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I have a couple vinyl records, nothing to brag about, but Ive had this lingering thought of starting to collect vinyl but with more modern tastes. Ive been a fan of the group FLUKE for some years and just recently discovered I can get some of their records on vinyl, and so the fire got spark. Now Im thinking of getting into this for realz, and buying vinyl records. Anyone else into this? Where do you shop online to get them? And general vinyl chat I guess

In my possession are well over 100 records....

I just ordered this from my local record store:
http://www.discogs.com/Devils-Blood-Come-Reap/release/1672738

i enjoy vinyl, it sounds 'fuller' than mp3 in a lot of ways, not that mp3 is inferior, but I think a properly ripped sound file is TOO clean, whereas with the vinyl you get a bit of that 'low fidelity' background fuzz sneaking in.

I love Vinyl. There is something to it that my iPod/computer or CD player (RIP 90s) can not replace. Guess it is what Chaos mentioned.

Eventually I would love to have a 50s juke box filled with a few albums that I love, but they are pricey so I will have to wait.

I only have 5 vinyl records as it is not the most practical. I have over 700 gigs of music (wide range of music including live concerts and some covers). I would have no where to put this music if they were all on records. My room in the 90s was basically mountain after mountain of CD jewel cases. No more thanks to mp3 players/iPod. Not to mention a lot of my music is on the go.


Remember when mp3 players/iPods were starting to get popular. Thought they were going to be a fad then go away.

I used to collect vinyl when I was young and just discovering cool music. Back then CD players were still really expensive, (and didn't even exist at first) so vinyl and tapes made up the majority of most peoples collections.

When I got into my party years this lead to collecting (mainly) dnb vinyls for mixing and I still own hundreds of them today. They don't get played all that much tbh , as my decks are covered in minis at the mo (like most of my studio at present!), but I still use the left deck for recording scratches and samples etc when I need to.

Incidentally, vinyl does sound subjectively 'better' too, but It's measurably more noisy than digital of course. Quality is not necessarily the same as cleanliness. To explain in simple terms, as the frequency range is much more limited it means that what freqs are there have more breathing room once shoved through the rest of your system. Vinyls also are mastered with different eq curves to compensate for the freq limits, and the hardware you play them on will effect the tone significantly too. You'll often hear resonant peaks in the lower-midrange with vinyl, and this is where most of the colour tends to come from.

Also, when in the digital realm we have a finite amount of space to work with, which when exceeded creates all sorts of horrible artifacts (digital photography is the same). In the analogue world however there are no hard limits, and the subtle warmth of analogue equipment can be a genuinely musical phenomenon.

The sound is transformed mechanically, meaning acoustics come into play, from the thickness and material the disc is made from, the cutting characteristics, the needle, the arm, the converters, the deck's materials, weight, the cavity inside the deck, the shelf you play it on etc... It all adds to that subjectively better (different) tone that you just cannot get from digital. Audiophiles go to great lengths and expense in their hunt for quality, and vinyls are oft described as being better sounding. They have character!

Sure you can emulate it digitally to some degree if you really want, but it still wouldn't quite be the same. Besides, the best bit about them....? The smell!

And the covers!

I have a box full of vinyl tucked away from when I was young.

I haven't even owned a record player for decades but I still remember the magic moment you put the needle down in the groove and hear that "plump" sound.

Oh yeah, the covers! I love seeing the artwork that big. In general nobody makes CD covers that come close to the old vinyl ones. I have a major soft-spot for all my Iron Maiden ones, and lets not forget the funky ltd ed picture discs, often cut into bonkers shapes too!

I've still got this one lurking in my stash.

Kilkrazy wrote: I still remember the magic moment you put the needle down in the groove and hear that "plump" sound.

Or the horror of the "scriiizptch"... :(

Thank god my needles are nothing like what old domestic carts used to be like when I was younger!

I have a console stereo, 20" woofers, early solid-state.

You can get some intersting vinyl in second hand shops, like my radio prerelease of a Twisted Sister album, and near pristine "Pleasure Victim".

I have a vinyl player from when I was young, but then again I'm only 18 and still use it about as often as my CD player, which is at least once a day.
I tend not to buy Albums online if theres a chance I could buy them from a brick and mortar shop, but I will buy singles, as generally I can't find them anywhere if they arent a really big release.
Last tuesday I managed to get hold of "An Awesome Wave" by Alt-J, which I was pleasantly surprised to discover was a white disc.

Still into my vinyl's
Granted, alot of them are rave/hardcore/trance, but the music just sounds a thousand times better.
Plus, i rather mix vinyl's than use a bloody laptop or ipod to do it for me.

I have a pretty cool record player. I can record to 8-track which will be awesome when I find an 8-track player for my truck. It also has FM/AM radio. I have been collecting records for two decades now. I buy them at underground rock shows or local record stores. If you live in a town or a city there should be at least one, most likely more if you look around. Support your local record store!

If anyone is interested in vinyl gear, lookup a company called slammin vinyl.
I generally get alot of stuff from them as its cheap and quick delivery
Also saves me hunting about for it.

Despite being only 17 I love vinyls and my dad has quite a nice collection and vinyl player which still works

When I was little I had a wind-up record player that used actual metal needles and played out through a large horn, completely mechanically. I mean no electronic parts at all. It was a stand-alone cabinet, like a chest of drawers.

I'm amazed that my parents let us have this as a children's toy. It would probably be worth a fortune as antique/vintage if we still had it. It was a lovely piece of furniture. I think it only played 78s and they weren't vinyl, they were shellac.

My father actually still has heaps of trad jazz on shellac 78s.

My daughter has nothing at all, just a favourite list on Grooveshark. She'll never have the experience of flipping through her collection to pull out a favourite disc.

