there is not one album in existence that better on CD than on vinyl is there?

(But really, there's no right or wrong answer, is there? It's a matter of personal preference - no two people have the same set of fingerprints, so why shouldn't the same rule apply to their ears? I personally like a lot of brightness. If you don't, fine.)

http://home.eol.ca/~ifftay/reviews/lamflost.jpg

Amateurist OTM about Get Happy

http://sickmouthy.com/2013/12/31/on-vinyl-vs-cd-again/

80s CDs still sound like shit.

That post is about people, not cds vs vinyl. I can't help it if dumb wannabe hipsters keep fucking up the debate by being all "vinyl is better"

"There is no technical reason whatsoever why CDs should sound worse than vinyl. The reason why some CD reissues (especially from the early nineties) sound worse than the originals is because they were badly mastered, that's all. Also, vinyls wear down easier than CDs - don't claim those cracks and pops add to the sound! And there's other kinds of wearage too - I have some sixties and seventies vinyls where the high-end sounds are quite distorted and screechy. The only reason I still have a vinyl player is because I have several LPs that haven't had a (decent) CD reissue, or the reissue is impossible to find.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, May 6, 2005 2:39 PM (8 years ago)
"

o t m

like the article.

A tangentially ignorant and irritating argument is people who elevate dj's who use vinyl over those who use laptops / software. It has absolutely nothing to do with what format is played and everything to do with how they're sequenced and mixed.

on Vinyl vs. CD: From 2001-2010, every CD I bought got ripped and stored immediately. I burned copies to take in the car so the originals didn't get scuffed or stolen. I stopped buying CD's 3 years ago (other than artists I collect) and haven't pulled them out from storage since then. I buy vinyl now exclusively. Most new releases come with download codes and I enjoy the aesthetics more than CD's. When I'm playing mp3s, I tend to be antsy and want to skip around and search for the next song. When I put on an LP, i'm content to let the side play. My preference has nothing to do with sound quality. It's purely an aesthetic and experiential preference.

new vinyl nowadays is fucking ripoff, reminds me of CDs' heyday when places charged $18.99 for an album, except it's much worse now. $25, $35, sometimes $40 for a vinyl album, who can afford to pay that and actually collect a reasonable amount of music?

honestly i've never been even remotely enough of an audiophile to feel like i can distinguish between reasonable-quality mp3s, cds and vinyl. vinyl i like for the artwork, cds so i can play them in my car, and mp3s since they're so portable.

Great piece. The one major advantage to vinyl, though, is that it can be listened to without electricity. So after solar flares destroy all the electrical grids, we can theoretically fashion a needle/speaker out of a paper cone and keep groovin'.

marcos otm re: new vinyl being a ripoff, especially since current pressings are a crapshoot. The handful of new releases I bought on vinyl over the last two years have each had problems (off-center, sibilance, inner-groove distortion) that none of my old records have.

yep modern vinyl quality issues are putting me off as well, although I still like all of the aesthetic/experiential aspects. I have definitely been buying more stuff on CD lately.

new vinyl nowadays is fucking ripoff, reminds me of CDs' heyday when places charged $18.99 for an album, except it's much worse now. $25, $35, sometimes $40 for a vinyl album, who can afford to pay that and actually collect a reasonable amount of music?

otmfm. I definitely would've bought MBV vinyl for $25 but yeah $45 for a single album?

there is not one album in existence that better on CD than on vinyl is there?

Zoviet France - Shadow, Thief Of The Sun
no vinyl issue - stick it on vinyl, even crap nu-vinyl mind you (if you must...), and I'm there

on the other hand, I was in Rough Trade NYC recently (impressed!) and had little to no interest in the new nu-vinyl there, but picked up a bunch of used OG vinyl at Academy up the road.

got a new CD player for christmas. i have so many CDs!
though i do listen to old vinyl too, just depends on what's around.

god Shadow, Thief Of The Sun is so good, even if it is essentially a Rapoon album

otmfm. I definitely would've bought MBV vinyl for $25 but yeah $45 for a single album?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, December 31, 2013 4:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Neil Young make me IA in this regard. He goes on and on about the superiority of vinyl and analogue yadda yadda yadda and then charges $90 for his new record (which, granted, is a triple, but still). At that price, he's essentially promoting digital.

The last CD I bought specifically for its CDness was Jim O'Rourke's The Visitor because it was designed to be one uninterrupted track.

The 70s Miles live records work well on CD in this regard I would say.

otmfm. I definitely would've bought MBV vinyl for $25 but yeah $45 for a single album?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, December 31, 2013 4:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Neil Young make me IA in this regard. He goes on and on about the superiority of vinyl and analogue yadda yadda yadda and then charges $90 for his new record (which, granted, is a triple, but still). At that price, he's essentially promoting digital PONO.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, December 31, 2013 5:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fixed

as if someone is holding a layer of net curtain between the speakers and my ears, which takes away clarity and space, stops me fully getting a hold on individual sonic detail

*g

Music For 18 Musicians - like it, never had it, want it
for years, split across 2 sides of vinyl - along comes the CD, problem solved.

