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

My tastes are so diverse and widespread over a lifetime of listening that ( to be honest ) if I had begun music collecting within the last couple decades , vinyl would not have been a format I would choose.
I simply could not afford it.
I can add here and there now and then to it at this point but I especially am buying most things on CD now because it is the physical format I can acquire having shallow pockets.
But I love vinyl and will not be getting rid of my vinyl archives and listen to it constantly.

 

95% vinyl for me. I rarely notice the pops. When I do, sure, it annoys me at times but not remotely enough to go all digital. Digital is fine but I feel it’s less of an “experience” for me.

 

What I meant to say was not that you wouldn't miss certain pieces/performances of music. There was a Caribbean disc by a group called the Tradewinds (NOT the one I find if I Google) who did a live album we got when living in Puerto Rico. I just LOVED that album.
Cut forward many years, Mom needs to declutter, and not really playing LPs any more. Pretty much what she had could be gotten on CD and/or streamed. "Give away the records, mom, EXCEPT the Tradewinds and El Tigre De Zalamea!" You can guess the rest-it ALL disappeared .
However, there is still WAY more music than I can manage to listen to, so although I miss those records (and my rips of Buckingham Nicks and One Live Badger and a couple other things when I could not find them), there is still lots of stuff to listen to. It's not the end of the world was more what I meant.

 

I went through some of the frustration but I learned that most of the time any issue was due to the record not truly being cleaned. I only have maybe 150 or so records? And my analog gear is pretty expensive. BUT the ones I own are treasures and move me more than the digital version. Tidal-MQA etc...can and does sound terrific as well. I want both. So thats my story. With vinyl there is a conversation that occurs. Sometimes its with others and quite often, it makes me pause and reflect & transports me to the studio.

 

listen to most new music on tidal...if i really like something will by the vinyl....good vinyl on a good deck is hard to beat

 

Isn't the whole point of this, leaving aside the gear lust, tweaking, troubleshooting, nervosa, anticipation, disappointment, expectation and sense of community with others who share the same 'hobby,' something called "enjoyment?" I think that can be achieved many different ways. Playing the same few tracks over and over to evaluate one piece of equipment over another isn't my idea of "fun" but to some, that's part of the hobby (and probably a necessary one). To others, it may be the collecting aspect, part of which is "the hunt."
If one were starting from scratch, today, with no "legacy" material in any format, I'd probably be pretty reluctant to suggest vinyl as a medium without some qualifiers and questions.
As a long-time vinyl guy, digital seems to have come a long way since its consumer introduction. LP playback can be a PITA. But, when it's good it can be stunning. (And I gather the same can be true of digital). I'm somewhat surprised that you heard clicks and pops at a good trade show. Do what makes sense for you.

 

That’s funny. Buy a great DAC.

 

I love art: albums are chunks of it physically.
I love old stuff: albums are chunks of history.
I love beautiful delicate machines: turntables are beautiful and interesting to me.
I love music: albums are chunks of music
I set my turntable up two years ago and I haven’t fiddled with it since: no problem
I have clean albums (or they go) pops and clicks are few and far between.
I love hunting and collecting: I have to be dragged out of my local used vinyl stores and thrift shops.
For me it’s the perfect medium/hobby. What’s not to love. Peace

 

Next to my elbow

 

Well we agree to disagree then, at least somewhat.

Technology has improved to the point where I don't need to miss the music on my records. Even the ones I don't physically have anymore.

 

What's the point when you are going to feed it mainly with compressed, inferior quality masters that are often surpassed by cheap and crappy old analogue pressings?

 

You have every right to say that you're done with vinyl and I didn't say that you were one of those people.

 

Yup. 90 percent of my records are clean and quiet. The other 10 percent I keep because I can't find a clean copy.

 

Vinyl can sound the best - but so can CD - depends on the recording. But surface noise is there with LP - a good turntable set-up can mitigate the noise but there ARE pops and clicks and if you can't live with it then vinyl just isn't for you. I have an LP that sounds great but my favorite track is the ONE track that has an issue - so I bought the CD. My biggest complain about vinyl is that virtually every other LP has some sort of problem - And today some of these records are $50+ and still have problems.

Still, when it's great - it really is great but I could never fault people who can't get into it. Older philes grew up on it and are used to the sound and the artifacts are just second nature to them. But most younger philes who grew up with CD or were not exposed to vinyl for that long - it is certainly understandable to prefer the lower noise floor and "airbrushed" nature of CD and the plastic surgery clone sound of hi-res and for that matter the auto-tuning of most modern music as "normal".

