Any advice on selling huge volume of Vinyl? Inherited 30,000 records and unable to catalog and sell myself. Equipment liquidation is another topic i need to take up
Has anyone finally decided to sell their Turntable and Vinyl collection?
It Maybe a little strange to ask this question here since clearly this is a forum for folks still loving and using Vinyl.
So I am looking for some feedback from folks that play very little of their LPs these days and have decided to sell all of it (or already have). I have thought about it for years seems like a hassle trying to sell your TT and or your record collection, that is mainly why mine stays put (not because I use it).
Anyway if you have sold - (Not if you’re keeping it forever)
Have you regretted it?
Or is to nice to reduce the clutter and happily move on?
Some people would never sell their analog rig and collection, I get that.
So I am looking for some feedback from folks that play very little of their LPs these days and have decided to sell all of it (or already have). I have thought about it for years seems like a hassle trying to sell your TT and or your record collection, that is mainly why mine stays put (not because I use it).
Anyway if you have sold - (Not if you’re keeping it forever)
Have you regretted it?
Or is to nice to reduce the clutter and happily move on?
Some people would never sell their analog rig and collection, I get that.
104 responses Add your response
I just pulled out my old copy of Blood on the Tracks and man did it sound crummy. Just dull and lifeless and muddy. Could be the LP itself I guess. So bad that I tossed it in the cull bin. It makes me wonder - what Dylan LPs sound the best? Putting aside artistic value, how do they rank to audiophiles? I’ll say that Shot of Love is a great sounding record in my system. gutsy but clear and you really hear the room. I love playing it. Also Nashville Skyline sounded good last time I heard it but that was a long time and many upgrades ago. |
I just sold my TT and all related accessories last night. I had the Hanss T60 which weighed 150lbs so the guy drove 8 hours 1 way to pick it up. Very nice tt and very nice sounding setup. I just never used it. I have the new $150 Led Zeppelin boxed set and played 2 of the 4 albums 1 time. Maybe down the road I’ll regret it but not right now. I am going to sell my album collection of around 400 albums if anybody is interested. |
Hi Doug, I sold my analog setup about 4 months ago. While it was a difficult decision, looking back I have no regrets. I was fortunate in that one person bought the whole set-up, turntable, arm, cartridges, and phono-preamp which made it nice. (he got a terrific deal I might add !) I still have my vinyl, which is the next step to sell. My reasoning for selling is that over the past year or so, I have listened to vinyl less and less, and even though I will be retiring soon, I'm just not into it as much any more. The real clincher for this decision was my purchase of a Innuos ZENith music-server in March. I had been using a lap-top with JRiver software for a few years and the music was really satisfying and extremely convenient. However, not quite enough for me to stop using some vinyl. The ZENith music-server changed all of that. The quality of the music from the server took a huge step up in quality, so much so that after about 2-months of listening to my favorite music, I couldn't see keeping my analog set-up. The convenience, flexibility, and now very high quality of the music was definitely convincing enough for me to decide to sell. Now I'm listening a lot more than I was even with the analog set-up and JRiver music-server combined, and enjoying it much more ! Your decision to eliminate analog from your sound-system is a personal one and not to be taken lightly. In my opinion, if you have a terrific digital source, and all the music you like can be found with it and the music services (I use Qobuz), then that would make your decision easier. Good luck, Doug... John |
I sold all of my albums ( over 1000 ) and my VPIi JR In 1990. I have spent the last 30 years slowly buying them back. I now have seven turntables. I have had as many as 11. I also listen to CD, SACD, and stream tidal through several Sonos devices. So, as you see I do not listen exclusively to vinyl albums, but I try to listen to at least one album side a day. |
I always kept vinyl records and turntables even when the compact disc took hold in the early 80s; at that time I was still a young boy but the marvelous digital technology that promised wonders did not bewitch me, I continued on the analogical road even though, in later times the cd player was next to my turntable. |