I'm thinking of picking up the vinyl (RECORD!) someday. hell, might even get the CD too after all.

look, you can't say vinyl sound is not a thing, because even within vinyl sound is a thing!

when 2 diff pressings of the same tune have a comparative relative oomph factor of 100x, guess which one the CD sounds more like...

still like buying new albums on vinyl but the diff in sound quality is never as superior on vinyl as i might hope - e.g. random access memories never sounded as good as an album with that much of an analogue fetish should have done. most modern albums prob sound best on cd really... other times, cds can highlight that sound quality or great fidelity/detail/whatever isnt all that important for a lot of releases, esp big pop stuff. vinyl is basically best for music recorded before around 1999. though saying that, some lo fi music like grime etc benefits weirdly from vinyl as it gives its sonic crudeness/rawness something a little warmer.

also, the prices of new vinyl are appalling!

Not really, that's what vinyl cost in 1963 in comparative terms.

I prefer a room littered with vinyl to a room littered with CDs. when I kick over a stack of CDs, I swear; several of them break. They can't be put back together. I can kick an LP in its sleeve across the room and I'll maybe bend the corner, no big deal. New vinyl I buy will be playable forever; most of the CDs will become unplayable because of my hobby of kicking over stacks of CDs and taking penalty kicks at the stereo with them. I know the ref from school so I get to take a lot of penalty kicks. I still buy CDs because I just buy music, period, it's a thing I do, but I prefer buying vinyl because it complains less when I mistreat it and is more fun to play with and handle and dote over and apologize to. Sorry for kicking you across the room I was hoping to break another CD case with you. I will kick Fleetwood Mac next time.

Longer albums definitely seem to the main case for the usefulness of CDs, but the purely digital formats sort of blow that out of the water. Like there was that Flaming Lips 6-hour song that came out last year. CD is digital anyways, so you may as well just ditch the plastic and get some lossless files or something.

anybody changed their mind on this one way or another?

i still don't prefer vinyl to cd but I got a Skevono cheap player mostly cos I decided I wanted to play some of the records I acquired for collection purposes (not to sell, just to have cos of nice design).

i'm no audiophile, and I'm mostly digital listening these days.

Vinyl looks better framed on the wall.
CDs easier to rip.

most of my vinyl is just for "hey cool fun, I have this and if I ever see this band again 20 years from now when the pandemic ends, it'd be neat to get autographed". i play them now and then though.

A lot of things sound better on vinyl. I would favour CDs for music with a very dynamic range or a lot of high frequencies (virtually all classical music or electroacoustic music), or that was created digitally in the first place.

Xp I prefer a room littered with vinyl to a room littered with CDs. when I kick over a stack of CDs, I swear; several of them break. They can't be put back together. I can kick an LP in its sleeve across the room and I'll maybe bend the corner, no big deal.

Yeah, CDs were actually pretty great- compact and portable, great sound, easy to jump from track to track. The problem with CDs imo was those plastic jewel cases. They're unnecessarily bulky. They're fragile and always break. CDs would be a lot more desirable to collectors now if they'd been packaged in mini paper LP sleeves like those posh Japanese reissues. There's a reason those ugly CD storage booklets were such a hit.

Countless records are better on CD. There are albums with lots of high end detail in the mix. There are albums that were sequenced with the CD format in mind etc

that was created digitally in the first place.

Exactly

The remastered CD of New Tradionalists by Devo sounds way better than the original vinyl, which was made from a compromised master tape.

my post in this thread from 2013 still stands up.
sorry, i get the emotional connection and all that, but i have no love for vinyl.

Yeah lots of stuff sounds better on vinyl, and there are still some excellent vinyl masters and pressenings like the recent-ish INA GRM reissues on Editions Mego. But for the most part new vinyl is the naked emperor in the room.

The smart collectors are buying up CDs while they're "junk" imo.

I broke so many cds that before the legit digital explosion I rebought the same album as much as three times

I've owned thousands of CDs and never broke one. What are you doing with them?

Nuh uh, i ain't tellin YOU, cop!

Twice in my life I have felt the giddy terror of bending a CD in one hand until the edges touch, then waiting for the splintering sound before it explodes into shards. But they crack at the hub way too easily.

As an artifact, no.

