Why vinyl?


I understand the thoughts of a lot of you that digital is harsh and bright and has an edge. I know that analog has a warmer fuller sound, otherwise why would so many people put up with the inconvenience of records, cartridges, cleaners, tone-arm adjustments, etc. I used to be there. Of course all I had was a Garrard direct drive turntable. If the idea is to get as close as possible to the original source, why has not open-reel tape made a huge comeback. After all that's how most of the stuff was recorded in the first place. Very few were direct to disk recordings. Why would dragging a stylus through a groove be better than the original? There used to be a company out there called In-Synch that used the original masters and sold cassettes of them, dubbed at 1:1 ratio. I was the happiest person in the world when CD's came out and I could throw out my disk-washer and everything else that went with it, including the surface noise and the TICKS and POPS. Just something I've wondered about.
elmuncy

Showing 1 response by gbeard

I have just begun a rexamination of my life (which of course means a return to vinyl!) and I am finding that while I still love my CD's, I now am able to over look the surface noise on LP's and just enjoy the music.

Most of the time (recording dependent), they sound fantastic even through the ticks and pops. However,I am not in love with all the work involved, or the (at times)bad distortion from LP's that were mistracked many moons ago.

I'm never going to quit CD and I will likely purchase most new music on that format for the forseeable future. That said, I can go down to my local vinyl store and buy lots of great old music for $2 to $5 bucks a piece! My spousal unit hates seeing them again, but that is a whole different problem... :?)

gb