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 CD’s 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.



This entry was posted by Atane on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

Viewing 10 Comments

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    I am an old timer (pre-baby boomer) so I too grew up with vinyl but still find all this attachment to vinyl illogical. I recently read an article in one of the science magazines "debunking the vinyl myth" and of course it struck a cord with my own feelings. The author pointed out that at 44,000 samples per second (for CD) the resulting recording more than covers the range of human hearing. And presuming you are using a lossless format and a play-back DAC of more than just 1 or 2 bits the signal's accuracy is very high, certainly higher than can be achieved mechanical by dragging a needle thru a vinyl groove whose side contours are different. And isn't the very definition of "hi-fi" (high fidelity) the faithful (i.e. accurate) reproduction of the original music?

    The author went on to explain the "richer and warmer" aspect as a defect of the vinyl recording rather than a virtual. He said what people are hearing is "feedback" - because the needle is in intimate contact with the record the needle's vibrations are fed back into the record, where the large mass of vinyl acts as a sound board. Those altered vibrations re-enter the needle and are passed thru the playback system to affect the final auditory signal as "richer and warmer".

    If the above explanation is correct, the "richer and warmer" component is really an "artifact" of the vinyl system and not part of the original music, again compromising the "hi-fi" aspect of vinyl recordings.

    Ultimately I believe those who espouse vinyl do so for strictly psychological reasons (nostalgia, exclusivity, etc); I cannot believe they would try to maintain the scientific position that a purely mechanical, analog system could be "better" than a high quality digital one at achieving what a audiophile should desire - the ACCURATE, faithful capture and reproduction of the original audio signal (unless you happen to have been a TDC operator on a WW II American sub, when was the last time you saw an ANALOG computer).
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    After being an album lover and collector since '74.

    I couldn't say it any better. Well done.
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    Jeff, thanks for the response.

    This is an age old argument, and it's one that people trying to find answers to scientifically will fail. In my blogpost I specifically mentioned that nothing about vinyl can be explained scientifically. Science deals with objectivity. Almost everything in hifi is subjective. I don't know one credible outlet that espouses or maintains that vinyl sounds better than digital scientifically.

    This is no different than people who like solid state amps who don't "get" tube amps, and try to prove that there are no differences with science. I reckon, that's like someone who likes vanilla ice cream trying to prove scientifically why someone else would like strawberry ice cream. When you start tackling subjective issues with science, you simply miss the point entirely.
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    Cd's are ok...but nothing is like vinyl with the pics on back of the singer and also something about him/her. A comeback? That would be nice.
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    It's personal preferences.. i buy vinyl because I want to and I collect them.
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    There's nothing like Vinyl. It's the real thing! I was in record promotion in the 1960's in Philly, then got into major market Rock and Roll DJing: New Haven, CT (WAVZ - JACK MITCHELL); WSCR/WARM (Scranton, PA). Worked with Joe Lenti/Lane - McCoy (WCBS-FM), Jerry Blavit (Philly'own Legend).

    I worked with all the early Philly groups in record production, theatrical booking, producing (RecoArt/Sound Plus Studios'. It was great. I'm a Catholic priest now 30 years! Maybe someday GOD

    Father Jim
    Jacl Mitchell
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    That is maybe someday W G O D
    WGOD
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    As a long time electronic music lover, I still purchase vinyl. It's expensive. You can't find a single song for a buck.

    They have now made software packages that let you play your mp3s on vinyl through your turntables. The record holds blank grooves which allows you to adjust the pitch through your turntable.

    I just like the feeling of touching the vinyl and turntable versus the computer or fake CD DJ equipment.
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    It's a lovely feeling isn't it vinyllover? Nothing beats opening an LP jacket and pulling out a record.

    The very mention of the word mp3 makes me shiver. We as music lovers should demand more than lossy, compressed, low quality audio. It's an insult to music. With FLAC, WAV, Apple Lossless etc, why on earth would anyone choose mp3 over lossless audio other than lack of knowledge?
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    In response to Jeff's comment - I too don't understand this vinyl "comeback". As an early professional musician I always knew what music should sound like from a recording. In vinyl's heyday, it was the only high-end available (when compared to the older 78's and 45's), but was so far from what music actually sounded like that I continually preyed for someone to invent a superior method of delivering true sound. Then came CD's, which had some of the characteristics that I was looking for, but in their early years most were pathetic. As the technology matured, some engineers actually "got it" and produced really good albums. (It always comes down to the engineer to make or break.) I suspect that the really good engineers knew that they were close to achieving aural accuracy but it wasn't until SACD and DVD-Audio allowed them to bypass the compression of music that they could produce (some) truly inspiring albums.

    I still have every vinyl LP that I purchased over the years. I just recently spent (way too much) time entering them into a database. Along the way I would take a selected disc and play it on my home theater system (7.1 channel). The ability of the newer AVR's to simulate surround sound (enhanced stereo) greatly increase the sound stage (which, subjectively, I like), but the disctactions of vinyl, which in my opinion have very little to do with turntable setup, reminded me of why I abandoned the format so long ago. Snap, crackle, pop. Not all the time, nor on all records consistently, but enough to bring back the efforts to negate that noise. Discwasher, D-4 liquid, anti-static mats, anti-static guns, etc., etc.

    I must confess that I was recently curious enough to purchase the new Led Zeppelin set "Mothership" on 180 gram vinyl. I wrote a review on the vendor's website that kind of indicated that I won't be fooled into purchasing vinyl again. Now if they would only release that on SACD....

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