Sold off half my Lp collection as I built up my Cd library Was very careful to keep all my 50's and many 60's discs including the very first Lp I ever purchased "Warm Brandy" by Dolores Gray Skip forward to 2019 and my 11yr old grandson when visiting immediately races upstairs to my second system. He powers it up and on goes Vinyl. He is absolutely fascinated by playing music from a rotating disc with a turntable I fear for my SME arm,cartridge, and disc's .... but hell why not He may one day join the Audio community |
Are you kidding? My vinyl collection is a documentary to my life .... starting with my purchase at age 15 of my first two LP's from the Capital Records Club .... Kenton in Hi-Fi, and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Le Coq de Or" by the Pittsburgh Symphony. I am hoping that Oberlin College, my alma mater, will take my collection after I die. They maintain a pretty extensive record collection and playback lab for their Conservatory students. |
I was talking to a local guy who ripped all 3000 records into his music server and sold the collection. He got all those pops and clicks on there so he won’t miss that analog experience. Selling the collection took some time as buyers wanted to cherry pick. A record store owner told me he doesn’t even buy whole collections anymore as it took too much effort to go through them. He’s now willing to pay higher prices for quality collections, for records that can bring in $50-100 each.... |
I have four turntables in operation and seven more awaiting restoration. Also a collection of cartridges tonearms and parts. This all to play my 10,000+ vinyl collection that I have built over the past 55 years. My rock, jazz, pop, classical, blue grass, country etc. LPs are all in VG to near mint condition as I used to play them once in order to record them on my reel to reel or cassette tape recorders. Cassettes were much easier to play in the car or cassette player. the TTs that I'm currently using are a totally updated Linn LP12, restored Thorens TD124 and 124 Mk2 and a Garrard 401. All are in high end systems with dedicated phono preamps. So whats not to like? Well I hardly play my records anymore since I've transferred so much to my PC. Call it laziness, but it seems that I just want to play my music without getting out of my chair anymore. What to do with all that vinyl, turntables and other gear? I don't know, as the thought of what it would take time and energy wise to sell it makes my brain go numb. |
People dumping their vinyl rigs and albums seems like sort of pathetic news, and nearly unworthy of comment beyond the self congratulating "I still love my vinyl" responses...do the people abandoning analog want to feel better somehow? "Here's why I'm NOT doing something" is simply a "meh" thing, almost as lame as me saying I like having my vinyl around...it's there, and the only way to hear it is with my turntable...how interesting...wanna dump yer vinyl? Go right ahead...sit in the cloud with your dots and dashes and wonder what to do with the 8 square feet of space you added to the condo, and send that money to Qobuz until they go out of business and your digital storage gizmo dies... |
I never abandoned vinyl. When CDs first arrived I felt the vinyl sounded better, so why get rid of it. Through the years, there has been a back and forth superiority between the sound of one medium and the other as I improved one component or another. Now, they sound about equal with my current gear, so I’m happy. |
"I sold my record collection last year, approximately 1,040 records, For now I kept 100 of my favorite records, I have been giving a lot of thought about selling the rest by the end of this year, VPI TNT JR, VPI Record cleaner, AR Phono amp and Extras, turned it on about 4 times this year, it is just collecting dust, there was a time when I was younger I would listed about 4 hours every evening but those days are long gone. " |
rvpiano1 .... exactly. It wasn't close in the late '80's early '90's. Now I have my main system to the point that vinyl and sacd sound identical. Looking ahead to this back in the 90's, I tried not to buy cd's that duplicated most of my vinyl collection .... Bob Dylan is perhaps the exception. So I have a few that I can use to calibrate my system, but overall the two collections compliment one another. 1100 lp's and 1000+ cd's are enough .... both have their place, and both can be made to sound good (although some individual items never do.) |
