Is Vinyl Worth It

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.

"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."

Often, where there's an abundance of abuse, there's a shortage of evidence.

Why is it always posed as a choice between the two formats? If your audio system is in the service of your music (as it should be, right?), and you have both LP's and CD's, then you obviously can't choose between the two, you need both a record player and a CD player. I have a fair number of LP's that never made it to CD (no 78's, though!). That's for us older guys. If you're younger and don't yet have any LP's, then yeah the question can be should you get into them and the requisite turntable/arm/cartridge/phono amp/record cleaner. New LP's cost a lot more than CD's or digital downloads, so one has to decide if the music is important enough to oneself to spend twice as much for an LP vs. a CD (or download). I find myself in that predicament often these days. And that's assuming the LP of any particular album sounds "better" than the CD, a mighty big assumption. For myself, I have to really love the music to spring for the LP, and have some reason to believe that it sounds enough better than the CD to make it worth it to me. I already have so much music in my collection that for me to want to add something new to it, it has to be mighty damn special. I just don't have the time left to waste on non-"A" music. You youngins---make the most of your years! Every minute you spend listening to the equipment is a minute you don't have anymore for listening to the music. Those are two very different things. Listen critically just long enough to find good sound, then forget about it. Take it from one who spent too much time doing the opposite!