For sound quality, convenience, durability, space (re: small apartments), affordability (re: modern LP reissues), re: not having pops/warp/dust, not having to stop in the middle and turn it over... Most any album can be better on CD.

was pretty ardently pro-CD until recently, still feel a well-mastered CD on an okay or better system thru a decent CD player is pretty unbeatable

a couple of years ago decided I wanted to listen to my old LPs again so have been on a journey of trying to get them sounding as good as vinyl aficionados claim is possible

admittedly a lot of my vinyl gear is the spoils of being an accomplished rat scavenger at flea markets etc, but I reckon I've only just got to the point where I feel it's even close

my tentative conclusion is that you'd need to spend a whole lot more money getting a decent vinyl system together than a CD system of similar quality? like, maybe a $5k dynavector cart would blow my fkn socks off, but I'm unlikely to ever find out

all that said I really enjoy the hobbyist aspects of vinyl - crate-digging, cleaning, having the occasional market stall - plus trying new TTs and carts

there are a few albums and 12"s that do sound incontrovertibly better to me on wax - but is that simply because the CD masters sucked?

apropos of nothing, since I started listening with a critical ear for SQ and comparing formats, I'm noticing that a lot of imperfections are actually baked into the source recording and some records are gonna sound a bit rough on any format (not just low fi punk records or whatever)

I've owned thousands of CDs and never broke one. What are you doing with them?

― Gerald McBoing-Boing,

Seconding this ^^^ I also have thousands of them and can't understand how you can break them unless you're incredibly clumsy.

I'm agnostic on jewel cases, but one advantage of them is that you can completely replace the case if it cracks, breaks etc.

This is the only CD that's ever fully broken on me. Not unusual for this design. I ripped it in about 2005 but I can't find the files...

https://img.discogs.com/gSWK7TqWXpgxMu48NbZCWymqc60=/fit-in/600x528/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-648-1197113402.jpeg.jpg

o yah those are infamous for actually breaking

All the metal case CR albums would eventually crack the CD because the case center was made of stronger stuff than the plastic

since I started listening with a critical ear for SQ and comparing formats, I'm noticing that a lot of imperfections are actually baked into the source recording

In the early days of the format there was some standard text on just about all CDs that passively aggressively reminded the consumer of this.

Nice thing about CDs these days if you have a computer and an optical drive is you can get high end digital to analog conversion from prosumer audio interfaces not costing much more than £100.

see also: Dragonfly

Nice thing about CDs these days if you have a computer and an optical drive is you can get high end digital to analog conversion from prosumer audio interfaces not costing much more than £100.

Oh, this is def what I do with CDs (or decent digital files, which I mostly put in a similar category). But I just use a Pro-Ject Essentials II turntable for home listening. It cost much much less than $5k and sounds v good to me. A lot of folk, jazz, and old rock is very satisfying with the vinyl warmth imo. I really like Band of Gypsys in that format, for example. Some recent LPs that sound good to me are Sarah Louise's Field Guide, Battle Trance's Blade of Love (I have it in HQ digital and LP and sometimes enjoy the warmth of the LP), Sonoluminescence Trio + 1 - Live at the Record Centre.

I think Swan's The Seer is better digital, it's just entirely too long for vinyl, and changing the records is a pain.

very otm, I can't stand it when long tracks are split on vinyl

A lot of it depends on how good your vinyl setup (which requires TT, cartridge, and phonostage) v your CD player.

I have 3 Todd Rundgren albums which definitely do not sound very good on vinyl: A Wizard, A True Star, Initiation, and the first Utopia album. all of them are around an hour long (Initiation is 67 minutes long, surely one of the longest single LPs ever?) and you can definitely hear the degradation, particularly as you get towards the center of the record. CD versions of all these sound pretty good though.

(Initiation is 67 minutes long, surely one of the longest single LPs ever?

!!!! single album? I had no idea that was even possible, that's 20 mins over the recommended max, crazy

i bet it sounds like shit!

Initiation has that 30+ minute song on it, no?

"A Treatise On Cosmic Fire" 36:00

Wow.

I bet if you just grazed the surface with a fingernail you'd make a skippable scratch.

admittedly it's so strange that the poor sound quality isn't as noticeable. its more of an issue on Side 2 of AWATS, particularly "Is It My Name?" and "Just One Victory". its amusing how Todd's response to this was "yeah you've just gotta turn the volume up some"

ha, yeah making mixtapes with AWATS was funny because you had to turn the input level wayyyyy up

I'm actually kinda surprised that AWATS hasn't come out in some deluxe 2x LP configuration considering how iconic an album it is

amusingly Initiation is actually a minute longer than Todd (his prior LP), which was a double

XPS Isn't there a late vinyl-era Cure album with a notice like that re: length and mastering volume?

Friday music did a 2lp reissue of Wizard

well I'll be damned, there is

I wonder how it sounds. I don't really wanna pay $30 to find out

Side 1 of E2-E4 is 31 minutes and the whole thing is continuous. I'm sure there are records that are quite a bit longer but not too many that are supposed to somewhat full frequency range and dynamic. Never heard an original but an old Spalax reissue doesn't sound too bad.

The Cure’s Disintegration has a note saying it was mixed to be played loud, but that was on all formats. The OG vinyl does indeed sound shit though - well mostly Fascination St is a mess of inner groove distortion at the end of side 1, side 2 is just about bearable. And that’s with two songs lopped off the track listing! I can only think that after their previous 2LP the record company baulked at following it up with another (esp as they were legendarily unimpressed upon hearing the record.

