@oddiofyl 

I can't believe how good it sounds with the Ortofon 2m Bronze 

Seems like you have a nice system and TT. The 2M Bronze is holding you back. If your phono stage supports LOMC perhaps step up to a Hana ML. This is exactly what I did (Bronze to Hana) and wished I did it sooner.  

Thanks, it is only temporary as I can now use MC cartridges.   I think I'm going to buy a record cleaner next and then experiment with a nice MC 

Unless I am interrupted or using the music as background fill I always listen to an entire album straight through. An album is an artistic statement. You do not look at an important painting by staring only at the left upper corner. 

There are bad albums that might have one good song. I will download the one good song and put it in one of my background play lists. 

@mijostyn 
“There are bad albums that might have one good song. I will download the one good song and put it in one of my background play lists.”

This👆
A totally sensible way to procure and enjoy music with both formats.

Vinyl is so more engaging than digital on many levels. I listen to vinyl far more than CDs or streaming. It just sounds better.

Occasionally, rarely a song or two starts I can't stand, so I will get up and manually cue the arm to bypass it. Easy if it is the last or first song on a side.

As far as @edcyn 's comments:

You gotta stumble over to the turntable. Lift the often balky turntable cover, making sure that it doesn't go crashing down if you don't do it right. Keep the dustcover off, it adds distortion unless it is has no hinges, and then will be a challenge to cover the table easily without dealing with wires

You gotta lift the arm and move it back to its rest. Get a cuing device (like a Tru-Lift) in case you can't get right over to the table to lift the arm when the record is done. Makes handling the arm easier when you move it back to rest as well.

You gotta turn the record player off. No you don't - just be careful when changing sides or records. Turn it on once per listening session and switch from 33 to 45 and back as needed.

You gotta unscrew the record clamp and safely stow it away. Don't use a clamp unless it is a warped record.

You must lift the vinyl off of the platter, taking into account the sometimes goodly amount of static electricity that has built up between the vinyl and the platter in the meantime. Put your system in a room without carpet.

You forgot about brushing the dust off the record before you drop the stylus, and getting the record off the shelf, removing the jacket from the protective vinyl sleeve, and taking the inner rice paper sleeve out of the jacket and replacing them when you're done.

It sounds like a lot, but well worth it!

If you list out the mundane tasks of ANY ritual - whether by religion or for pleasure - it looks so unjustifiably tedious, that any uninitiated observer would surely exclaim "WHY would they do this?!".

You either derive joy from the ritual and its byproducts, or you don’t do it. If it’s joyful then the prerequisite work doesn't weight heavily. I’m sure digital enthusiasts look at us like we have 2 heads lol.

I'm certain I've mentioned this a dozen times, but I'm retired. I now live in a small town that doesn't have a lot of places to hang out in so I have plenty of time to indulge in stereo listening. The views out my stereo room windows are fabulous, and the glass windows don't upset the imaging particularly much. I don't find the rituals involved in high-end listening onerous in the slightest. Just type cast me as the cheerful old audiophile!

Digital and Vynil both have improved a lot. I enjoy both format.

Sokogear +1 good post.😀

@emrofsemanon 

Maybe you need better quality turntable/arm/cartridge?

After the lead in groove, I have little to no surface noise. 

Digital sucks!!!! 😉     I still use it in my truck. 

@ghdprentice You said it all.  With 28,500 LPs and now 11,000 CDs, I listen through to the entire CD (if the performance warrants).  I don't know which format I will listen to nightly (2 hours).  It all depends on the performance/music.  However, where I have both the LP and the CD, sonics dominate so it could be either format.

“One of the great things about Vinyl Is I find myself listening to recordings all the way through. Rarely do that with CD’s and/or streaming”

That’s your prerogative but it does not mean that CD / Streaming is any less gratifying. Maybe your CD / Streaming system sucks…LOL! Most vinyl setups (seen here on virtual systems) has lot more $$$ vested compare to CD or streaming setups. Heck, most vinyl aficionados de-facto streaming benchmark is Bluesound Node 2 😊

@unreceivedogma

i listened on top-rank equipment using a 10 grand turntable with a top-rank shibata stylus, a direct-to-disk record that had been cleaned, surface noise [rumble, groove roar, hiss, ticks] was unmistakable through speakers. perhaps my hearing is keener than most, as i've always protected it. i can hear the residual noise on a dolby-A-encoded master tape. 

@emrofsemanon

The link to a description of my system is posted above.

I just had my hearing checked. It’s normal for my age.

You do need to keep the records clean.

I don’t know what to say. For the overwhelming majority of my records, noise is not an issue. For me, the analog is a better experience than the digital.

@unreceivedogma 100% agree.  Top-ranked equipment, well I have top rank sound with less than SOTA equipment but I have NO noise problem with the overwhelming majority of my 28,500 LPs.  His system is faulty.  A high end analog system minimizes surface noise and record defects to the extent that they are either unheard or nominally heard.  My Japanese vinyl DtoD discs are SILENT other than for the music.  Rumble, groove roar-I haven't heard rumble since I was 15 (52 years ago) listening to my Dual 1209 with a Stanton 661 or Grado Sig 1.  I have a Townshend seismic sink under a VPI TNT VI/SME IV modified, SDS speed unit = ZERO groove roar or rumble.

