Starting a vinyl collection – is it worth it for classical music?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The only thing I miss about vinyl is the extremely satisfying visual aspect - a beautifully engineered turntable with a dazzling pick-up arm, with a dangling bias compensation weight.

As for the sound, I'm not qualified to comment, but I can remember listening to LPs, sitting bolt upright as I worried about the Rice Krispies effect.

[Alain Maréchal]

the Rice Krispies effect.

Why did you not return that LP to the shop and demand a replacement?

[Sir Velo]

I am in the position of having a quite substantial CD collection and excellent equipment to play it on. Lately though, I have been hankering after a good record deck; several of my friends have them and I enjoy the sound of them - however they do not use them for classical music.

You have to remember that most of the younger generation have grown up listening to MP3s and other compressed, lossy formats, or CDs on lousy kit. Vinyl can probably match CDs (and maybe even outclass it in some circumstances) but it cannot outperform a 24/96 or 24/192 digital download in FLAC format, given similar level of equipment.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Why did you not return that LP to the shop and demand a replacement?

I did, frequently. But static was always a problem, even on the best pressings, Zerostat notwithstanding.

[umslopogaas]

Concerning LP record cleaning machines, for those who dont want to pay two thousand quid for a Keith Monks machine, my local hifi shop sells two: Disco-Antistat for £50 and Pro-Ject for £349. He says both give satisfactory results, though they are more of a fiddle to use than a Monks. Both use brushes and cleaning fluid.

[Beef Oven!]

The only thing I miss about vinyl is the extremely satisfying visual aspect - a beautifully engineered turntable with a dazzling pick-up arm, with a dangling bias compensation weight.

As for the sound, I'm not qualified to comment, but I can remember listening to LPs, sitting bolt upright as I worried about the Rice Krispies effect.

Spot on! I was exactly the same! It really ruined the experience.

I took back LPs so often in the '70s that two shops refused to sell to me in the end. They were very polite about it and both gave the same reason - my expectation was too high. I don’t think that wanting to listen to an LP without thinking I was sitting next to someone frying eggs in a pan is expecting too much.

Rice Crispies indeed - thank heavens for CDs (even though I was a bit of a luddite at first!).

[Richard Barrett]

The vinyl "revival" is basically an attempt by recording companies to squeeze a little more profit out of the industry, by appealing to people's acquisitiveness and a certain "retro" sensibility. One friend and colleague in particular, for whom I have the highest respect, swears that he gets more from listening to LPs than to digital audio. I have no idea what he's talking about. However that may be, my first sentence still holds! I got rid of almost all of my rather large LP collection in 1993 when I left the UK because I needed to fit everything I owned into a small van. (I sold a lot of it to friends, and had the excellent Mr Hewland from Gramex come round to collect the remainder.) I've never regretted doing this. I have a hundred or so LPs in a cupboard that I thought could be irreplaceable treasures, and haven't played them for twenty-odd years. These days the centre of my stereo system is a portable DAP and a hard drive containing uncompressed versions of several thousand CDs, and these two things can accompany me wherever I travel. I would call that technological progress!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Spot on! I was exactly the same! It really ruined the experience.

I took back LPs so often in the '70s that two shops refused to sell to me in the end. They were very polite about it and both gave the same reason - my expectation was too high. I don’t think that wanting to listen to an LP without thinking I was sitting next to someone frying eggs in a pan is expecting too much.

Rice Crispies indeed - thank heavens for CDs (even though I was a bit of a luddite at first!).

My first CD: Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe - Montreal/Dutoit, bought on 1st March 1983, moving on to a hi-fi shop to buy a Philips CD player a few minutes later (£499).

Complete silence when I pressed "play", then the music began very quietly with no surface imperfection. I thought "This can't last; it's too good to be true." But it did last, and I knew I could never go back.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My first CD: Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe - Montreal/Dutoit, bought on 1st March 1983, moving on to a hi-fi shop to buy a Philips CD player a few minutes later (£499).
Complete silence when I pressed "play", then the music began very quietly with no surface imperfection. I thought "This can't last; it's too good to be true." But it did last, and I knew I could never go back.

Same here, but two years (almost to the day!) later. I deliberately got the Dutoit CD as I already had the LP version and I wanted to compare like-for-like: the CD sound quality was an immediate and obvious improvement and I've never mourned the passing of vinyl, nor been very interested in recent seances.

[Alain Maréchal]

Everybody seems to like a recording of D et C that I find hard-driven, unballetic and lacking in subtlety. Monteux, Inghelbrecht, Ansermet (preferably the earlier mono), Munch, and Cluytens all have a better idea how it should "go".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Everybody seems to like a recording of D et C that I find hard-driven, unballetic and lacking in subtlety. Monteux, Inghelbrecht, Ansermet (preferably the earlier mono), Munch, and Cluytens all have a better idea how it should "go".

Maybe I was put off the Monteux (who conducted the première) by a poor Decca Ace of Diamonds pressing?

[Beef Oven!]

My first CD: Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe - Montreal/Dutoit, bought on 1st March 1983, moving on to a hi-fi shop to buy a Philips CD player a few minutes later (£499).

Complete silence when I pressed "play", then the music began very quietly with no surface imperfection. I thought "This can't last; it's too good to be true." But it did last, and I knew I could never go back.

Exactly

But I was reluctant at first and didn’t adopt until 1988/89. Or was it 1984? I haven’t a clue! Doesn’t matter, I’m not going back there!

[cloughie]

Everybody seems to like a recording of D et C that I find hard-driven, unballetic and lacking in subtlety. Monteux, Inghelbrecht, Ansermet (preferably the earlier mono), Munch, and Cluytens all have a better idea how it should "go".

I like all those and also one which never gets a mention, Maazel with the Cleveland Orchestra.

[Alain Maréchal]

Is not the Dutoit a digital recording? If so, it would seem perverse to listen to to it on vinyl. I have no objection to listening to digital recordings on CD or download. The recent vinyl releases seem to be of digital recordings - and I can see no point in that.
An analogue recording is a different case entirely.

[Sir Velo]

Is not the Dutoit a digital recording? If so, it would seem perverse to listen to to it on vinyl. I have no objection to listening to digital recordings on CD or download. The recent vinyl releases seem to be of digital recordings - and I can see no point in that.

Why? CD players use a digital analogue conversion (DAC) process, don't they?