No you're not barking up the wrong tree. You have to be very careful about selecting the right components and ensuring they match up well together, especially the tone arm and cartridge. Proper set-up is important as well and having access to the right tools to do it yourself or resources to do it for you will help achieve your goal.
Suggested entry path into vinyl...
...if cost is not a major constraining factor (within limits :-)). I guess my question is do experienced vinyl enthusiasts recommend starting with a "entry-level" analog set up and tweaking and upgrading over time to maximize one's learning of what one likes by sampling different tt/tonearm/cartridge/phono setups (as well as learning how to correctly set-up and handle tts and associated gear on less expensive equipment), or would you just buy a more "evolved" (and likely more expensive) setup at the outset that you have heard within the context of the rest of your playback system and that you like the sound of (but perhaps make expensive mistakes on that gear). I am deliberately staying away from specific examples to get at folks' opinions/recommendations about the approaches. Thanks for your thoughts in advance.
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No, you should expect a good analog system to sound better than digital. If not, why spend the $? I have recently come back into vinyl after a 25 year absence. To my ears it is no contest. While I have a fairly expensive analog system ($20K) I have heard a good $2K system (Rega P3-24) sound better than digital. To my the major attribute of analog over digital is lack of listener fatigue. I can listen to vinyl all day. The only downside is that with LP's the quality of the pressing (old and new) is variable. A bad pressing will sound bad regardless of the equipment used. None the less, I can't see my going back to only buying CD's. |
Thx Clio and Sibelius for your follow up answers. To Clio's point, any thoughts on component matching or any "truisms" regarding approaches to vinyl (i.e., suspended vs. mass loaded designs, use of motor controller vs. not for speed stability, certain types of tonearm technologies vs others). Also, any rules of thumb regarding how to match cartridges/tonearms for better tracking, and or cartridge/phono stage matching that I should be aware of? I know these are very broad questions, so any thoughts or any reference pieces folks can point me to on the net or other places that discuss these basic "matching" principles would be very much appreciated. Thanks again. |
Truisms might be better called prejudices. ;) To answer your digital vs. vinyl question, I don't feel it's helpful to think of vinyl as a sonic upgrade over CDs. I think that's pushed too much here and in the audiophile rags. At least, that's not how I see my own "relationship" to vinyl. Motor power supply upgrades do work. I found the price of the upgraded Michell power supply hard to swallow, so I bought used. The rules for matching cartridges to tonearms are a little tricky, as the dynamic compliance of cartridges is not reported consistently (differing by factors of even 2 or 2.5) or not at all by manufacturers. I guess the short answer on that one is: ask around first. |
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