Why vinyl?

I've been collecting vinyl since the mid 60's so I predate digital. Although I have an excellent CD player I much prefer the sound of analog. The annoying ticks and pops you refer to are much diminished with a good, well adjusted turntable and clean, well cared for software. Very early on I developed good habits handling and storing my library, so what some see as a huge maintenance nightmare is, in reality, no big deal. I love the jackets and the benefit of reading them without a magnifying glass. Like TWL I have considered selling my CDP since I have only 40-50 CD's. I have chosen not to do this because a lot of music isn't available on vinyl.

Finding quality used albums is a lot of fun and is preserving our musical heritage. A fair amount of my collection is very desirable to other collectors and will fetch huge sums if only I chose to sell them. This has never been my intent. Rather I seek out music or album art that interests me. The bonus of having something that appreciates in this insanely expensive hobby is nice for a change.

I don't know what direction I would go if I were new to this passion. Most likely I would embrace CD's but would be very envious of others that have what I now take for granted. Vinyl playback will not change but the digital domain will continue to evolve until it surpases analog. If I were CD based I would cringe at the thought of my stuff becoming obsolete through the years. In fact, that's how I felt when Michael Jackson released "Thriller" on CD early on. Perhaps the same good fortune will befall the redbook crowd that benefitted we vinyl lovers. Used albums were incredibly cheap from '85 to '95.

As the road sign said, "Pick your rut carefully. You'll be in it a long time".

Happy listening,
Patrick

For what it's worth, I find the regimen of having to Disc Doctor all my old vinyl (and any new additions, both used and new) is a hassle. Tics and pops are annoyances which can be so obtrusive as to be difficult to ignore. Not being able to hit the remote and quickly navigate tracks is a pain. Having to disturb the listening experience to flip sides is a bummer. Frankly, I don't get off on being "required to know how to carefully clean, polish, fuss, etc. It's like car guys no longer having the stick-shift option." All that was fun for about 15 minutes. New music has to be purchased on digital. Finding good vinyl is hard, and bad vinyl is just...bad.

But as a pianist and studio musician, to my ears analog is just that much truer to what I hear than digital. Dynamic range on orchestral works (i.e., Mussorgsky's Pictures, Beethoven's symphonies, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concertos) on good vinyl cannot be touched by the CD's I've heard.

Now, granted I don't have SACD, I'm not running a transport and DAC, and all that may make a difference. An expensive difference.

But to my ears, there's just no question. Inconvenient, messy, and all...I got into this for the music, not as a hobby (no disrespect intended to you hobbyists). It just sounds truer on vinyl.

Tim Wat

Why vinyl? Why not. Like Lugnut I have albums that are 30 years old (ones that I bought new; I have other albums that are older which I bought used) which still sound great today, because I took care of them. I don't wash my records everytime I listen to them, only when I feel that they need it. I remember when Telarc issued the first digitally recorded LP. I ran out and bought it and took it right back after listening to it. It was not good and although digital recording has improved over the years, I still hear those blistering high notes. I have a CD player/recorder which I use to dub LP's. The one's I make from LP's sound better than most of the commercial stuff, even with the pop's and ticks. Yes, LP's can be a pain in the ass, but it is the only medium I really enjoy and I am willing to go that extra mile required.

As to commercial audio tapes. They were relatively expensive, they wore out with play (all tapes do), and there could be compatibality problems between the deck they were originally recorded on and the deck used in playback. Also, only the really expensive reel to reel decks could maintain the correct speed throughout the tape.

I believe now is the best time to jump back to vinyl.

Why!?!?!?!
Why vinyl?
And why now???

When LP were popular, the playbck technology(cartridge, tonearm, turntable or even phono preamp design) were still at the "Stone Age" !!!!

Now we have the best tonearm, best mc cartridge, best turntable, best phono preamp ...... The playback technology for vinyl were at its peak now!!!! Right now!!!

If more people are jumping into the vinyl now, there will be even more breakthrough in the vinyl playback technology in the near future since progress are depend on the consumer demand.

And finally if you have the chance to listen to a playback from a hi-end, high quality and porperly set-up turntable/tonearm with mc cartridge.

Afterward you will ask yourself. "Why digital?"

The Sonic Differences:

Just what is it about vinyl’s sound that gives it the sonic edge? Perhaps the most effective way for me to contrast the differences I hear between the two mediums is to compare them to two differing motion-picture formats, celluloid (or film stock) and video tape. As you watch a motion picture—that is, actual film in a theater projected by light onto a screen—there is an overwhelmingly three-dimensional perception to the image. There is more vividness to a motion picture viewed on celluloid. Images have more detail, colors are rendered with more vibrancy, detail is more vital, contrast more stark and nuances exhibit more power over the viewer. These distinctions, readily apparent to anyone that chooses to compare both a film and its video-taped transfer, all serve to create greater involvement with the motion-picture experience. Although the videotape catches the essence of the film, these more subtle interpretations and variations just don’t make the translation. So I find it with vinyl.

Timbre, like the color in our celluloid film, is more natural and correct sounding. Bass is more full, round and rich. Vocals are more present, providing more of a sense of the "body" that created them, be it flesh and blood, wood or metal. Cymbals are more detailed, more bronzy and lifelike. They are more likely to shimmer over you rather than splash at you. The soundstage, again much like the film image, is more dimensional in its layering, providing a better sense of both the real space of the individual instruments as well as its placement in the venue. There is a greater sense of the space around instruments, and of the bloom of each instrument itself. The image, just like that of the film, is wider, deeper and especially taller. There is an overall vitality and life to the music that is inescapable—to me anyway.

With the CD, bass tends to be more flat, coming across more in a two-dimensional sense, with less depth and less breadth. Timbre is often less honest. Vocals nearly always seem rougher and have less body. Cymbals sound "whiter," often with a splashy, tishy sound. The stage is usually more shallow. Layering is rendered much more discreetly, more like a two-dimensional cut-out suspended in space rather than projecting spherically in all directions and overlapping in space. The CD portrays the acoustical space much like a videotape foreshortens and flattens the cinematic image. The obvious "flatness" of the videotaped image is inescapable by comparison. The image is most often more prone to wander. While I will acknowledge that these attributes typically lessen as the cost of the player/DAC rises (and conversely, increase as the price drops), they nonetheless describe the overall performance of the digital medium in general. There is an overall sense of "less" rendered by the CD when compared to that of good analog playback, and it is painfully obvious.

Neil Young, the grizzled rock veteran, has a much more graphic analogy for the contrast. He said that if you equate listening to vinyl to the feel of the water falling on you when standing under a waterfall, then listening to digital is like standing under someone pouring buckets of ice over you.