Why I don't think I'll ever return to vinyl - brief rant

I am not a vinyl guy. I have a half decent turntable and a half decent cartridge and a mid-fi at best phono preamp.

But I do get the bug every now and again and will buy a vinyl album. These are mostly from new-ish artists. I buy them from their websites hoping to support them. Sometimes I am rewarded. Mac Saturn’s only album sounds really good. The Tesky Brother’s album Run Home Slow sounds amazing and is better than the CD and streaming options. I suspect it is less compressed.

Well, the bug bit again recently and I bought the Red Clay Stray’s double live album recorded at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. It was $45 on their website. There is no CD for this album. The vinyl is thin. The edges are rough. They had some type of dusty residue on them. At then end of one of the album sides there was a spot that looked like some sort of stain or smudge. I cleaned the records and got all the residue off of them. But the one side with the stain on it, that produces an audible pop, would not come clean. The pop persists. It is at the very end of a song, mostly in the crowd noise but it still sucks.

I contacted ’support’ on their website but never got a reply. No big deal. Its $45 and it supports a band that I like.

But that sure puts me off from buying more vinyl.