How did you get into vinyl?


I’ll start with my story:
The roots probably go back to the mid to late 90's when I got into the retro cocktail thing. I started throwing old fashioned cocktail parties with Martinis and Hi Balls and Manhattans and spinning those Retro Lounge cocktail mix CDs with Luis Prima and Martin Denny and Si Zetner, etc.

I've always been a classic jazz fan (Coltrane, Davis, Rollins, etc.) and been into the music of the Rat Pack, so this just became an extension of that. I then started collecting CDs of the artists that were featured in the Retro Lounge collections, along with classic jazz, blues and vocalists. It was very rare for me to purchase, or listen to anything recorded since the 1970s, though I do have a pretty good collection of 80s and 90s rock, it’s just I haven’t been adding to it.
A few years ago my live-in girlfriend and I split up and I gave her the furniture and took the opportunity to completely redecorate the place the way I wanted to- mid century modern or, as I called it, space age bachelor pad. I bought a bubble chair, Naguchi tables, ball clocks, Eames era stuff, etc., etc.- I even got an old pinball machine and bar. I was truly living in the 50’s-60’s.

Last June, I was poking around a flea market in Hell’s Kitchen looking for retro stuff, and I saw a Voice of Music HiFi console from 1957 for $45. I bought it, not sure if it was working, but knew it would look cool in my place. When I got it home it worked perfectly. I had picked up some 50’s/60’s lounge type albums from a tag sale for a buck apiece, just for decorations, and when I got the record player home, I found that it worked and the records sounded very cool. Now the VOM was definitely not audiophile, but it was all tube and these records sounded very appropriately retro on it. That was it- I was hooked on vinyl!

I started collecting vinyl in thrift shops and on Ebay. I noticed the VOM lacked bass, mainly due to the small single speaker that it had. I then saw a bigger VOM console on Ebay that had a 12”, two 8” and two 4” speakers. I got it for $250, and it sounded much better. I have an audiophile digital system that includes an Audio Aero Prima SE CD and top of the line Paradigm speakers, so I knew the limitations of the VOM unit, but I found it was all I was listening to because of the things that many of us love vinyl for- the covers, the ritual of playing the albums, the warmth and musicality of vinyl and tubes. I then got to thinking how great it would be if I built a truly audiophile vinyl system with a good quality TT and tube phono stage and amp. I also want to dig into the VOM and upgrade some components, like the caps, and check the resisters (I already done tube rolling with Mullards and Telefunkens).

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I got a VPI Aries 3, a BAT PK-5P phono stage, a Hagerman SUT, and a NOS Dynavector Karat 23R MC cart. I also got a VPI 16.5 RCM. In the meantime, I have accumulated several hundred LPs and remembered that I had a few hundred more albums that I had stashed away over 25 years ago! I plan to get a second tonearm wand for the 10.5i so I can put a mono cartridge on it.

I have now fully entered the insane world of vinyl, and could not be happier! Obviously, my taste in music (and all things retro) is perfect for vinyl. Besides the “Lounge” (sounds better than Easy Listening) LPs, I have purchased some essential 180-200 gram reissues- Kind of Blue, Time Out, Steely Dan’s Aja, etc., and have just subscribed to the Music Matters Blue Note 45 reissues. What I love about vinyl (in no particular order):
The ritual that goes with the playing (cleaning, turntable setup, constant tweaking)
-The covers
-The nostalgia factor
-The fact that I can play albums that I owned when I was in high school
-Shopping for LPs at used record stores, thrift shops, tag sales, and Ebay
-And most important- the sound!

Long live vinyl!
raylinds
I hope this proves to be educational to some. There was a time before CD's and computer downloads. In rural areas there really wasn't even much in the way of FM, let alone XM.

We had, on AM radio, KXOK in St. Louis. At night we could pick up WLS in Chicago and WSM in Nashville on the AM dial. Of course, most radios only had an AM dial then.

The big purveyors of record players in the area were Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Western Auto. If you didn't have one of these by around 1964 you had been left behind. The rich folks had console sets with the black and white TV picture tube in the middle, the AM radio on one side at the top and the record player on the other. Many of these had TWO speakers. We couldn't afford one.

