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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.

n80
stuartk
4,083 posts
 

@cleeds 

Let me get this straight. The OP says, "I am not a vinyl guy," then buys vinyl for his "half decent turntable and a half decent cartridge and a mid-fi at best phono preamp," then doesn’t like the record, then creates a thread saying, "I don’t think I’ll ever return to vinyl."

I agree with your basic premise but if you’ve been around here a while, you should know there’ve also been vinyl fans who’ve bought cheap digital gear and having compared it to their high-end analog rigs, have declared digital is garbage. 

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
8,208 posts
 

@stuartk lol very true. It absolutely goes both ways. Shitty vinyl setup next to high end digital and vise versa. It’s great to be able to enjoy both formats for the unique attributes they offer. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with top flight digital especially if it’s CDs, as the only format. 

n80 OP
2,163 posts
 

@stuartk Agreed. But again, I never took a dig at vinyl itself or people who prefer it. I basically said I was dabbling in it and got burned with a defective album and that that was enough to put _me_ off from pursuing it further.

Having said that, as an early adapter of CDs I have never purchased a CD that arrived defective. Not one in 30+ years and that includes used. I'm sure plenty of people have gotten defective CDs and I bet there are lots of people who have never purchased a defective vinyl album. I can only speak for my experience.

parkergetdean
1,139 posts
 

massage chair or massage therapist?

That's my analogy for digital vs analog. You all can have buttons and knobs, I prefer hands

kevemaher's avatar
kevemaher
433 posts
 

Some of us actually enjoy the sometimes herculean effort to make playing LPs sound better. Not better than any other medium. Better than I have ever heard LPs sound on my system.

I'm a retired engineer who now gets his technical thrills from developing my audio system. I've got gobs of test equipment. I regularly use REW and sweat the small details. I've designed my own SUTs and a transformer based converter to change single ended signals to fully balanced. I repair my equipment.

Do LPs sound better than digital? For me, this statement is ridiculous. Who cares?

Digital is great, but I can't do much with discs or downloads except play them. There's no me in it. And no fun.

I get far better enjoyment from my LPs than I do digital. That's what really matters.

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