Tried analog yet again after decades of digital

To each his own!

A VPI scout is a low end turntable.

Records with pops and clicks, indicate very poor record care.

Turntable/cartridge/arm setup for optimal sound requires too much, attention to detail, and patience, for many.

Toss your records, and stick with digital!

You will be happier.

For a younger person, I can't imagine just now getting into the LP/Table/Arm/Cartridge/isolation platform/phono amp/LP cleaner/etc world. It's a lot of work, and takes a while to get really competent at and comfortable with. Not to mention having to move the LP's every time you relocate!

For those who grew up with LP's, and had already amassed a sizable music library by the time the CD was introduced, it's a very different story. I wasn't about to replace 5,000 LP's with CD's, even if they had sounded as good, which they didn't (I already had a good record player, and early CD machines were mighty bad, as were the CD's themselves). I find it unbelievable Herb Reichert did, only recently coming back to analog. At his age, starting over again! Especially as digital has improved so much, and new LP's cost so much.

But unless an LP has been really manhandled, I don't see why it should be so noisy. Mine aren't, and some of them have been played many, many times in the 45 years I've owned them!

Personally - I listen to vinyl when I really want to "listen" to some really excellent live music and do not mind the exercise of changing albums.

Rest of the time I put on the digital.

My current digital rig is extremely convenient...
- my entire collection is on a "RAID mirrored" NAS drive
- I access/stream the tracks from my iMac
- I control the access via my phone/tablet from anywhere in the house
- the quality is extremely good

However - the quality of my digital rig still pales in comparison to my vinyl rig, which is hardly surprising, since I've spent more on various analogue related component-parts.

But, even today's modestly priced digital gear is extremely good, especially when I think back to the analogue rig I started out with, and from what I am hearing/reading/experiencing it is getting better all the time.

My one gripe about vinyl these days is - I seem to return more defective albums these days...
- warped albums
- defective tracks - I'm talking serious track distortions
- one even had metal shavings embedded in the vinyl

Shouldn't the quality of vinyl have gone up with the advent of more precise cutting/pressing technology - or is it becoming a "Lost Artform"?

Would I trash my vinyl collection in favour of digital?
- NEVER!!!
- I still buy selected vinyl for live concerts and classical
- if a store has both - I gravitate to the vinyl section
- However, I don't avoid buying digital albums.
- but I'm really glad of the vinyl resurgence.

But please - DON'T bring back cassette tapes :-)

Cheers :-)

It's a strange thing, but...some of the WORST quality audio I've heard came from analog. And some of these were pretty pricey setups. One was at the house of an audio manufacturer whom I won't mention. Screechy and unmusical was the simplest way to describe it. You'd think he would know better.

Yet paradoxically, it is also true that the BEST quality audio I've heard...also came from analog. While digital is "constantly evolving" supposedly, I've heard audio extracted from 20+ year old turntables that the best digital I've heard still can't touch!

The only thing I get from this is maybe you DO need to be "anal" about your setup...because it seems this is very critical. But analog was never really about convenience, which was why digital came on strong in the first place.

If I were retired, I wouldn't mind devoting a lot of time to analog, to satisfy my audio OCD. Right now I just don't have enough time for it.

what LPs do you have - maybe I will buy them off you.