Should I buy a VPI SCOUTMASTER. I OWN 25 RECORDS.

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff ... go big or go home! Audiophilia is not about rationality, it is about passion for the music and the joy of conjuring that emotion from your own equipment, built by people whose work is to distill their own passion into their products. People like Harry Weisfeld and his family.

Buy the VPI and stick with the Memorial arm. VPI unipivot is excellent. I have one on my Classic 3 and would not trade it for a gimballed arm. (I would like to try the new 3D printed arm, however!)

Buy the best cartridge you can afford. It should match the tone arm. Lyra and Dynavector are good choices, but so are many others. I have a Dynavector TKR and love it. Very balanced, very dynamic. But as with any low output MC, be sure to get a phono stage with enough gain. Your preamp will do fine for now.

Vinyl records provide joy beyond the music. There is tactile satisfaction and the zen of ceremony in playing them. As others have stated, a record in pristine condition will have no discernible background noise and very few tics and pops. If you collect old classics that may be scratched or otherwise abused, buy a Sugar Cube and they will sound as clean as a CD. An occasional tic or pop from static electricity is no more annoying than the sound of a zipper at a rock concert.

One more thing ...  

As for old records vs. new … just go for it! There are no rules. Some remasters sound better than the originals, some do not. The sport is in the listening. I have thousands of LP’s, some sixty-year-old originals (the first record I ever bought brand new is now 58 years old!), some remasters and some new releases. If have not found the sound quality of these to be a function of their age, but rather of their pedigree.

There is one category in which vinyl has a monopoly, direct-to-disc. The best of these are simply stupendous and cannot be equaled by any digital means. Look for titles from M&K, Sheffield Lab and Chasing The Dragon.

As for remasters, I must give homage to one man who should be canonized for his amazing contributions to lovers of music, Chad Kassem.  He has been remastering albums of many genres with an attention to detail and commitment to quality that in most cases surpasses the original by a wide margin. I have many hundred of his remasters, mostly on the Classic Records and Analogue Productions labels. The worst of them is fully equal to its original and most are far better. Do yourself a favor and buy them all (I’m still working on it!) Or buy them from him in person at AXPONA (he is Acoustic Sounds) in April and tell him Dave sent you.

Another source of inspiration, who should be canonized as well, is Michael Fremer. Check out his blog Analog Planet, sponsored by Stereophile magazine, for inspiring reviews of both technology and recordings

I am so pumped up about VINYL!!! I am driven to do this!!! It's the old VPI SCOUTMASTER  VS REGA RP8. Which one would you goners get?

Dear @jeffvegas : I don't know you but I don't like mediocrity/average audio items, digital or analog.

All the advises here for analog and what you are asking for are in the mediocrity land, belongs to this territory.

In the digital domain the advises are in the mediocrity level too as that Benchmark.

If you like the mediocrity then go for what ever you think you need.

If you don't like and don't want stay in that mediocrity then you need to make a wise decision. In the analog alternative you need a phono cartridge in the 3K-5k   price range and only for the cartridge. You need that cartridge along a TT, a tonearm ( not unipivot, no matters what. ) and a first rate phono stage and you can't do it for less than 10K.

In the digital alternative you can go out of the mediocrity starting at your budget of 4K and up for the DAC.

Everything can " sounds " but not everything can sounds out of the mediocrity. Is up to you not the other gentlemans ( including me. ) in this thread.

R.

Well the audio GOD has spoken, let us all take note. We are not worthy