Are you still addicted to vinyl or do you now source your music otherwise?

[jimm]

Until I fix or get a new turntable, streaming, radio, and a few cds is how I roll.

[MrZero]

I love vinyl.  Most of the bands that I like were putting out albums when vinyl was still the main thing, so I can get most of that on vinyl.  Of the new bands that I like, most of THEM put out their records on vinyl too.  I do have a good number of CDs and I listen to them in the car, but when I'm at home usually vinyl.  I don't have an mp3 player except on my computer and I only listen to songs on my computer when someone asks me to check out a band.  Other than that, it's all vinyl or CD.

I understand that computer files (mp3 or whatever) are going to take over...if they haven't already.  But I'll still listen to vinyl for as long as I can.

[Hepcat]

Vinyl is the preferred method to ease my mind and forget all my troubles. nothing in my opinion is as good as analog sound ... nothing compares to records. I have WELL over 500 records, from slim whitman to LED Zepplin, miles davis to the ACCUSED. I love them all and will keep listening to them till my last breath.

I'm still a vinyl purist myself. Here I am looking over my 500 or so LPs:





The speaker you see in the second picture is one of my two Monitor Audio Silver RS8 speakers:



I was helping a buddy audition some speakers four years ago and I was knocked out by the lush, rich, lustrous sound they delivered, especially in comparison to more expensive speakers!

I play my records on a Thorens TD240 turntable:



It's equipped with an Ortofon 2M Black cartridge featuring a cutting edge Shibata stylus:



My next project is to find a Garrard C6 headshell and to then get a custom base built for a new old stock Garrard GT55 turntable from the 1970's:



I plan to get the base built from alternating layers of baltic birch which has gained renown for being acoustically dead. I envision a surface veneer of dark walnut to resemble the appearance of the vintage GT55 bases which were actually made at the time from cheap particle board covered with a vinyl veneer resembling woodgrain:





The GT55 will then serve to anchor a second sound system in my bedroom. The turntable I'm currently eyeing for my main system is the Thorens TD350:



Unfortunately it's not exactly an inexpensive turntable. Then of course I'd like to spring for this handsome Nitty Gritty Mini Pro record cleaning machine:



I'm so into turntables that I wrote up this piece a couple of years ago on choosing and operating a turntable:

1. You can throw thousands$ on a more expensive amplifier or CD player and not be able to discern the difference in a blind listening test, but spending more on a turntable/cartridge combo after a bit of research/thought will yield big time dividends. This also means that you're not going to get decent reproduction if you cheap out when buying your turntable though.

2. Having said that, decent reasonably priced turntables are made these days by companies such as Pro-Ject, Music Hall, Thorens and Dual. These Pro-Ject Debut III turntables are a particularly popular choice for people who want a decent turntable without spending too much money:



This website provides a very decent overview on turntable pricing:

Needle Doctor

3. If, however, you find your budget stretched, I'd suggest you get a completely refurbished Dual turntable from this fellow:

Fix My Dual

They just don't build turntables of the quality of the old Duals anymore unless you're willing to spend $3500 or more and you can get a completely refurbished old Dual for less than $300. I mean most of the turntables you see these days have bases made from bakelite or some other cheap polymer. Among the old Duals, I like the belt-drive 601 and 1249 models myself but others may disagree.

Another plus associated with vintage Dual, Garrard, Thorens, etc. turntables is that they included both a speed selector dial and an auto return feature, something you don't find in the Rega, Pro-Ject or Music Hall turntables these days. Believe it or not, but they now want you to lift the platter and move the belt yourself to change speeds! And don't fall asleep in your armchair while listening. Your needle will still be tracking in the out grooves of your record when you wake several hours later if you have a Rega, Pro-Ject or Music Hall turntable. Dual turntables and the Thorens TD-240 turntable are among the very few turntables with these very practical features these days.

4. I'd suggest the following to anyone looking for a new turntable:

A) Make sure it's a belt-drive model. While the phrase "direct drive" sounds great, keep in mind that the last thing you'd want to do is couple a motor directly to the platter. The way vinyl technology works is that the grooves of the record make the stylus vibrate. These vibrations are converted into electrical energy by the cartridge. But have you ever encountered a motor that does not itself vibrate? The last thing you want is for the stylus to be picking up your turntable motor's vibrations i.e. rumble.

Since the devil is in the details though, the execution of a concept is typically every bit as important as the design. As a result, some very good direct drive turntables were marketed in the 1970's, including the Dual 721 ("Silence is golden.") and some Technics models.

B) A suspended sub-chassis. This helps to isolate your platter from ambient vibrations coming from your speakers. If your platter isn't properly isolated, you'll get feedback in the form of a loud hum. Feedback will drive you nuts, believe me.

That's why I'm leery of Rega turntables. They don't incorporate a suspended sub-chassis and I've heard of users plagued with feedback problems.

C) Weight, the heavier the better. The heavier the platter, the more will its own inertia help it to maintain an even speed in the face of minuscule variations in motor speed thus reducing "wow" and "flutter". The more solid and heavier the plinth, the "deader" and less susceptible will be your turntable to picking up ancillary vibrations.

5. A good cartridge is about as important as the turntable itself. I like the Ortofon 2M series of cartridges which may be the best moving magnet cartridges produced today. I have an Ortofon 2M Black but that's a $670 model. The Red, Blue and Bronze models are available for $100, $200 and $390 respectively.
There are those who extoll the merits of generally more expensive moving coil cartridges but those usually require replacing the whole cartridge when the stylus wears out! As a result, I admit I haven't even given the moving coils a test listen.

Once again, the Needle Doctor website provides a good overview of cartridge pricing.