I remember 45s especially. Supposedly they sound betyter than digital music but I'd have to hear a comparison.

When 8 track kicks your butt however, you're not that hot.

While it all has an effect, good speakers are one of the most important parts of the chain. I'd much rather listen to digital music with awesome speakers than vinyl on speakers that are just okay.

There are also digital audio formats and compression algorithms that are a lot better in terms of sound quality than mp3s, and even with mp3s there can be a big difference between low bit rates and a high bit rate, and all of this becomes more and more noticeable the better your speakers are.

I'm not anti-vinyl or anything though. I like vinyl a lot and have a few of them myself, just saying that digital audio isn't all bad, and there are ways to get digital audio that sounds better than mp3s.

It's a bit of a trip for a Flintstone, but here is a good place http://yellowpages.aol.com/business/mi/ferndale/record-collector-the/1-206802499/?query=used+records&fromSearch=query%3Dused%2Brecords%26area%3DWaterford%252C%2BMI&adid=171875039&area=Waterford%2C+MI

Also try Melodies and Memories in Eastpointe... http://www.yelp.com/biz/melodies-and-memories-eastpointe

There are people who swear by analogue amplifiers that use valves.

Kilkrazy wrote:There are people who swear by analogue amplifiers that use valves.

Yeah, even some pros still use them, and a lot of well-equipped studios have at least some tube gear. It lends the sound a very nice color that's difficult to duplicate, although solid state gear is getting closer and closer.


Some high end studios with access to the equipment will record in analog, then edit in digital, and then master in either analog or digital, depending on the equipment available and the engineer's preference.

Definitely worth getting into collecting vinyl. It's not just the claimed improvements to sound but the whole feel of the thing. When I put on an LP it's a much more involved process getting it out of the sleeve and setting it up on the turntable. Call me crazy but for me at least it makes listening to an LP feel like more of an event than simply putting a CD on (or worse an mp3).

My own collection currently numbers around 150 LPs and a handful of singles and EPs. I've got albums dating from the late 60s to some released just a couple of months ago. A few highlights are my first pressing of Van Der Graaf Generator's debut album (or second album in the US for strange contractual reasons) The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other, a first pressing of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's F#A#∞ and a load of modern limited edition coloured LPs most of which are part of a run of either 500, 1000 or 1500 copies. Some of the albums I bought brand new for little over £20 are now worth around £100 so I have had to insure the collection seperately.

As for the valves vs solid state thing, having studied the matter for university (I built a hybrid audio amp for my disertation) it boils down to one simple thing valves are contantly distorted, this slightly distorted sound is actually more pleasing to the human ear than a perfect sound (why that is I don't know). So yes valves do sound better than solid state. However there are I believe solid state systems out there now which replicate this behaviour nearly perfectly.

Yea thats part of the reason Im thinking about it. I honestly do not own any CD's anymore and havnt for years. Everything I have is MP3 based, so sure its nice because of the space it saves in my house, but....its kindda impersonal as well. Its almost like I dont even OWN my stuff.

Yeah space is an issue with vinyl, I've got a cabinet dedicated to storing my music collection and I will probably need another one in a couple of years.

The only Vinyl I will ever need!
http://www.andvinyly.com/

KingCracker wrote:Yea thats part of the reason Im thinking about it. I honestly do not own any CD's anymore and havnt for years. Everything I have is MP3 based, so sure its nice because of the space it saves in my house, but....its kindda impersonal as well. Its almost like I dont even OWN my stuff.

I use the rectangle milk crates to store records in. I turn the crates on their sides and stack them so they look like bookshelves but with a street vibe. Then I put my record player on top and the speakers on each side on the ground. The chicks love it.

I've heard that listening to a good hi-fi sound system can be mindblowing to folks accustomed to digital; or at least accustomed to listening to digital on our crappy laptop speakers and ipod headphones 99% of the time.

I dunno if it would blow my mind personally, Ive ALWAYS had to listen, whether it be movies/tvs or music, with a really good sound system. Ever since I was old enough to start buying things on my own. But still yea Id make sure its got a good sound system

Room acoustics are by far the single most important factor in getting the most out of your set up, just ahead of speaker quality imo.

My monitor set-up originally cost around £2500, and before I treated my studio they were only marginally better sounding than domestic hi-fi. In a treated room however they will quite literally blow you away.

Your system is always only as good as the weakest component in the chain, and no amount of snazzy valve preamps, wooden turntables, 24baziilion bit dacs, or £1000 per m speaker cable etc is worth paying for if people are just gonna chuck it in their living room.

Decent cans are a godsend if your room sucks! I'd bag me a pair of Grado's if I could afford them at the mo, even though they do 'funny' things to the soundstaging and tend to over-present things, they're are a very musical and enjoyable product for listening back on.

Nick Ellingworth wrote:Definitely worth getting into collecting vinyl. It's not just the claimed improvements to sound but the whole feel of the thing. When I put on an LP it's a much more involved process getting it out of the sleeve and setting it up on the turntable. Call me crazy but for me at least it makes listening to an LP feel like more of an event than simply putting a CD on (or worse an mp3).

... ...

Yes, it's the same reason we play tabletop wargames.

The physical effort creates an emotional involvement that makes the whole thing more satifying.

It's the same effect when you go through the ritual of opening the cork on a bottle of wine, rather than just twisting off a screw cap.

Thats the very reason, that no matter how upset and frustrated GW makes me, I will never unload my Orks, too much time and dedication getting them to where they are and will be in the future.


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I think I want that when it comes to listening to good music. Its not very enjoyable just clicking on a random file on my PC and the tunes start pouring out. Its convenient yes, but not enjoyable.