Dan
I came back to vinyl around late '90's. I went to buy a CD player a Linn Karik and the store said what about a Rega Planar turntable. The Rega was much better at $750 then and the CD player was $3500. At the time I was in a state of shock how the modest turntable (on an obsolete format) sounded better?? I did not buy either put it on the list to do and friend later sold me his Lp12 for around $600 that was when everyone was just getting rid of their vinyl and tables. (my first Lp12)
That is a common thing the ticks and pops comment my lp's mostly have none. Vinyl was so cheap a few years ago if it was not perfect I got rid of it. But what I am finding out (thanks to Duelund's) is that even the very clean looking vinyl has much more wear than I thought.
I use a wall stand in the basement where my stereo is now. It drove me nuts in the livingroom and walking gently etc..
My opinion is vinyl is much better! A big pain but better sounding although buying tube gear (I admit) took a lot of the digital edge off. My opinion on vinyl is that has much to do with the recording process. The "loudness wars" were not going on when vinyl was the most common form of stored music. It is almost like the recording engineer is afraid to left the sound go quiet. So I feel a lot of digital's faults happen right in the mixing. Also the average persons stereo is worse today than 30 years ago. (according to my high-end dealer) So the poorer the average stereo the less need for quality source. Let's face audio nuts are just not that important in the $ sense.
I was visiting my Uncle once and at the stereo store his buddy had a friend who used to work in a recording studio. He said they would run songs through what he called the "shit box" and what that did was compress the sound to the middle freq.. They wanted a sound that could be played on cheap stereos or in the car. It was very interesting hearing him talk. The guy used to work for Oracle. (turntable manufacturer) He also said a audiophile release would be a joke in a way because all they did was sell the "non compressed" version. (they knew the audiophile would have the gear)
My best vinyl (for sound quality) is the 1958 Blue Note album. It was never made for the car no doubt recorded on tube mic's, likely using tube lathe cutting machines and on very thick vinyl.
I came back to vinyl around late '90's. I went to buy a CD player a Linn Karik and the store said what about a Rega Planar turntable. The Rega was much better at $750 then and the CD player was $3500. At the time I was in a state of shock how the modest turntable (on an obsolete format) sounded better?? I did not buy either put it on the list to do and friend later sold me his Lp12 for around $600 that was when everyone was just getting rid of their vinyl and tables. (my first Lp12)
That is a common thing the ticks and pops comment my lp's mostly have none. Vinyl was so cheap a few years ago if it was not perfect I got rid of it. But what I am finding out (thanks to Duelund's) is that even the very clean looking vinyl has much more wear than I thought.
I use a wall stand in the basement where my stereo is now. It drove me nuts in the livingroom and walking gently etc..
My opinion is vinyl is much better! A big pain but better sounding although buying tube gear (I admit) took a lot of the digital edge off. My opinion on vinyl is that has much to do with the recording process. The "loudness wars" were not going on when vinyl was the most common form of stored music. It is almost like the recording engineer is afraid to left the sound go quiet. So I feel a lot of digital's faults happen right in the mixing. Also the average persons stereo is worse today than 30 years ago. (according to my high-end dealer) So the poorer the average stereo the less need for quality source. Let's face audio nuts are just not that important in the $ sense.
I was visiting my Uncle once and at the stereo store his buddy had a friend who used to work in a recording studio. He said they would run songs through what he called the "shit box" and what that did was compress the sound to the middle freq.. They wanted a sound that could be played on cheap stereos or in the car. It was very interesting hearing him talk. The guy used to work for Oracle. (turntable manufacturer) He also said a audiophile release would be a joke in a way because all they did was sell the "non compressed" version. (they knew the audiophile would have the gear)
My best vinyl (for sound quality) is the 1958 Blue Note album. It was never made for the car no doubt recorded on tube mic's, likely using tube lathe cutting machines and on very thick vinyl.