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Argon

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I inherited a huge collection of jazz and classical albums. Still buy or receive vinyl once in a while.

And I use the ol' retro Bang & Olufsen 7700, still sounds great despite being used and abused in studio workshops for many many years:

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(this pic will be lame and pointless to some, and will be pure vintage Scandinavian design porn to others)

 

Thanks for sharing Sven...pure vintage gold right there.

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Very nice set up Dib, would love to get an old Thorens for a second setup...my daughter is moving out in a few weeks and she is sad to be leaving the vinyl behind, so I am going to try and find her a decent platter before she goes.

I'm in the same boat with my son. He wants to get into it but needs help.

Lots of old Thorens and Gerards on e-bay (where I got mine), Audiogon and Canuck Audiomart and you can still get parts. Prices have gone up since I got mine but there are still good deals out there. They're built like tanks so unless badly abused, they will last forever. Lots of vinyl gurus claim you have to spend substantially more on a new deck to come close to what these old classic units can produce.

I was amazed at the difference in sound quality and lower noise floor with the old Thorens versus my previous, much newer pioneer. There's just more to setting them up properly than plug and play with their suspended platter.

Good luck with your daughter's set up.

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Anyone else here collect? What turntable do you own? Any good lesser-known places to buy good albums?

I've got a Technics sl-b2, and have mostly classic rock but looking to branch out into more funk and metal (hard to find)

Stopped about 3 years ago after collecting for about 4 years. I have copies of almost every rock album I can think of wanting off the top of my head, plus a ton of rare and weird blues, southern blues, southern rock, prog rock, etc etc. I also have a decent collection of hip hop from the 90s, some newer music, a wicked reggae section, and a couple crates of electronica and house.

My listening turntable is a Rega 3 ... absolute sleek beauty. My DJ turntables are stanton 100s, lil' cheap pieces of crap that get the job done at parties and I won't cry if some idiot spills beer on them. I use an old analogue Vestax mixer that works great, combined with a Traktor Audio 8 interface, and either I go off the laptop with the TSP software or I use control vinyls, typically, to not damage my good vinyls with scratching.

I can talk records and music with people for hours :) I always caution those wanting to get into record collecting these days though...it's a lot.

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True story. Found the white album at a salvation army.

I wish for you that that was rare LOL. I have about 3 copies of the White Album all from thrift stores. Now, if you find an ORIGINAL pressing in good quality at a thrift store? Good on you, that's a good find.

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far too expensive-a-hobby for my taste. but Ditch Records in Victoria has a pretty decent selection.

Records go for $.25 at the hospital aux. shop in Powell River.

Hi Fi Center in Vancouver, used to be on Seymour just recently moved, can sell you an "entry" level turntable for less than $500. Rega and Goldring have models in that range that sound quite nice.

If you can afford it try to get what is known as a "line contact stylus". Just a fancy name for a "u" shaped needle rather than the traditional "v". This will reduce the ticks and pops associated with scratched records to almost nothing.

Rega also makes a good cheap phono stage so if your current pre amp/receiver doesn't have a phono stage you can just plug in the Rega phono into an auxillary input on your head unit.

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My collection is about 6,000 lps strong, lots of 70-late 80's rock and blues, abit of classical, jazz,country and bluegrass.

currently using an Audio Mecca Romance turntable with a Rapheal tone arm and Audio Note tt1 cartridge. This is plugged into a Sim Audio phono stage and Sim pre amp. Using two 8 watt aside Antique Sound Labs tube amps. Not a lot of power but I compensate by having very efficient speakers, based on the old Altec lansing Santanna's. Amazing mid range! Sometimes I'll turn on the subwoofer but most lps don't need the extra 'help".

I'd rather never watch TV again in my life than go a week without music.

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Found out a few years ago by accident that my parents had kept, and forgotten about, all my old albums from when I went off to university 25 years ago. About 250 70s-80s rock albums bought in the mid to late 80s sitting in boxes in their garage. I had thought they were long gone. They still had a few hundred cassette tapes too but I dug out a old boombox and tried a few of them. The tape had degraded and become sticky. They wont play. Still have the first album I ever got, was Rush - Moving Pictures. Still one of my all time favorites.