In fact if we are talking original pressings then in my experience Head On The Door, KM3 and Disintegration all sounded way better on CD. I’m sure the reissues are an improvement tho.

what length does a side have to be before inner groove distortion becomes noticeable? I've only really noticed it on those Todd LPs. though I've heard that they deliberately put quieter/less dynamic songs at the end of a side to mitigate this.

I dunno, I always thought about 24 minutes was proper max LP side length. In my experience older LPs with shorter sides often better sustain surface damage, as the grooves are cut deeper (?)

I've got a copy of Arvo Part's Miserere on vinyl and side one is 34:44 - it sounds pretty terrible, weird that ECM would even bother with this in 1991 when CDs were pretty established.

Vinyl On Demand has done flawless pressings of 32-34 minute LP sides fwiw, but it requires fairly rigorous quality control

don't know what thread to post this in so I'm just picking this one

if your turntable has a preamp, does it matter which source you plug it into? I was playing a Dan Deacon record and during one of the more insane bits I noticed a ton of distortion, most of which went away when I switched from CD to AUX. but a few of my LPs still sound a bit distorted in the bass frequencies - dunno if they're bad pressings or if something's not quite right there. it's definitely not there when I switch it to just playing off an iPod, though the vinyl sounds better overall in spite of that. is there a specific setting optimized for modern turntables, a setting that old receivers may not have?

sounds like aux is the right input. is the turntable grounded?

also if the preamp has a mm or mc setting make sure that's right. patch chords are in tight, etc.

mine is internally grounded, I don't hear any hum or static

one thing I'm a bit curious about is the fact that it's a straight-arm turntable - a Stanton STR8-80 if you're curious (they don't make 'em anymore). I think this was made for DJing (which I haven't done in a long time) but I've heard that the inner-groove distortion can be pronounced on these. indeed, on some (but not all) records the last track of the side sounds a bit off. I've been thinking about getting something new but I don't know if the difference is going to be worth the cash...anyone knowledgeable on such matters?

ahh I also see that there's a Phono/Line switch under the slipmat, I'll try it on the Phono setting and see if it makes a difference, though I suspect it doesn't

i had the exact same issue with my turntable. i switched to a cartridge with a micro-linear stylus (AT VM95-ML in my case) and it made all the difference.
night and day. it's possible that the same effect could be achieved by tweaking all those tweakable things that turntables have, but 1) i am relatively inept, and 2) my turntable doesn't have most of those tweakable adjustments, like VTA etc.

i mean inner groove distortion btw.

yeah phono into aux and you'll probably barely hear any volume. i think you want line into aux.

my receiver has a Phono setting as well, which obviously I can't use with line, but maybe the preamp in the receiver is better than the one on the turntable

try 'em both and see which one you like more. maybe the distortion problem goes away with one of them.

re:any non-phono inputs on your amp / receiver, those are all just line-level. they are labeled "CD" and "AUX" for your convenience only. any differences you hear are most likely a problem with the cords / jacks or possibly something internal on your receiver.

if you're feeling like upgrading your turntable i'd say you could do much better than one of those stantons for a pretty reasonable price; that said, i wouldn't focus too much on the shape of the tonearm because imo those are discussions that really only start to matter at a price point that is well beyond what normal people would ever pay for a turntable (and most "audiophile" turntables are made with straigth arms these days anyway).

you can try to re-align your cartridge yourself if you feel like it's going out of whack by the end of the records -- if it's that bad then even eyeballing it should be an improvement!

whooops xps i guess

i my case i used a tool called templategen and aligned my elliptical stylus until it couldn't be more perfect, and still got inner groove distortion. when i switched to the micro-linear stylus, it all went away.

in my case...

i mean, turntable alignment for me is a question of geometry. your needle is on a pivot and at some points during playback it is going to line up with the groove better than others. you can mitigate this with a small screwdriver and your eyeballs. when it comes to the other stuff i confess i don't understand quite as much what's going on to solve the problem.

is the idea that a more sensitive stylus isn't going to be as susceptible to friction created by the angle of the tonearm?

nvm i can just look into this myself. but feel free to talk about it here if you're inclined!

i was originally swayed toward the audio technica cartridge, embarrassingly enough, by this post on the hoffman forum:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/praise-for-the-at-vm95ml.938864/

but i think the basic idea is that the line contact stylus has a much smaller footprint and thus tracks the grooves better.

this stereophile column also has some nice words about that cart:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-44-audio-technica-goldring-lp-gear-phono-cartridges

of course the punchline of that stereophile article -- and the reason he doesn't hear inner groove distortion with *any* of those cheapie cartridges -- is that he's mounting them on a $9000 turntable that's tuned to perfection. but still.

so what's the difference between the AT-VM95E and the AT-VM95-ML? besides about a hundred bucks, that is

and will they be any better than the one I've got now?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0735LYRRT/ref=pe_825000_114657650_TE_item

