great vinyl sound cost as much as great cd sound

Karma, Others have responded, and I understamd what your question was, but I find your question leaves something out, and that is, do you own any LPs?

If you don't own not one LP, well, I'm not going to say it's impossible to start into Vinyl, but it sure does make it harder with the outlay of cash for Vinyl, and the question arises "Where does one begin"?

While I've been into Analog-Vinyl since the very beginning of my love for audio (34 years), I've amassed quite a few precious, and interesting LP's, but it's a relative thing, and I'm sure there's a substantial percentage in this forum who has collections of Vinyl which actually could pass for a Vinyl Record Business!

Not 100's of LP's, but literal 1000's!

While it's never too late, nor impossible to start, ultimately,you have to decide if Analog is right for you. One doesn't necessarily have to buy every costly LP on the Planet to enjoy, and if you have record shops in your area, second hand-antique shops, these are places were gems can be found. I have myself found countless dozens of museum quality, expensive LPs for instance many unplayed German Duetsche Grammaphone's of people like Izhstak Perlman, etc. Cost for these mint LP's? $1! I've bought mint Revox Classical Box Sets, never played, (Mozart-beetovhen-etc) cost? $2.50!

On the other hand, one can spend countless $100's-$1,000's for desireable LP's Just look on ebay for example, and look up something like "Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs" (MFSL) and check out something like what a Sealed 14 LP MFSL Beatles Box Set goes for. (Always would've loved having that set, but it's a bit beyond my reach right now)

Buying things like LP cleaning gear doesn't necessarily have to be expensive. $100, should basically cover all the bases with a good Hunt Dry Brush, a Bottle of Disc Doctor Cleaning Fluid, and Brushes, and a bottle of Last Stylus Cleaning Fluid, and a stylus brush (usually included with the Fluid) or even the super cheap $2 box of Mister Clean Magic Cleaning Eraser will do.

If you do choose to invest in vinyl, the best way I see to do so today, is buy much of this gear used right here on AudioGon. Tons of nice gear pop up here every day. Something like a used Mint VPI Aries-Aries II-Aries Black Knight would fit the bill very nicely indeed!

One that also comes with a good Arm (VPI JMW 10, or 12 for example) and a Cartrridge with Low Hours would be another plus, and buying used usually offers a considerable savings from trying to get in with all new components.

Buying used will also have the advantage of if you decide to get out, or upgrade a component (A Phono Stage for example), One may not lose one cent of their money when re-selling the item.

Lately, I see many beginning to rave about the very inexpensively priced Jolida PD9 Tube Driven Phono Stage as a Giant Killer in performance-features, and at $450 new, it's not a great risk to try out.

When I see people favorably comparing it against costly
costly phono stages, such as the Krell, this little phono stage has to be one of the budget buys of all time.

Vinyl certainly isn't as convenient as digital, but I myself over the years have found the extra hassle of owning, and maintaining vinyl a worthwhile, and truly enjoyable hobby.
Mark
Once can always buy more as time goes by.

Karma/All
I disagree that a VPI Cleaning machine "is a must", it certainly is not a must, especially for the biginning hobbyist, with 2-3 dozen Lp's in their collection.

A hobbyist in time, with the accumilation of countless LP's or one who buys many second hand, that have been initially somewhat mistreated will find a Machine such as this a great value to them, saving mucho time, and effort, but I see to technical supportive evidence myself, that a hand cleaned LP with the right products can't be every bit as microscopically clean as an LP cleaned with a VPI 17.5 machine.

I see reference many times to folks saying "Oh, after I clean my LPs with the 17.5, my LPs have never shined so much, like mirrors! That IMO is a bit of a fallicy, in that if it was doing some sort of polishing buffing to the LP's surface-grooves, it would actually be more a detriment, than a help to achieve pristine clean Vinyl.

I may open some eyes with my opinions, but the advantages to machine cleaning are 1. Time saved per LP cleaning, and 2. Lots less elbow grease needed when the machine is doing the majority of the work for you.

If one acquires a few LPs here, and there, manual cleaning can suffice very well, and only takes a small amount of one's time to achieve desired results.

Handling, and packaging after cleaning are important considerations, and if one hypothetically uses a big dollar cleaning machine, then resorts to placing that very same LP back into a 1 cent paper sleeve that looks like you washed the floor with, and with dirty-greasy hands that don't properly handle the LP, much, if not all of that effort is totally wasted. Mark

Howdy again Sit, James, and all.
Yes, I'll go along with what you say Sit, if I had 2500 LPs, I'd seriously consider some form of machine for cleaning. My collection is nowhere as vast as yours, I have about 425-450 LPs. I am sort of borderline with the need for one. Since I've always stayed on top of my collection, what I have usually doesn't require much work to keep them pristine.

When I do acquire the one, or two oddball secondhand LP's, I'll go to work with both my Last, and Disc Doctor Fluids, and respective brushes. Usually, if I see a used LP that looks too plum tuckered out, i'll pass on it, no matter how badly I would've liked to have it. I figure why try to torture a good Cartridge (And my ears) trying to track a beat up record that looks like someone cleaned it with a Brillo pad? :-)

James, over the years, and in the early days, I probably bought Plastic lined sleeves from Rat Shack, and they were certainly better than the Cheapo paper Sleeves that came with most LPs of the time.
(Mo-Fi's were the exception, they always came with a good Plastic Sleeve)

Ten years ago, when I had gotten much more serious with Analog playback, and the acquisition of a VPI Turntable, I decided to upgrade every LP I owned at that time, to good Japanese Plastic Inner Sleeves, and the great Japanese Outer Resealable Sleeves.

I bought them from the same place I bought my VPI Table from, and that was MusicDirect in Chicago.