Yep. The record collection went in 1991. Don't miss the snap, crackle, pop, and like the space savings. Still have the TT (NAD w/Shure V15 Type V) because I was too lazy to dig it out of storage to see if it was worth anything. Next move it'll go. I have no interest in vinyl. My whole collection fits on a flash drive now. |
On a vinyl enthusiasts portal, the answer to the OP's question will be difficult to get a clear answer, buying vinyl and producing tapes with the vinyl, was my first experience of music that I had a control of, if you discount choosing a radio station. The whole experience around buying the vinyl, as well as the well known ritual and haptics, are indelible and in my experience not matched by any other medium. With the knowledge learnt through continued pursuit of attempting to achieve the best replay ( budget dependent), the understanding of the requirements to achieve such a set up, becomes a hobby in itself, without any music involved. The engineering, tuning, timing,leveling, attenuation, isolation, maintenance, requirements to be thought about, for a device and media that can be disturbed by the most miniscule effects of the environment the device is set up in, has a varied level of appeal to any individual use Vinyl as a replay medium. Taking into account the nurturing of such devices and media, to reassure one, that they are as close to a day it was bought condition, also has a infectious hold on a certain type of individual, these outlined requirements, become much more than the norm required for a maintenance of any tool one will use. Give me a Swiss Analogue Watch of certain brands, these are engineered, to a similar discipline of a TT set up, the watch has to do a Job, just like the TT has to. Even though ownership of both watch and TT, might equate to equal amounts of pride of ownership. The discipline one will develop to maintain the unfaltering performance of one of these items will far surpass that of the other. I find it hard to believe that any individual born into the era of a non CD Market, who took the Vinyl experience, beyond just dropping a stylus into a groove, would separate themselves from their replay equipment and media collection without and regret . I introduced for the first time into my system, the option to replay CD in 2016. It was 1990, that I first entered into the serious world of being HiFi enthusiast, having my first commission built HiFi device built by a EE in 1993. I have had my latest commission built device, designed and built by the same EE, supplied to me in 2018. Relationships are created in HiFi that extend beyond the Devices and Media, and these friendships today are valued even more, as the shared ideas, follow up discussions and works produced, are the root of some of the methods being put into use in the home system replays. knowing a performer for a long time, that allowed one to share a input into their creativity, who eventually presented a Album that is being played on the home system, will be a type of comparison. I put my system out for its first ever public audition in 2019, at the Wam Show at Kegworth Hotel, Room 106, ( The Build it Yourself, or if that is not possible, Have Someone Build it for You Room ). Fifty Exhibitors were attending, and on the day, Five Hundred Paying Public visited. With my intention of extending the social side of my HiFi Journey, meeting other enthusiasts, allowing others the chance to experience my system, and just maybe meet a few that are being influenced by some of the choices I have made for my system, in the hope they find something they wish to investigate, that was not on their radar. I think it is fair to say I achieved my goal in every department |
I went digital early on and was never in the camp that digital didn’t sound good or better than vinyl. Since the 90’s I thought my digital source sounded superb (various sources) and has given me tons of pleasure. Once I ripped all my CDs (torture!) to a server and added Tidal, the convenience was incredible. But the instant access gave me music ADD. With a new track only a touch away at any moment, I’d think "wow this track sounds great, I wonder what the next one is like" and I found myself sampling, sampling, sampling rather than listening at length. Getting back in to vinyl a few years ago has cured me of music ADD.I put on a record and almost always listen to at least the whole side, very often the whole album. And because this is so, and because you can sample almost any album on the web no matter how obscure, I tend to buy only those albums I can tell I’d like to play through. If I only like a single song or something I don’t buy it. So this means I tend to select for albums I’ll listen to. In contrast when I was doing digital downloads, or even creating playlists on