I dont have a turntable, havent had one in decades. Guess Ill have to go buy one sooner or later.

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Looking for a free upgrade in the quality of your music? Every few months simply turn everything off, unplug all the connections be they power or rca, then plug them back in, turn the stereo on and have a listen. This will clean the connections of the residue/oxidization/rust/film that occurs over time.

For those with a few extra bucks, replace your standard wall power socket with the orange coloured "hubbell" hospital socket. Hospitals use them as they have a firmer fit and better power transfer. Cleaner better power will almost always lead to better sound.

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I love the the cover art for vinyls and it makes collecting really fun. Although not technically superior, the sound of vinyl is very "fun" and laid back. What I don't like is that the more you play it the more it deteriorates and the pops and crackle start to take over. Some people love this as it gives the vinyl character, but this is the reason I still prefer digital. I wish there is a way to make vinyls not deteriorate.

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I love the the cover art for vinyls and it makes collecting really fun. Although not technically superior, the sound of vinyl is very "fun" and laid back. What I don't like is that the more you play it the more it deteriorates and the pops and crackle start to take over. Some people love this as it gives the vinyl character, but this is the reason I still prefer digital. I wish there is a way to make vinyls not deteriorate.

Clean them regularly and store them in a room temp, dry, safe place and they will last forever. I have original albums from pre-1965 that sound beautiful.

CD's actually deteriorate faster than vinyls if both are left untouched in the same place.

Also, don't use a sh*t stylus, that will damage the vinyl.

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Also never stack your vinyl, ALWAYS shelve them vertically....can't express that enough..

I take good care of my records and they all work perfectly..some I've had for over 30-40 yrs (my dads)...

I've ripped most mine on to my laptop, nowadays with with serato and traktor I don't have to carry crates and crates to my gigs like I used too..I enjoy listening to them at home on a proper set-up.

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I am absolutely loving the resurgence in the popularity of vinyl. I have well over 20,000 LP's (along with about 8,000 CD's) and I have discovered that vinyl "enthusiasts" (I call them "nuts") will pay a LOT of $$ for old records particularly original pressings. Me, well i have made my living as an audio engineer for over 30 years and I have a secret for all of you:

Vinyl sounds like crap. It is worse now than it was 20 years ago.

Meanwhile I am replacing most of my old records with new CD's (average cost is about $10) while selling the vinyl versions (average price is about $35) and am using the difference to buy myself a rocking sports car. I have sold many records for over $100!! Insane!

My turntable is a really good Scottish Linn clone and I have an "audiophile" record playing set up but despite all this my records, all of which are in A1 shape sound pathetic when compared even to the old pre-remastered CD's that I buy in the thrift stores for $2 a pop (and play on a $5 thrift store DVD player). I love it when people say silly things like "I just don't listen to the ticks and pops" or horse manure like "CD's deteriorate faster than LP's" (NEVER had a CD die on me yet!). Of course the band I'm in is popular with, shall we say "hipsters" so we simply had to make our new album on vinyl which was a super expensive and totally frustrating endeavor that I shall never repeat again as long as I live (the test pressings were great; the production run was garbage. How does that happen?). Vinyl nuts might want to think about something: when the CD first showed up the entire classical world embraced them and NEVER looked back; only a tiny minority of classical record buyers prefer vinyl which is in stark contrast to the world of jazz and modern rock and roll where vinyl is making a "comeback". It is all about nostalgia and nothing more. Remember when you use your records with your computer you are digitizing them so all the "analog warmth" (us audio engineers call it "even ordered harmonic distortion") is compromised. Recording with analog tape is an expensive nightmare and 99% of the deluded souls who persist in doing it only track on it and then flip it to Pro Tools so they can edit stuff without having a nervous breakdown (you just TRY to do a "window edit". I dare you!). To close I shall quote possibly the greatest recording engineer of all time one Rudy Van Gelder (look him up): "if I never see another analog tape machine again it will be too soon". By all means keep buying that old vinyl; I need to pay for my fancy new Alfa...

