Is anybody buying new vinyl LP's?

[AzHadEnuf]

A few months ago, after my teenage son begging me for years, I finally set up all of my vintage stereo equipment. I hadn't had it set up in 20 some years. Most of it was bought new by my dad in the late 60's/early 70's. I tried to keep it simple. 1 linear tracking B&O turntable, McIntosh preamp running through a 200 watt per channel McIntosh Amp. A pair of Mc RX7 towers in the front and a pair of Mc XR14 towers in the back of the room. Running a mc time delay between them and just for the fun of it dropped in a pair of Bose 901's split half way down the running walls.

Went down to the record store together. He bought some bands called Daft Punk and Fat Freddie's Drop. Never heard of them. I picked up Hendrix, Ramones and Lou Reed. First thing I noticed was all the album art. It's all there again. Next was the shear weight. This stuff is heavy and thick. The finish of the pressing looks like the finishing on a Lange barrel.when you play these there is no hissing, no popping, no skips. In addition to hearing the music you feel it, deep inside you. It invokes emotion. Then I found these articles,

http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/v...inues-q1-2015/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/v...014-jackwhite/

Turns out that over 9 million LP's were sold in 2014. Highest sales in 20years. Digital downloading music is actually dipping down. I can only comparison the enjoyment to handling I fine machanical watch.

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Has anyone else rediscovered analog music again? If so, what are your thoughts?



Ralph

[SearChart]

I only buy CD's or music from iTunes but my sister recently bought a turntable and now has a fair collection of new LP's.

[Rock]

The 'big-format' cover art is the only thing I miss about vinyl.
They were an incentive to great cover art because of the size of the cover.
I don't miss the storage issues, the scratches, the hiss and crackle, the hassle with the pick-up heads and turntable belts. Frankly my ears can't hear the difference anyhow.

[Vincent65]

My dad used to have that exact same B&O turntable!

I also recently set up my old 'hi-fi' gear in the basement. I love the old vinyl, but I won't ever buy any more. It's too heavy and bulky, and not very portable. I just download these days; not even CDs any more.

I love the sound of my old system, though.

[azguy]

Funny, I was in Barnes and Noble over the weekend and they had a pretty impressive selection of records and people actually flipping through and buying them

It would be the coolest and greatest comeback of alltime

[salem65]

I like the idea of vinyl, just like I like the idea of going back to film cameras, but it is so nice to have thousands of songs in my pocket. Digital convenience outweighs any benefit, IMO.
I wonder if one day people will collect vintage iTunes.

[codecow]

This is one trend I don't understand really. Being a middle aged dude myself, I can't tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit audio at 96 or 192khz even with a very expensive pair of studio headphones; so all I get from a record is hiss.

The convenience of not having to drag around boxes of CDs/Records or now with streaming services even own the physical media is too good for me.

[joli160]

I understand the fun, but I kicked all the analog equipment a long time ago

[gulfstream69xr7]

My wife bought me a new turntable for Christmas last year. I pulled my old B&O Beomaster 2400 out of the closet and hooked it up to an old pair of Bose 201's. It sounded so good, that I ended up setting it up with my HK surround in our great room.

We have been buying a mix of old and new stuff on vinyl. If you can find original vinly, printed from tape masters, it sounds great. We even found a few things that we had on CD for years, but were finally rereleased on 180 gram vinyl.

We are up to around 200 LP's now. We have a few friends who do the same thing. We'll invite a few other couples over, and have a "Vinyl Night" where we all take turns picking out sides to listen to.

[Psmith]

Much as I enjoyed my Rega Planar 3 turntable, and others, decades ago I can't go back to vinyl. I do enjoy seeing the cover artwork in music stores again though.

[watchwatcher]

With the equipment you have described, I bet those records do sound pretty good!

I spent way too much money as a youngster on stereo stuff...now watches seem to occupy my time (and budget) . Now about the only stereo I listen to is in the car or streaming music over my Bose Soundlink as I'm working out.

Cool to hear about the vinyl movement, though. I was unaware of the increased sales data. Thanks for sharing.

[AzPaul]

You do lose a lot of depth and richness with compressed digital files.
I'm glad there's a new generation of music lovers rediscovering this better way of recreating a fuller sound.

[FTX I]

No but I love my collection.

[Trurolexer]

I'm collecting vinyl since around 3 years ago.
Various genre of music, form late 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s.
From Blues, Rock, Prog Rock, Pshycedelic, Punk, Hard Rock, Thrash even New Wave.
From The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Yes, Pink Floyd, ELP, Ramones, The Clash, Pistols, Minor Thread, Metallica, Testament, Megadeth, Hanoi Rocks, even Duran Duran, Cutting Crew, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, or Blues like SRV, John Lee Hooker, etc, etc.
Have around 1,500 pieces vinyls, 7", 10" and 12", or maybe more, I stop count it.
Very addicting hobby.

