LP's... Do they sound better now than 30 yrs ago?

The clicking and popping of sounds coming from LP's is fun and bring back my youthful days.  The late 50's, 60's and 70's pressing are far excellent compared with the sucky digital sounds of today's.  The secret behind those pressing is the use of analog tube, darlington transistor and FET's.  I got a 60 years classical LP's using Hi-Fi definition sound fantastic compared with my latest Adele Hello using digital format.

Agree wholeheartedly that well recorded and well cared for vinyl can sound fantastic.  Very fortunate where we live to have an excellent used record store with multiple genre inventories, almost all of which are typically in great condition.  

As a VPI 16.5 user, I'm interested in what brand ultrasonic cleaner would represent a significant improvement in record cleaning technology and results? Suggestions?  Cost?  Thank you for any input.  

The newer lp's are just an lp processed with digital sound, so you won't get the same sound as old lp's that were recorded analog with reel to reel tape.  If you don't want pops,clicks, and wear and tear, stick with compact discs.  lp's sounds degrade a little with each play.

I have found that they sound much better now than they did in the 70s and 80s. That's because I have better equipment to listen. A good turntable and cartridge makes a huge difference!  Especially compared to what I had in college. 

And that's even for vintage records. A good cleaning and they sound terrific, even if 50 years old.  

I have studied vinyl cleaning intensely in my own rig. Every record, old or new, should be thoroughly cleaned prior to play (not every play, just before it is played on your equipment.) To clean a record, it is necessary to cut off the natural oils to release the dirt held by these oils.Special cleaners and diluted denatured alcohol is what I found to be most effective. 

Once you have a clean record, the surface oil must be replenished.If not, you have a diamond riding on soft vinyl and every play will add ticks and pops as the diamond carves the vinyl. Use Grove Glide with the understanding that less is better than more. And no, I have no interest in promoting this product beyond that without it, you will not be treating you vinyl in a manner that results in maximal care and enjoyment.

If you dont like LPs you can send them to me. I'd be delighted to take any and all off your hands.

As for gear, someone already mentioned the bullet proof Rega Planar 2, I'd add the RP3 as well, these are plentiful on the 2nd hand market, and while not everybody's favorite, they are easy to keep tuned up unlike some finicky sprung turntables. They give a great sound, just make sure your support is not prone to vibrate, a reasonable cart like the Denon 110 will sound great and you can upgrade the tonearm wires (RB250/300), replace the the mat, and sub-platter  as you want later. (These are manual so if you need a tonearm lifter get a Thorens Q-Up to stick on).

Thanks for all the input! I think I wont waste my money on a 2-300 TT. I will save up and buy something better. Sounds like I would be better off buying old lps that are in good shape! Thanks Again! More Input would be fine!

@markmendenhall - there are plenty of threads here and on other fora that sing the praises of US cleaning. I've owned both the Audio Desk and the KL. But, since I'm buying a lot of old records, particularly UK and EU post psych stuff, circa 1967-71 or so, I need the ability to clean out groove grunge that, in my experience, ultrasonic alone doesn't always effectively accomplish. I use US cleaning in combination with a vacuum machine, and for problem records, use a fairly strong cleaner- AIVS #15, followed by a pure water rinse. My next ultrasonic will be a DIY, because it offers more flexibility.  Many of the DIY US adherents get in way cheaper than the made for LP machines, but I'm after the feature set and flexibility. I use a point nozzle type vacuum machine, which doesn't have some of the issues that the more conventional wand type vacuum machines do. Rushton Paul wrote what I think is a seminal article posted elsewhere on this site, synthesizing his learning from a very lengthy thread on DIYaudio on US cleaning machines; he also experimented with filtration, a pump, and chemistry (the surfactant that breaks surface tension of the water and enhances cavitation). Well worth reading in my estimation. 

Thank you whart, so if a good scrubbing using a VPI 16.5 for example results in a an improvement in album playback from a zero (very dirty album but one in good condition otherwise) to a 6.5 or 7 on a scale of 1-10, where does the needle move towards a perfect 10 using a good ultrasonic cleaner in addition to the mechanical cleaning?   

Do not scrubb - soak with good fluid, you are pushing dirt deeper into the groove.

Bill, I propose an experiment. I will send you one record that I cleaned on Okki Nokki machine with Audio Intelligent fluids. Listen to the record, then clean it using your usual ultrasonic plus vacuum cleaning routine, and listen to it again. Then send it back to me and I will listen to it. Then we'll compare notes. This should be interesting. Your system has much higher resolution than mine, but what I have is very sensitive to small changes. I have two copies of the record I would send you, exactly the same pressing, so I would be able to directly compare.

