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arguments against starting a vinyl collection?

Hi,

I have a pretty elaborate setup for cd playback. I use the emmlabs cdsd transport and emmlabs dcc2se dac with the dartzeel amplifier and the wonderful evolution acoustic mm2 speakers with powered woofers.

I own roughly 2600 cds and about 175 sacds.

The vinyl crowd still swears of course that great digital playback cannot equal vinyl so have been somewhat tempted to dip my toes into analog and get a turntable and phono preamp. Here is what is holding me back!

Please note that I would not get vinyl to find obscure vinyl only vintage or otherwise recordings.

It would be mostly targeted at recordings that sound better on vinyl than cd.

Here is the arguments against:

1. hard to find a turntable and phono preamp that is class A and thus as good as my emmlabs cd equipment without spending serious bucks?

2. Even if I could find a reasonably priced class A turntable, the best sound requires more skill than a newbie like I would have? In other words, the better turntables are harder to setup and use?

3. A lot of heavy weight albums are double albums so you need to switch sides three times?

4. You need to clean the vinyl before every listen?

5. If you listen 15 times to a particular vinyl album you will likely begin to hear some deteoriation?

6. Even with a good setup, you will probably still hear pops and hiss on many vinyl albums even some well mastered ones?

7. I will not hear for modern recordings a big difference between vinyl and cds given that my emmlabs equipment is so good and I cannot afford a $10,000 phono preamp and a $25,000 turntable/cartridge....

thanks

Michael
karmapolice
xiekitchen
819 posts
 
We seem to be having a lot of these vinyl vs cd threads lately. I don't think Vinyl is overwhemingly "superior" to cd. You do not have to spend $$$10K to get a good phono unit (but it wouldn't hurt!) or that much on table and cart...I'll bet for $8K total for table, cart & phono pre you can have something very satisfying. Also I find also once you really clean an Lp the first time, you don't have to clean it again or at least for a while. With properly cleaned records, stylus and properly set up cartridge parameters, vinyl does not deteriate that quickly.
karmapolice's avatar
karmapolice OP
141 posts
 
tvad,

I saw that you like porcupine tree lighthouse sun.....I just listened to it tonite and oh my god it was so yummy......great mastering to in my humble opinion....

by the way for other out there, I personally don't believe that any one medium is intrinsically better than another. If I was starting from scratch now, I would probably go with vinyl even. At some point, I will probably add vinyl but my speaker has one more upgrade that may make it even better and been itching to try the audio research ref 3 preamp so it just might be awhile till I get to the phono/turntable addition....I do think $7-8K is probably necessary to get comparable vinyl nirvana (table and preamp) to fairly compare with my digital bliss.

Michael
tvad
9,467 posts
 
I do think $7-8K is probably necessary to get comparable vinyl nirvana (table and preamp) to fairly compare with my digital bliss.

Michael
Karmapolice (Reviews | Threads | Answers)

Well, I disagree, but I'm fairly certain it'd be very difficult to move you off your predisposed biases.

It appears you are assigning a dollar figure to the analog rig based on some ratio you have devised based on the cost of your investment in your digital gear, and perhaps your speakers and amps.

In my experience hearing EMM Labs gear in my system, it was surpassed by a digital playback component costing less than half.

I don't intend this as an affront to your taste, preferences or judgment, but rather an illustration of how everyone's taste is different, and how cost does not necessarily correlate to personal preference.

I think assigning a dollar figure to analog playback without hearing the available options is doing your bank account a disservice.

Also, vinyl sounds inherently different than digital. If your goal is to equal the sound of your digital gear with a vinyl rig, then you are attempting a futile endeavor, IMO. You may possibly find a vinyl rig for half your budget that provides as much pleasure, or more, than your digital playback system.

Or, you may simply end up frustrated that you can't get LPs to sound as clean as CDs. They never will. It's part of the charm of LPs. However, they will sound superior to CDs in some ways...pops, ticks and all.

Off the soapbox now...
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
1,368 posts
 
One reason for not *starting* a vinyl collection at this point is that it is quite possible that high rez digital downloads that would provide superior sound quality to the best digital and vinyl available today may be available in the not too distant future. I don't have any inside information on this but it seems to be the way things are heading.

If you save the money and time you would spend on getting started in high quality analog you will be able to upgrade your hardware and software when quality digital downloads become widely available. Some high rez digital (24/176.4) is already available.

Another reason is that there is no guarantee that you would find vinyl superior to digital.
ejlif's avatar
ejlif
1,243 posts
 
I've never heard the Emm Labs gear.

I added a turntable to my rig that had a 10K CD player. I bought the vinyl rig for 800 used including cartridge. I spent 1800 on a phono stage. That modest setup I thought was so much more musical and involving than the digital. I eventually upgraded to an even better analog setup. I don't think you have to think about spending mega bucks on your first go at it. At least you could get something and test the waters a bit without going to deep. This would allow you find out if you can tolerate the downside of vinyl and see if you can live with it. It's all an opinion, but I personally think I would find more musical enjoyment out of a 500 used analog setup than I would in a mega thousand dollar digital playback rig. That said if I was forced to only pick one it would be digital because I wouldn't be willing to miss out on all the great music that is available only on CD.

You'll never really know unless you try it.
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