Is Vinyl Worth It

We had an audio group meeting a few days ago. It was a tribute to a audio buddy that recently passed away and was into vinyl almost exclusively so vinyl only. One of the guys later commented to me on the ticks and pops, discrete as they were, and how it made things unlistenable for him, just couldn't get past that aspect of vinyl. So there you have a reason by some to avoid vinyl in addition to the inconvenience. I myself am waiting for the day when I listen to an orchestral recording on digital playback and the strings sound as convincing to me as they do on a good vinyl system. There just seems to be more musical relevance and natural ebb and flow to the music but we all hear different and value different things. This is clearly less about the music than how it is presented as I also enjoy digital, it can be most involving but the two formats are different enough that what may be good enough for the goose is less so for the gander.

Although I have not lived with vinyl since my teenage record player days, I have listened to numerous megabuck vinyl rigs at shows (as much as 500k), and heard some of these rigs with vinyl and digital, and though the vinyl often sounded very nice, I have not yet had a religious experience.

I know what you vinylistas will say: show sound sucks, and I need to hear a good home set-up.

Well, not all show sound sucks, and if I haven't heard something that makes me say, "Ah, *now* I get it!" what would motivate me to undergo the hassle and expense?

Tubegroover,

There are some that can't get beyond the tick/pop situation.

A friend of mine several years ago tried to go whole hog with vinyl. He bought a Nott table, Plinius phono stage, Clearaudio cartridge and about 100 records. He lasted for about a month before he walked away from it all. He just couldn't handle ANY surface noise.

The silver lining is that I was able to pick up quite a few near mint records on the cheap....;-}}

Shakey

Dealing with the ticks/pops/surface noise/echos IMO is age dependent. Many audiophiles under 45 grew up with cassettes and then went on to cd's never becoming accustomed with vinyls shortcomings.

I don't get the ticks/pops/surface noise? That would drive me crazy, but I get very little if any of that at all. I clean all of my vinyl before fist playing it, then just use a brush on the records after that. Most records are pretty much dead quiet.

I can't tell you how many people have listened to my set up over the years, and not believed me that it was a record, it's so quiet.

Buy new records, and set up your gear correctly, and that's not a problem.

Also, if you can't hear the difference, then don't buy vinyl. But I would say if you can't hear the difference, just keep your iPhone and ear buds in, you don't need to be spending big bucks on audio gear.