@markmendenhall - it is less scrubbing, and more agitation. My method, for problem records, is to pre-clean a dirty record first using a mild fluid like the Hannl, that doesn’t require agitation or soaking to remove as much of the particulate matter from the record as I can by vacuum without agitating and soaking. This reduces the risk of grinding particulates into the record that @Inna mentioned.
Everybody has their preference on methods, but I then use a Lloyd Walker applicator, which has a directional fiber to apply the AIVS # 15. I will use a fairly liberal amount, and agitate while the RCM platter is spinning. Then, i’ll shut off the motor and continue to agitate, adding more fluid. My soak times vary, depending on the condition of the record. 5-15 minutes. Eventually, I’ll add even more AIVS # 15 and vacuum it off. Then do a rinse with high grade lab water and vacuum.
The ultrasonic adds a different kind of cleaning and can help loosen some of the stuff that brushing can’t- the bristles or fibers in conventional record cleaning brushes aren’t really fine enough to get into the grooves. Those Disc Doctor/MoFi types are good to evenly apply the fluid but they don’t work as well on the Monks given the speed of the platter and the lack of a clamp. Sometimes, I’ll pre-wash, using the above methods, rinse, vacuum, pop into the US for a wash only and vac dry. If the record is still a problem I will reclean using the AIVS # 15 and will be a little more aggressive --not scrubbing forcefully, but agitating vigorously.
I’m not sure I can say that the results are consistent- some records clean up from distorted to silent players with no groove grunge. Others require little to get them to play quietly. And some are a lost cause. I don’t deliberately try to buy bad copies on the cheap. But some of these records go for well over $500 in "VG+" condition-plays with crackles. A mint copy is often over $1,000. So trying to find something that is closer to mint in condition and cheaper than VG+ with crackles is the goal. These kinds of records are worth the trouble because the reissues generally sound like crap (assuming there is a reissue and are themselves not plagued with "new record" problems in manufacturing and handling).
I rarely encounter a perfect record, but think about it- short of an unplayed copy that wasn’t damaged back in the day in manufacturing or handling, how many 40 or 50 year old records do you encounter that are "perfect"? My standards are high- I don’t want clicks, pops or distortion.
New records, badly manufactured, can have similar problems that often aren’t fixable- non-fill or stitching, where the melted compound hasn’t flowed evenly in the grooves; scuffs, which are sometimes only cosmetic and some that are noticeable scratches- those don’t get "fixed" by intensive cleaning. I can flatten a warped record with about an 80% success rate using a larger Orb/Furutech (some people get great results with a Vinyl Flat for a fraction of the price, but it is, in my experience, a more time consuming process). I get off center spindle holes on new records as well as older ones.
To me, every record is different, and that’s why i’m reluctant to say you’ll go from a 6 or 7 to a 9 on a 10 point scale. A 7 would be unacceptable to me. A 10 (which is the rare bird and is usually an old record I’ve owned since new or the lucky unplayed copy from 40 years ago- not ’looks unplayed’ but actually never played) is pretty rare when you are buying old scarce collectibles. I’ve encountered very few of those.
I’ve had several situations where I’ve bought multiple pressings of the same record simply because the copy doesn’t meet my standards. (Even the Mint- ones are often misgraded or warped).
It is a flawed medium in many ways, but it really does deliver the goods if you get a well recorded record in great playing condition that you enjoy. So, I’m cautious about overstating the benefits of cleaning, but at the same time will confidently tell you that where I have a problem record, I can often improve playback quality by using multiple cleaning methods and repeated cleanings.

@inna - happy to engage in a little experimentation with you; just send me a PM. I am a little unclear about the protocol you are proposing because no two records are the same, and if we are talking about older records that have seen some mishandling, bad past cleanings, etc. they are likely to be markedly different specimens. Shoot me a PM and we'll work something out. 

I will. Those two copies I have sound exactly the same on my table except one has more scratches, that's the one I would send to you.
Acoustic guitar music, Japanese vinyl from mid-eighties. 

Inna, that’s fine. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about fixing scratches, it’s more the distortion that you hear when it sounds like the record has been played on a bad record player and the groove noise is high- to the point of distortion. Also, what I call tracing distortion, which is similar- you hear a sort of etched sound from what may have been a misaligned tonearm/cartridge (crystal needle anyone?) from a kludgey old fashioned record player. Sometimes, not always, those kinds of distortion are just a result of crap in the grooves that has been cemented in and it isn’t easy to get it out. Thus, the maniacal cleaning regime on seriously scarce copies. If it is a cheap record, I often just replace it if a couple of cleanings don’t do the trick.

