Rediscovering records

Congrats on re-discovering your record collection! A major step forward for me was adding ultrasonic cleaning. The Vevor very affordable machine works wonders. I recently systematically went through my 1500 records and the results are striking compared to vacuum only. I relish the vinyl ritual, but also embrace digital sources and even tapes. Music first, preferred medium vinyl, but will enjoy other formats as well. You may know, there is even new vinyl being released. This is my thing, discovering new music and then patiently waiting for the record to arrive.

Yes, I have found over the years as my systems evolved I hope for the better that each upgrade makes a higher percentage of my LPs sound better than previously. I don't know what that means, actually.

Unfortunately, as I’ve delved more deeply into my collection, I’ve found that my optimism is somewhat unfounded. All records are definitely not created equal. Of a sampling of about 30 I actually found the majority to be indeed mediocre.  Of course some were wonderful sounding, as were the few that prompted me to post this thread.  I don’t know if 30 is a representative enough of a sample, but the results were disappointing.

Of course, the MUSIC’S the most important thing but my findings are what they are.

I listen mainly to orchestral music which has very complex textures.  Solo singers or instruments or small groups sound very decent on most of my records. It’s the very large forces that are difficult to reproduce.

@rvpiano 

 It’s the very large forces that are difficult to reproduce.

Indeed!  I wish there was a shorthand to describe large scale orchestral music.  Calling it classical does not work for me, as classical really only defines a brief period.

The best I can come up with is short music (for pop, rock, etc) and long music.  

The cutoff between them is somewhere between 6 and 8 minutes, mostly.

The difficulty of reproducing large-scale orchestral music seems behind Bostjan Holc's creation of his air-bearing, tangential tracking, Holbo system.