In the following rebuttal, I'm not arguing the superiority of vinyl over digital or vice versa, so I skipped over any related comments made by the quoted participants. I listen to both formats, and enjoy both. I have roughly the same amount invested in playback gear for each in order to extract as much enjoyment as possible
for my tastes. YMMV.
Like i said....
Listening to vinyl albums is a completely different experience and it has little to do with sound quality.
If you enjoy the LP experience by all means enjoy it, but there is a lot more to it than just listening to music.
I'm trying to understand exactly what you mean by "little to do with sound quality." I think you paint with a very, very wide brush. Do you mean to say that vinyl has NO sound quality because it has:
- surface noise (the "sssshhhhhhhh" sound),
- transient noise ( the "ticks and pops"), and
- high maintenance?
You agreed with and thanked Glenn for his post, but it actually contradicts your views on many points. Please elaborate.
The trouble with starting out cheap to figure out if you like it is that you will hear a very high noise floor, static, pops, wow & flutter, etc leading to disappointment.
I agree.
The vinyl-philes will argue that you have been let down due to the cheap gear. So you will then buy expensive gear and still hear a high noise floor, static, pops, wow & flutter and still be disappointed (compared to digital).
I disagree. You obviously haven't heard a properly set up uber-expensive rig that costs as much as a high-end luxury car! Seriously, I'm not sure where the price-to-performance threshold lies, but when I upgraded from a ((Direct-Drive, servo-controlled Dual 501 turntable with the venerable Shure V15 Mark-IV cartridge)) to an ((integral belt-drive VPI HW-19 JR turntable with the Sumiko Blue-Point Special cartridge)) AND adopted a wet-clean over dry-clean LP method:
- surface noise all but vanished
- the number of ticks & pops were reduced (variable results)
- wow & flutter only increased if the belt was improperly installed, or when it stretched with age
- turntable rumble was dramatically reduced
Price difference? Roughly $600-700. Hardly a raid-the-kids-college-fund endeavor. And sorry, no empirical data to back my claims except hundreds of thousands of other subjective testimonials. Actually, there are probably published objective studies out there somewhere. If not, maybe the staff could have a shootout comparison like they did for the amps?
Even with brand new virgin $25 vinyl that has been properly cared for and washed, there probably will still be static and pops.
True, but... see my last comment below.
This purchase also reinforces my experience that the most important aspect of sound quality is the engineering of the audio. MP3's, CD's, Hi Res downloads, and LP's can sound good or they can sound bad. Over the last week I have listened to many LP's that sound wonderful and many that sound dreadful (same experience with MP3's, CD's, and Hi Res dwnlds).
I agree you've heard both bad and good. Me, too! :T
But playing vinyl does have several negative aspects that are noticeable even with well engineered audio, these include very high noise floor, the pop's & clicks, and maintenance of both the vinyl and the TT.
Almost. I'm assuming by "noise floor" you mean vinyl surface noise, table wow & flutter, table rumble, etc. A very high "noise floor" is present only with very poor quality hardware and very poor quality media. But "noise floor" has an inversely proportional relationship with quality; the noise floor diminishes with increasing hardware/media quality. The act of performing maintenance has nothing to do with sound quality. The fact that it needs to be performed does. If an album isn't properly cared for, don't expect it to sound it's best. On the flip side, if a CD isn't properly cared for, it will eventually fail--catastrophically. So maintenance doesn't really factor into the equation, because both formats need it--it's just that digital media has the upper hand, because it's robust.
And there is a good feeling when you start to play an LP, it doesn't sound right with extra popping & clicking...
I can only answer that with a quote from an editorial title
Excerpt From The Absolute Sound 2011 Buyer’s Guide to Vinyl Playback
"I also think that not all listeners hear things the same way. For some, the occasional tick or
pop of vinyl jolts them out of the immersion in the music. For others, the distortion imposed
by standard-resolution digital never allows that sense of immersion in the first place. Both
types of listeners are “right” in their preferences."