I guess I'm willing to dump a hundo or so if it will really make a difference, but I'm afraid I won't be able to tell the difference

looks like yours has a spherical (conical) stylus, or at least that's what it says on the questions and answers section of that amazon page. the AT-VM95E is elliptical. the AT-VM95-ML is micro linear. they're all different stylus shapes. that stereophile article i linked to has nice blow-ups of the different shapes. i believe the ML has the smallest footprint, and in my experience it is best at eliminating inner groove distortion, at least in the low-end world that i inhabit. like i said, those with magnificent multi-thousand dollar turntables can probably tweak their system so that all of them sound great.

for whatever reason, my ear is particularly attuned to things like inner groove distortion, and i would cringe whenever the end of an album side was approaching. i found that switching cartridges made a very big difference on my system, which is a Pro-Ject T1 Phono SB.

how you making out, frogbs? I imagine the receiver phono beats the table's?

I dunno how any non adjustable phono stage accounts for the different volumes vinyl is mastered at, if at all? I'm using a Art DJ Pre 2.. it's cheap and seems great to me. I'm surprised how often i adjust the thing anywhere between 0 and +4 gain depending on the record. I guess my relatively low power speaker setup might be making the difference feel bigger to me than your average large receiver

i guess non adjustable would stay 0 :)
i think I've seen some records go into the red even there. Anyway it's a good cheap thing for sorting out any phono issues i guess

how you making out, frogbs? I imagine the receiver phono beats the table's?

hard to say, I relistened to some of the records that gave me trouble and they seem to have the same sort of issues. it does sound ~~slightly~~ better but it could just be a placebo effect

kind of get the impression that the stylus I have now is crap. I was thinking I should just get a cartridge but I was worried about mounting it myself, though on second thought it doesn't appear to be too difficult. if I upgrade to the AT-VM95E do y'all think I'd be able to tell the difference?

i can only speak for myself but it made a big difference for me. mounting the cartridge required a fair amount of patience, but in the end there was a sense of satisfaction that i had done it myself. as i said i used a template generator that you can find on the web (templategen.zip) and print out. some folks don't like using a paper one because who knows if the printer distorts its dimensions, and you have to be careful about placement of the center hole. but i am a cheapskate. you also have to know or measure the spindle-to-pivot distance for your turntable; other than that you can use the defaults. if you orient the cartridge so that the needle traces the whole arc (overhang), and the cantilever is parallel to the markings at the two node points (azimuth), you are golden. it is helpful to tape the turntable down so it doesn't rotate while you are doing this. also don't slide the needle against the paper.

oh and recheck the tracking force afterward. and make sure the turntable is level, blah blah blah...

is there a place you can take it to that services turntables?

oh i see, you said AT-VM95E, not AT-VM95-ML. No promises there, because i've never used one. but...if it turns out you still have inner groove distortion with the AT-VM95E, all you have to do is upgrade the stylus to an ML. i believe the cartridges are the same. so once it's mounted its mounted.

that seems extraordinarily complex, maybe I'll just pay the extra $30 and get one already mounted. though I do have an extra headshell/cartridge, maybe I'll just take it apart for fun

If you can just replace the stylus with a better one, or even the same one (might've worn out?), see about that. I'm on an Ortofon OM cartridge, which i could upgrade a lot by swapping styluses, apparently. And if you do get a new cart you can probably turn up a ready made protractor print for it (search the table's specs).

so, to get this straight...if I just swapped out one headshell for another, chances are it's not measured correctly?

tried to disassemble an old cheap one I had, the wires popped out of the headshell, doesn't look like I can get them back in there, so...going great so far!!!

get out the soldering iron!

i used mine for a few months just eyeballing it to be straight, it was ok but i guess that was just luck. I mean take whatever for a spin on a record that's not worth a load, before you perfect it.

yeah be careful with those pins. fremer suggests loosening them with a toothpick if they're too tight. by mounting the cartridge i mean adjusting its position using those two mounting screws. this video goes into detail. it does require patience and sometimes it feels like you could use an extra arm, but it is also relaxing and a useful skill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM-aIDwfrhc

ok, that helps!! I can't find the specs of my turntable and the manual doesn't say anything, but if I can just use the vinylengine protractor then I think I'm good.

luckily I managed to find the headshell that came with my turntable. my kids broke the stylus off it but I kept it just in case. anyway, this time the wires did *not* break off and I just mounted it by sight. probably incorrectly (are the two screws supposed to be parallel?) but it does seem to make a small difference. I did notice the headshell/cartridge kit has the screws all the way in the back, I'm guessing that's not right? is this gonna cause any damage to my records??

the two screws don't have to be parallel. what's really important is position of the stylus/cantilever as it tracks those null points like he says in the video. that's where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. not sure the effect on the vinyl if the stylus isn't tracking properly. but it's worth the extra minutes not to cut corners and get it as close as you can.

you can also search out michael fremer's turntable setup videos, which are more of an advanced class. his setup equipment costs more than my whole system, so it's more for entertainment value than anything else. but he is smart and you pick up a few useful pointers here and there.

