Vinyl Enthusiasts?

[Cayden]

I love music. I'm constantly listening to it, writing it, or recording it. Because of my obsession with music, I like to listen to it in forms with the highest quality. While I do listen to music through my phone while moving around, I always prefer a CD or a vinyl when at home. Many say they cannot hear a difference or even than vinyl sounds worse to them, but I love it. Do any of you guys prefer vinyls when listening to music?

 

[TITNTUFF]

I I have multiple copies of some albums on vinyl, cd, and downloaded versions. The vinyl sounds better to me, except for the possibility of pops or clicks. The cd versions sound colder with the possibility of skipping. All versions have possible flaws. But I do enjoy the 33 1/3 albums on the turntable. However, I don't have to flip the streaming version!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

All of my music is either vinyl, or CDs.

 

[einmusiker]

I like the pops

 

[Algus]

I collect jazz on vinyl when I can. Toss on some Diana Krall or Julie London, pour a glass of whisky, and kick my feet off. One of my favorite ways to unwind after work.

Amazon sells many of their vinyl albums with auto rip, which is awesome because I can get a digital version without having to buy the CD too.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I really enjoy listening to vinyl and have this new Dual CS 460 turntable coming to me on Wednesday from an audio dealer up in Canada. It's about all that's offered these days for a new midlevel solid wood plinth automatic. I decided to go with the piano black finish. I'm pretty excited to get it. Still made in Germany which is sort of neat in a world of everything being made in China.

 

[TITNTUFF]

I really enjoy listening to vinyl and have this new Dual CS 460 turntable coming to me on Wednesday from an audio dealer up in Canada. It's about all that's offered these days for a new midlevel solid wood plinth automatic. I decided to go with the piano black finish. I'm pretty excited to get it. Still made in Germany which is sort of neat in a world of everything being made in China. View attachment 609541

Very nice!
I still use a Technics SL1600 with an Ortofon moving coil cartridge

 

[F1Mac]

A couple of years ago I bought a turntable to convert my old vinyl collection (from classical to cheesy 80s to classic Metal...). Since then I bought dozens of new recordings, old/new artists/genres... I like the sound, I like that it requires care, and I do like that they come with a downloadable version as well (most of the time). Having tons of music on my iPhone is very convenient, but properly listening to my favorite albums (old *and* new) is a pleasure I'll never get tired of.

 

[o0OBillO0o]

I have hundreds of LPs and thousands of CDs* AND I have Apple Music.

Music consumption is up over here.

I generally demo on Apple Music- buy LPs or CDs. Vinyl is mostly pre the year 2000, CDs post 2000- except for those special masters found only on vinyl.

Vinyl as a delivery medium for music is lots of fun!

*(Note: I import CDs as .AIFF files to a separate directory, using XLD, and a copy goes to iTunes. I keep everything separate because Apple Music and, before that, iTunes Match have had a few hiccups in matching; to keep my digital files safe.)

 

[stormyuklondon1]

I've been collecting vinyl since the early 80's. quite frankly to these battered ears, still the best way to listen to music. A well set up vinyl based system conveys music in a way Ive never enjoyed as much from a digital fronted one.
As for the pops and crackles, I think John Peel put it better than I ever could..
'Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don't have any surface noise.
I said, 'Listen mate, life has surface noise.'

 

[DakotaGuy]

I received my new Dual CS 460 last week. Audioscape Canada did a nice shipping job and double boxed it and it arrived safe and quick without any sort of customs hold up.

First of all I will say this is a gorgeous solid wood plinth turntable from Germany. I know many of the components in the drive system are built a little lighter then they were in the 60's and 70's, but it has a very nice build quality. Automatic functions are quiet and smooth as clockwork. Being solid wood it's pretty heavy and the aluminum platter is a multi-layer with a weight ring around the outside edge. You can crank it up and the plinth has zero vibration.

Sound quality is stunning even with the stock Ortofon OM 10 cartridge. I am updating the stylus to an OM 20 since they say it is an easy upgrade to really bring out the best in the table.