This is going to be fun. 

Here's another 2 cents worth: I have occasionally picked up a rare record in amazing condition at a thrift shop for a buck, whats cool is some of the 60's vinyl is really resilient, and old beat up mono lp's CAN sound amazing with a dedicated mono cartridge (think Audio-Technica AT-3or 33 and others) which seems to eliminate most of the surface noise that a stereo cart will pick-up, HOWEVER if you only have one turntable/tonearm you will want to change the headshell out for ease (maybe an old Technics1200?) for this, another reasonable bullet proof turntable, (as long as it hasn't been DJed to death)

I think, first of all, that the availability of affordable high quality equipment is better today than it was 30 years ago.  I also think that the premium quality vinyl today is better than the premium quality vinyl of yesteryear.  What isn't great is the confusion around what sources are being used for vinyl releases now.  30+ years ago we knew that digital was not a part of the recording process (for the most part), but now when I often buy vinyl reissues of a records that I know were recorded digitally 20 years ago.  Many of them sound far better than their digital release counterparts, so I have to believe that vinyl is superior to CD, but I don't know if this is due to modern technology or a variety of other factors.  All I know is that I buy a lot of new release vinyl these days and most of it sounds really good.  When I play an original from the 70's it sounds nowhere near as good as its reissue (in many cases).  A little research before you buy new vinyl goes a long way towards finding separating the wheat from the chaff.    

@snackeyp

When I play an original from the 70’s it sounds nowhere near as good as its reissue (in many cases).

My experience is totally different. Prefer the original 70s pressing if the reissue is not from the master tape, also depends on who does the remastering for the reissue and where it was pressed today. If we will exclude the very famous artists released on big labels (and reissued by big labels) we will find that some of the obscure artrists nowadays reissued by the small companies that are not technically advanced and noboby really cares about the sound quality that much, the source for reissue of obscure bands is ofter an old vinyl digitalized with average cartridge, then compressed digitally and pressed again on the vinyl in 1000 copies. Same with the 7inch reissues on 45rpm vinyl, original pressings always better. Only big labels can taking care of the top quality reissue if they are planning to sell them in many thousand copies. But hey, what about those unknown releases with great music?

The first OPEC oil crisis started in October, 1973, four years *after* RCA introduced Dynaflex records (about 70g IIRC) in 1969. So Dynaflex was *not* a response to rising oil prices. It probably was, in part, for saving money. I've found that Dynaflex records sound like any standard 140g record if you use a record grip or weight with it.

In 1979, OPEC introduced yet another price-gouging, but by then the US had developed new trade relations with oil-producing countries in South America, and the US made it through the '80s with readily available, reasonably-priced oil.

So a well produced LP today was probably better than many 30 years ago... not so much if you go back 40 years.

If you do the math, you'll realize that 30 years ago was the 1980s; 40 years ago was the 1970s, the years of the gasoline shortages, high petroleum prices, and LPs pressed (sometimes) by recycled vinyl, some (allegedly) with previous record labels mixed in.

Some of the bad reputation *may* be attributable to the noisy and vibration/resonance prone turntables of the '70s. I worked in an audio store in the '70s and we used a dbx expander to goose the dynamics. We always thought the records themselves had been compressed. My opinion now, however, is that the turntables robbed the recordings of their dynamics and phono preamps of the time generally didn't bring out the records' dynamic potential. My all-tube PTP handwired phono stage extracts excellent dynamics from LPs from pretty much any decade including the '70s, and the ones from the '80s will kick you around the room.

As for LPs pressed throughout the '80s (that's 27 to 37 years ago), among the many I own, I've found them to be predominantly excellent. These include the Michael Jackson albums on Epic, albums by Men At Work, Van Halen, Pink Floyd's "The Wall" (released Nov. 1979), Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, Steve Winwood's "Back in the High Life" (1986), The Police, The Cars, David Bowie "Let's Dance," The Nylons' "Seamless" and "One Size Fits All," and many others. I have original pressings of every one of the albums mentioned, and many more from the 1980s. Every one of them could be an audio quality demo record. The dynamics and transparency of many of these are amazing.

I picked up just about every one of these albums at thrift shops or used record store bargain bins for 99 cents each.

One other factor in favor of used 1980s pressings may be that by that time more people were playing records on belt drive and direct drive single play record players with light tracking tonearms. In the '60s most were being played on console stereos with heavy tracking record changer tonearms that also munged the inner grooves. So between the two eras, there's probably a better chance of less wear and damage on '80s-era LPs.

