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For The Love Of Vinyl

Vinyl Never Died

Lately, it seems that vinyl has seen some sort of revival. Many media outlets are proclaiming that vinyl is back. That is true to some degree. Vinyl is having a semi revival amongst some circles, but to the audiophile community, vinyl never left. It has been the default choice of the high end for many years and will continue to be. Browse through Audiogon, the definitive high end online audio community and you will see that it is alive and kicking. Within that crowd, dropping $80,000 on a turntable is not unheard of. I heard The Clearaudio Statement turntable at a hifi event not long ago, and apart from weighing almost 800lbs, it’s also $150,000.

Of course, turntables that expensive are unrealistic for most people, and you certainly don’t have to spend anywhere near that amount to enjoy vinyl. Denon and Music Hall make excellent turntables that will bring years of satisfaction for anyone but the most discriminating audiophile.

So what is appealing about playing back music on large spinning vinyl records? For the older audiophile, perhaps it’s nostalgia. They remember playing their father’s lp collection, and maybe they inherited it. For someone like me, this is not the case. I grew up in the digital age. By the time I got to the age where I could truly appreciate music, CD was the de facto format. It is what I purchased for many years before I jumped into SACD and DVD-A, both of which are digital formats.


I got my first taste of vinyl about 8 years ago when I was visiting the legendary hifi shop Stereo Exchange in Soho, Manhattan. I still remember it vividly. The LP spinning was Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd. An album I knew intimately, yet it sounded more lush and robust than my CD version. The soundstage was incredible. I’ve been hooked since then.

The lure of vinyl for many audiophiles is that it just sounds natural, richer and warmer. Many audiophiles prefer an analog front end for their systems, and even those who do have digital sources often eschew digital connections like toslink and coaxial in favor of the analog outputs on the player so they can use the internal DACS (Digital To Analog Converter) of the player. Expensive digital players use superior DACS like Burr Brown for instance, so buying an expensive player and using a digital connection defeats the purpose of an expensive player in the first place. For many, digital sources sound too clinical and precise. That’s not to say that they are bad, they aren’t. I have many FLAC files that I stream over my network, in conjunction to the numerous SACD, DVD-A and redbook CDs I still listen to and enjoy. However, when I want to truly listen, my turntable is always the first choice. It’s not something that can be explained scientifically, you just have to experience it.

Vinyl has come a long way from the scratchy, crackly records you remember grandpa playing. These days, many lps are pressed on 180 and 200 grams of vinyl. It’s actually a misconception that vinyl sounds scratchy and crackle and pops. A properly fitted cartridge and tone-arm will play beautiful music without hisses, scratches and pops. Hisses, scratches and pops are caused by improper cartridge and tone-arm alignment, warped vinyl, or just poor source material. It has nothing to do with the vinyl medium itself. Many older records were just bad quality records and the source material was questionable.

J&R also carries a healthy selection of vinyl titles. It’s kind of funny when you think about it, J&R started out selling vinyl in 1971, and 37 years later it’s still in demand. Now that’s staying power.

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Published by Atane on July 8th, 2008 and listed in Home Entertainment.

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    As a baby boomer with a collection of about 30 thousand LPs (and many more thousand 78s, 45, open reel tapes, etc.) I was glad to see these thoughtful comments to this article. Vinyl was always a compromise. The original producers of the recordings usually felt that the LPs could only come close to the master tape but never actually equaled it. John Pfeiffer, who produced the original Victor Living Stereo classical recordings of the 50s and 60s, and Wilma Cozart Fine who produced the Mercury Living Presence records of the stereo era BOTH specifically said that the CD issues of these classics that they produced are closer to the master tapes than any of the LPs. I try to tell this to the Vinylfools (they call themselves "vinylphiles") and they say they don't care what the master tapes sound like, the TRUE sound of the recording is on original pressings of the LPs. Actually, it is the sound that they are used to after many years of hearing those LPs. Ironically the reviewers of the time -- when these records were new -- often commented that the mono copies had truer sound. The early stereo cutter heads were still evolving. They were not as good on sharp transients. And a few years later in the mid to late 60s as solid-state equipment started to come out there were the same type of complaints about the "transister sound" as we heard about the "digital sound" in the 80s. These people don't like transients. When reading the sonic descriptions by modern day vinylfools, you notice a lot of emphasis on "sound-stage". They talk about the placement of the instruments. They are listening to the space BETWEEN the instruments more than the overall sound quality. I have found that many of these people are more sensitive to the phasing of sound than most other people. For example, many of these people can clearly hear improper absolute-phasing that most people don't notice even when being played direct comparisons. Stereo effect is phase related in properly recorded records, more than just the variations of level of an instrument being louder in one channel and is thus located there. While level is all you have in over-dubbed type recordings, when the entire ensemble is recorded simultaneously the phase interactions and relationships are captured. This is why the vinylfools like the single-pair miking of Victor, Mercury, and English Decca (London) and hate the multi-miking of Columbia and others. Multi-miking screws up the phase relationships. Well, so does digital. The timing of the stereo channels can be improperly recorded and reproduced when the A to D and D to A converters take the two channels and put them into a single interlaced digital bit stream. Digital jitter might not affect the sound quality and the frequency response, but it does affect the phase relationship of the two channels. So there are legit reasons why some people prefer analogue, vinyl, and tubes while others don't. Tubes sorta smooth out the transients, ditto to vinyl, and both vinyl and analogue can be more accurate in retaining the phase relationships of the two channels. The accuracy in phase relationships is much more subtle than what you hear when the speakers are out-of-phase with each other. That's 180 degrees. This might be two or five or ten degrees, and might vary if there is jitter. And the other thing I mentioned, absolute phasing, this is when both speakers are in relative phase with each other but both are out of phase with the original sound. The speakers go inwards with the attack of each sound instead of going out. I don't hear the difference, but very few people do. It is called the "Wooden Effect." This is not a fault of either analogue or digital because it happens to both, but if people are sensitive to this, then they are also more likely to be sensitive to the phase relationships that create an aural soundstage.
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    This was an excellent article, especially for those of us that still play our old
    33 1/3 records.

