinyl bought recently. I'm sure a turntable and cartridge upgrade would be a step in the right direction. But I really don't want to make that investment at this time. I just find CDs, DVD-As, Blu-ray Audio and SACDs to be my preferred formats. But no way am I getting rid of my vinyl collection!
     
  4. AlmanacZinger

    AlmanacZinger Zingin'

    Location:
    The Land of Zaat
    True. But the point is we shouldn't have to. With all the hoopla about ease of use and distribution, the digital realm should easily be able to offer up nicely mastered digital versions of almost anything available. Not to mention different mastering choices for given needs (i.e. brickwalled for noisy bars, well mastered for home listening, etc.), but, nope. Just one-size fits all brickwalls with hardly competitive pricing with a much slimmer selection of titles.

    What digital promised and is capable of versus what it delivers isn't even close.
     
    wgriel likes this.
  5. AlmanacZinger

    AlmanacZinger Zingin'

    Location:
    The Land of Zaat
    I stand by my comment.

    In fact, unlike most of the vinyl junkies here who just love the format itself, I'm a pragmatic vinyl head in that my collection is made up almost ENTIRELY of releases without digital counterparts.

    EDIT: And I'm not even talking obscure stuff either. I'm talkin' Tanya Tuckers albums prior to the 1990s.

    Don't even get me started on mono mixes...
     
  6. troggy

    troggy Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow

    Location:
    Benton, Illinois
    You originally wrote "readily" available. Anyway, I don't think you're right, "readily" or not.
     
  7. AlmanacZinger

    AlmanacZinger Zingin'

    Location:
    The Land of Zaat
    Some people are nice enough not to charge for needledrop boots rather than pass of it off as legit.
     
  8. Bill Mac

    Bill Mac Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I would have to disagree with this. Surface noise at times can not be ignored whether one is connecting with the music or not. It's a distraction IMO. In no way shape or form am I slamming vinyl just giving my perspective on my listening experiences.
     
    audiomixer likes this.
  9. AlmanacZinger

    AlmanacZinger Zingin'

    Location:
    The Land of Zaat
    Unless you're talking about brickwalled remasters I dunno know where you're looking. Seems the word has long been out on pre-loudness wars CDs and I ain't finding them cheap these days.

    Funny though. Your story about dirt cheap vinyl in the era of CDs holds true for pre-loudness wars CD in the era of remasters.

    Round and round we go. :targettiphat:
     
  10. AlmanacZinger

    AlmanacZinger Zingin'

    Location:
    The Land of Zaat
    This.
     
    4_everyman likes this.
  11. AlmanacZinger

    AlmanacZinger Zingin'

    Location:
    The Land of Zaat
    I guess my final thought on this is that I would like to be able to be done with vinyl. But between digital offering up nothing but brickwalls for new releases and completely ignoring some mixes/titles/artists altogether, vinyl has a sound spot in my audio experience.

    EDIT: And having just re-read the thread title I realize we've all been kinda threadcrapping here. My bad, OP.
     
  12. Danby Delight

    Danby Delight Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    lol

    Again, I'll take that bet. You would apparently be shocked at how much stuff never came out on CD, or else you have seriously mainstream musical taste.
     
    wgriel, AlmanacZinger and nosliw like this.
  13. curbach

    curbach Some guy on the internet

    Location:
    The ATX
    Come on. The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin have all their albums available on cd. What more do you want? ;)
     
  14. Leggs91203

    Leggs91203 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indiana
    I think what ruins the vinyl hobby for some might be the same reason other hobbies get ruined -

    You first get into something and are feeling pretty excited. Things are not "perfect" but you do not realize that and enjoy it anyways.
    Either in person or on a forum or whatever, you read or hear about how to do things the "right" way. It could be impractical and/or costly to do it "right".
    You then start to really question if your new hobby is a good idea after all. You start to look at your hobby-related belongings and suddenly it seems like garbage.

    In vinyl, you soon learn that "real" hobbyists use record cleaning machines that cost 100's if not 1,000's of dollars, they spend God-awful amounts on their turntables, have all these "stages" that costed an unnecessary fortune, etc.
    Of course there are threads where they talk about their vinyl having no IGD, pops, or other noise. Sometimes people spend a fortune and STILL run into problems.
    So what was once a hobby has become a major expense and headache.

    At what point does it go from being about the music to being about the equipment?

    But yeah basically that is likely why some turn away from vinyl. If your expectations are too high, it goes from being about having fun to being about headaches.
     
    JustGotPaid and timind like this.
  15. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    Exactly. I'm also thinking that I got the wrong idea about this forum. It's called "Music forums", but I think maybe it should be called "Listening equipment forum".

