Old records.

Mapman,

I totally agree with the digital recording presses to vinyl. If the recording is bad then the pressing sounds bad. Jimmy Hendrix, LED Zeplin, and even some of the Beatles albums sound poor. It is cool that it is digitally recorded sometimes in 4x DSD. I really do enjoy some of the reproductions because sometimes they do it right or at least better. Since I came very late to the vinyl game I have been very picky about what I buy or keep. My crutch is Pink Floyd. I have different pressings of Pink Floyd albums and they do sound different and even better. I have friends who have over 1000 albums. My problem is they do not or cannot listen to most of them. I am friends with Charles Kirmus. The one thing they always say to him when he is at shows is how can I clean hundreds or thousands of albums. If I’m near that person asking I tell them you don’t. Because you probably don’t listen to all of them. I tell them to clean their top 50 and then their top 100 while mixing in your recent purchases. You might only get to 200 or 300 albums cleaned. It doesn’t matter because everyone has their top 50-100 albums. I have been to my friends houses over and over helping them set up their carts and having a listening session. They always have that top 50 including myself. Every once in a while they picked up a new record. They clean it and we take a listen. If it’s great it gets added to the top 50. Eventually some if the albums get put back on the shelve. We usually only have so much time to listen. My biggest frustration is the price of a good pressing and it does not match the quality of sound or is warped.  Typically it goes back. I’m talking a brand new pressing from top rated companies like AP, OJC, and MOFI. I’m sorry but I am not paying $60 and it has missing areas and bad warps. I have taken a break from buying for a while do to these issues. I do have to say if you get into vinyl make sure your reasoning behind it is met. What I mean if you buy a $300-$500 new record player I can almost guarantee it will not best your digital. If you like handling the physical medium and are ok with the lesser sound then have at it. Sometimes I listen to the HEOS streamer in my Marantz surround system and it sounds really nice even better than that $500 record player. Luckily prices will be pulling back on vinyl so hopefully we all can get a lot more value then we did in the past three years. 

@hsounds Vinyl LP collecting is as old as my interest in the Vinyl LP.

In my Teen years I met many who had Vinyl Collections, there is a renaissance for this, as today the Hard Medium is a merchandise offered by Performers and Fans want to own it. 

As these Pressings are limited in numbers, the Collectors are also attracted to making an investment to have a an attempt to see  appreciation realised. 

As a Hard Medium merchandise the remuneration is very valuable to the Performer, especially to keep their plans to perform viable.

Streaming as a means to experience music replays, is one that is heavily loaded against the Performer attempting to make it their career. Streaming is 'all in' for the Record Label and Streaming Service. 

I also came across an original Reiner/CSO Pictures that was excellent. Otoh, the first lp of that recording that I purchased was on RCA budget label (Camden Classics) and it was awful. My point is just because a recording was issued on vinyl doesn’t guarantee it will sound well; frequently the reverse 

btw, RCA Living Stereo CD issue of that record is superb

@puptent It's amazing how many of us do use alcohol in some form (isopropanol or ethanol) in our cleaning solutions and seem to get away with it. The 'ripples in a sandbar' appearance is something I associate with the discoloration caused by PVC outer sleeves.

Many of us were not near as good with record hygiene back in the old days. Styluses were not as well polished and were of types that caused more wear. They were also in many instances larger then many modern styluses.

Before giving up on 3000 records I would suggest cleaning a few, preferably with a vacuum cleaning machine. The Ortofon Replicant 100, Gyger S and Soundsmith OCL styluses have much longer contact areas than old styluses and can bridge over worn areas. They also tend to be quieter. You might want to consider a cartridge containing one of the above styluses.

Unfortunately, many records are going to be suboptimal. My oldest records from the 60s and early 70s are pretty rough. Some of them came from the factory that way. I only kept the ones that I could not replace or had an emotional connection. to