Apparently Doug is more affluent than many of us ever expected. (ha-ha)

It's surprising any of us "primitives" ever made it this far.

Best wishes.

Jim Pendleton
Osage Audio Products, LLC
My first record was an early Beatles album that I got in 1964. That's what got me started. Back then, vinyl wasn't a monolith either. "Stereo" albums were the new rage. 45's were in their heyday and you could find a few 78's still kicking around too. And the real hard core audiophiles back then had reel to reel machines.
My dad's LP collection,originally!I remember the late '50's with him playing "Enoch Light","Prez Prado","Tito Puente" on a portable player,outside our cottage,while a child in the Catskill Mountains!The BEST times of my life!!
Later I became a serious collector when Bob Reina was kind enough to loan me a ten record album of the finest RCA Classical LP's around.The REALLY good stuff!His dad sold TV's(if I remember his story correctly),and the 10 lp set was given out with any RCA TV purchase.
I HAD to have this set,and secured it at the Princeton Record Exchange for the "then" high price of 180 US dollars.Cheap,actually as it contains much Reiner stuff,all in 1s pressings.I won't even mention the latest price on LP lists.Think Magico Mini pricing! Spent alot more after that!
Sometimes I think I should just stop throwing money at this hobby,and go back to my old Martin Guitar.
Best to all,and I can empathize with the addicts.
My parents' hi-fi console played vinyl instead of shellacs, so I went with the latest thing!
01-18-08: B2sc said:

"There was nothing else except 8-tracks!"

I'm older than you guys, since 8-tracks were yet to be invented. ;-)

Dave
About 8 years ago, I attended my first Stereophile show, in San Francisco. I walked by a room and heard some great sound coming out. I walked in and was amazed that the sound was coming out of a turntable. The more I listened to it, the more I liked the sound. Although I had read on Stereophile magazines that vinyl was the way to go, it wasn't until that moment that I was convinced how much better vinyl was over CDs.

It took another year before I made that final commitment and began looking into setting up my own analog rig. Since then, vinyl shopping has been my favorite pastime activity.

FrankC
It was either vinyl or open reel tapes. AM radio if you couldn't afford an FM tuner. So, for lots of people, the notion of "into vinyl" doesn't even make sense. And when CD's came along, I never thought of myself as getting into CD's... I just bought them. Now, I did get into folk music and rock and roll and a few other things....
I agree with the others that due to our age, when we got into music, there was only vinyl, and FM radio. And while I enjoyed listening to the radio, the damn DJ's just would not implement my play list for the day, no matter how much I begged, pleaded and/or threatened them. And listening to random songs, while okay for awhile, eventually got to me, so I bought a "record player".

;-)
Well, when I bought my first system, in 1967, it was either vinyl or reel-to-reel, so I did both, starting with a Garrard changer and Sony r-to-r. I had a Scott integrated tube amp and some no-known-model Jensen speaker. It all sounded pretty good for a sophomore at Florida State.

Somewhere in the '80s it got harder and harder to buy vinyl, so I bought a CD player and started buying CDs. I was AC/DC for a while, but put the turntable away in the early 1990s after a move left me with little LP storage space. (Thank you Lord for letting me keep all those great LP, particularly all the D2D and "audiophile", Lyrita, Mercury, Shaded Dogs, etc.)

I just got back in last August, jumping off the relatively deep end with a Pro-ject RM10/Sumiko Blackbird with Pro-ject Tube Head and Pro-ject Speed Box SE. My old records floored me, sounding much better than they'd been on my old Lux DD TT.

I also got into the reissues, particularly the 45 rpm and the 180 and 200 grams, plus as much new stuff as I could get from Nora Jones, Diana Krall and others. I love it.

I'm not haunting too me used record stores because, fortunately, I bought well in my younger days and kept my collection in good condition. I've got about 1200 LPs, mixed between classical, pop, jazz and miscellaneous.

Viva la vinyl,

Dave
Given the choice between 8-track, cassettes and the LP - I'm glad I went with the vinyl - as are several high-end manufacturers. Happy listening,

-Richard
This is going to be an answer you'll see a lot: I'm 54 years old. That's even before the 8-track.