Moving on from vinyl

[richardfinegold]

The Technics tt that Alpie doesn't care has a high resale value. Even if Alpine keeps his lps he really ought to consider selling it, since doesn't care for it and since he is downsizing.
I bought a tt and the rest of the vinyl apparatus 15 years ago. Part of the rationale was for lps that had never been digitalized. Last year I realized that there was only 1 (one) lp that I wanted that hadn't been digitalized. Everything has been digitized by this point and I wound up selling my vinyl rig for a great price and buying a much more expensive DAC then I had ever thought I would own, and that DAC has been the best improvement in my system since I bought my speakers 10 years ago.

[umslopogaas]

Cleaning LPs is tedious, but it makes an amazing difference. If they are old, or bought secondhand, they will inevitably be dirty and you will be lifting the stylus every few minutes to clean of the accumulated muck. One clean on the Monks machine can actually make things worse, because it can loosen the dirt but not remove it. However, a second scrub usually does the trick, removes a lot of surface noise and means you can play a whole side without having to clean the stylus. The Monks machine is expensive - I think mine was £1600 when I bought it some 15 years ago - but it has cleaned all of my 7000+ discs and is still going strong. These days I dont buy many LPs (cant find the stock) and cleaning half a dozen or so at a time isnt a chore.

Concerning LP turntables, this is one area where I disagree with my local hifi dealer. He insists more expensive turntables are better, and by more expensive he can mean £10000. but I maintain that all a turntable has to do is go round at 33 1/3 and not rumble. You can easily meet those requirements for £1000. I would then be tempted to spend whatever is left on the modern equivalent of the old SME arm (probably not a modern SME, I think their stuff has got very expensive indeed), and on as good as cartridge as you can afford. I know that every time I have upgraded my cartridge the improvement has been very noticeable. I currently use separate Ortofon mono and stereo cartridges and they are very good indeed - the SME has detachable headshells so it only takes a couple of seconds to change over.

[Dave2002]

One thing which isn't quite clear is whether this house move is already planned and inevitable - or at least as far as can be expected, or whether Alpie is looking for a new house, but in a more expensive area, so the assumption is that it will be a downsize, which I note that rfg has assumed. If there's a choice of houses, and some are affordable, go for the one with the greatest amount of space to house all the kit. However, do get rid of things which are really not needed.

Sometimes better houses can be found in different areas.

House moves can be for all sorts of reasons, though. Work. To be near friends. To be near family. To have a more convenient home for living in. To be closer to good facilities/culture etc. To release money (not in this case presumably ...) etc. To get a better view .... Plus of course some opposites - to get away from family.

[jayne lee wilson]

The Technics tt that Alpie doesn't care has a high resale value. Even if Alpine keeps his lps he really ought to consider selling it, since doesn't care for it and since he is downsizing.
I bought a tt and the rest of the vinyl apparatus 15 years ago. Part of the rationale was for lps that had never been digitalized. Last year I realized that there was only 1 (one) lp that I wanted that hadn't been digitalized. Everything has been digitized by this point and I wound up selling my vinyl rig for a great price and buying a much more expensive DAC then I had ever thought I would own, and that DAC has been the best improvement in my system since I bought my speakers 10 years ago.

I'd love to know which one....

[pastoralguy]

I often look at photos of extremely esoteric machines on Pinterest and imagine that, should I win the lottery, I'd love to own one or two simply because they are works of art in their own right. Only then would I consider getting interested in vinyl again but, yes, there is a LOT of music that's never made it to cd.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

One thing which isn't quite clear is whether this house move is already planned and inevitable - or at least as far as can be expected, or whether Alpie is looking for a new house, but in a more expensive area, so the assumption is that it will be a downsize, which I note that rfg has assumed.

That is indeed the situation.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As for digitising the LPs, to keep it legal, you still have to hang on to the original discs. But few of the recordings haven't been reissued on CD.

[Dave2002]

That is indeed the situation.

Have you already chosen your next residence?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No. Just the approximate area.

[Dave2002]

No. Just the approximate area.

Good luck with that.

We've been exploring several areas over the last few years, but not quite managed to put things into action yet. Maybe we never will.
Time is moving on. We might give up and go to Scotland - there's some lovely property up there, but it's a long way back. Also, some things
take an even longer "forever" to get done up there than down in the "very crowded and would be busy if everyone wasn't so bogged down with going nowhere (M25 for example)" South East.

[umslopogaas]

Perhaps you should investigate the south west? Pricey, but nice climate and friendly people. Property round here (S. Exmoor) seems to be in demand. Scotland is a fine place, but too cold in winter for me.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Perhaps you should investigate the south west? Pricey, but nice climate and friendly people. Property round here (S. Exmoor) seems to be in demand. Scotland is a fine place, but too cold in winter for me.

Both areas being seriously considered. We've no desire to live in the Sardine Can.

[richardfinegold]

I'd love to know which one....

The Mytek Manhatten.