Before they were inserted into any new Sleeves, they were all Cleaned with Last, or Disc Doctor Products.
Any Factory Outer Plastic Wraps were trashed, just as the junk Inner Sleeves were trashed also. The only Inner Sleeves you really want to keep, are those with Lyrics, or Pictures of the Artists on them, otherwise chuck all plain jane Paper Sleeves, they have zero value. I'd buy the high quality Inner, and Outer Sleeves in bulk (100 )

MusicDirect usually carries a plethora of many different brands of Inner, and Outer Sleeves, and I'm sure others Like Elusive Disc, etc carry them also.

The Mo-Fi inner sleeves are nice, but also quite costly when you wish to buy literal 100's of them. The Japanese Sleeves usually offer quite comparable quality, and protection at a better price.

I've made a special rack for my LP's, and that is paramount that LP's are stored away from sunlight,heat, humidity and stored in an Upright fashion without being literally packed-crushed together like a can of Sardines.

Some use Milk Crates, and these I guess are OK, but can make LP selection-browsing problematic. Alphabetizing helps when looking for a specific selection, or catagorizing into different generes. (Jazz-Rock-Classical-etc)

Hi Jdaniel, Yep, I think we'll all agree about that! ;-)

To be honest, I have lusted for a good cleaning machine for years, and I'd be quite tickled owning either of the VPI's. Sadly, I've put it off, put it off, always making some sort of excuse 'naw, I can live wthout it a bit longer, but yet the LP collection continued to grow, usually in spurts.

I won't buy LP's for months, then the bug hits again, and here we go again, a Mo-Fi here, a re-issue there, and sometimes the obscure, but very cool oldie in an antique-record shop.

In fact, recently, I've got my eye on an old mint Louis Armstrong Box set that must be from the late '50's-early '60's. Asking price $30, but I might spring the dough for the heck of it before it disappears. If I recall, the Lps were purple vinyl Hmmm? Unusual.

To relate to the original poster again, I've heard great things about emmlabs gear, although never personally heard their digital. I'm sure it's a flooring experience hearing thr CD done well.
I have heard top of the line Levinson, and Krell though, so I can appreciate the capabilities of the high end, and the improvments heard with CD playback through state of the art.

Still, in some ways, I don't think you'd have to equal that high end digital price with vinyl to find a very satisfying sound, that will make you sit back, and smile.

Debates such as these can on on for years on end, the topic of LP vs CD, and truthfully, I feel both formats have their advantages-strengths, and their drawbacks-deficiencies.

For analog, there's certainly been many down this path in the know, and have learned (Usually the hard, and costly way) the synergistic combination of equipment that go well together (Turntable-Arm-Cartridge-Pre-Amp)
Mark

James, I myself have come to believe that the Cartridge itself is probably one of the most critical components of Analog playback. I suppose there's many different ways to look at this topic though.

Example, one takes a $29 Rat Shack Cartridge, and throws it on a brand new $10K TNT HRX. hee hee

I think it's an easier choice myself selecting a decent turntable-arm. Then comes the hard part, the Cartridge-Head Amp-pre-amp, and the hopeful synergy between them.

I'm sure there's countless A-Goners here that have went through literally thousands of dollars trying to achieve analoge nirvana with particular combinations.

God bless those that have the "maracas" to delve into the high end, but most of us more likely wish to bypass this expensive experimentation to find what works, and good synergystic combinations that won't make you have to re-mortgage the house for. (And that's the truly wonderful thing about this forum as a resource for info)

Years ago, I've had some fairly decent MM cartridges on my Tables, the Audio Technica AT-14S, the AT-15S, the AT-20Sla, and the Shure V-15 type III. All pretty good MM's that had good sound, and good tracking abilities, even in comparison with what's available today.

There's no doubt that every component in the chain, Turntable, Tonearm, Cartridge, Cabling, Isolation, Pre-Amp all will have an effect. And lastly, proper set up of these components will extract what they have to offer.

It all has to have a balance.

While one could throw a $200 Sumiko Blue Point on a VPI TNT with SME Arm, and also one could throw a $3,000 Lyra cartridge on a $25 garage sale Technics Table, the absurdity of mismatch is quite obvious to say the least. Mark

Hi Karma, I can wholeheartedly understand your viewpoints, and decisions, and I think you're 100% correct.

Sure, one could get a inexpensive rig to mess with, (Say for example a used VPI Jr, or such) but I'm strongly doubting that anything within these low price ranges will even barely touch the state of the art digital gear you are now so enjoying. (Do you sense a touch of jealousy from me? hee hee)

If you have an "Analog" buddy, maybe you can visit him/her from time to time, and get the bug out of your system? Perhaps in your personal case, you'll look back in time, and say "Gee, I'm glad I didn't buy a turntable". Mark

Hi James/All,
Today, surfing around the web, I came across another very interesting site that sells numerous analog "goodies", and this online dealer is called "Sleeve City".

Here, I browsed what they had as far as LP Sleeves, and they seemed to have a quite good selection of quality Inner, and Outer Sleeves, plus other items like LP Jackets, Cleaning Supplies etc, etc.

Their prices seemed very reasonable to me, and this might be a good place to check out for your Analog "needs".

While MucisDirect does carry a multitude of great products, and I've done countless thousands of dollars of business with them in the past 10 years I've known them, sometimes their "goodies" are a tad bit overpriced IMO.

Check this place out I mention. While I don't have the link handy, those interested at a peek should be able to find the site doing search with your browser.
Mark

Hi James, Don't know what happened with my last post, but I have found a place that appears to have very good prices on LP Inner, and Outer Sleeves, and acessories for digital media also. Their name is Sleeve City, and their prices appear to be very good