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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
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.
czbbcl's avatar
czbbcl
1,699 posts
 
I am in the same boat as you and have decided not to pursue the vinyl thing. Most of all I like a quiet dark background and very good fast dynamic contrasts in my music. And my modded sony provides me with these characteristics in spades.

A friend of mine has a very nice vinyl set-up ($8000) and has tried to talk me into going down that road. I have listened to his plus a couple differenct higher end rigs at some specialty retailers and I have not been impressed. Maybe in my system it would be differenct but I did not hear what I was looking for to pursue it further; at least for now.

Admittedly some TT's are absolutely gorgeous and maybe someday down the road it might be fun to have to play with. But right now my life is too complicated and time too precious to have the hassles of dealing with a vinyl set-up.
fordmod
30 posts
 
You will not enjoy it at all.... you will spend way too much time looking for it, cleaning it and listening to it. Your lawn will grow tall, your pets will go unfed, you will stay up too late playing them, be tired the next day and loose you job, and then start selling your cd collection to buy food.
It is an addiction! But boy do I like it!

Cheers and go for it.
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