Tidal, I'd end up with tons of music I never ended up listening to. I still have my digital sever of course and still use it sometimes. But almost every time I go back to the digital server, using my ipad as remote, I find myself falling in to the same music ADD pattern, and it’s back to vinyl. And I enjoy having the physical collection of albums. On a practical note, my head reels with the thought of having to sell my LP collection! It’s pretty idiosyncratic, with tons of Library Music albums that are worth good money (and that I paid good money for) only to the niche of folks who are in to it. So it seems I’d be stuck between just dumping the library to some local store or whoever would pay for it - taking a massive beating on re-sale value. Or I would have to sell it selectively on something like discogs, essentially turning record selling in to a second job, which I am very much not in to. |
I'll start off with my selling of 18,000 records, mostly 78s over the past several decades. I have a rule that if I don't potentially want to listen to a record 3 times annually, out it goes. I still have 25,000 LPs, 7,000 78s and 7,000 CDs. I want to sell 2,000 mint, mostly unplayed classical 78s from the 1930s and 1940s for $1,000. I can't ship and am not going to list all the records. They were purchased from someone who purchased but never listened to them (hence-mint). I will never sell my ethnic and obscure LPs (many of which will never or cannot/lost tapes be duplicated into another format. I love the well remastered CDs, particularly of 78 rpm vocal recordings where the acquisition, storage and playback requirements are burdensome (acoustics especially due to non-standard speeds and equalization). |
I didn't start collecting music until the early 90's, so I don't have a lot of vinyl as it wasn't readily available at that time. By 2010, when I bought my first serious analog gear, I had about 200 records and more than 20,000 CDs. For me, vinyl was an experiment, not a serious hobby. Nevertheless, with a $50K turntable, I felt compelled to buy more vinyl. I did find some great sounding albums that I really enjoyed. However, newer vinyl releases and reissues were a mixed bag, and finding good quality used vinyl was difficult. It also seemed like I spent more time cleaning the LPs than I did listening to them; admittedly because I was purchasing so many records, and they all needed to be cleaned before I could listen to them. Then I heard a serious CD Transport/DAC for the first time, and it completely opened my eyes to how good those little aluminum discs could sound. The problem is, to buy this massive CD Transport/DAC was going to cost me $80K; I couldn't afford it without selling my analogue gear and my growing record collection. In the end, the decision came down to being practical; I just had too much invested in CDs that I would never be able to come close to replacing with vinyl. Here was an opportunity to improve the sound quality of my entire CD collection, so I took it. Eight years later, and I have no regrets. I've heard a handful of vinyl records that I can honestly say will never sound as good in any digital format. But I'm not the type of person that can sit and listen to the same five or ten records over and over again. And, for the most part, I can pop in any of the CDs I own and the music is going to blow me a way — like I've never heard it before. The value of that is priceless! |
This is a great topic and something I also have been thinking about. I started my LP collection about 5 years ago. In that time, I've amassed around 1000. These are all high quality reissues; the vast majority from Analogue Productions / QRP, Mofi, and MusicMattersJazz. I started out with a Pro-Ject Expression turn table and finally graduated to my current VPI Classic 4 with 12" 3DR tonearm and Ortofon Cadenza Black. Even have a Bob's Devices Sky 20 Step-up transformer. But since upgrading my DAC to a PS Audio DirectStream DAC Junior, along with my Esoteric K-05 SACD player and Tidal/Roon combo, I find that the streaming and CDs sound truly excellent. Even old CDs I collected as a teen in the 90s. I am now very selective in what LPs I buy...mostly Blue Note Tone Poet series and Mofi Ultradiscs. I am running out of room and I moved to a larger house last year! Question is, should I sell it all and simplify and go to digital. I haven't any downloads. Just CDs, SACDs, XRCDs (bluenotes), etc and Tidal. A concern is, what happens if Tidal or Qobuz go under or some label does not renew their license to stream the albums? I could probably get at least $10k out of selling all this stuff...maybe more once you figure in the Glass Autodesk cleaning system! I could reinvest that into possibly a better DAC (maybe some dCS product or Briscati)? Better speakers (I run Martin Logan Montis at present)? Thanks and kind regards, Jason |
