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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
soldersplatter
17 posts
 
I'm 53. Obviously I started with vinyl. In the early '90s I gave away or sold off my vinyl gear and records. A friend convinced me to get back into it two years ago, and while turntables, MM/MC cartridges, phono pres, etc., have their charms, I found any "audio nervosa" was more than compensated for by the parallel need to worry about disc cleaning (had a Nitty Gritty), stylus cleaning, worrying about record wear, being annoyed by not being able to purchase exactly what I wanted to listen to, being annoyed by the bad quality of much of my used and new vinyl, etc., etc. From my perspective, there were a lot of negative factors.

After getting a Squeezebox Touch and a VALAB DAC, I listen to music more than ever and enjoy the hell out of it. (I don't own a TV.) Sometimes "nervosa" sets in and I get impatient and FF to other songs, but that's because I'm craving (usually unconsciously) a certain sound/music. And more often than not I end up being very satisfied and just go with the musical flow. I went to bed two hours later than normal last night because I was so captivated by what I was hearing. I can't wait for the RCA Living Stereo 60 CD collection to show up in the mail so I can hear much of what I used to hear via old vinyl through my analog-ish non-oversampling DAC.

My friend will always love his vinyl, and I understand why--but it's not for me. I'll never denigrate another music lover just because of the equipment they use to listen (or make!) music. But as far as turntables and vinyl are concerned, in my case the third time wouldn't be a charm.

I run five days a week.
koegz
317 posts
 
FADS; yogurt, polyester suits, polyester big collar shirts, dico, platform shoes,leisure suits, hulla hoops, slinkies, marbles, tops, flower power, crewcuts, the word groovy, tube tops, tie-dyed t shirts, denim jackets, shoulder pads, elbow patches, flashdance, Saturday Night Fever, spandex, velcro, the twist, love beads, lava lamps, mood rings, chia pets, pet rocks, cnbc, instant messanger, aol, you got mail, religion, "having said that", 8 tack tapes, cassette tapes, men to boys, saving, gop, tea party, sarah palin, etc Said to be fads but became fab instead: Elvis, The Beatles, The stone, Bob Dylan, Springsteen, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, ice-cream, movies, fruits and vegetables, vegetarian, art, reading, green, toyota, science, free thought, protest,etc. Trends; saving, equal rights, legalized pot, gay rights, free thought, electric cars, solar and wind, world economy, stem cell technoligy, online everything, o yeh, VINYL. Fads then not fad, then fad again then not fad and back again and then no again; John Travolta
inna
7,132 posts
 
The purpose of confession is to maintain the sin. Of course, it's good.
I like compilations too, that's what I have Nakamichi deck for. And I try to use the very best tapes. In fact, when I make a copy from digital source, it sounds a little better than the original; my guess is that the deck does some equalization when recording.
I myself am getting deeper into the realm of analog, just upgraded the front end to an entirely different level.
But for most new music you just have to put up with digital.
wolf_garcia
6,629 posts
 
I still use the word "groovy", I've been a musician/recording tech for over 40 years, and I love my Linn. I like digital also...and I wonder...why does this stuff have to be mutually exclusive? I'm too lazy to "digitize" all my vinyl, so I have fun playing with it from time to time and it often amazes me. I've been a surfer since 1960 and refuse to quit just because somebody thinks I should...I just get longer boards and sometimes a paddle! It's a lot of hastle to DO things...I suppose I could get a power boat...it's MUCH easier...and get somebody to play my guitars for me...and maybe put the food into my mouth...a driver for the BMW...or maybe somebody to EXPLAIN beauty to me so I don't have to work at experiencing it. I belong to a gym AND have one at home...now if I could get somebody to lift that tonearm for me....
phaelon
1,038 posts
 
It's not the flipping of sides or lifting of tonearms that bothers me about analog, it's the setup and tweaking and never being sure that you're at anywhere near your turntable assembly's potential. I realize that proper set-up, component matching and tweaking are a fact of life in audio, but their importance seems to be over-the-top in analog. You believe that you have expert set-up, and then one day someone suggests you use half a drop less of lubricant in some reservoir and bang, there it is. I think what bothers me the most is seeing just how much my analog friends suffer with their setups. One day they're ecstatic; the next day, they just don't know what's wrong. And it seems like it's always just after making a big ticket upgrade, that they find out that some small adjustment wasn't right. I'm not suggesting that digital is a better choice because of this, but I do think that analog, at least through a turntable, requires a long run commitment to the hardware aspect of audio. I don't know if analog devotees ever reach the point where they can ignore their system for a year or two and just hit play.
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