Tips on Buying Quiet Quality sounding LP's

visual condition is a crapshoot, but historically thats the way vinyl is graded. if the cover is even slightly worn , the value to a collector plummets as well. these basics were around long before younger audiophiles got dooped into thinking the vinyl thing was nirvana. is it fun?...yeah..is it consistant?...never....Anyone with a significant record collection knows that the heartaches co-exist with the happiness...thats never going to change......the day you drive it off the lot, or the day the needle hits the groove there is no 'mint'. keeping it near mint for decades is an art in of itself.

One other thing. I will take a chance with an unknown seller on ebay for a hard to find lp I really want up to about $10 or so.

I would not drop more than that on most any lp unless it came certified from a reputable dealer.

Visual inspection works best for shopping a modern used lp bargain basement for cheap vinyl that has a high chance of sounding good. You can be assured to get a lot (I mean a LOT) of good new sound in your system this way (if you are willing to spend time cleaning lps properly as needed first) for the same price as many audiophiles spend on a single arbitrary cable upgrade.

Lots of great info. for me and others reading, thx.

Are recording companies like "Blind Pigs" "Chess" "Arhoolie" known for great recordings across the board reputation wise or is it still hit and miss.

Info. gathered it appears that one step prior to playing which ever I buy being new or used is to have a good record cleaner and make sure to clean first even if it looks good.

Dev,

Effective cleaning before the LP's first play is indeed essential, both for best/quietest sound and for the longevity of the LP, whether new or used.

The stylus of a phono cartridge, depending on the model, may have a contact radius as small as 3-4 microns. As the groove spins along the stylus is deflected by obstacles too small to see without an electron microscope. The cartridge doesn't know whether any particular deflection was caused by a groove modulation ("music") or some speck of crud ("noise"), it generates a signal regardless. Quiet backgrounds require eliminating those specks of crud.

Non-solid contaminates like pressing mold release agents or lubricants like Gruv Glide also degrade the signal. They may make the background quieter by lubricating some of the microscopic specks, but it's a false quiet because that lubrication also prevents the stylus from seeing small groove modulations. Assuming a sufficiently resolving system, the sonic result is an attenuation of HF's (modulations of small wavelength) and low level details (modulations of small amplitude). Accurate reproduction of everything cut into the groove requires the removal of everything between stylus and vinyl before you play.

Regarding LP longevity, as Jaybo mentioned it takes an effort. Always remember that you're sliding a microscopic plastic groove beneath an extremely sharp diamond - under pressure. Any hard particulates will be scraped between plastic and diamond. Care to guess which surface loses? (Actually the answer is "both", but that's another topic.)

Play a dirty record even once and you've surely damaged it. The only question is, "How much damage and is my system good enough to detect it?"

The only thing I'd add to Doug's very nice description is that most people over 40 (a lot of people with large record collections these days) or so cannot hear the very high frequency on records anymore (above 12-14 khz or so I believe) in that we all lose that ability to some extent as our ears age. So the ear increasingly becomes a less reliable tool for determining the absolute quality of a record. if you do not believe me, play a test tone record or CD or do some other equivalent test of ability to hear different frequencies and see (hear) for yourself.

The good news is if you can't hear it, it may not matter if a record is in 100% perfect condition anymore. It will still likely sound very good!