It’s a very personal decision, but growing up my experience with LP was not so good. I had to dust it off often and do the manual operation in order to play it every time. I hated it. No, I REALLY hated the fact that I had to get up and change each LP manually. When CD was in full swing, I got rid of all my LPs. Yes, I used the 300 Sony DVD changer, but still I was not happy with disc maintenance (like scratches etc) and search limitation. When the MP3s came out I ripped all my CDs and got rid of all the CDs. Now it has been a while since I have been slowing building lossless formats (flac, ape, alac) collection, I guess I have enough to play for 100 years. AND YES, I love my DAC and my music collection which I can instantly search for an album or song. Do I regret selling all my LPs and CDs? Hell NO! I NEVER miss the analog phones with dials.. DO YOU? I NEVER miss the film camera..DO YOU? I will NOT miss my Porsche with all the combustion engines since I NEVER enjoyed the MAINTENANCE portion of it, I just WANT to DRIVE all day long. I HATE the combustion engine MAINTENANCE EXPERIENCE, I just put up with it because of DRIVING EXPERIENCE. YES, I will jump all over it when electric Porsche becomes main stream. To me, LPs and CDs are like ANALOG PHONES and FILM CAMERAS... JUST OUTDATED... WHEN was the last time your favorite artist recorded and released in LP ONLY? Probably LONG AGO... NOT ANYTIME SOON... BTW, does this mean I hate old tech? NO, I use TUBE as main and SOLID STATE as sub... |
To me, LPs and CDs are like ANALOG PHONES and FILM CAMERAS... So is sitting stuck in front of a hi-fi system listening to music. You could just use earbuds attached to your phone and get music anywhere you want. Few things look to the rest of the modern world more "outdated" than the audiophile sitting between a pair of speakers doing nothing but listening, much less caring that much about the sound. But audiophiles find the gear part of the pleasure of listening to music. Books are "outdated" in the sense you don’t need them to deliver the reading content anymore. But they are far from "outdated" insofar as they offer a tactile, collectable experience, and allows one to unplug from digital life for a while, which fill desires many people have that ipads etc don’t fulfill. Similarly, turntables and vinyl are only "outdated" in the narrowest scope of being a "convenient, performance-leading music delivery system." That sounds pretty comprehensive, but it’s clearly not. Turntables have an aesthetic, tactile and engineering appeal to many of us that no CD player or iphone app can replicate. Digital delivery has not "caught up" to turntables in that regard. Same for records themselves. Many of us find a world of difference between the aesthetics and tactile nature of how LPs look and feel, vs CDs or collecting music digitally. I can see the album art when streaming a song via my ipad app, but it doesn’t produce anything like the satisfaction of buying and owning music on an LP, which is not only more aesthetically pleasing but feels more like actually "owning" the music and ’having a music collection" instead of something virtual. Then there is the sound. Vinyl tends to sound different than digital sources. And in a way that many of us actually really like, so even if digital could *in principle* mimic the same sound, in practice it normally doesn’t, and thus turntables/vinyl provides an experience and meets a desire that digital does not. And of course there is the previously mentioned fact that a great proportion of vinyl users find it encourages more focused listening, and encourages listening to more than one song on an album, where access to a vast digital catalogue at one’s finger-tips tends to encourage a more fidgety, surfing-music experience. If you look at articles on the resurgence of vinyl and/or follow people getting in to vinyl - and the reddit vinyl community is a good one - you will see this aspect of vinyl mentioned over and over. None of that of course means everyone has the same goals or experiences, and given other desires a fully digital system/streaming etc will be a much better choice for some people. But there are desires among music lovers and audiophiles that are not in fact met as well by digital sources as they are by turntables and vinyl, hence they are not "outdated" in that sense. |
