Vinyl***What If***

Yeah, that's why I'll never be into vinyl. That's also why I'll never understand it.

Granted, I've never heard the "magic" because I've never had or experienced a really good system. It is perfectly possible if I ever did hear that magic I'd be drawn in. Who knows.

It just seems off putting to me that there is a medium that, according to vinyl-philes you absolutely must without exception spend a bunch of money AND be into the fiddly OCD aspects of it AND enjoy that aspect of it for it to be worth it.

I'm not knocking it. I'm glad people like it. But it almost meets clinical criteria for a mental health issue. ;-)

On a more practical note: I have an old Sony TT with a $100 Grado Black cart and a $50 phono-pre-amp running into my otherwise high end system. This allows me to enjoy the few old records I have and to enjoy an occasional new record when the urge to waste money overcomes me. With this set up there is no "magic" whatsoever but perfectly suitable for occasional enjoyment as long as the expectation of "magic" is not obsessed over. 

And for the record, my old Sony TT sits on a slab of marble which sits on sorbothane feet. Seriously.

@inna  Agreed. Nothing wrong with anyone wanting to be or being deep into vinyl and all that entails.

I just think it is important to understand that the hi-fi hobby in general verges on the ludicrous and that serious vinyl is at the tip top of that wacko pyramid. 

Vinyl or not, what we all do here is a little nuts. Some of us are a little more nuts than others. And the thing that makes us look even more nuts is trying to defend it.

All of this applies to just about any passionate hobby. 

When average people look at my system, ask me about auto racing, making my own pasta from scratch or my pricey camera gear I pretty much just tell them its a disease.

@clearthink said:

"You sound like someone in need of serious expert counseling, therapy, and analysis and I hope you seek such solution, remedy, and resolution of you're disturbance which sounds alarming to me."

You are probably correct, but there is an old saying amongst us old physicians (I do a lot a psychiatry) and it goes something like this: "You can't cure a man who enjoys his disease."

@jkreidler, there is nothing about CD or digital that requires one to skip around or cut songs short. It is an option. So too is having digital music droning on in the background.

The thing is, there is nothing wrong with either of those things if that's what you like to do. (I don't).

I tend to listen to whole CDs straight through......if they were produced as cohesive 'albums' and not just a random collection of songs....in which case I often shuffle them for a change.

To me one of the great things about digital, all sound quality preferences aside, is the ability to occasionally skip a song altogether. There are a few bands, The Police come to mind, who produce great albums that are punctuated by one or even sometimes two really awful songs that I can hardly stand to listen to. The song "Mother" on Synchronicity and "Behind My Camel" on Zenyatta Mondatta are two prime examples. Also, "Les Boys" on Dire Strait's Making Movies. Really nice not to have to listen to those without having to get up and lift a tone arm.

@schubert :

"A rock concert is not live music"

I just love statements like that. I've been to symphonies, indoors and out, I've been to opera (in Italy), I've been to chamber music series in tiny rooms in Charleston, SC, I've been to live jazz performances, I've been to live blues shows in dives and sketchy haunts in Clarksdale Mississippi and I've been to a few rock concerts. Take my word for it, they are live. Sure, you can go to a bad one but that's true with all of the above. And yes you can see one in a stadium which to me is pointless. But a good rock show in a small to medium venue is as good or better, to me, as any of the above.

Maybe you haven't been to a good show?

He is perfectly entitled to hold an opinion that is both technically incorrect and popularly unaccepted. He is even free to state it as a fact.

The real point is that it is all a matter of taste. We all like what we like but I'm not going to write something like "jazz isn't live music" just because I don't like jazz or because someone used a microphone. I'm also not going to set a quality standard (for myself) that recorded music sound just like it does live. That can be a fleeting capricious standard not to mention that a great deal of music isn't recorded 'live'.

Again, if someone else wants that to be their standard they are welcome to it. There's just no need to denigrate someone else's music genre.