My Lp's sound a whole lot better.  30 years ago I was poor and had a low end, mid-fi system.  These days my system is a little more refined LOL

Every used record has a story. We just don't know what it is.

Maybe it's good that we don't know some of those strories or they would've  given us heart attack.

^^ Quite rightly so. ^   :^)

Hard to put a finger on when the mass market players started sounding good, straight off the shelf, could have been around the late 70's with the Quartz locked Japanese players? Some of the old idler drives sound amazing when replinthed into a solid base. (Anyone out there replinthed an old Elac 50H or 770H, you'll know they can sound pretty good, but not so in orig hollow box).
I remember when buying my first low end audiophile tt the advice I was given "want twice the quality, pay 10 x the price!"

Here's a take on modern remasters: https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/47sbx6/opinions_on_bowie_vinyl_remasters/

The trends in competing album formats from the late '60s to the early 90s could explain varying levels of wear and tear on original LPs. From the '50s to the '70s, a needle in a groove was by far the dominant format for personal music, and it shows when you look at original pressings at thrift shops. There were even record players for cars and for kids in this era.

In the '60s LPs had increasing competition from 8-tracks, Album Oriented Rock (AOR) format was introduced in 1967 and continues to the present. Cassettes quickly replaced the 8-tracks in the '70s and became dominant all the way into the '90s. In 1990, cassette sales in the US were still at 442 million units. That may partially explain why my 1980s 99-cent thrift shop LPs sound so good (but it's also obvious that the recording and mastering quality was generally better by then).

So my point is, playing 45s and LPs were the dominant format for playing music in the '50s and '60s. By the late '60s through the '90s, 8-track, cassette, and AOR variously competed for playback, no doubt reducing the wear on pop LPs from those decades.

Having been in the consumer electronics business my entire carrier and an executive for a couple of major A/V tape manufacturers for a good chunk of that time, I had a unique perspective  on the shift from analogue audio and video tape to the digital world as CD and other digital formats started to ramp up and eventually pretty much killing the analogue tape business.  As this happened, a number of the big manufacturers of LP's started to slow down and ultimately shut down their operations.  There were many of these with WAMO (Warner Records) in Scranton Pa. being one of the biggest.  As these operations shut down their pressing plants tried to sell their pressing equipment, but eventually pretty much gave it away to anybody who would show up with a truck and haul it away.  A few smaller companies figured that the vinyl business was going off a cliff, but would not completely go away due to the massive amount of record players 'in the field'.  They kind of had the idea to be 'the last man in the buggy whip business'.  The most notable of these companies was/is a company called Rainbow Records in the Los Angeles area.  They picked up a ton of presses and associated equipment to put on line or cannibalize for spare parts.
  A previous responder noted that the quality of pressings had deteriorated over the years.  The dirty little secret about that was that for many years manufacturers pressed 'thick' discs and utilized virgin vinyl in the pressing process.  For production savings, eventually discs started to be pressed thinner (causing increased warping and a number of other problems).  What really had an effect however was when some pressing plants hit on the idea (driven by the record companies relentless quest for cost savings in a steadily shrinking market) of utilizing substantial amounts of 'regrind' vinyl sourced from unsold discs returned from retailers as well as 'in plant' pressing defects. Needless to say the introduction of foreign contaminants as the discs were cut from their album covers, piled up somewhere and eventually melted down was substantial.  I should also mention that in most cases the LP disc labels were left on the discs to be melted down with everything else.  The feeling was that most of the contaminants would be 'melted out' of the vinyl and since they would be adding a good percentage of virgin vinyl to the mix, nobody would notice.  Well, I think everybody (at least the audiophiles) did.
  Rainbow being one of the few people left in the game (I'm sure there are others, but I knew these guys) did some very good things due to a lack of price competition and requests from their somewhat 'picky' customers.  They went back to pressing thick discs and utilize the best quality virgin vinyl available, no regrind.  I also understand their cooling process is a little longer to allow the disc to harden up better in the mold.  ANYWAY, discs being manufactured today in the U.S.A. are probably some of the best quality discs that have been manufactured in the last 25 years or so.  Be thankful that the few remaining manufacturers in the vinyl disc business are (at least from my viewpoint) stressing quality of their product.

I'm not so sure Rainbow has much to crow about, cast your mind back to the recent Beatles Stereo Lp re-issue program. The complaints about the problems from the Rainbow pressings vs the European ones pressed at Optimal tarred Rainbow as a 2nd rate pressing facility. (I'm not sure if they have upgraded their QC recently, but quality was not often used in the same sentence).

I wish there was a like button for some of these posts!  Also +1 for the cleaning and for the ultra sonic with vacuum cleaning.