Yeah, I've mentioned this ad infinitum but I enjoy the occasional click & pop. When it's old rock and roll I often get a kick out of the wow that occurs when the center hole ain't exactly in the center. Spitty sibilants and buzzy pianos, though, never fail to make my teeth grind.

It’s superior to digital. 

It is all purely psychological.

Both formats are capable of excellent sound quality. Which one predominates does not depend on any characteristics of the media but rather the quality of the mastering. 

I play records because I have been doing it since I was 4 years old and there is something comforting about the ritual aside form the fact I have thousands of them. I must have hundreds of duplicates in both formats. Which I prefer in any give instance depends not on the format but other factors. 

You can not avoid digital. The vast majority of modern recordings are digital and most older music has been digitized as it is a much better storage medium. It is not that one dislikes digital but rather having a preference for the distortion added by the vinyl process.  

Just listened to Moving Pictures and Exit Stage Left all the way through.

👍

Is I find myself listening to recordings all the way through.

Rarely do that with CD's and/or streaming.

Simple, it's not easy to defy the Law.

One can easily change digital content via smart phone, pc, tablet, remote.

But to change vinyl, one has go get off their butt to fight the Law of Gravity.   

Just finished OK Computer.

👍

@oddiofyl Thanks, it is only temporary as I can now use MC cartridges.   I think I'm going to buy a record cleaner next and then experiment with a nice MC 

I think you have your priorities right! Clean records are much bigger improvement over a change in cartridge. If all vinyl magically came out of the sleeve ultimately clean, then even small cartridge changes would be apparent. Without clean vinyl, big cartridge changes are hard to hear.

@oddiofyl @dogberry You are both right! I was fortunate to get on the record cleaning train as a young audiophile using a vacuum cleaning machine called a “Rec O Vac”.  After inserting the album vertically into the machine, you turned it on and the machine rotated the record while very fine, soft bristles lifted dust out of the grooves as the dust was then vacuumed away. Because of using that machine, even my 70’s and 80’s LP’s sound great. 
 

Using now a MC cart. with a Microline stylus which rides deeper in the grooves than the more modest elliptical carts. of yore those albums are satisfying to listen to. 
 

Anyone remember the “Rec O Vac”?

Did a google, didn't find it.

Anyone have a link?

Record Doctor VI – High-Performance Vinyl Record Washing Cleaning Machine (Gloss Black)

Anyone have an opinion on this machine?

I tried the Spin Clean and the Humminguru without any improvement whatsoever.

TIA

@hifiman5 --- I had a rec-o-vac for several years. Whenever I'd take a record off the shelf I hadn't played in a while I'd run it through the thing. And yes, It improved the sound in every way. Less groove noise. Better imaging and more intelligible lyrics...in particular more understandable baritones. Better instrumental timbres, especially massed strings. Less spitty sibilants. It raised an ungodly noise when it was operating but so what?

The trouble is that the device was not quite as bulletproof as it could've been. I had to get it rebuilt twice. When It came time to rebuild it a third time there was nobody to go to for repair. I ended up donating it to the local Salvation Army. I hope somebody was able to make it work again.

@jjbeason14  I clean my LP’s with the Record Doctor VI.  I have been using various iterations of the Record Doctor for years now. All new records are cleaned with Super Deep Clean fluid followed by regular Record Doctor fluid. Inexpensive machine that does the job!

hufiman

Thanks! Awesome!

hifiman5

sorry!

@sokogear I just did some A/B listening with the dust cover both on and off of the turntable. It's a draw. No dust cover gives me slightly better imaging and wider soundstage. Dust cover gives me slightly better tonality. My test record -- a very old domestic EMI/Angel recording of Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado.

So leave it off!

Cd easier to swap, change songs. 
 

LPs’ play side 1 and 2.

sometimes change cds. 
 

don’t be lazy, if u. Want a different album, swap it after a full side

The trouble is, I'm a sucker when it comes to tone.

Same here.

There is something about that unique creation of an electrical signal from a mechanical movement that captures the imagination, perhaps? It still is a bit of a mystery why I can listen to vinyl all day long, but usually end up stopping the digital audio after about an hour, tops. 

GHD Prentice: That used to be true with me for many years, until I finally was able to raise the quality of sound in my digital end to that of my vinyl. Now both are completely engaging and I get wrapped up in the music on a CD or streaming

Well said!  I found exactly the same thing.

Thank you @ddrave44

From some much earlier questions.

My digital and analog ends sound the same… 99+%. I have all Audio Research Reference… and of particular importance the Phono stage and DAC. My turntable cartridge is a Koetsu Rosewood signature… carefully chosen for its detailed but warm organic presentation. So, it is not by accident both sound the same versus equally satisfying but different. Both ends provide the detailed but natural / musical presentation I want.

What few realize is that we...or at least most of us, actually program a recording for a certain order of listening.