    Now lets come up with a 8mm tape player that will play all those old
    video treasures we have collected
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    Thanks for your reply.

    You're right I don't get it. I think my ears have been damaged from concerts and such because I had a friend who said his vinyl sounded better, played for Billy Joel album and I didn't hear the "warmth" but I don't know what kind of equipment he had either.

    If the artist recorded in analog, mastered in analog and then released in analog, it would sound better. The sound would be completely natural. My point is that many of these vinyl records are digital masters or re-masters transposed to vinyl so you're getting an analog version of digitally sampled sound that sounds better. What? And then it's being sold for a higher price. I dunno, maybe vinyl does cost more to manufacture since they make 1 million CDs to maybe 1,000 records (which is an instant collector's item for true fans). Based on my experience vinyl doesn't sound any better than a CD. Based on your experience it does.

    I agree vinyl never went away, you can ask any DJ. I never thought there was an adequate replacement for the turntable. And digital turntables model themselves on analog ones. Until someone really thinks outside the box: http://www.djmag.com/index.php...
    I hope thats the future.
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    Thanks for the response Rocko.

    Most modern songs are recorded on digital equipment, but the number of artists who use analog equipment is growing. Perfect example is Shelby Lynne. I'm a big fan of hers and she just "gets it". Her latest album is a compilation of Dusty Springfield songs titled "Just A little lovin'", a great sounding record that was done on analog equipment.

    Here's her take on vinyl.

    http://tinyurl.com/4qlcoq

    Also, you mentioned how new recordings are mastered digitally. For mainstream record companies sure, but many smaller outfits are still pumping out gobs of stuff mastered on analog equipment and their archives are infinite of some of the arguably best artists of all time. Some of the best records I have ever heard were from analog masters remastered by Steve Hoffman. Look him up. He does a lot of remastering and it is brilliant.

    The beauty of good music is that it is timeless. Good music bucks trends. It does not fade. It never goes out of style. Many of the artists that are still listened to today are from an era where all their recordings were analog masters. Think of all the Jazz and blues greats. Decades after their deaths they are still relevant. I still listen and many others do.

    Many artists will gladly tell you to buy their vinyl editions over their CD's. The White Stripes are a perfect example. Jack White is passionate about vinyl, and he will tell you that at any given opportunity.

    Vinyl is also not mass produced like CD's. I love vinyl and it is my preferred format, but I have no delusions of grandeur that it will replace CD's or an ipod for most people, it won't. Some vinyl pressings are less than 500 copies. That is definitely niche market stuff not mass production.

    Some outfits might be re-marketing vinyl, but I need to reiterate this point. Vinyl never left. It has always been around and has always had a niche market within some audiophile crowds. The general populace is just coming up to speed about the wonders of vinyl. That's a good thing. Everyone should know that there is more to music than mp3's.

    If you feel an audiophile is someone that listens to equipment instead of music, then you clearly don't "get it". Maybe you don't want to. Hopefully you will one day.
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    Aren't most of these modern songs recorded or mastered on digital equipment? Isn't Pro-Tools the defacto standard? Are reel to reels still being used? Isn't vinyl mass produced just like CDs? Don't CDs and vinyl come from the same source?

    The record companies can't get away with selling CDs for ridiculous prices, near any digital audio format is available for $1 per song or $10 per album, so now they're re-branding, re-marketing vinyl. It's pefect, you don't need to prove it sounds better, it "feels" like it sounds better.

    audiophile: a person who listens to the equipment instead of the music.
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    I like the ritual of it all. It gives an importance to the music itself. It's slowing down to appreciate the sounds. In a way, listening to music in the digital era, is like running through a museum. There's no time to distinguish the individual songs, the instruments, the notes before the entire experience is over.
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    My 2 reasons to still prefer vinyl:

    1- LP's were made mostly from much newer master tapes. Most CD's available today from the LP's era are remastered versions made from much older master tapes. Some of this master tapes are in pretty bad shape and the mastering process is very challenging. The results are mostly an overprocessed recording.

    2- There are hundreds or maybe thousands of recordings made in the LP era that still hasn't been released in CD. Reasons?... Lost or damaged master tapes... No interest of actual owners... The only choice: the LP version. As a matter of fact, a lot of digital versions are remastered from LP's and most people doesn't even notice it.
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    Amen, Mr. Fremer. The only way my Fisher 800 tube amplifier and Rega Turntable will ever be taken from me will be from my cold dead hands. And I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from J&R advertising vinyl, considering vinyl "died" more than 20 years ago.
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    Wow, this is incredible. Michael Fremer himself responded to my post!

    I'm truly honored to have you respond Michael. This is like Tom Brady showing up at a high school football game.

    I've been reading the Analog Corner in Stereophile for years now. In fact my October issue just came in the mail, and your piece on Dr. Feikhert's Analogue Adjust+ cartridge-setup program was a great read.

    With respect to the people who for one reason or another don't get vinyl, I'll rattle out some applicable quotes I heard. I don't exactly remember who said it, but it's the message that matters because many in the anti-vinyl camp keep touting higher bits and how this or that measures in relation to this and that, as if that has anything to do with musicality.

    Anyway, the quotes go like this....

    "If something measures well, but sounds bad - IT IS BAD!"

    "If something measures poorly, but sounds good, then you're measuring the wrong thing."

    I don't know who said that originally, but truer words have never been spoken.

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