6. I'd suggest you order your cartridge from your friendly local stereo shop instead of getting it online though. Your neighbourhood stereo shop should not only be able to match online prices but as part of the service they supply the shop should precisely set up your turntable with your new cartridge for ideal tracking. I can't overstress the importance of setting up your turntable with precision. They're not plug and play gadgets like CD players but a good turntable/cartridge combo provides far richer sound reproduction than any digital source.

Moreover, if you don't support your local stereo shop today, it might not be around when you actually need it for something like servicing your equipment tomorrow.

7. If your amplifier does not have a dedicated phono input, you will also need a phono linestage also known as a phono preamplifier. A decent one will cost at least $139. Don't cheap out and buy one of the carded $29 ones that a record store might offer to a newbie. A phono linestage is not just a connection. One of its prime functions is to add back the bass that has been lost as a result of being compressed into a record's narrow grooves! Pro-Ject, Graham Slee, Thorens, Creek, many audio component manufacturers make very good ones.

8. Don't put your turntable on top of one of your speakers! Remember what I said about not wanting your stylus to pick up ancillary vibrations? Rumble, feedback, etc? Speakers of course vibrate. Placing your turntable on a solid dresser full of clothing or a bookcase loaded with books and records would probably prevent your turntable from picking up ambient vibrations being transferred up from the floor. You might want to check that the surface on which you put the turntable is level so that you get even tracking. A level can be picked up for $1.50 at the hardware store.

Another thing I'd suggest is putting hardwood carving boards/butcher blocks under both your new turntable and your speakers. This also helps prevent ambient vibrations from your speakers from being transferred to your turntable by means of the floor and muddying the sound you get.

9. Always remove the dust cover completely to play a record. The reason is that the dust cover itself picks up sound vibrations and then carries these back down to the platter on which your record is revolving - which is something you definitely do not want. You'll hear the improvement immediately. Taking off the dust cover makes a very obvious difference to the sound you get from your records.

10. Clean/wash your records. Good commercial solutions and systems are available including the Nitty Gritty record cleaning machines. All the money you've spent on a better turntable will be wasted if your records have a dirty film covering them from years of smoking or just being left lying around so that dust can settle upon them.

11. I'd be reluctant to pay the premium price of newly issued vinyl these days. Almost everything recorded since the early nineties has been recorded digitally anyway so vinyl pressings of these recordings theoretically shouldn't provide the additional magic or warmth for which analog recordings are famous. Reissues of older recordings on 180 gram vinyl are most often very, very good, however.

[Toy Ranch]

I have a bunch of vinyl still, but only listen to digital, and the occasional CD.

[Zardoz]

I'm Still addicted to vinyl after buying well over 2000 of them it's hard not to be !!
but when cassette's hit the market I bought about 300 before Cd"s came in.
now I have a little over 1000 Cd's and many Mp3's and FLAC recordings.
But nothing beats the sound of an album at least not yet !!


Nice collection by the way !!!

[Flower]

I love going to used music stores .. picking up great deals on CDs in the dollar bin and hidden gems on vinyl

[BaronLatos35]

I still have my records and I love them. However, I mostly listen to my music digitally today. I have 500+ songs on my iPhone ready to go at all times in my car, gym etc. 2500 on my Mac.

But vinyl still has that warm magic that is hard to beat. Sometimes I still like to put on a record.

[Unknown Primate]

I'm not addicted to them, but I still have all my vinyl.  I have a junky turntable and until I talk (beg) my wife into getting something better, I won't play them on it.  Mostly listen to cd's I've burned off downloads.  Sirius Radio in the car.

[Street Worm]

Still have all my albums (vinyl) or what's left after moving cross country a few times...

I held out a long time but CDs are (now) fine with me &

My truck still has a (built in) cassette player (along w/CD) which is probably why I haven't gotten rid of it yet-
not a big fan, but I have a few boxes full of cassettes bought in the mid to late '80s.

Don't think 'digital' is for me-
I like my music like I like my books-
Up on the shelf in chronological order~ 

[frankenstein73]

been listening to vinyl all night, nothing compares.....

[scorpio]

i really like them speakers there great, as for vinyl i was collecting it before cds were ever thought of,
and just looking at the cover of the lps etc, brings back loads of memories and reminds you your getting old....

[Hepcat]

But vinyl still has that warm magic that is hard to beat. Sometimes I still like to put on a record.

CDs are fine when all I want is background music. But vinyl is my choice whenever I want to seriously listen to music.

[Prof. Hemispheres]

I have between 250 to 350 vinyl LP's of mostly hard rock from the 1970's - 1980's. I'll never give up the old albums. But I also do CD's. If the music is being recorded digitally, it only makes sense to buy the CD. Some bands are going back to analog recording nowadays....maybe if any of that comes out and interests me, I'll buy it on vinyl, but I cannot see buying a digital recording pressed to vinyl.

[Zachareed]

I was born in the 90's, so vinyl was falling out of favor as the main thing. And I grew up on cassettes and cds haha. Now though, I really love vinyl and I buy new and old bands' projects on vinyl and cd usually. I like vinyl because the album art and sleeve art and all that. The visual element seems to take on a bigger role. And I like that.

[Monster Bob]

I listen to ancient music, so yes, vinyl is where it's at for me most of the time, or CDs of the same, if I don't have it on vinyl. 45s, albums, and 78s.

A few  years ago, I was on vacation in Key West and a business next door to our hotel lost it's lease or something, and they dumped everything in the building out on the curb as garbage. In amongst all the boxes and old computers were two unused "DJ" turntables, yep...brand spankin' new. I had to buy a cartridge/needle is all. When I got home I researched them, and found out they retailed for like $650 each. Now that was a good vacation!