[Music] Vinyl records

Kosh · May 23, 2019

Uncle C said:
I think your prejudices are very much in evidence. "I cant afford an expensive system, ergo they are not worth the money."

Just relax and get off your high horse.

I’m perfectly relaxed, I have an awesome vintage system that would blow most sub 10k modern set ups out of the water... yet cost me a fraction of the price. Indeed if I had your money, i’d spend it on my children and not selfish ‘dads in the shed again’ kind of all consuming obsession...

I love music, which I can enjoy in my car via my laptop and/or my hi-fi... like I said earlier, good music sounds good on anything... So climb down off your hi-fi horse and stop being so snobby re good cheaper components... you’re insulting quite a few people by being so haughty.

Uncle C · May 23, 2019

Kosh said:
I have an awesome vintage system that would blow most sub 10k modern set ups out of the water.

I suppose the theory is that if you repeat the mantra often enough you might even convince yourself.

Herr Tubthumper · May 23, 2019

Good bin fest this. Keep it up.

Weststander · May 23, 2019

Herr Tubthumper said:
Good bin fest this. Keep it up.

I had thought that music made people happy.

Icy Gull · May 23, 2019

Weststander said:
I had thought that music made people happy.

Only if mine sounds better than yours though :lolol:

Have to say that fiddling with the level of bass and treble is a bit of a sad pastime of mine when checking a stereo. Seems to make so much difference....to my ears anyway

Kosh · May 23, 2019

Icy Gull said:
Only if mine sounds better than yours though

Have to say that fiddling with the level of bass and treble is a bit of a sad pastime of mine when checking a stereo. Seems to make so much difference....to my ears anyway

Oh my GOD! You have bass and treble settings?!? Christ Icy your system must be made by Fisher Price surely?!?

Shhhhhh Uncle C will have a meltdown if we start talking 1980s graphic equalisers... lets do just that...

Kosh · May 23, 2019

Weststander said:
I had thought that music made people happy.

On my system, which must be shit as uncle C says it is, my music makes me very happy. What makes me sad, is a sad muso telling me I can only appreciate music properly if I spend £££££££ on my system... it’s insulting to everyone who lives (successfully) on a budget based on reality.

Kosh · May 23, 2019

Uncle C said:
I suppose the theory is that if you repeat the mantra often enough you might even convince yourself.

I sincerely hope your expensive audio components give you a hug akin to a loving child when you fire up those valves and marvel at the depth of not only your soundstage but also your pockets.

The stuff if Hi-Fi World editorials are made of.

I seek clarity in reality, and mine is a wonderful loving place. Now i’m off to listen to a nice slab of wax via my 1970s Hitachi silverface amp, that has a story and a warmth behind it’s dials that no high end system can rival... so... suck it.

Weststander · May 23, 2019

Kosh said:
On my system, which must be shit as uncle C says it is, my music makes me very happy. What makes me sad, is a sad muso telling me I can only appreciate music properly if I spend £££££££ on my system... it’s insulting to everyone who lives (successfully) on a budget based on reality.

You’re not allowed to enjoy it unless you’ve spent £1,000’s on hardware.

I’m a proper Philistine ... when I’m working at home, I let YouTube feed me music via a desktop and two cheap PCWorld speakers.

Kosh · May 23, 2019

Weststander said:
You’re not allowed to enjoy it unless you’ve spent £1,000’s on hardware.

I’m a proper Philistine ... when I’m working at home, I let YouTube feed me music via a desktop and two cheap PCWorld speakers.

Completely agree... it’s all relative to what you want, do you want to lie back and enjoy your music? Or do you want to spend all night adjusting your tonearm, whilst moving your speakers a mm further from the wall depending on the song, and not really enjoying it?

Just put it on and enjoy the art.

I often use my laptop for YT sessions, via my cheap headphones... some of the best musical nights in i’ve had

Audiophile people, in my experience, are train spotters albeit rich and conceited ones. My friend on this thread, nicely fits the narrative.

Right, i’m off to listen to some classic rock.

Rock on brother.

zefarelly · May 23, 2019

It's like jumping from banger racing to f1. . . It's all racing just different tastes and budgets, there's good in both, and bad.

At the end of the day, the system is irrelevant, you might be listening to crap music ;-)

Certainly don't need expensive HI-FI to enjoy jilted john, but something mid 70's analogue, exodus, rumours, or similar , music that was made for vinyl, can really come to life with a half decent hi-if and a good original vinyl pressing

Off on a tangent, good equipment makes for much better live music. . . . I use a 1963 selmer amp for my basses, or a hand made orange valve head

Kosh · May 23, 2019

zefarelly said:
It's like jumping from banger racing to f1. . . It's all racing just different tastes and budgets, there's good in both, and bad.

At the end of the day, the system is irrelevant, you might be listening to crap music ;-)

Certainly don't need expensive HI-FI to enjoy jilted john, but something mid 70's analogue, exodus, rumours, or similar , music that was made for vinyl, can really come to life with a half decent hi-if and a good original vinyl pressing

Off on a tangent, good equipment makes for much better live music. . . . I use a 1963 selmer amp for my basses, or a hand made orange valve head

Cool stuff, and I agree to a greater extent re your balanced and knowledgable views on Hi-Fi... moving on...

I have an ultra rare Hawk (non Gibson, pre lawsuit) British made guitar amp (valves) which is as clean as they come and my US strat sounds magnificent through it. That said, I recently acquired a Gibson copy (again pre lawsuit) for £60 - unmarked but made in Japan. I could not believe the sustain etc. From this guitar - it is jaw dropping in the Peter Green stakes and I mean utterly astonishing... to compare with the strat is a little bit daft, but the strat should be vastly superior and i’d say they’re even.

