Analog is the new pink

Ditto on Half-Price Books. Their prices are ridiculous now. They don't clean the vinyl or put new outer sleeves on. They just slap a price on the jacket. The condition of their records are usually poor as well.

@ 01-16-12: Frogman

Right On! :-)

Yo,
My son is a junior in college. He has heard my system for years and wanted a turntable. So I got him some old gear 2 years ago and now he has a collection of 100 albums. Over New Years he had 6 college friends over to stay and party. I invited them into my stereo room and they all said it sounded a lot better than digital. 3 of the kids also had turntables. One kid asked her parent for a turntable and got a "Crosley" for Xmas.

They all still use digital as their main source.

One of the kids told me that he liked listening to records because you "had to sit down and listen to it- with digital you just punch a button and skip around."

My take on it is that out of this group there were some who were definitely into the "better" sound and some who were just into the "cool" factor of having a turntable.

Not making any judgments here, just reporting what I observed.

In my scuffling days, I was not all that interested in the finer things in life because they were not a priority. It's a perfectly appropriate cognitive mechanism to not care for/want what you can't have or what is not important to you. As more important developmental issues are met, I'm hopeful that young folks who love music will figure out that sound matters. As for cheap analog vs cheap digital, in a visual analogy I much prefer the look of a 35mm snapshot to a 5MP image.

I think it's great that a new group of people are getting into vinyl and actually playing it. I'd be upset if they were buying it as a decoration.

I'm not sure you have to spend a ton of money to get better sound than a CD player though...

I'm 35. I grew up with vinyl but didn't buy my own turntable until about 7 years ago. My father had his old Technics SL-BD2 (which isn't anything remotely close to high end, nor close to Technics' famous tables) and albums hidden in the basement, as he didn't have the heart to throw them out,nor did he want to listen to my mother's nagging. So I scooped them up. Put a $25 Audio Technica P-Mount cart from Circuit City (nothing like AT's famous carts) on the table to see if it still worked. As low end as that setup was,it did things that my NAD CDP couldn't do. The CDP was far better, but somehow, vinyl's soul came through and I could see what it was trying to do.

I've since upgraded to a Pro-Ject 1Xpression with acrylic platter, speed box 2, and Dynavector 10x5. No comparison between the tables. The turntable sounds different than my Rega DAC. Actually, I think the DAC sounds better overall, but not much. However, the turntable does something my DAC (nor any other digital player I've heard, regardless of price) can't do.

There's a difference. From the lowest end to the highest end. I'm not talking about nostalgia nor visualy swagger. Perhaps sonic swagger?

But then again, what are they connecting the turntables to?

There's a vinyl shop around the corner from U Albany. They sell a ton of vinyl to the students as well as audiophiles and non-audiophiles. They also sell some vintage receivers, vintage turntables, cartridges, and phono preamps. Speaking to the owner, he thinks a lot of them are using vintage gear to play the albums on - tables, receivers and speakers. Maybe this is what a lot of them are doing elsewhere? Digging up dad's old gear?