Besides if you want to get rid of pops and clicks there is a new toy on the market (I have not tried it and cannot vouch for it at all)

SweetVinyl - SugarCube SC-1

 

I just mounted one of my better carts on my turntable yesterday which, while not rebuilt, has a new stylus courtesy of the manufacturer. Took me about an hour to get it all dialed in. Just completely blown away with the very first record. Just wonderful -- clear and as detailed as any of the digital I own, but full of the life I'd been missing.

One of my neighbors dropped by and we compared some digital to the vinyl LP of the same recording. Just no comparison. He sat there transfixed -- he'd been a skeptic before when I'd talk about why I still have a record collection. Not any more. He kept repeating, "wow", "wow...it's so clear, but...there's something."

It's just that very something that prevents me from even considering being "done with it." I can't. I love it too much. It sounds too good to be "done with it."

I realise it's too much trouble for a lot of people, or too much expense for what they perceive as too little reward, or too irritating for people who need the deeper, closer to silent noise floor digital formats provide (which I'll concede is a huge plus for classical music), but, the life. I've got to have it. Surface noise on records isn't a problem for me -- I've taken care of my records and they're all in good condition to the point that the very worst might have a soft tick or two. No biggie, especially compared with the pleasure I experience listening to a well recorded album.

So while I understand why someone might want to be done with it, and I even came close a couple of times myself with some clumsy cart disasters, I keep coming back. And the reason I do is that I can't get that sound thrill anywhere else -- not anywhere I can afford, anyway.

YMMV.

 

I'm not going to get rid of my albums and turntables, but I'm heading toward being done with it. I did some testing, and finally came to the unfortunate honest conclusion that I do not have golden ears. With ABX testing (which is very difficult due to surface noise), there were very few vinyl versions that I could identify as superior. So, the convenience of digital is winning out. I'm just happy that I was honest with myself, no matter how uncool it is not declare that vinyl is better.

 

It looks interesting. I wonder how well it works...people have been working on click repair at least since the '80s. I had an early device back then that didn't really work at all. Forgot what it was called.

Frankly, though, spending all that money on a device like this would only make sense to me if your records are in pretty bad, noisy shape. And since the thing digitises, it seems like a cheaper alternative would be just to dub to digital then do click repair permanently on the file. But I guess the most important thing would be how it sounds.

 

I was an early advocate/fan of digital precisely because of surface noise. Ten years later -- around 1995 or 1996 -- I started migrating back to vinyl. Funny what prompted it -- it was The Beatles. I was listening to my Revolver CD and just not liking it. I wondered if I'd outgrown it -- it just wasn't holding my interest like it did in the past. Then I thought, no, I still love the music just as much as I ever did, it's a favourite album, it just didn't sound good. Thus began my process of rediscovery and my road back to records.

 

I take breaks for a week or so at a time of either CDs or LPs. I find that one format just isn’t trilling my soul, but the other format is. Then it flips to the other format. Sometimes both formats thrill me equally. Rarely do neither format thrill me at the same time (if that happens, I just stream and don’t care). It doesn’t matter, as I have thousands in both formats. I am never EVER short on something to listen to.

I love LPs. I love CDs. I love this hobby. I love all the gear that plays back both formats. I don’t want to be without either format nor without the gear. It all makes my heart sing so much.

 

Is this really a problem? If it is, I don't see it. I don't think it's "uncool" at all to decide that digital is better for one's enjoyment and convenience. I don't even think it's "uncool" to conclude that digital options are technically superior and therefore a better investment of time and money. What I do think is "uncool" is this sort of beleaguered posture that people take, as if by "coming out" as preferring digital, they're bravely facing all this backlash from the evil vinyl bigots. As is often pointed out, vinyl is a niche of a rapidly dwindling market for music pressed to physical objects. Sure, there's a lot of people on this forum who love vinyl, but this is a forum of people who are obsessed with music reproduction and therefore there's a whole lot of us who are open to anything and everything and think having an iron in every fire is just good common sense. But I don't think very many people actually look down on anyone just because they make certain choices for themselves. The problems start when people start to insist that their choices are Correct and those who choose otherwise are just plain wrong or deluded.

 

Cool has nothing to do with it...or shouldn't The concept of what is cool is so fleeting.

 

Not even close to that. 95% of what can be considered "mainstream albums", yes. But there are gaps even in that realm. Albums that didn't sell well at the time, independent releases, obscurities, not nearly that figure. Old and long forgotten LPs? Most of them no. And then there's the world of singles and EPs, 12 inches, versions and mixes. Most of it not on CD.

 

I should hope that record companies use the original master tapes as long as they're available.

 

500 LPs left no TT set up.