Vinyl or wait for the new stuff??

Hi Myousiff; You have an excellent CD based system, I would say comparable to mine. And when done right,along with room tweaking, vibration control, good PCs and other wire-- as we have both done, DIGITAL CAN BE EXCELLENT. And that's not to take anything away from vinyl. But vinyl can be a pain to use and you MUST be able to listen "past" the inherent background noise of vinyl to get to the music. Carl had some excellent advice re: using vinyl: you have to like fiddling around with mechanical stuff like cleaning records, keeping everything in adjustment etc., ie you have to enjoy "the process" of using it. In another thread, I told you that I recently tried vinyl and could not listen past the annoying background noise because I have gotten so used to the stone silent background of CDs. In fact, the vinyl background noise gave me a headache every night for the 2 1/2 weeks I used it. I respect those into vinyl (my best audio friend is a vinyl junkie), but decided it's not for me. I hope my choice can be respected too. If you can accept the "considerations" I've noted above, then I would whole heartedly agree with Sedond (Doug), that you should get into vinyl. If you can, get out and audition a TT based system, and take a couple LPs with you. P.S. I believe it's going to be several years before a CD replacement will be viable in the market place, ie a lot of DVD-A titles available. Cheers. Craig.

.......my mistake re: the other thread I mentioned; see the thread "HOW MUCH $$ IN TT TO EQUAL...." Posted by Mailman. Under System Advice. Also, it looks to me like you are at where I was 2-3 months ago. I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO KNOW what the vinyl junkies always rave about. Well, I tried it and didn't like it for the reasons given. You say yourself that you have very "lifelike" digital that you like very much-- so do I. My recommendation; go out and audition a TT based system-- with your own LPs (buy some if you need to) and see if you like it. It cost me over $500. that I can't recover to find out that I couldn't listen past the LP background noise. But I know what you mean-- If I had decided to stay with vinyl, I would have spent thousands on upgrade after upgrade. Vinyl is not audio nirvana, it's just another music format-- your choice. Again Cheers, and Good Luck. Craig

Garfish: Is thread contributions like yours (balanced) that remind me that there are as many flavors as people to like them!! In my experience listening time has decreased due to job / family obligations so less preparation time (no dedicated room and small kids in the house) favours digital in my case (less potential damage to equipment such as TT). A couple of cents here. As you say Cheers!

Be cautious, be very cautious. I love vinyl and find it far superior to any CD player I've experienced (Wadia, Goldmund, Theta, Sonic Frontiers, Sony) in my system. However, vinyl requires dedication and effort from the user. It's nowhere near as convenient to use (there's no remote control). Every 20 minutes you have to get up and do something. Vinyl playback also requires the listener to understand and execute precise setup procedures. In order to maximize performance you must have a steady hand and know what good sound sounds like. Many people can not deal with this level of commitment. A high quality, but not outrageous turntable, arm, cartridge, phono preamp and record cleaning machine will cost roughly $10,000. It will out perform any and all CD playback systems. But SO WHAT! My advice is to wait. As much as I love vinyl, I recognize that it's a dying format. IMO, CD digital is "okay" to at best "good", hi-bit rate/sample rate digital promises to equal, if not better vinyl as an accurate and musically engaging format. If vinyl was right for you, you wouldn't have posted your question.

vinyl *isn't* as convenient as cd, but, when i'm doing serious listening, changing a record every 15-20 minutes is not really a big deal - it's actually a bit of a break to stretch, etc. and, ya, i *do* have to treat my records w/special care, unlike cd's. as far as the inherent background noise, ya, it *is* there on some discs, but, i guess as i've been listening to albums since i was a kid - about 1965 - it really is not a distraction to me. i can listen thru it to the music. i *can* see how it would be annoying, to folks not used to it. regarding onhwy61's comment that it takes $10k for a high-quality analog rig - sure you *can* spend that much, but it's surely not necessary - especially if ya buy used equipment. my current rig, at $2k, i think is pretty outrageous, if i say so myself, and, when done, i will have almost $3k into it. but ya don't have to spend even this much for a rig that'll be more musical than current digital. a brand-gnu rega planar 25 is ~$1300, & it's awesome. regarding digital, i have found that a really excellent preamp helps me to enjoy it - but i still like vinyl better! :>) doug