The Hardest Naturally Occurring Substance on Earth

mulveling,

"...I’m not the kind of audiophile to listen to Krall/Barber/Stanley/SRV/Dire Straits on repeat all the time..."

You may be one of the very rare audiophiles that uses a turntable with a repeat ability.

...GK as Oscar Wilde...’revisited’....

Now That’s funny.....terribly obscure and potent reference...;)

But I will agree that the hardest substance is found between human ears.....not all, but often enough...

WELL; there IS such a thing as a, "hard" vacuum!      https://www.quora.com/What-is-hard-vacuum  

*hmmmm*

Then would 'space' (as in outer) be a 'soft' vacuum?  There are all matter of matters and energies zinging about....

Either one would be an unpleasant experience..and somewhat of a brief one....;)

Yes Chak
Real enthusiasts and lovers of music will play less than mint records on their systems.

As already stated it may not be possible right away to locate a mint or EX copy or quite likely not financially viable!

I have a lot of VG/VG+ records that I have no qualms playing on my rig although none of my carts are to the order of Mulvelings but still a few 2 to 3k mc carts in the mix.

I agree about real music lovers and their VG records, they will not likely spend even $500 on a phono cartridge, but will likely spend $500 on 1 record to fill the collection (even if it’s their last $500 in the pocket). For this reason people selling and buying records always. Luckily many 70’s records purchased in the 90’s for $1 now cost $100-300 and easy to sell online.

The question about grading is also tough one. When i buy from the Japanese sellers it is a quest, because when they say the record is "GOOD" it can be MINT- ... In the rest of the world when you see G (Good) it means Unplayable Junk according to traditional grading system.

Those Japanese who sell internationally on discogs can often describe a MINT- record as a VG/VG+. In their own country the grading is different and can be just: A, B, C, D

Unfortunately the situation with amateur sellers from Europe or USA can be totally different when MINT- can be a VG

P.S. I’ve noticed many audiophiles prefer re-issues and those "audiophile pressings" to the old original vinyl, they are cleaning new records (re-issues) more than i clean my 40 year old OGs in VG+