I'm with @prof on this question. For me the joy of audio is a lot about cultivating my ability to focus on sound. Vinyl grabs my attention in a way that digital never has. It feels like an actual event happening while digital reproduction feels like just the picture of an event, no matter how 'accurate'. And now that i think of it, the experience of handling vinyl albums may also facilitate that focus. I am one of those people who find digital libraries to be distracting. It's sort of like dating in New York city - the amount of choice is so overwhelming that it keeps you from ever landing in one place. The dirty little secret of life and audio is that limitations can be productive. total freedom is really a mixed bag. |
@fleschler regarding >
2,000 mint, mostly unplayed classical 78s from the 1930s and 1940s for $1,000. check out the book "DO NOT SELL AT ANY PRICE , The Wild , Obsessive Hunt for the Worlds Rarest 78 rpm Recods " By Amanda Petrusich I bet you could get a bit more . I'm crush on the assumed massive Tax deduction I was hoping for by donating the 2000 or so I have to some Jazz Archive somewhere. |
my college days beer soaked lp's were discarded as trash- which they certainly were. I rebuilt my collection and acquired a nice dual turntable of which model I can't recall. Marriage and a three year old who delighted in separating the tonearm from the table shelved the LP's for awhile. I found a sony linear track tt which retracted into a compartment -child proof and OK. I retired my LP's when I found cd's. I now have a JA Michell tt and enjoy my albums again as I do my cd's . Have recently included streaming with tidal and think MQA sounds quite remarkable. BUT I still really enjoy cleaning that record, putting it on the turntable and cueing the arm onto a very carefully cared for LP. By the way my one time three year old now has the sony tt as protection from his now three year old. |
I guess that’s what I don’t get. I couldn’t care less about the gear. I just care about the sound. To me that’s the whole point of the gear - to produce sound. And convenience comes in a close second. Love the fact I can voice-control everything. But I don’t get the fascination with expensive mechanical watches either. I guess I’m a function over form person. I like my art old and my functional stuff up-to-date. |
Hey dougsat Late to the party for this thread. I was never a collector but sold off vinyl and full blown SOTA Star Sapphire rig and Fidelity Research arm in late 90's when when playback quality of cds finally struck my emotions enough. I have NO regrets and enjoy both TIDAL and Quboz streaming plus my select ripped lossless redbook files. I maintain a strong friendship with music friend with great vinyl to get an occasional fix...highly recommended! :) Onward, and More Peace. Pinthrift |
jssmith +1 It's all about the sound/musical recorded event. With so many single format, limited edition recordings on 78s, LPs and CDs, I'm not going to go streaming. Plus, the sound of each format's recordings when mastered or remastered to a high standard, I like them all. topecat-I know what I've got. I've been collecting/listening for 58 years. There are some nice HMV vocals and a few valuable orchestral/soloist recordings but none are rare, just in unplayed condition. Sure, on ebay I could get $20 for $30 or a Heifetz playing a sonata from the 30's. But to take the time to list and mail 78s is a drag unless they are very valuable or someone has lots of time on their hands. I run several businesses and own many properties so that's not likely. I get to listen to recorded music at least 1.5 to 2 hours at night and perform a half dozen times annually (two weeks ago at L.A.s' Disney Hall). I love music but I am not talented to make it a career. I do have rare records worth $500 which I am not selling but acquired for just a few dollars. I have sold LPs for up to $300 because of my rule not to keep them if I don't intend to play them. That's where the ethnic 78s come into play where I will never have another format reissue them. The U.S. copyright laws also prevent others from issuing these obscure recordings owned by Columbia, RCA and Capitol among other labels for 90 years. Many labels charge $15,000+ to reissue recordings and the market is very tiny for these reissues, maybe 500 in sales only. Blame that on the copyright laws. |
I’ve been collecting LPs since I was ten, now I am 57, so, I have thousands of lps. The thing is, I can pull out any one of them and tell you how old I was when I bought it, what system I was using and what store I bought it from. I really can’t do that with any of my CD’s. Lps have so many memories wrapped up in them. I play them more than any other source. |
