FMiguelez wrote:On a different note, and I might get lynched for saying this, but I guess I'll never understand what was so great about "the sound" of LPs. They sound like crap, they're noisy as hell, they are too delicate, require constant maintenance, and they last for only a few plays. I'm so glad we got rid of them! I mean, there's just no comparison to a good old CD. Or am I missing something???
I think it depends on what you do with them. For classical recordings, CDs are hard to beat. But I always liked LPs, too.
I had a system, however, that enabled me to capture a new LP on its first play, and I never played it again. I had a Nakamichi Dragon tape deck, which was easily the world's best cassette tape recorder at the time. It monitored the tape heads and kept them aligned in real time, and it allowed you to set it for the perfect bias of each tape when recording. With perfect alignment between channels, it enabled Dolby-C to work magic. When recording a new LP, I could switch back and forth to monitor the source or the tape, and aside from the slight delay that told you when the tape was being monitored, it was virtually impossible to identify which you were hearing by sound alone. So, I played the tapes over and over, but left the vinyl in its sleeve. Most of my LPs after 1982 were played only once.
That said, I think there is a reason why vinyl is "warmer" for pop music. Turn it up enough, and you get feedback through the turntable. The record itself, after all, is an excellent reverberator of sound waves. So, when playing loud pop music on vinyl, it was easy to get some "overdrive" that reinforced the existing sound.
I recorded my LPs with the speakers turned off, then used the tape for playback from then on. That way, I never got any feedback effects at all. Yes, I know that theoretically it's possible to get feedback through tape, too, but I never experienced that; ever.
As a musician, I belonged to a group for whom listening to classical music was serious business. We tended to have high-end systems and listened to them at "podium" levels; that is, we played them at the levels you'd hear if you were standing on the podium conducting an orchestra. If you've never done that, the experience is... well... unlike anything else in the world. But when you play classical music at a loud enough level, you hear everything; its beauty and the genius of its construction become more apparent. Pops and clicks at those levels were horrendous. That's why I sought a "perfect" playback system and ended up with the Nakamichi Dragon. Plus, I was able to use it to record live performances, and the results were as good as 15 ips reel-to-reel.
Funny thing; these days I hardly listen to anything outside of mp3 formats, except for music that I make myself, or other people's live music. Not sure what happened. I think I got tired of keeping up with technology. Also, when you make your own music, the listening is only a part of the overall experience. It's the other stuff that really attracts me to music these days — the dialog you're having with the composer, and/or the musical camaraderie with the other performers. Then there is music like that of Bach, where you learn something every time you play it. Well, sorry for the tangent. I guess we were talking about LPs, weren't we?
Shooshie
After it became clear most stuff will never get issued on CD, I broke down and bought a Stanton belt drive turntable. I didn't even splurge on a Grado cartridge or other pro audio upgrade.
