Does vinyl have a sound?

Sometimes I hear a diamond sound from my stylus, an aluminum sound from my tonearm, a wood sound from my shelf, and a plastic sound from my cartridge body.

OK, I'm not serious. The point I'm trying to make is that if you only think you hear it sometimes, it's probably just the recording. It may or may not be able to be minimized with different components. If vinyl had a plastic sound, every record would have that characteristic.

@ Atmasphere you say the arm is critical for good tracking and good sound given other good quality elements of a set up. I wondered how would I know if an arm was good or bad. I have been told that the JMW 9 arm on my VPI Scout is not good. I can't express how much I like the set up I have with this "poor" arm. I only own one other good table an MMF-5 that also came with an arm and a cartridge to boot. The VPI had a package price but the cart was installed by my dealer. So my question is what makes an arm good or bad at tracking and why do I really like the Scout as it is.

"Saying vinyl has a plastic sound really has no meaning at all. "

Ever hear great vinyl on an old ceramic cart Soundesign compact stereo?

Or I would expect on a newer vintage styled Crosly player?

99% of the vinyl world is not high end. Never has been! Well, maybe briefly in the late 50's when hifi stereo recordings were new, prior to mass market.

You have to look at the reality and not the theory or top % of performers when talking about these things because a novice will face a challenge in many ways to get to the promised land.

Mechans, I was careful how I made my comment. I said

it need not be expensive if the arm can make it track correctly.

What this means is you can get a Grado Gold to beat the best digital out there if the arm gets it to track right. What often amazes me is how well you can do with a stock Technics 1200 with the stock arm, if you are careful about setup and the choice of cartridge. It will beat any cheap digital made.

I don't know about the VPI arm but it just might be that it works really well with your cartridge.

But Mapman is right, the same gear can sound dreadful if poorly set up. I saw a speaker manufacturer at RMAF using a Technics 1200 and his room was the poster for this phenom. The setup was bad- he did nothing about VTA or loading. It sounded very bright and I could not stay in the room.

In 1978, a common $200 Japanese or European table + $10 vendor cost cart, like a basic Grado of the day or similar, could do quite well if set up properly or sound horrid otherwise.

Things have progressed since then but factor in inflation and I would expect much better results today in that all the supported and related technologies have progressed, although so have the costs due mainly to inflation.