Record wear

I think anyone considering swimming in the analog waters needs to ponder their reasons for doing so, vinyl isn't for everyone. Unlike some, I have never felt analog was vastly superior to well done digital. Vinyl is clearly superior in some ways, but inferior in others. Vinyl is a pain in the rump to store, clean, and acquire IMO. The quality of new releases is quite variable. I've been so aggravated by warped, noisy and dirty new releases. To me, the best reason to put up with analog is access to new music that is never going to be digitally released or access to releases you'd never pay the price of a cd for. I've been poking through the .99 cent racks at a record store and taken many a chance on a release I'd never pay $10-16 for and have been turned on to a lot of good new music as a result. I take good care of my vinyl and wear isn't an audible factor in my experience. As to component recommendations, what's your budge forecast? BTW, you've got a very nice system and a beautiful room.

Pbb, you are quite right about the type of music, wear, noise, etc. I should have been more specific about that factor. I've got several hundred classical lps and many more rock and jazz. There is an increase in noise after repeated plays in many, but not every case. I've got some 80's German ECM releases that have many quiet passages and for some reason, they seem resistant to increasing noise. That's not the case with most of my classical recording though, there usually is a small incremental increase in the noise floor. It's honestly hard for me to say how much that noise floor increases as time passes though. With thousands of recording to listen to, I don't think even favorites get played that many times in a given year. I tend to prefer listening to vinyl rock and jazz recordings, as the inherently poorer signal to noise ratio of vinyl is masked by higher music db levels.

I though about this wear factor a little bit driving in to work. Record wear can be of both a subtractive and additive manner perhaps. As in wearing away vinyl when a cartridge is misaligned or otherwise doing damage. Noise is noticed when records are scratched or miscroscopic debris is welded to the vinyl during play, so that's additive. When I say that I don't hear audible wear, I mean that frequency response, soundstaging, etc. sounds the same, nothings been audibly lost. However, the noise floor can increase if things aren't cleaned to perfection.