2. analog
  3. 1340176293

Is a vinyl rig only worth it for oldies?

I have always been curious about vinyl and its touted superiority over digital, so I decided to try it for myself. Over the course of the past several years I bought a few turntables, phono stages, and a bunch of new albums. They sounded fine I thought, but didn't stomp all over digital like some would tend to believe.

It wasn't until I popped on some old disk that I picked up used from a garage sale somewhere that I heard what vinyl was really about: it was the smoothest, most organic, and 3d sound that ever came out of my speakers. I had never heard anything quite like it. All of the digital I had, no matter how high the resolution, did not really come close to approaching that type of sound.

Out of the handful of albums I have from the 70s-80s, most of them have this type of sound. Problem is, most of my music and preferences are new releases (not necessarily in an audiophile genre) or stuff from the past decade and these albums sounded like music from a CD player but with the added noise, pops, clicks, higher price, and inconveniences inherent with vinyl. Of all the new albums I bought recently, only two sounded like they were mastered in the analog domain.

It seems that almost anything released after the 2000's (except audiophile reissues) sounded like music from a CD player of some sort, only worse due to the added noise making the CD version superior. I have experienced this on a variety of turntables, and this was even true in a friend's setup with a high end TT/cart.

So my question is, is vinyl only good for older pre-80s music when mastering was still analog and not all digital?
solman989

Showing 1 response by aball

aball
2,016 posts
 
Yes, a lot of vinyl of modern music sounds terrible. A friend of mine LOVES his vinyl but he agrees that most of the new pressings are of very poor quality, worse than your typical CD. In fact, some of them are completely screwed up and unlistenable. The range of quality is huge so it's always a crap shoot. It is clear the market warrants zero money or effort to make them - it's weak marketing at best. It is much easier to find a good-sounding CD version of the music and go with that.

Older vinyl can sound great if you have an expensive and fancy record cleaner, and yet, it will still often be noisier than the cheapest amplifier you can find. If an amp made as much background noise as most vinyl, it would be considered broken and thrown in the garbage.

I have heard vinyl sound fantastic many times, and I've tried it 3 times myself, but in the end, it isn't worth the hassle, room and expense of cleaning, or having it wear each time I use it, or all the extraneous noise, wow and flutter of the record, or dealing with the delicateness of the cart, nor the cost of all the stuff it takes to make it work well, not to mention the space for it all. Maybe if I was older, was not a mechanical engineer, and already had tons of records, I'd be more into it, but at face value today, it simply doesn't add up for me.
More to discover