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^ CD manufacturers themselves claim CDs have a shelf-life of 10 years.

Vinyls can be of better quality than CDs, but that typically is original pressing and Japanese pressings. Everything else in between is typically garbage, super thin, and light, with narrow grooves. Or it'll be digital recordings on vinyl pressings in the 1980s which, if you turn it up past a certain point, it hurts your ears.

BUT, uncompressed original pressings have a depth to them that I find a lot of digital recordings don't have.

Good for you though for making money off of the hipsters obsessed with buying vinyl at ridiculous prices. I got out of collecting them because the market got stupid, and most new vinyl pressings of new bands are nowhere near as good as CD quality.

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Not necessarily, it can be considered a mass noun which can be put through the process of countification...like how cheese can be cheeses even though cheese is the plural of cheese.

Either way, who cares lol

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^ CD manufacturers themselves claim CDs have a shelf-life of 10 years.

Vinyls can be of better quality than CDs, but that typically is original pressing and Japanese pressings. Everything else in between is typically garbage, super thin, and light, with narrow grooves. Or it'll be digital recordings on vinyl pressings in the 1980s which, if you turn it up past a certain point, it hurts your ears.

BUT, uncompressed original pressings have a depth to them that I find a lot of digital recordings don't have.

Good for you though for making money off of the hipsters obsessed with buying vinyl at ridiculous prices. I got out of collecting them because the market got stupid, and most new vinyl pressings of new bands are nowhere near as good as CD quality.

Bought my first CD in 1986 in Japan. Works perfectly as do EVERY SINGLE ONE of my other CD's. The only discs I have had fail are old CDR's that are at least 15 years old and that was maybe 3 or 4 out of thousands. records get scratched, warp and, worst of all for an anal record guy like me, wear out. 100 plays and most records are hooped in the high end. Also NEVER BUY A RECORD FROM A DJ!!

Original pressings are sometimes better but the older ones are terrible pressings (anything from 1970-76 is usually garbage especially Capitol and RCA records of that vintage). Japanese pressings are usually great but be warned, sometimes they are mastered differently and sound sort of "midrange-y". This problem only occurs in Japanese pressings before about 1990 though. Japanese lyric sheets are often written down phonetically which can be a real hoot (try to find the first Madness record from Nippon; pure gold i tell you...)

Uncompressed digital recordings (that is CD's and WAV files) should sound exactly the same as your precious original pressings except without the ticks and pops (which even perfect copies will have thanks to static and other environmental effects). mp3's etc. are indeed crap but even they are fine for non critical listening (i.e. the car) and save a ton of storage. My car stereo is an mp3 player I bought for $2 in a thrift store which holds 2 Gigs of mp3 files on it and which takes me at least one solid evening to fill up on my pooter.

Finally there is no record in the world that sounds better at the end of itself than at the beginning whereas digital sounds the same no matter where you are in the program. For that reason alone digital is a no brainer for anybody who truly wants the most accurate reproduction of music. to suggest anything else is pure hipster-ism.

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Bought my first CD in 1986 in Japan. Works perfectly as do EVERY SINGLE ONE of my other CD's. The only discs I have had fail are old CDR's that are at least 15 years old and that was maybe 3 or 4 out of thousands. records get scratched, warp and, worst of all for an anal record guy like me, wear out. 100 plays and most records are hooped in the high end. Also NEVER BUY A RECORD FROM A DJ!!

Original pressings are sometimes better but the older ones are terrible pressings (anything from 1970-76 is usually garbage especially Capitol and RCA records of that vintage). Japanese pressings are usually great but be warned, sometimes they are mastered differently and sound sort of "midrange-y". This problem only occurs in Japanese pressings before about 1990 though. Japanese lyric sheets are often written down phonetically which can be a real hoot (try to find the first Madness record from Nippon; pure gold i tell you...)

