A little over a year ago, I was in the same position as you. Upon playing, I found my albums purchased in the 60's, 70's and early 80's were in the same condition as I left them.
Of course like folks have suggested, nothing has hit my tt without a good VPI 16.5 cleaning.
In hindsight, I should never have stopped playing vinyl! In the period of time I've had my tt, I can count on one hand, the number of CD's that I've critically listened to. Vinyl is just so much more enjoyable than digital, and I'm comparing apples to apples in terms of CDP and tt, tonearm quality/cost.
For the first few days of lp playing, I was astonished that the highly resolved, harmonically rich music I was hearing was emanating from my new mechanical/analog playback device!
Im not sure if you've thought about your budget for a cartridge, but if you're in the $200-300 range, you can't go wrong with a Denon 103R.
Of course like folks have suggested, nothing has hit my tt without a good VPI 16.5 cleaning.
In hindsight, I should never have stopped playing vinyl! In the period of time I've had my tt, I can count on one hand, the number of CD's that I've critically listened to. Vinyl is just so much more enjoyable than digital, and I'm comparing apples to apples in terms of CDP and tt, tonearm quality/cost.
For the first few days of lp playing, I was astonished that the highly resolved, harmonically rich music I was hearing was emanating from my new mechanical/analog playback device!
Im not sure if you've thought about your budget for a cartridge, but if you're in the $200-300 range, you can't go wrong with a Denon 103R.