It costs me $100 a week to listen to vinyl


I know the math is obvious, but with the price of high-end moving coil cartridges averaging $5000.00 and with me averaging 20 hours a week of vinyl listening, I was disturbed to calculate that I am paying $100.00 per week for the privilege of listening to my own records?
I realise that doesn't include the depreciation on my equipment or electricity costs etc so please don't remind me of this?
How smug those who can bare digital must feel about this?
And how much worse for those committed to valve replacements in their pre and power amps?
How can we expect younger audiophiles with mortgages to pay, families to raise and education to provide for to afford the price of entry into an analogue system with such a potential maintenance impost?
I realise there are cheaper cartridges out there and the MMs are a bargain compared to the MCs, but once 'hooked' on vinyl, the desire to 'upgrade' is encouraged by the reviewers and the audio magazines continually announcing a newly anointed 'Kingpin' cartridge which is inevitably a moving coil with a price approaching the GDP of Namibia.
There seems to be no critical challenges to the assumed supremacy of MCs over MMs except for the lone crusade of Raul on this Forum?
Well I have taken the 'Raul challenge' and switched to a 15 year old MM cartridge which cost me $300. The 'running costs' of this are obviously a 'snip' compared to my $5000 MC but the best thing is the revelation that this moving magnet cartridge (and probably many more), are not only as good as some of the vaunted MCs in the market place, but better than most and sometimes by a considerable margin.
As Raul continues to implore us.........."try it, you may be surprised?"
128x128halcro

Showing 1 response by peterayer

When I was in my twenties, I decided to buy a twelve year old 1971 Porche 911T instead of a new 1983 VW GTI for roughly the same amount of money. After about eight years I did a "cost per mile" calculation. I was stunned to realize I was paying about $2.00 per mile to drive that marvel of German engineering. But the fond memories of the incredible fun I had are priceless.

The same can be said of many things: cost per race of a sailboat, cost per run of a ski weekend. By doing these simple calculations, are we not missing the bigger picture? Is it not also about the fun of learning the hobby, meeting others with similar interests, etc.? We also should not discount the value of simply knowing that we have the option, at any time, of going into the next room, sitting down and losing ourselves in the moment of listening to good music.

In the end, one makes his choices based on priorities and affordability. It seems to me that these are good times to learn about and find good quality and affordable gear, whether on the internet, in catalogs or at the local dealer. In time, and as funds permit, the young audiophile can pursue the next step, or not.