Thinking About Buying a Turntable and Vinyl Records

I still have many albums from my original collection and years ago my son bought me a turntable, but truth be told I usually listen to music online, esp. YouTube. I wouldn't part with the records I have left, though. I loved them, they shaped my life. As well as 33s, I have hundreds of 45s, some with original covers.

If you want this, get it, it's not such a big investment.
 

Pepper said:
I still have many albums from my original collection and years ago my son bought me a turntable, but truth be told I usually listen to music online, esp. YouTube. I wouldn't part with the records I have left, though. I loved them, they shaped my life. As well as 33s, I have hundreds of 45s, some with original covers.

If you want this, get it, it's not such a big investment.
Click to expand...
Thanks, going to start turntable shopping soon.
 
I've got a pretty good collection of vinyl, a nice Sanyo turntable, and a Sansui 9090DB amp feeding a couple of big Radio Shack floor speakers in the basement. It all works, and I use it primarily in the Winter when I'm downstairs working out on my home gym. Something about the old vinyl just seems to sound better, to me, than many of today's CD's, etc.
 
DH has his & his brother’s collections from the young adult days. He bought a turntable that allows him to convert to digital. It’s a laborious process as he only wants the songs he likes. Seems to me that he’s been doing this bit by bit for a couple of years now.

Both granddaughters have a turntable. It’s trendy. He gave many LPs to the the one that was here. Whenever the next GD is here, she will have her choice too.

DH will keep plugging away on converting more. Guess it’s his hobby.
 
Although I did buy one vinyl album this year it was because I wanted to support the group during the pandemic and it was a limited edition version with autographs. It is the first one I've bought in at least 25 years.

Although I do agree that the sound of vinyl is warmer than digital recordings there are several things that make me want not to do this.

1. The sound of vinyl also includes, clicks, pops and other sounds caused by vinyl imprefection.
2. Vinyl is easily damaged
3. Vinyl is very expensive these days
4. Vinyl only allows you to listen to 30 minutes at most of uninterrupted music before having to turn the record over
5. Vinyl takes up much more physical space than digital media

Although it's far from perfect the quality of digital recordings is good enough for my everyday listening.
 
Back when I was in my early 20's, I worked in the repair shop at the Audio Center in Honolulu. My hearing was excellent in those days and I can attest to the fact that sound quality from those high quality turntables is superior to what we get from modern CD's. But at my age (77), I would not be able to detect the difference.
I have observed that a lot of modern amplifiers don't even have a phono input anymore. The amplitude of the signal coming out of a turntable is very low and requires a pre-amp stage that can handle such a low voltage level. It also has a gain curve more closely matching the signal coming out of that phono cartridge.
 
Nephew even has a tiny turntable that plays 3" vinyl records that have great sound. He uploaded it to his Instagram account. Probably not practical, but, he's a collector.
 
Don M. said:
I've got a pretty good collection of vinyl, a nice Sanyo turntable, and a Sansui 9090DB amp feeding a couple of big Radio Shack floor speakers in the basement. It all works, and I use it primarily in the Winter when I'm downstairs working out on my home gym. Something about the old vinyl just seems to sound better, to me, than many of today's CD's, etc.
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The music coming off of a turntable is pure analog and very close to the original music as it was performed. CD's are simply digital representations of the original sound signal. The fact that your hearing is good enough to tell the difference is uncommon. I could have several decades ago, but not anymore.
 
JimBob1952 said:
Has anybody done this recently? Worth the time and trouble?
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Don't ask me how this is done, but my best friend buys vinyl and as soon as he plays it for the first time, he hooks it up to (what he calls) an interface and records the music directly into his computer, which in turn also digitizes the music. I think he does this just to show off his computer skills. He has some beautiful photos that he puts together with the music and together, it makes a beautiful slideshow using Adobe Photo Studio.

It sounds really good and in fact, I would call it CD quality.
 
Yes, I did! I still have 300 records from the old days (all my favorites that i hid under the bed when my first husband threw out all my boxes of 45's. I had a wonderful old turntable (still have it) but I was unable to find the correct needle for it. So I just bought another one on line (E-Bay). I't WONDERFUL! Belt-driven, solid state. It's old but THE SOUND is amazing! When you play music on line, Yes, It's fine but it still has the "tinny" electronic sound. But the old turntables; 'OH YEAH!" Nothing like it!
I play it, honestly? EVERYDAY!Dance around my house with my dog , sing along.
JimBob? DO IT! You won't be sorry!
 
asp3 said:
Although I did buy one vinyl album this year it was because I wanted to support the group during the pandemic and it was a limited edition version with autographs. It is the first one I've bought in at least 25 years.

Although I do agree that the sound of vinyl is warmer than digital recordings there are several things that make me want not to do this.

1. The sound of vinyl also includes, clicks, pops and other sounds caused by vinyl imprefection.
2. Vinyl is easily damaged
3. Vinyl is very expensive these days
4. Vinyl only allows you to listen to 30 minutes at most of uninterrupted music before having to turn the record over
5. Vinyl takes up much more physical space than digital media

Although it's far from perfect the quality of digital recordings is good enough for my everyday listening.
Click to expand...
I could not have said it better. The convenience and durability of CD's makes the difference to me.
 
There is the ceremonial aspect of vinyl: the needle brushing, the brush for dusting off the LP, anti-static sprays, the balancing bubbles, the absolute requirement for good grounding, and the tender treatment that LPs require. It kind of reminds a person of a Japanese tea ceremony. I don't miss any of that.

And remember those romantic moments when the LP that you have carefully chosen is working its magic, and you are working your magic, and then the LP ends at exactly the wrong time ...... forcing a decision right when you had other things on your mind.

No sir, I am sticking with CD's.
 
Yes! I bought a "record player" three years ago now. Vinyl is making a comeback! I love the Christmas records...and I have a number of old gospel music records.
 
As far as digital vs. vinyl, it's what ever floats your boat. I did have a great collection of records 45s & 33s from the 60s/70s. But I gave them to Sally's, when I went digital. I'm sorry I did that. There's something about owning a tangible record- it's yours.
 
I still have all the singles that I bought as a teen... but I could kick myself that I threw out all the albums I had when CD's came in...

I've got a modern record player, but honestly the quality of my old vinyl is hard on the ears on the record player.. given now I'm used to the perfection of youtube, and electronic plays... .
It's quite funny now to listen to the 45's and many words that I could never understand and know thanks to youtube and CD's etc.. exactly what those words are :D
 
I still have our old turntable, a very good one. And I still have about 100 vinyl records (the ones my grandson didn't want.) 😁

I occasionally play one of them, mostly not. I like the sound of the newer technology better.

In fact, I've fallen in love with my Alexa gizmo, and use it almost constantly to play music. I love it! You can ask it to play an individual musical number (specifying which performer you want), a whole album, music by a certain composer or performed by a particular artists, a shuffled list of types of music ("Oldies" is my current favorite, also "Classical piano" and "restful music). The selections are great, probably they have been vetted for popularity. But if something comes on that I don't like, or just don't feel in the mood for at the moment, I just have to say, "Alexa, play the next track," and it moves on.

And you can interrupt a piece of music to say, "Alexa, who is the president of France?" or "Alexa, what is the weather today in ..." After giving you the answer it returns to the music, right on the note where it left off. You can also say, "Alexa, pause," and later, "Alexa, resume."

So much less trouble than changing records, CD's, etc.!

P.S. I don't work for Amazon, which makes Alexa, I just really like it a lot and recommend it to one and all. It costs less than $100, and there is no fee to belong. Amazing!
 

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