Just been in Tower Records and vinyl is everywhere. But from what I could see, prices of €15 to €20 per disk
Added to the cost of a turntable, arm, cartridge and phono stage, not to mention the wall mounted shelf for the TT, it is a mighty expensive way to listen to music.
I am am speaking as someone who had a top notch vinyl replay system in the past. The price of records shook me just now. CDs are good value and sound great if you use a decent player. Or they can be ripped and saved to FLAC or other lossless format and they too sound great if you use a decent DAC. So why use vinyl as your music source?
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I think listening to records is a bit like enjoying craft beer. Some of it’s the ritual, some of it’s the cognitive bias, some of it’s the fact that the whole package is great (gatefold, lyrics, poster, etc), some of it’s the extra money you spend on equipment so naturally it sounds good, and a teeny bit of it is that the medium really is a very good way of holding the music.
I never moved away from records; I did get loads of CDs in the 2000s, but still carried on buying records whenever something took my fancy. They’re great.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Most of the records I listen to were mastered to be listened to on 70's kit, not much need to chase the audiophile rainbow. I bought a Quad amp for not a lot, a DJ turntable for peanuts, I already had some speakers.
The vinyl itself £10-15 quid tops with a lot around the fiver mark. Just as a comparison, I was listening to an album I love (Soft Machine 3rd) the other night. I have an original record, an 'audiophile' 180g clear vinyl repro, a CD re-issue and I've got FLAC via an AK walkman. The original album sounded best. £10.
CD was best 'quality' but sounded harsh. There were no cd's when the album came out.
I'll get her my billy bragg and the jam lps that I got for 20p each from the library out of the loft in the late 80s, have a few 90s soup dragons/stone roses as well up there I think.
Then I bought Madness 'One Step Beyond', it had photo-booth photos all over the inner sleeve, not only did I play it over and over but I looked at the inner sleeve over and over. Somehow, that inner sleeve added to the feel of the album.
I probably had about 10 more years of buying vinyl, before they became difficult to buy, the little record shops I loved slowly disappeared, HMV and Virgin took over and they were massively in favour of CD's
I made the jump to CD's and loved it. The music was clearer, I didn't need to keep picking up the needle every 20 minutes, I could mix up my favourite tracks.
Have got to say, I've never got used to 'downloading', I just prefer to have a physical object in my hand to look at.
I think there's plenty of nostalgia with vinyl but we're in a different age now. I doubt that the kids of today would look at an inner sleeve as much as I did, when their smartphone is only a glance to the right.
Personally it's CD every time for me, as much as I loved my teenage vinyl years.
At the moment I have no idea where my vinyl is. I've had three long term relationships and houses I've lived in between them whilst single. One day somebody will go into their attic and find a whole load of 1980's goodies.
Shame it takes up so much space and sounds cack.
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Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
I honestly get the feeling that he's never enjoyed music so much.
I said maybe.....
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
If I buy vinyl I usually get it with a download and listen to the download. But I buy the vinyl because I like the artist and want them to have some of my money (if they're indie or obscure), and it's nice to have the physical object.
For me there was a thrill to the sound of the stylus as it made contact with the vinyl. And getting up in the middle to turn over. Or, if you were as stoned as I sometimes was, just listening to the kchuk kchuk of the inner groove for half an hour or so.
The inner groove. Deep.
Ive never bought vinyl, but just wondered if any of you guys buy either a CD or Vinyl depending on what the original format of the recording was?
Good streaming playback is more than adequate for most listening situations, and I'll wager pretty much no-one here would be able to tell the difference between high-end digital sources (ie. CDs or lossless streaming) and high-end analogue sources (ie. vinyl).
It's another hipster-led fad, encouraged by the music industry as it's another revenue stream for them.
Bah!
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