[richardfinegold]

Cleaning LPs is tedious, but it makes an amazing difference. If they are old, or bought secondhand, they will inevitably be dirty and you will be lifting the stylus every few minutes to clean of the accumulated muck. One clean on the Monks machine can actually make things worse, because it can loosen the dirt but not remove it. However, a second scrub usually does the trick, removes a lot of surface noise and means you can play a whole side without having to clean the stylus. The Monks machine is expensive - I think mine was £1600 when I bought it some 15 years ago - but it has cleaned all of my 7000+ discs and is still going strong. These days I dont buy many LPs (cant find the stock) and cleaning half a dozen or so at a time isnt a chore.

Concerning LP turntables, this is one area where I disagree with my local hifi dealer. He insists more expensive turntables are better, and by more expensive he can mean £10000. but I maintain that all a turntable has to do is go round at 33 1/3 and not rumble. You can easily meet those requirements for £1000. I would then be tempted to spend whatever is left on the modern equivalent of the old SME arm (probably not a modern SME, I think their stuff has got very expensive indeed), and on as good as cartridge as you can afford. I know that every time I have upgraded my cartridge the improvement has been very noticeable. I currently use separate Ortofon mono and stereo cartridges and they are very good indeed - the SME has detachable headshells so it only takes a couple of seconds to change over.

I am not sure , slops, about the pricing. Although I have given up on vinyl for a variety of reasons, I did pursue it energetically for the last 10 years, and IMO, the point of diminishing returns isn't clear. My last tt was the Clearaudio Concept with the mc Concept Cartridge, which cost about $2k here (I was lucky in that I got the same resale value
for it, after almost two years of use, due to the popularity of lps currently).
It was a clear improvement over my Rega P-5 which cost roughly 60% (with a Rega mm cart), which in turn was a huge improvement over my entry level Project table which went for about $200. I also found that Phono pre amps improved in quality as I tried several ranging from $200 to $1000.
So I can't speak as to whether a tt costing 10K would be 5 times better than the Clearaudio-I suspect not- but I am not sure where the asymptote lies.

[richardfinegold]

Depends what you mean by good.

I don't know what the current price status of "good" or "very good" turntables is - perhaps £2k is the minimum for very good.

I believe that acceptable ones can be had for well under £1000 - but a lot depends on how good you want the sound to be.

I always believed that CD was better than vinyl and that vinyl could not compete. One day I happened to hear an expensive turntable - probably a Linn - but
that was years and years ago and it sounded comparable to a very good CD player. I won't get into the "arguments" about better/worse. Another friend had
one which I think did cost him around £2000 - that was also years ago - and it also sounded very good.

That's why I'm suggesting £2k as the price for a good piece of turntable kit. Arguably (very much) that might compare with CD kit costing around £1k.

I grew up on old Garrard decks - a really ancient model - can't even remember the number - maybe SP10, then SP25, then I had a few others including a 301 (which I sold .. for £15 ...agggh). I think I also had an EMI SPU arm at one point - very odd unipivot design. It was in poor condition - I think I threw it away (maybe more screams from elsewhere ...).

Currently I have a 401 and a Thorens deck lurking around in storage space - maybe even a Technics and another Garrard cheapie which I bought a few years ago with the view that I might use it to play LPs which I bought in charity shops.

Crazy enthusiasts still spend serious money on revamping old decks - and fitting new cartridges etc. A 301 or 401 such as I had/have would easily cost over £1000 each in good condition (ay, but there's the rub ...). My 401 has a bit cut out of it because a previous owner couldn't fit it into his box (another aggghhhh....).

I do have an SME Mk II - like the rest, languishing, plus a range of cartridges - some Ortofons, some Shure.

At the cheaper end of the turntable market I hear that Project or Rega turntables and arms give good results, and are affordable, but how they compare with the more expensive stuff I don't know.
Many people might be very happy with such Project or Rega kit - but my feeling is that these wouldn't give the SQ which some much more expensive turntables and arms give.

Our OP has an SME III - I think IIRC that's quite a high end model, so should be worth a lot - even if it needs refurbishing.

Also, some enthusiasts still recommend moving coil models. I don't know what they're like - never had one - but they were always held to be significantly better than MM designs.
Then one needs better pre-amps.....

All of that LP cleaning and stuff - it's a pain. I think rfg agrees. However, OTOH, if one "invests" in high quality kit, and cleaning machines etc., then I do think good results can be had.
My view then would be to go through the pain of doing all that once, then use high end digital equipment to digitise the LPs, then put the kit away!

You raise a many good points Dave
IMHO, vinyl, at best, can come close to equaling good digital, but it sure takes a lot of work to get there, and great digital, such as High Rez downloads, of SACDs that can have their DSD fed into a high quality DAC, or Blu Ray Audio, simply can't be mentioned in the same breath as vinyl. Reel to reel tape also bests vinyl, but the choices of material on both ends of the replay chain are scarce, and tape is subject to degredation.
This months Hi Fi News has an article on vinyl pressing plants that mentions that due to the degradation in master tapes, 95% of new lp issues are made from a digital file. That is astounding. If one wants to hear digital files, why not just play them digitally, instead of extracting them from a slab of petroleum that is being slashed with an expensive sewing needle?