[Rondineli]

OP, I suggest you visit The Vinyl Circle, in Audiocircle.com iwhich is pretty similar to our TRF, but towards audiophiles.

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by Psmith

Much as I enjoyed my Rega Planar 3 turntable, and others, decades ago I can't go back to vinyl. I do enjoy seeing the cover artwork in music stores again though.

Me too
Loved the look of the Rega equipment almost as must as the sound.

[Lion]

I too being an "Old Timer" prefer the quality of analog sound through a stereo system with a Turntable, Tuner, Amp, Preamp and decent 3-Way Speakers. I own the same B & O Beogram 4004 Turntable as the OP and am running a Crown Amp(DC300A) and a Crown Preamp(IC150A) through Klipsch Speakers(Chorus II). My Tuner is a Marantz 115B and own a Nakamichi CD Player 2 Musicbank when I want to hear digital music…..

The reason why analog sound is better is because we naturally hear all sounds through our ears in analog. Digital sound through CD's and MP3's have been compromised by reducing the signal after recording so the music will fit the format(otherwise an album worth of music would not fit on one CD). The portion which has been deleted gives the sound we hear its "full body sound" or "harmonics."

The digital formats which do not compromise "live sound" and reproduces the analog signal is FLAC(free lossless audio codex)or DAT(digital audio tape). Neither format here in America have caught on because they were never promoted by the industry…..

[landroverking]

In a word yes.

[rolehex]

I too have gone back to vinyl but prefer the older pressings to any of the newer stuff. I agree with Leo that Analog music is the way to go with LP's. AND vintage Klipsch really makes it pop.

[DiamondJack]

Last year I bought a Rega RP6 turntable and have rediscovered my old vinyl collection which thankfully I kept.......

I have bought a few new albums and some replacements that didn't age that well or were abused back in the day.......but I am definitely re-converted for home listening and can't believe how bland mp3's sound, especially when played at a reasonable volume through a sound system.

[joeychitwood]

I just last week bought vinyl LPs by Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Alabama Shakes. Almost every new album release is produced on vinyl these days. Some of the new vinyl releases suck because of compression and bad mixing by current sound engineers aimed at the iPod crowd, but that's not the fault of the vinyl medium. I have a Rega P25 turntable, Denon DL103R cartridge modified by Soundsmith and an RB300 tonearm. I love the sound of vinyl. If all of the sonic information on a vinyl LP was coded onto CDs, it would take 5-6 CDs per LP. Hisses, crackles and scratches are only a problem on vinyl not cared for properly. Most of my vinyl collection is dead silent. Vinyl is the best selling physical media today.

[powerfunk]

Vinyl is so popular that there's a backlog at all the major pressing plants last I heard. That's why albums keep coming out on vinyl months after the digital release. I am glad that it's now basically standard procedure to include a high-quality digital download with every new record.

[Demosthene]

Originally Posted by Lion

The reason why analog sound is better is because we naturally hear all sounds through our ears in analog. Digital sound through CD's and MP3's have been compromised by reducing the signal after recording so the music will fit the format(otherwise an album worth of music would not fit on one CD). The portion which has been deleted gives the sound we hear its "full body sound" or "harmonics."

The digital formats which do not compromise "live sound" and reproduces the analog signal is FLAC(free lossless audio codex)or DAT(digital audio tape). Neither format here in America have caught on because they were never promoted by the industry…..

Partly correct

Any digital version of an analog sound wave results in loss of information.
Digital recording relies on sampling the continuous sound wave into a discrete signal which essentially maps the wave with points of information.
The frequency this is done at with CD recordings is 44.1 kHz at 16 bits per sample. This wasn't arbitrarily picked either as anything falling outside 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz is beyond human hearing.

So essentially you'll be hearing no difference between CD quality and vinyl besides for occasional noise on the latter.

[GradyPhilpott]

I look back fondly on my days as a (self-proclaimed) audiophile, devouring every issue of Stereo Review and holding Julian Hirsch in the highest esteem for his exquisite reviews blending bench tests with subjective listening.

I would carefully remove an album from its cover and its paper sleeve and place it on my Dual turntable. Then I'd carefully clean the needle and the disk with my Discwasher system before carefully aligning the needle with the grooves and dropping the arm with the viscous-damped release.

Clicks and pops notwithstanding, the spatial realism of the analog recorded and played material was astonishing.

I've never heard any digital system that could recreate that, even though I've read latter day reviewers claim that no such phenomenon ever existed.

I guess it must have because vinyl has never really disappeared among audiophiles. It's good to see that record companies are again releasing vinyl, but as much as I revere those days of old, I won't be going back in this lifetime.