Considering going Vinyl--Please talk me out of it


I'm standing here on the vinyl cliff,peering over the edge...I had a TT in the eighties & nineties, an AR with the Underground Sound mods by George Merrill from Memphis, TN. It got destroyed in a series of moves, and my vinyl disappeared. I have a perfectly good CD player(Denon 1650AR),EAD PM2000 amp & EAD Ovation plus prepro, & thiel 2.3's. I would need a phono preamp before I could run whatever TT I obsess over enough to buy, as the Ovation has no phono stage. Push me over, or save me! mb
michaeljbrown

Showing 1 response by hdm

Being completely serious for a minute, I would not bother going into vinyl unless your musical tastes and the music you want to buy was recorded prior to the digital age or around 1982.

I listen primarily to jazz, older rock (late 60's to late 70's) and blues so there is lots of used vinyl out there for me. My experience is that buying new records today is a waste of good money much of the time unless you are specifically seeking out all analog recordings or re-issues (and I am not a fan of reissues). With a decent analog setup, it just irritates me to buy a new record and then hear that it is obviously digital, not to mention the fact that the pressing quality on a lot of the newer vinyl leaves much to be desired. I buy very little new vinyl anymore and what I do buy new tends to be quite expensive (north of $40) so it's not cheap relative to buying CD's.

On top of that, there are cleaning issues. You can have top quality cleaning for as little as $200-$225 with a KAB EV1 and the proper fluids, but you do have to put in the time and effort to clean, so vinyl is quite a bit more labor intensive.

I listen almost exclusively to vinyl (simply cannot get into listening much to CD anymore), but it's obviously not for everyone. But I would make your decision based almost entirely on what kind of music you listen to. If it's predominantly newer music, skip it.