Now in the whole grand scheme of things this is only a mid-fi turntable, but my entire system is mid-fi. I purchased a Cambridge Audio 551p outboard pre-amp and that runs to an Onkyo TX-8050 stereo receiver which power a Bose Acoustimass 5 Series III speaker system. I know audiophile opinions of Bose, but I'm not getting into that. I have a tiny room and they fit well and really do sound amazing for their tiny size.

Anyhow I'm really enjoying this new table. I'm not an audio snob and I understand that everyone has to start somewhere, but if any young people are reading this please don't play your treasured records on a Crosley or any other cheap ceramic cartridge record player. You might not be able to afford a brand new mid to high class turntable, but there are lots of good used proper turntables out there. If it doesn't have a proper counterweighted tone arm be very skeptical. Maintain your turntable and records and enjoy a unique way to listen to music! I enjoy the very natural and soothing sound and love looking at the covers and inserts.

 

[bbrks]

Need I say more

 

[DakotaGuy]

I think if a person considers scientific measurements you'd find that the CD or a high quality digital download would outperform an LP record. With that said, with a good quality turntable and a decent stereo system a vinyl record really does sound amazing. Pretty crazy when you consider that the microgroove LP and 45 were developed and introduced in 1948.

There are many theories why a mechanical analog format sounds so good to us, but you have to remember human ears are analog so it makes some sense that we would prefer sound created that way. Of course the ritual, album covers, and being able to touch the music are other reasons people like records.

 

[kimtrang]

I remember in seventies we used to listen to vinyl on a decent set up with a Dual turntable and a Shure M91ED cartridge. It had a magic about it that i yearned for over the next 30 years. I put it down to the era and high quality pot available then and dismissed any thought of vinyl being superior to CDs on a decent CD player.

That is until i bought a vintage Dual turntable with the same cartridge about 10 years ago and gave it to a friend with an extensive vinyl collection but without a turntable. I was very surprised to hear that same magic when we listened to the same 70's stuff on another decent stereo. I'd compare it to watching film as opposed to video.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

View attachment 610968 I received my new Dual CS 460 last week. Audioscape Canada did a nice shipping job and double boxed it and it arrived safe and quick without any sort of customs hold up.

First of all I will say this is a gorgeous solid wood plinth turntable from Germany. I know many of the components in the drive system are built a little lighter then they were in the 60's and 70's, but it has a very nice build quality. Automatic functions are quiet and smooth as clockwork. Being solid wood it's pretty heavy and the aluminum platter is a multi-layer with a weight ring around the outside edge. You can crank it up and the plinth has zero vibration.

Sound quality is stunning even with the stock Ortofon OM 10 cartridge. I am updating the stylus to an OM 20 since they say it is an easy upgrade to really bring out the best in the table.

Now in the whole grand scheme of things this is only a mid-fi turntable, but my entire system is mid-fi. I purchased a Cambridge Audio 551p outboard pre-amp and that runs to an Onkyo TX-8050 stereo receiver which power a Bose Acoustimass 5 Series III speaker system. I know audiophile opinions of Bose, but I'm not getting into that. I have a tiny room and they fit well and really do sound amazing for their tiny size.

Anyhow I'm really enjoying this new table. I'm not an audio snob and I understand that everyone has to start somewhere, but if any young people are reading this please don't play your treasured records on a Crosley or any other cheap ceramic cartridge record player. You might not be able to afford a brand new mid to high class turntable, but there are lots of good used proper turntables out there. If it doesn't have a proper counterweighted tone arm be very skeptical. Maintain your turntable and records and enjoy a unique way to listen to music! I enjoy the very natural and soothing sound and love looking at the covers and inserts.

Fantastic set-up - it looks absolutely gorgeous and I'm sure it sounds wonderful; (I am a big fan of the use of solid wood in such settings above all, I hope that long may you enjoy it.

 

[Tomorrow]

...with a good quality turntable and a decent stereo system a vinyl record really does sound amazing.

Perhaps, but a good quality turntable is expensive. A CD or digital download sounds the same on a cheap player or an expensive player, when run through the same amplifier and speakers.

 

[bbrks]

Agreed, but that is a very rear scenario.....anyone familiar with and capable of buying a decent HI-FI setup will never do something like that....all the components have to match in order to get a real music and sound out of it.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Perhaps, but a good quality turntable is expensive. A CD or digital download sounds the same on a cheap player or an expensive player, when run through the same amplifier and speakers.

