Interesting Article

There was an article in one of the high end magazines a few years back ... I think it was Harry Pearson who said: "If you want to enjoy digital, stop listening to your vinyl records." For those who have never heard vinyl records played through a highly resolving system, the experience can be eye (ear) opening. Records are making a huge come back because they sound great. Besides sounding great, they look great. From the front cover art, to the liner notes, they are works of art. Its up to the marketplace to keep up with the demand.

I have lots of great LPs from the past several decades and love 'em...however, I've bought 2 LPs recently from Barnes and Noble (!). I wanted a clean copy of Beggar's Banquet and there it was...for 22 bucks or so...got it home and it's pressed on heavy-ish clear vinyl and sounds great. Next a Sargent Pepper (I know...from the digital "masters" but whatEVER), and it sounds better than any copy I've had including my utterly trashed original, had all the old LP's paperwork, and, again, 22 bucks or something. Craze? Fine with me.

Wolf, if your Sgt. Pepper is from the new Mono series, it is NOT from a digital master, but from the 4 track analog masters!

My Pepper LP is as stated...stereo, from digital. I am not into the mono LP hype by the way.

I'm sorry but I dislike playing my vinyl records (with a few exceptions). I have a descent rig (VPI Classic 2 w/Sumiko Blackbird) and almost every record I play has clicks, pops, groove noise, etc.. It just bothers me to distraction -I almost never play vinyl.
Note: I recently played Hendrix's "Are you Experienced" for maybe the second time (super-duper premium 2 record set) and hit a total-blockage point that threw the stylus out of the groove (totally not groovy!). Frustrating? Chee-wa-wa!

I wet-wash before each play (Nitty Gritty vacuum), use a Zerostat ion gun, do all the things your supposed to do but if it's in the vinyl already, it aint commin' out.

I admit that a clean pressing sounds awesome (Dark Side of the Moon comes to mind). But these are one-in-ten if your lucky. I guess I should keep buying the same record over-and-over until I find one I like?

I hope Meridian's new encoding scheme (MQA) will finally tip the sonic scales to digital's advantage.