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VoodooChileInWOnderl wrote:
Vinyl rules!

A good turntable brand is Technics, I have the SL-6 model bought in 1986 when CDs were already commercial for three years; however is pretty good

This is it



This is a "new" model, seems pretty cool

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Mel Belli wrote:
Interesting article from Wired magazine here. I've got boxes of old vinyls, but no turntable. Anyone have advice on good brands/models?

Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin

By Eliot Van Buskirk 10.29.07 | 12:00 Am

As counterintuitive as it may seem in this age of iPods and digital downloads, vinyl -- the favorite physical format of indie music collectors and audiophiles -- is poised to re-enter the mainstream, or at least become a major tributary.
Talk to almost anyone in the music business' vital indie and DJ scenes and you'll encounter a uniformly optimistic picture of the vinyl market.
"I'm hearing from labels and distributors that vinyl is way up," said Ian Connelly, client relations manager of independent distributor alliance IODA, in an e-mail interview. "And not just the boutique, limited-edition colored vinyl that Jesu/Isis-style fans are hot for right now."
Pressing plants are ramping up production, but where is the demand coming from? Why do so many people still love vinyl, even though its bulky, analog nature is anathema to everything music is supposed to be these days? Records, the vinyl evangelists will tell you, provide more of a connection between fans and artists. And many of today's music fans buy 180-gram vinyl LPs for home listening and MP3s for their portable devices.
"For many of us, and certainly for many of our artists, the vinyl is the true version of the release," said Matador's Patrick Amory. "The size and presence of the artwork, the division into sides, the better sound quality, above all the involvement and work the listener has to put in, all make it the format of choice for people who really care about music."
Because these music fans also listen using portable players and computers, Matador and other labels include coupons in record packaging that can be used to download MP3 versions of the songs. Amory called the coupon program "hugely popular."
Portability is no longer any reason to stick with CDs, and neither is audio quality. Although vinyl purists are ripe for parody, they're right about one thing: Records can sound better than CDs.
Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound.
Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary.
"The digital world will never get there," said Chris Ashworth, owner of United Record Pressing, the country's largest record pressing plant.
Golden-eared audiophiles have long testified to vinyl's warmer, richer sound. And now demand for vinyl is on the rise. Pressing plants that were already at capacity are staying there, while others are cranking out more records than they did last year in order to keep pace with demand.
Don MacInnis, owner of Record Technology in Camarillo, California, predicts production will be up 25 percent over last year by the end of 2007. And he's not talking about small runs of dance music for DJs, but the whole gamut of music: "new albums, reissues, majors and indies ... jazz, blues, classical, pop and a lot of (classic) rock."
Turntables are hot again as well. Insound, an online music retailer that recently began selling USB turntables alongside vinyl, can't keep them in stock, according to the company's director, Patrick McNamara.
And on Oct. 17, Amazon.com launched a vinyl-only section stocked with a growing collection of titles and several models of record players.
Big labels still aren't buying the vinyl comeback, but it wouldn't be the first time the industry failed to identify a new trend in the music biz.
"Our numbers, at least, don't really point to a resurgence," said Jonathan Lamy, the Recording Industry Association of America's director of communications. Likewise, Nielsen SoundScan, which registered a slight increase in vinyl sales last year, nonetheless showed a 43 percent decrease between 2000 and 2006.
But when it comes to vinyl, these organizations don't really know what they're talking about. The RIAA's numbers are misleading because its member labels are only now beginning to react to the growing demand for vinyl. As for SoundScan, its numbers don't include many of the small indie and dance shops where records are sold. More importantly, neither organization tracks used records sold at stores or on eBay -- arguably the central clearinghouse for vinyl worldwide.
Vinyl's popularity has been underreported before.
"The Consumer Electronics Association said that only 100,000 turntables were sold in 2004. Numark alone sold more than that to pro DJs that year," said Chris Roman, product manager for Numark.
And the vinyl-MP3 tag team might just hasten the long-predicted death of the CD.
San Francisco indie band The Society of Rockets, for example, plans to release its next album strictly on vinyl and as MP3 files.
"Having just gone through the process of mastering our new album for digital and for vinyl, I can say it is completely amazing how different they really sound," said lead singer and guitarist Joshua Babcock in an e-mail interview. "The way the vinyl is so much better and warmer and more interesting to listen to is a wonder."
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Eliot Van Buskirk has covered digital music since 1998, after seeing the world's first MP3 player sitting on a colleague's desk. He plays bass and rides a bicycle.

