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Is a vinyl rig only worth it for oldies?

I have always been curious about vinyl and its touted superiority over digital, so I decided to try it for myself. Over the course of the past several years I bought a few turntables, phono stages, and a bunch of new albums. They sounded fine I thought, but didn't stomp all over digital like some would tend to believe.

It wasn't until I popped on some old disk that I picked up used from a garage sale somewhere that I heard what vinyl was really about: it was the smoothest, most organic, and 3d sound that ever came out of my speakers. I had never heard anything quite like it. All of the digital I had, no matter how high the resolution, did not really come close to approaching that type of sound.

Out of the handful of albums I have from the 70s-80s, most of them have this type of sound. Problem is, most of my music and preferences are new releases (not necessarily in an audiophile genre) or stuff from the past decade and these albums sounded like music from a CD player but with the added noise, pops, clicks, higher price, and inconveniences inherent with vinyl. Of all the new albums I bought recently, only two sounded like they were mastered in the analog domain.

It seems that almost anything released after the 2000's (except audiophile reissues) sounded like music from a CD player of some sort, only worse due to the added noise making the CD version superior. I have experienced this on a variety of turntables, and this was even true in a friend's setup with a high end TT/cart.

So my question is, is vinyl only good for older pre-80s music when mastering was still analog and not all digital?
solman989
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,417 posts
 
Solman989, I think what you're talking about is the vinyl with a high level of compression. With new vinyl I've found it depends on the record label, the artist, and/or the mastering studio. I just bought a new pressing of jimi's "Are You Experienced" and it sounds amazing. Bought some other new pressings and they are compressed with no bass.
I guess I'm saying it's hit or miss. I try to read the reviews of the new releases.
czbbcl's avatar
czbbcl
1,752 posts
 
Most of the new vinyl I have purchased sounds very good to excellent. But can't say they are better or worse than my old recordings. All things being equal the vinyl outperforms my cd's / SACD's but as always it is recording dependent.

Chuck
solman989 OP
44 posts
 
The noise that I was talking about is a part of the medium itself and not due to improperly cleaned vinyl. Depending on the album, it can sound like mistracking or clicks. For example I have compared two copies of the same albums and the noise was present in both at the same spots so I know it is not a cleaning issue. Don't get me wrong, I can overlook it but when I am listening to an album that is basically a hi-res file run through a studio's DAC and then cut onto a LP, well lets just say that's what SACD is for.
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,417 posts
 
Yes, I've heard the clicks in some new vinyl. It must be a defect in the Master. BTW, I never heard these defects in my old records.
ghostrider45
449 posts
 
Marakanetz-

Record sets in the 60's and 70's were often mastered so that you could put the records on a changer and still play the set in sequence. So if you n records in the set, and thus 2n sides, the first n logical sides would be placed on separate disks, and the second n logical sides would be placed similarly on separate disks such that 1 and n+1, 2 and n+2, etc were on the same disk. (whew!)

So a 3 disk set in changer order would have sides 1 and 4 on the first disk, 2 and 5 on the second disk, and 3 and 6 on the third. That made it easy to rack'em and stack'em on the cheap, plentiful changers of the time for extended listening sessions.

Changer order had nothing to do with "resting the vinyl". That was never a consideration on mass produced records.
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