alright I'll print it out and give it a shot. will report back

I did enjoy that vinyl TV video...as mentioned in the first comment, there's a very Bob Ross aura to that man isn't there?

haha i'm old and had to look up bob ross. good luck with everything!

whoa i was just reading something about your turntable on the vinylengine site and it appears to be a particularly strange beast. they're talking about "underhang," which i have to admit i've never heard of. most tonearms have an "overhang," i.e. their needles extend out a little further than the spindle. i'm not sure how much the traditional methods of aligning your cartridge are going to help you. there's this, but i don't pretend to understand it.

https://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?t=74322

hmmm forget about my advice to try a micro linear or even an elliptical stylus. apparently the only type it's safe to use with that arm is conical like the one you have.

you're talking about whether or not the tonearm can reach the center? in that case, no, it's a little short. now I'm really not sure what to do, kind of sounds like I need to invest in a non-DJ turntable...

i've always hated on web forums when someone says "don't use that, use this instead." but...in this case...might not be a bad idea. or rather, i should probably just say i have no experience with your type of setup and can't really offer an opinion.

it’s such a shame the p-mount system died off - I know some people enjoy the tweakability of the trad half inch mount but geez sometimes it’s nice just to put a new cart in and have it work

frogbs, i'd strongly suggest looking into a new (to you) turntable if you're thinking of investing / upgrading your system. i just don't think putting a micro-linear stylus on one of those stantons will be the best use of your money.

i found this michael fremer video to be great and even a bit inspiring. i think it's neat how he emphasizes the "empowering" aspect of learning how to do these things for yourself in order to take the listening experience into your own hands (even if the stuff towards the ends is a little over my head):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7b75jmLaF8

this thing is 16 years old and missing a few parts, might be time to upgrade. for the time being based on what I'm understanding from your link I'm going to move the screws from the headshell to the cart up to the center, because they're all the way in the back now.

if you've got a good recommendation for a turntable with a decent stylus in it already...I'm all ears :)

i got my Pro-Ject T1 Phono SB because it's supposed to be as plug-and-play as possible, but like i said i wound up replacing their ortofon elliptical with my audio technical micro linear pretty quickly. for a little less, people seem to like those Fluence turntables.

here's fremer on that pro-ject:

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/pro-ject-t1-phono-sb-turntabl-born-frustration

i think you could worse than an entry level pro-ject or music hall turntable. for a bit cheaper you can look into uturnaudio.com

for a refurbished vintage machine at a modest price, you might get in touch with the folks at fixmydual.com

I remember hearing a while ago that you really want a direct drive at that price point, not belt, but I won't pretend to know the difference

it’s such a shame the p-mount system died off - I know some people enjoy the tweakability of the trad half inch mount but geez sometimes it’s nice just to put a new cart in and have it work

yeah, i've been frozen in my turntable shopping for ages because my old one was a P-Mount and i sort of can't imagine learning to adjust a cartridge/tonearm/etc., but obviously shopping for ONLY p-mount turntables is really limiting!

by the way how do you change the cart on that thing? looks like the headshell & arm are just one piece, as opposed to mine which just twists out and is connected by magnets

what do y'all think of this one

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N3S4X3P/ref=olp_aod_redir#aod

that used one for $255 seems like a good bargain

i have no experience with that one but that fellow in my steve hoffman link did: "I upgraded to at ATLP120x over the holidays from an ATLP60. I realize the 120 is by no means a "high-end" turntable, but for my needs (and system) at the moment, the 120 is a superb option. What has been so worthwhile with the 120 is that it has given me the opportunity to really discover what goes into the hobby of vinyl collection and turntable setup."

however, he then finds he needs to upgrade his stylus from the 95E to 95ML...

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/praise-for-the-at-vm95ml.938864/

frogbs I would steer clear of direct drive if you’re concerned about sound quality

I have this, it’s worked great for me except I had to mess with a potentiometer at the bottom to get the speed right.

https://www.denon.com/en-us/product/turntables/dp-300f

yea I've heard that direct drives sometimes pick up the sound of the motor but I've never actually heard this myself

tbh being unable to get my record player fixed and record shops being closed and no gigs has meant I have spent nearly nothing on music for a year.

dunno if it will last when I can actually get my record player fixed, I haven't converted to Spotify, I just play the mp3s/flacs I ripped from my record/CD collection and stuff I downloaded from my laptop plugged into the AUX of my hifi.

I like vinyl a lot, but I don't like having to deal with a broken record player, especially if getting the bastard fixed might cost me £££

I use my turntable mostly for my collection of post-punk, or for recent acquisitions from the cheap racks, and neither Pylon nor Foghat require super high fidelity to me. I use my CD player mostly for jazz and things that want lusher sonics. I just bought a thrift store copy of Linda Ronstadt’s What’s New, and even on my less than high hi-fi it sounds super nice. I already owned it on vinyl, but doubtful I will ever play that again.