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Some Guy wrote:
How was the show??

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fireontheplatter wrote:

i collect records, but cd's are so much better in sound.

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fireontheplatter wrote:
i vaguely remember back in the day when my records were really scratched up and my needle was all worn out and i had to pile coins up on top of the arm so the records would play without skipping.

i collect records, but cd's are so much better in sound.

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aladdinstory wrote:


actually, i would disagree ,they're not, when compared to vinyl in even good condition, before the scratches and pops, but those scratches and pops also make that listening experience special. as stated in the article, there is a depth of sound, a dynamic that becomes lost in the CD format, the CD is louder but as also mentioned in that article, the compression used kills the "highs and lows" found in vinyl. CD's simply do not have the depth of sound as found on vinyl. Just listen to a song like "Rocks Off" on a good turntable with a good conditioned copy of Exile and then listen to a regular CD version of the same song, tell me you don't hear things in the vinyl version that is lost in the transference to CD.

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aladdinstory wrote:


actually, i would disagree ,they're not, when compared to vinyl in even good condition, before the scratches and pops, but those scratches and pops also make that listening experience special. as stated in the article, there is a depth of sound, a dynamic that becomes lost in the CD format, the CD is louder but as also mentioned in that article, the compression used kills the "highs and lows" found in vinyl. CD's simply do not have the depth of sound as found on vinyl. Just listen to a song like "Rocks Off" on a good turntable with a good conditioned copy of Exile and then listen to a regular CD version of the same song, tell me you don't hear things in the vinyl version that is lost in the transference to CD.

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mojoman wrote:


i can hear keiths head buzzing.............

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mrhipfl wrote:
There's this place near my old neighborhood where you can get 3 old vinyl for a buck. But they never seem to have ya-yas in stock. It's the only one missing from my collection.

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GotToRollMe wrote:


Try ebay. You can probably find it for under $10.

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Steel Wheels wrote:
For a good dealer for record players, check out www.tsto.com

I spin a late 70's Philips turntable with a Grado cartridge, and before that I ran a Pickering cart.

I run the system through a Carver TFM-35 power amp, with a Marantz pre-amp. The speakers are Paradigm, and they are bi-wired.

I forget which Phono Amp I have - I seem to remember it being an Ako unit.

The key to a good record player is to get one with the least amount of electronics - all the more buzz/hum in the system.

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Mel Belli wrote:


Thanks! I might be getting in over my head - in fact, I know I am -- but is there a certain price beyond which it's really not worth paying? Obviously, I don't need pro-DJ-quality equipment.

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Mel Belli wrote:

Thanks! I might be getting in over my head - in fact, I know I am -- but is there a certain price beyond which it's really not worth paying? Obviously, I don't need pro-DJ-quality equipment.

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GotToRollMe wrote:


You don't need to spend a lot of money right off the bat, Mel. I bought a Technics turntable at J&R Music World in New York for about $100 a few years ago. Here are a few helpful links:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/navigation?247SEM=&d=tp&q=turntables&r=&src=00632

http://www.needledoctor.com/Online-Store/Technics-Turntables;jsessionid=ac112b801f4362ecc4f613654286bff7962dbc9e2009.e3eTaxiPc3mTe34Pa38Ta38Pch50

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Technics-SLBD20D-Automatic-Turntable/dp/B00005T3Y8

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Mel Belli wrote:


Not according to the audiophiles.

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