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How a turntable is like a gym membership

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I was a member of the YMCA for years. I was there every night five days a week working out and playing basketball. I got married and started having children, but I kept my membership, I just wasn't using it. I wouldn't drop my membership because I liked playing basketball so much, I just wasn't going to the gym. Once a year, I'd go to the gym to justify my keeping it. I had to go to the front desk to get the combination to my locker, I had been there so seldom, I forgot the combination. After about five years reality set in and I finally dropped the membership. So I bought a full-fledged home gym that I now don't use, I go walking with my iPod instead.

I own two turntables, a record-cleaning machine and over 3,000 jazz LP's. Over the last five years I may have played a total of three or four LP's. I bought both of my turntables because they are both beautiful and thought that it would force me to play my vinyl. Wrong! I have an excellent CD player and I also own a SqueezeBox. Sorry, but digital is just too doggone convenient. It was nice owning two beautiful turntables so my guests could oooh and ahhh when thay saw them. It was cool to say "yeah, I still spin vinyl" when the fellas saw my system. But the truth was, I rarely came near the turntables. They served as not much more than Audio Sculpture or Audio Eye-Candy. Both of them sound beautiful, but I'll be doggone if I'm willing to go through ritual of cleaning the LP, cueing it, and be standing nearby to remove the arm when the last song is finished on one side. I kind of always felt that there was an unwritten rule somewhere that to be considered a "true audiophile" that you had to have analog playback included in your system. Sorry, but I've given in to 21st Century technology and I'm moving on. There, I've said it, I've been faking it as an analog lover for the past few years. Well, I do actually love analog, I just don't have time for it.

So, I put on an album tonight and DAMN that vinyl sounded good! But, after about 30 minutes, I realized that I have been spoiled by the convenience of digital and I'm just not willing to go through the gyrations to play an LP any longer.

So, the turntables have to go, but I'm keeping my LP's just in case. Hopefully my 13 year-old son will take them when he graduates from college.
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128x128mitch4t
buconero117
2,311 posts
 
I hear your 'vinyl' excuse, but what about the gym. Best you get back to that and do it quickly as that is a matter of life or death. Walking will not do it. Perhaps you are waiting for a convenient 'ipod' gym, you know plug your body in and it gives instant conditioning. Steve Jobs is working on that, it will called 'the fountain of youth pod'. I find spending two hours a day at the gym pretty 'inconvenient', but it will keep me 'spinning' a while longer.
lokie's avatar
lokie
528 posts
 
I'm with you Tvad. Pandora and Radio Paradise clock a lot of time on my system. I also enjoy the variety and the fun of hearing new music and random oldies but goodies. Sort of like listening to the radio back in the day.

Lifestyle "circumstances" have a lot to do with it. When I have no kids in the house, retired with a "bunker in the basement" I could see myself really getting into vinyl. Until then, computer audio is more than satisfying.
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,865 posts
 
Been loving Radio Paradise of late.

Also my own personal channel I create when I load up 13000+ tracks from my music server on the Roku Soundbridges (one one each system) put it in random play mode, and let'er rip for hours on end with few repeats (except by choice).

I still listen to records on occasion mainly because I have a lot of music on records collected over the years that I do not have elsewhere. I even buy a lot of used records when I come across them for the right price (ie cheap).

But I am hard pressed to go out and tell somebody they are missing out by not spinning records these days if they do not already own a library that they want to play. Unless someone is determined to explore new frontiers in vinyl at all costs, it just ain't worth it.

The event that signaled the decline of vinyl playtime in my house was the acquisition of my first Roku Soundbridge a few years back that I used initially mostly for Internet radio. Then setting up my first music server sealed the fate.

I still get the urge to spin teh vinyl on occasion though.
cerrot's avatar
cerrot
1,700 posts
 
I love my music server but vinyl is theraputic, and allowed me to leave my shrink and save serous dough.

Vinyl is like a woman. A real delicate pain in the butt, but, when done properly, there is nothing like it.
plato
1,543 posts
 
I enjoy playing my old records now and then... a lot of them are titles I don't have and can't even get on CD. Plus, they still sound fantastic and they allow me to reminisce about my life in younger days and the good times I shared with friends when the records were new to me.
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