Brings me round again to the misconception re money spent equates to guaranteed sound quality... nicely summed up by Clint:

“When a man with a 45 meets a man with a rifle, you said the man with the 45 is a dead man...”

“Let’s see if that’s true...”

Cian · May 23, 2019

There's a vinyl enthusiast in work who spends probably a hundred quid every Friday* and was utterly horrified to find out that my CD player - a mid 90s professional Philips unit - cost more than my turntable - which is fairly new. 3-4x as much in direct terms not even counting for inflation. Apparently I'm never going to experience proper sound from it etc etc etc.

Guy is as deaf as a post from 30 years of headphones too loud. Probably can't hear much above about 10kHz at this stage for starters - if he could tell the difference between an mp3 and CD or vinyl I'd be astounded.

Get a turntable that doesn't use an awful built-in preamp (and use a decent one), avoid ceramic cartridges, make sure it has a somewhat sensible tracking force and its sufficient for 99% of people.

A lot of modern vinyl is bloody awful anyway - not properly mastered, and almost definitely the exact same audio as went on to the CD, so any difference in sound is down to poorer reproduction of the actual audio. After about 2010 for dance singles and a lot earlier for other genres and albums seems to be when the general quality went down for what I buy anyway

*(as an aside has the UK changed to Friday releases? Used to be an oddity here because the newspaper that paid for the charts to be comissioned ran its music supplement on Fridays and it never changed)

Herr Tubthumper · May 23, 2019

Whilst I still buy vinyl I can’t say I know much about hifi.

But. I do frequent a lovely bar which is built around specialist equipment. This is the actual Audio setup: Bowers & Wilkins DM70 speakers, Quad 33 Preamp, Quad 303 Amp, Micro-Seiki DQX-500 turntable, AT VM740ML Cartridge. I took that from their website. Means little to me but it sounds very good. The bar often hosts vinyl listening evenings.

Weststander · May 23, 2019

I’ve updated my hifi set up over the decades, first owning separates whilst in the sixth form. I currently have Rega Planar, Yamaha amp and CD player, as Akai cassette deck!!!!!, Sony pre-DAB tuner and Acoustic Energy speakers.

I had a Technics deck from 1982 which finally gave up the ghost about 4 years back, hence the Rega Planar, which only cost about £230 new (not the £600 mentioned earlier in this thread).

A great sound, listening to original vinyls I’ve looked after since childhood and beyond - Joy Division, Roxy, New Order, dance music including trance, The Doors, etc.

Kosh · May 23, 2019

Herr Tubthumper said:
Whilst I still buy vinyl I can’t say I know much about hifi.

But. I do frequent a lovely bar which is built around specialist equipment. This is the actual Audio setup: Bowers & Wilkins DM70 speakers, Quad 33 Preamp, Quad 303 Amp, Micro-Seiki DQX-500 turntable, AT VM740ML Cartridge. I took that from their website. Means little to me but it sounds very good. The bar often hosts vinyl listening evenings.

Doubtless it does, I suspect however if they plugged all of that kit into a £500 vintage (fully serviced) 1970s JVC, it would sound just as good - to my ears at least.

The vintage Hi Fi market is worth huge amounts (quantity and turnover, with individual items affordable) for a reason, proper yet low cost phono stages coupled with true analogue sound. Making it (cheaper vintage) the perfect platform for the vinyl they (amps) were built to re-produce.

Cheshire Cat · May 23, 2019

I always found vynl full of hiss, splutter, jumping needles and scratches. In which case I am out. Back to the sound purity of CDs.

Kosh · May 23, 2019

Weststander said:
I’ve updated my hifi set up over the decades, first owning separates whilst in the sixth form. I currently have Rega Planar, Yamaha amp and CD player, as Akai cassette deck!!!!!, Sony pre-DAB tuner and Acoustic Energy speakers.

I had a Technics deck from 1982 which finally gave up the ghost about 4 years back, hence the Rega Planar, which only cost about £230 new (not the £600 mentioned earlier in this thread).

A great sound, listening to original vinyls I’ve looked after since childhood and beyond - Joy Division, Roxy, New Order, dance music including trance, The Doors, etc.

My kind of kit. Yamaha stuff is awesome even at the affordable end of market - some of their vintage gear is legendary and although going up in price is still cheap in comparison to people making things out of pieces of the one true cross...

Obviously I love low end bargains, recently I picked up a near legendary Hitachi HA-250 1970s amp for £20 from eBay, cleaned it up and sold it for £200... it sounds (like) coffee with cream tastes... brilliant and at £200 is bloody cheap in comparison to so many of today’s audiophile rivals.

For me vintage is best, if like me, you love original pressings of heavy rock etc from the vinyl era. That said, my lovely low end system blew me away when I stuck on Radiohead’s Amnesiac recently.

Oh the clarity.

Weststander · May 23, 2019

Cheshire Cat said:
I always found vynl full of hiss, splutter, jumping needles and scratches. In which case I am out. Back to the sound purity of CDs.

Look after the vinyls in every way and use a good cartridge, then you hear none/little of that. Giving a beautifully pure and full sound, exactly as originally heard and intended in the studio.

Kosh · May 23, 2019

Weststander said:
Look after the vinyls in every way and use a good cartridge, then you hear none/little of that. Giving a beautifully pure and full sound, exactly as originally heard and intended in the studio.[/QUOTE

Right on. As John Peel once quipped in the great vinyl cd debate: “life is full of surface noise mate...”

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[Music] Vinyl records

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