TSF - is this the cart you have?

https://ttaino.shop/product/atvm95ml-dual-moving-magnet-turntable-cartridge_1209046.html?msclkid=2666ba16cf291f5e9b75da210b6166e3

it's $160+ everywhere else I look...

hold up this site has got to be a scam

one q for those of you who know things

I've heard the built in pre-amp on the AT120 (which I now have) is kinda garbage and that apparently a lot of people rip them out. I don't wanna fuck around with a soldering iron nor do I want to risk taking this thing apart but I have seen it suggested that something like the ART DJ Pre II (which is fairly cheap) can make a difference. if anyone has an external pre-amp, does it really make a noticeable improvement, or am I just chasing here? I assume I can just hook this up by switching to Line & plugging it into the Phono input on the receiver, correct?

(fwiw I think I might just pick up a micro-line stylus, which I assume would be a much bigger improvement)

or should I just assume the one on my receiver (an HK3470) is better than what I could get from a cheap external preamp?

I don't now about those specific things but I think a pre-amp can make a significant difference. I'm using a NAD PP-1 now which is very entry level and I can say it's not as good as the one in the audio interface I was using that blew some caps.

Kid a sounds better on CD than on the 10" vinyl copy I had. Same for in rainbows.

I assume I can just hook this up by switching to Line & plugging it into the Phono input on the receiver, correct?

In any case it should be easy enough now to compare the turntable’s preamp to the receiver’s so you might as well try both of those before considering an external preamp.

ditto, i would say first try it through the one in your receiver and see if you notice a difference. i don't really have much experience with external preamps, except a friend once lent me a fancy tube one and yeah it made a difference -- sorry to see it go. just a guess, but if you're looking to upgrade i would think the cartridge would make more of a difference that the preamp.

this is the cart i have: https://www.turntableneedles.com/AT-VM95ML_Cartridge_Authorized_Dealer

though it occurs to me....with your new turntable, you might already have an AT-VM95 series cartridge. in which case to upgrade to an ML you'd just need to replace the stylus, not the whole cartridge. it's not that much less, cost-wise, but it's just a pop-in replacement.

https://www.turntableneedles.com/AT-VMN95ML_Genuine_audio-technica_Stylus_for_AT-VM95ML_AT-VM95_series

Kid a sounds better on CD than on the 10" vinyl copy I had. Same for in rainbows.

― candyman

From the ones I own on both formats The Bends, OKC and IR sound better on CD to my ears. Kid A sounds way better in vinyl for me, though.

I haven’t heard HTTT on vinyl but I’m not a fan of how it sounds in digital or CD. I’ve heard people praising the difference on that one in particular.

xp yeah I'm gonna see if I can borrow one first. I know this shit is a hassle but honestly it's quite fun to doink around with. I think I will be getting one of those VM95MLs though. I saw a YouTube video comparing it to the 95E (which I have) and there is a huge difference in some of the inner grooves. Granted I think this is up to the mastering - some of my LPs have IGD, a lot of them don't (or just have it in the last 20-30 seconds), but still, eliminating that would be a dream

yeah my turntable is basically undoink-with-able -- it's made to basically plug and play. i like that, yet the other half of me is a doinker who wants to tune the thing to perfection. when i "grow up," i've been eyeing this schiit turntable that is the polar opposite of mine. it's made for doinkers. you can adjust everything humanly possible. https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-sol-turntable?qt-related_posts=1

I'm starting to become like that, though I don't really know what I'm doing I am slowly learning. its kind of funny how vinyl sort of tunes you in to all these little imperfections - several times I've thought either the record or needle was dirty or something was misaligned but when I've compared to an MP3 version that I've listened to for years it turns out it actually does sound like that. so I guess I'm developing a keener ear. but that sorta drives you nuts.

not the worst way to get started with soldering, but (after reading about the issue even with the preamp supposedly turned off), what an impressive pain in the ass! Mess around a while between the built-in and your receiver before voidingnthe warranty tho i guess.

i found this article on the AT LP-120. why is everyone removing the internal preamp? i don't get that -- isn't there a way to just bypass it?
anyway, he says the first upgrade should be the stylus/cartridge, not the preamp. https://vinylrestart.com/best-phono-preamp-for-at-lp120/

Something something signal path

Agree that it can't be such a big thing

anyway, what makes the journey all worth it, in my experience anyway, is when i'm listening to my records i sort of can't believe how great they sound.

yeah after a decade-plus of listening to nothing but 192 kbps MP3s it's really opened my eyes

tbf the moment of reckoning was a couple years ago with a CD - there was a certain one I had to buy because I couldn't find it online, anywhere. I popped it in the car stereo and a number of times thought "holy shit, this sounds awesome", then realizing that it must be because for once I was listening to an actual CD

Xpost maybethe kid a 12" vinyl, but not the 10" edition. And the American vinyl of rainbows sounded too loud.

