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arguments against starting a vinyl collection?

Hi,

I have a pretty elaborate setup for cd playback. I use the emmlabs cdsd transport and emmlabs dcc2se dac with the dartzeel amplifier and the wonderful evolution acoustic mm2 speakers with powered woofers.

I own roughly 2600 cds and about 175 sacds.

The vinyl crowd still swears of course that great digital playback cannot equal vinyl so have been somewhat tempted to dip my toes into analog and get a turntable and phono preamp. Here is what is holding me back!

Please note that I would not get vinyl to find obscure vinyl only vintage or otherwise recordings.

It would be mostly targeted at recordings that sound better on vinyl than cd.

Here is the arguments against:

1. hard to find a turntable and phono preamp that is class A and thus as good as my emmlabs cd equipment without spending serious bucks?

2. Even if I could find a reasonably priced class A turntable, the best sound requires more skill than a newbie like I would have? In other words, the better turntables are harder to setup and use?

3. A lot of heavy weight albums are double albums so you need to switch sides three times?

4. You need to clean the vinyl before every listen?

5. If you listen 15 times to a particular vinyl album you will likely begin to hear some deteoriation?

6. Even with a good setup, you will probably still hear pops and hiss on many vinyl albums even some well mastered ones?

7. I will not hear for modern recordings a big difference between vinyl and cds given that my emmlabs equipment is so good and I cannot afford a $10,000 phono preamp and a $25,000 turntable/cartridge....

thanks

Michael
128x128karmapolice
ejlif's avatar
ejlif
1,366 posts
 
I've never heard the Emm Labs gear.

I added a turntable to my rig that had a 10K CD player. I bought the vinyl rig for 800 used including cartridge. I spent 1800 on a phono stage. That modest setup I thought was so much more musical and involving than the digital. I eventually upgraded to an even better analog setup. I don't think you have to think about spending mega bucks on your first go at it. At least you could get something and test the waters a bit without going to deep. This would allow you find out if you can tolerate the downside of vinyl and see if you can live with it. It's all an opinion, but I personally think I would find more musical enjoyment out of a 500 used analog setup than I would in a mega thousand dollar digital playback rig. That said if I was forced to only pick one it would be digital because I wouldn't be willing to miss out on all the great music that is available only on CD.

You'll never really know unless you try it.
czbbcl's avatar
czbbcl
1,752 posts
 
I am in the same boat as you and have decided not to pursue the vinyl thing. Most of all I like a quiet dark background and very good fast dynamic contrasts in my music. And my modded sony provides me with these characteristics in spades.

A friend of mine has a very nice vinyl set-up ($8000) and has tried to talk me into going down that road. I have listened to his plus a couple differenct higher end rigs at some specialty retailers and I have not been impressed. Maybe in my system it would be differenct but I did not hear what I was looking for to pursue it further; at least for now.

Admittedly some TT's are absolutely gorgeous and maybe someday down the road it might be fun to have to play with. But right now my life is too complicated and time too precious to have the hassles of dealing with a vinyl set-up.
fordmod
30 posts
 
You will not enjoy it at all.... you will spend way too much time looking for it, cleaning it and listening to it. Your lawn will grow tall, your pets will go unfed, you will stay up too late playing them, be tired the next day and loose you job, and then start selling your cd collection to buy food.
It is an addiction! But boy do I like it!

Cheers and go for it.
schipo
1,268 posts
 
I would say buy a cheaper TT and phono stage then go hunting for vinyl. This will turn into an enjoyable hobby.
karmapolice's avatar
karmapolice OP
254 posts
 
Tvad,

Someone else had suggested $8,000 in the thread and i was tentatively agreeing with him.

I think emmlabs is great but maybe now there is something equally good or almost as good for less but that won't help me know.

Sure i could buy a real basic unit but it might be stacking the deck against vinyl......if i would try, i would probably get a well regarded unit like vpi scoutmaster with sds....4k and then good phono preamp and then interconnect cable cartridge and so probably close to 7k.
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