I'd agree that it does take better components to make a vinyl record shine, but the fact that a mechanical format like the LP introduced in 1948 can still compete with the best of the best for sound quality in 2016 is pretty amazing. Will CDs and current digital files still be relevant or even playable in 68 years? It's just funny the gramophone record has outlived all sorts of other formats and technology. There's just something about dropping that stylus... Ahh...

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I'd agree that it does take better components to make a vinyl record shine, but the fact that a mechanical format like the LP introduced in 1948 can still compete with the best of the best for sound quality in 2016 is pretty amazing. Will CDs and current digital files still be relevant or even playable in 68 years? It's just funny the gramophone record has outlived all sorts of other formats and technology. There's just something about dropping that stylus... Ahh...

Pen and paper - or print and paper - or papyrus, or parchment - will outlive most digital formats for information storage and retrieval. While we can still read - say - Egyptian hieroglyphics - written a few thousand years ago, most of what is stored on the earliest floppy discs - information barely twenty to thirty years old - is completely useless now.

So, no, it comes as little surprise to me that the older format still holds up well in terms of quality and in terms of what it was designed to do, which is render musical sound very well.

 

[Tomorrow]

I'd agree that it does take better components to make a vinyl record shine, but the fact that a mechanical format like the LP introduced in 1948 can still compete with the best of the best for sound quality in 2016 is pretty amazing. Will CDs and current digital files still be relevant or even playable in 68 years? It's just funny the gramophone record has outlived all sorts of other formats and technology. There's just something about dropping that stylus... Ahh...

Might just be me, but a CD sounds almost infinitely clearer and cleaner to me than vinyl - LP's do not even remotely "compete" with digital sound quality, to my ears.

High-end digital sound sampling is done at 48,000 Hz. The human ear can hear, at a maximum, 22,000 Hz. The sampling rate of digital is more than double the hearing threshhold - it leaves NO sound out.

 

[bbrks]

I don't like measurements, numbers, science and all that......I only believe my ears....I have, for my taste at least, a pretty decent HI-FI system...you have already seen my turntable above and I also have a great CD player Hegel CDP2, which is about double the price of the turntable, btw. it's Project 2xpereience with Project 9cc Evolution arm and Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge, connected to an above average phono preamp. Please understand, this is not a show off ...it's just that I want you to understand, that I deal with Hi-FI for over 30 years....and I think I know something about it BTW, I am sure, that there is a lot of people here, who have much more expensive setups....
Anyway, just recently I had a chance to compare both with the same album. Pink Floyd - Division Bell
I can only tell you one thing...vinyl rules. Period.

 

[DblHelix]

There is just something magical about vinyl. The soundstage is more believable. There is space around the instruments. The even order distortion in vinyl has a pleasing quality. I am not a fan of CD or DVD-a which just sounds like high res cd to me. I love SACD which to me sounds more analog

 

[chirpie]

I think if a person considers scientific measurements you'd find that the CD or a high quality digital download would outperform an LP record.

One of the things to keep in mind that some LPs sometimes simply get a better master than their CD counterpart, which has nothing to do with LPs being superior to CD and everything to do with the people creating the content for us.

I still remember arguing with someone who claimed the LP of Muse's The Resistance sounded better on LP than CD, ergo LPs were superior. Well, no, it was because the LP had a completely different master with better dynamic range, which the CD could've easily replicated. UGH! LOL

 

[rhett7660]

I had it waaaay back when and just recently it has peaked my interest. Enough so that I have started to rebuild my collection and have purchased a nice (nice to me) turntable setup. I love the pops and crackles that is produced and love the sound.

I am also thinking about getting a nice stereo receiver/amp setup specifically for two channel listening. Yeah I have been bitten! Thankfully this is one of those bugs that the wife can hop on board with too!

 

[jafingi]

Ten years ago, I decided to transition my CD collection to vinyls. It has taken som time, but I'm 100% vinyl now.

Have a Rega RP6 player with Rega Exact and Ortofon pickup. Sounds lovely.