    Reading the admin's post today made me realise that I probably should not have posted in this particular thread at all.
     
  16. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney
    You are right they are different issues but setting up a turntable is not that hard. If you want to go overboard have test records, protractor, scales etc it means you must have at least a half decent set up and I dare anyone who goes to that point to say it is a hassle and don't enjoy doing so.

    On the other hand even without any care at all any cheap model Technics like an SL B2, Sl-D2 or equivalent from other brand can be set up including cartridge in ten minutes or so without any accessories and it will still provide very decent results immediately so no I do not agree they are that hard to set up.

    I enjoy having my turntable (s), they might not be for everyone but they can be very rewarding for people who appreciate them, even if it is just for decoration.

    Playing vinyl can be a joy or a nightmare according to the quality of the pressings you are are using in the same manner that downloaded files can be a pain when they sound compressed, heavily equalised, distorted, etc which is more often than not the case.

    To waste time listening to something that irritates me instead of providing joy I rather don't.
     
    James Glennon likes this.
  17. rbbert

    rbbert Forum Resident

    Location:
    Reno, NV, USA
    Well, this is where much of the controversy resides...:agree:
     
  18. Dennis0675

    Dennis0675 Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Ohio
    Couldn’t you really apply this same logic to all physical media?

    Buying, collecting, organizing, storing and playing any physical media requires some degree of effort. Why not just stream hi res files from your phone? Hell, why have speaker cables and inner connects when you can just BT to an active speaker.

    Sorry to derail the time honored digital vs. anolog debate but when you start on the “I give up, it’s too much effort and expense” where do you stop?
     
    troggy, nosliw and dkmonroe like this.
  19. stax o' wax

    stax o' wax Forum Resident

    Location:
    The West

    It only turns into a obsessive pricey headache if you let it, that's a choice.
    Today you can buy great audiophile quality equipment at very reasonable prices that any middle class music lover can afford.
    It's only as complicated as you choose to make it.

    Edit - not to mention that there is a huge and healthy used equipment market. :)
     
    SirMarc likes this.
  20. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    Not complex but after 45 years involved I find it very expensive and time consuming.
     
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  21. stax o' wax

    stax o' wax Forum Resident

    Location:
    The West
    So you don't enjoy your time spent on this hobby?
     
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  22. Uglyversal

    Uglyversal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney

    There is no controversy there, it will provide you very decent results, it is no rocket science.

    Of course it will be very hard and it will give you very bad results but only when you actually want it to give you bad results.
     
  23. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Currently available or ever available on CD?

    'Cause I know I recently bought a copy of Joanne Brackeen's great 1980 album Ancient Dynasty on a (barely) used promo LP because I don't think the album's ever been out on CD. A bunch of great albums I've either been looking for or looking to recommend to others, classic avant garde jazz from the '60s through the '80s, either have never been out on CD or have long been unavailable on CD (though of course used CDs in that case are on the market, often for big dollars) -- the AEC's People in Sorrow, Billy Bang's Changing Seasons, Anthony Davis' Lady of the Mirrors (that was out on CD at one point for some period of time as was Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D.) Until a recent spate of reissues in the last couple of years, tons and tons of Sun Ra was only available on the original Saturn LPs or the Italian Horo label, many of those are still only available as downloads now, not on CD, and some of those are just vinyl rips. Ornette Coleman's great duet album with Charlie Haden, Soapsuds, Soapsuds, one of my favorite albums of all time, was only briefly out on CD in a vinyl rip. There's a great Anthony Braxton solo live album from a '74 Moers Festival performance that really opened up Braxton's music for me -- I don't think that's ever been out on CD. Lot and lots of great, important music that's not even that old that's either never been out on CD or was only briefly out on CD of questionable quality (or legitimacy).

    Of course there's also a lot of great music of the last 25 years that's never been out on vinyl either.
     
  24. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Well, this is an audiophile forum. Always has been. As our host's "Read this first" post says, "This is primarily an Audiophile Music Forum, which means we like to talk about the sound quality of our favorite music and how we can find the best sounding version of what we love to listen to." And in particular, this thread is in the "Audio Hardware" section of the site, in other words the "listening equipment forum."
     
  25. BayouTiger

    BayouTiger Forum Resident

    I think a lot of folks get caught up in the details way too much. Kind of like they listen to my local dealer that insists that unless you let him set up you table with his knowledge and Dennison it can’t possibly sound good. Like it’s some magic that mere mortals can’t handle. Or they buy in on the cheap and can’t understand why they can’t get that magic analog sound. The exact counter to the analog only guys that compare their multi thousand dollar analog setup to their $300 digital rig and proclaim to the heavens how digital sucks. It truly is a funny hobby.
     
    timind likes this.
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