In Rainbows is an interesting example for this thread. The double vinyl, 45rpm version I've seen singled out many times as the paragon of vinyl sound quality for a release this century. The more common single LP, yeah kinda sounds shit.

I'm never sure about getting newer (music made this century basically) albums on vinyl. Doesnt seem worth it anymore. You never know what the pressing will be like. Theres the price too obv. But I've come to accept that.

i hear lots of people complaining about modern pressings. maybe i've been walking between the raindrops but i've had the opposite experience -- most of them sound great to me. if they're not analog-sourced they typically use very high resolution digital as masters, they tend not to overcompress the masters, pressings are quiet, etc. plus since peoples' home systems are somewhat "tuned" to their own preferences, things just sound better on them. i guess having a cd-length album split among 4 LP sides can be a drag, but cds are too long and you can make believe each disk is its own LP. their prices are commensurate with what they used to cost. in 1973 (i'm old) i remember paying $3.33 for jethro tull's 'passion play' which though 'on sale' was 33 cents more than i was used to paying for new lps but i did it because i had tickets to see them at nassau coliseum and i wanted to be familiar with their new album. an inflation calculator tells me that would be $26.42 today.

(though in the same store i also got the stooges 1st record off the three-for-a-dollar rack. i think i also got tiny tim's 2nd record and a david frye comedy album to round it out.)

yeah I think Discogs can give you the impression that there are way more bad pressings out there than there actually are. everyone who gets one complaints about it on there and honestly I think a lot of times it's not actually the pressing that's bad - like, I've gotten new records that were full of static and I didn't realize how badly that can effect the replay. also people often use different stereos for their turntable so they're not really comparing them properly - I've had pressings that I thought were bad, only to realize the digital version distorts in the same way. playing music on a decent setup can reveal things you wouldn't hear on headphones or car speakers. often when I think something is bad it's generally a record that wasn't produced very well in the first place. the only 'bad' pressing I've gotten is a 10" record that glows in the dark and probably wasn't really meant to be played anyway

a 10" record that glows in the dark

lol ok what is this

Nature Tapes by Lemon Demon

Definitely different turntables and - more significantly - different stylus profiles can have a huge effect on how they handle imperfect vinyl - I’m using a Technics EPC-310MC at the moment and it is brilliant at digging detail out of records I thought were pretty played-out - but can be very unforgiving of scratches. I have a second TT with a moderately good AT stylus that gets used for cheap and cheerful dollar bin purchases.

So anyway totally agree that it’s hard to have an objective POV about the quality of a pressing.

Having said that I’ve had non-fill (“ripping” sound) in a bunch of contemporary pressings and only one or two vintage LPs, and that’s totally a QC issue.

This is a gross thing to say but I don’t think paper inner sleeves are great for vinyl, often they are glued in with static and can abrade the surface during shipping. On the rare occasions that I’ve bought contemporary records that are stored in a plastic inner they are always in much better condition.

It’s pretty hard to strongly advocate for more plastic use, but then again it’s pretty hard to defend vinyl fandom on environmental grounds anyway.

people on discogs often post reviews like maniacs.

i imagine a warehouse at amazon filled with returned vinyl because people thought it was a bad pressing.

Amazon does ship their vinyl pretty carelessly sometimes. I've heard a few horror stories. luckily I've been fine with the few I've gotten from there but it's weird, you either get it in a really thin cardboard package that could easily blow away or a gigantic box that makes you think you accidentally ordered a table saw

agreed re: the plastic inner sleeves....those thin white paper ones with the hole for the label are probably fine, but the thicker & glossier ones do seem to scuff up the records - nothing that should affect playback, but still, you can get like 300 plastic inner sleeves for the cost of one new record so you might as well. if nothing else they seem to be good at keeping the static away.

just got an 80s vertigo cd of ride the lightning in the mail, it’s kickin ass alright

I should say I have the most recent CD of kill em all and that sounds great too!

ha yeh I would have to say re the og thread premise that the burden of proof is very much on vinyl to sound better than the CD, rather than the other way round

hey TSF - I upgraded to the 95ML on your recommendation. you were right. IGD is pretty much completely gone. first LP I tested it on was Tormato by Yes because the final track on Side A ("Release, Release") had it particularly bad. now I don't even notice it. the record also sounds more crisp - no pops or clicks (though I can't remember how noisy it was before? I mean this is a $1.99 Goodwill record, otoh it's Tormato so who knows how much the original owner played it). almost kicking myself for not getting this sooner. thanks for the recommendation!!

also was very nice that I already had a perfectly aligned AT cart that came with the turntable, just pop it in and go

alright, just gave this the ultimate test: Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star (as you know he's getting polled right now). it's a 56 minute LP with some pretty loud & crazy stuff going on at the end of both sides, so it kind of sounds like garbage on vinyl. with this stylus it's pretty much as good as the CD, none of the blowouts & sharp sibilance that it had before. easily the best "upgrade" I've ever made to my system.

hey great it worked out for you, frogbs. enjoy the listening!