digital vs vinyl thoughts

I'm not trying to get you to throw more money into something that you just may not be into, but...

Are your albums clean? There's no substitute for a good steam and vacuum cleaning to my ears. Vacuum cleaners don't have to be expensive (relatively speaking) - my KAB USA vacuum cleaner was about $170 and truly elevated my vinyl sound quality. Combined with my $25 or so hand held steamer, it's gone up another level.

Second thing - have you considered the Pro-Ject Speed Box? It doesn't just change speeds, it's a great sonic upgrade. There's no tradeoffs with it sonically; it's an across the board upgrade. It easily made my 1Xpression sound better than the next deck up the line. It's about $130 or so nowadays.

Thirdly - Acrylic platter. Combined with the Speed Box, it's like a different and far better deck. I think it's about $100.

But for about $250 or so between the acrylic platter and Speedbox, you may be better taking that money and selling the Debut and buying a better deck IMO.

But again, don't force yourself to try to like vinyl. You may convince yourself for a little while, but in the long run you'll come to your senses and kick yourself in the rear end if it's truly not for you. The best way to know is to hear some better decks. Hopefully you've got a dealer or two locally that has one or two set up on the floor. With dealers closing everyday and turntables being a niche within a niche, it's not easy to find one though.

thanks for the great opinions. yes kbarkamian i have read about the acryllic platter and the speed box upgrades. and i,m sure a great phono cart match would help. your advice about the changing horses decision is exactly right. then maybe just keep improving my cd/computer audio with more/better thingees with the dollars. but to stay tru to my goal of the most bang etc with a budget system i think i have to decide to focus on one choice or the other. i.ll probably just use the pro-ject for fun now and stick with digital because i suspect a couple of thousand bucks to get the right table performance. great responses and thank you everyone. i still like to look over and see a ferrari red table sitting there and i can play a record whenever i want to and not care if it is perfect. good for my audio soul. john

I'm a music lover first and foremost so I enjoy listening to both digital and analog, the one I prefer is usually the one i'm listening to at the time. We all prefer something a little different, why can't some people see and respect that. Some seem to think that there preference is absolute. I don't know if people should even debate the subject unless they have both formats in there system and have spent equal time and money setting them up. I guess I fall into that camp, except my analog rig is several times more costly. Which is better, you judge, because for the life of me I can only say there different, I have not found one to be clearly superior.

Regards Tim

Since I listen to a "playlist" from the computer, I don't know or care half the time whether it's vinyl or CD. Some of the LP's are on the playlist because they sound better than the CD, but that in no way is always the case. There are those who would argue that I never listen to anything other than "digital" because it's coming from the computer; but since the computer delivers all the "nuances" from the LP, anyone can call it what they like, but it's all good to me.

The more I think about it the less I know why I'm even in this debate.

Orpheus10, this is a good question, about why we are debating when things are perfectly clear. I guess, to confuse them, why else?