Uncompressed digital recordings (that is CD's and WAV files) should sound exactly the same as your precious original pressings except without the ticks and pops (which even perfect copies will have thanks to static and other environmental effects). mp3's etc. are indeed crap but even they are fine for non critical listening (i.e. the car) and save a ton of storage. My car stereo is an mp3 player I bought for $2 in a thrift store which holds 2 Gigs of mp3 files on it and which takes me at least one solid evening to fill up on my pooter.

Finally there is no record in the world that sounds better at the end of itself than at the beginning whereas digital sounds the same no matter where you are in the program. For that reason alone digital is a no brainer for anybody who truly wants the most accurate reproduction of music. to suggest anything else is pure hipster-ism.

Yeah I have CD's I bought 15 years ago that still work fine, but I'm in the process if ripping all of them to FLAC. I will still buy new CD's of stuff I like, but ripping them allows me to archive them without losing quality. Also, it's so much easier and faster to listen to FLACs. Like you said, digital is a no brainer but accurate reproduction. Vinyl people like that warm sound which is cool, but it's definitely not accurate which is what I want.

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Bought my first CD in 1986 in Japan. Works perfectly as do EVERY SINGLE ONE of my other CD's. The only discs I have had fail are old CDR's that are at least 15 years old and that was maybe 3 or 4 out of thousands. records get scratched, warp and, worst of all for an anal record guy like me, wear out. 100 plays and most records are hooped in the high end. Also NEVER BUY A RECORD FROM A DJ!!

Original pressings are sometimes better but the older ones are terrible pressings (anything from 1970-76 is usually garbage especially Capitol and RCA records of that vintage). Japanese pressings are usually great but be warned, sometimes they are mastered differently and sound sort of "midrange-y". This problem only occurs in Japanese pressings before about 1990 though. Japanese lyric sheets are often written down phonetically which can be a real hoot (try to find the first Madness record from Nippon; pure gold i tell you...)

Uncompressed digital recordings (that is CD's and WAV files) should sound exactly the same as your precious original pressings except without the ticks and pops (which even perfect copies will have thanks to static and other environmental effects). mp3's etc. are indeed crap but even they are fine for non critical listening (i.e. the car) and save a ton of storage. My car stereo is an mp3 player I bought for $2 in a thrift store which holds 2 Gigs of mp3 files on it and which takes me at least one solid evening to fill up on my pooter.

Finally there is no record in the world that sounds better at the end of itself than at the beginning whereas digital sounds the same no matter where you are in the program. For that reason alone digital is a no brainer for anybody who truly wants the most accurate reproduction of music. to suggest anything else is pure hipster-ism.

What kind of rig are you running for cd's?

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I just started collecting vinyl after my buddy told me how awesome they were. I bought an Audio-Technica turntable, nothing fancy to it, just plays records. If you are a metal fan like me, then Scrape records is the place to go for vinyl.

I love the picture LP's but I don't know if they are the best for playing. I just got the new Alice in Chains album and the artwork on the vinyl is sweet

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Me too....quite so. I've stashed them away for my kids...my son is quite thrilled about that.

He just told me he spent $500 on record store day....$50 for a limited edition QOTSA Like Clockwork. I'm glad that this tradition is being revived a bit...almost thought we were going to lose it for good.

Some bands still release Vinyl records every time they release new music. NOFX even release music that is only available on vinyl every now and again.

My partner and I have about a 1000 records between us and like you we have stashed them away for our son.

I bought a machine that enables me to copy my records to CD then my girl turns them into a music file and puts them onto my I-pod.

My I-pod still blows me away , To be able to carry round and access a large chunk of my music collection any time , anywhere is fantastic , especially to a person who grew up with vinyl and has been making mix tapes for over 40 years.

One of my buddies was a DJ , he still buys only vinyl. A few months ago I gave him a copy of Some Enchanted Evening , blue oysters cults second live album and one of the all time classic live albums , and a rare dead kennedy's EP release of too drunk to f.... for his birthday.

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