Cd’s or vinyl

I have a Linn LP12 with Ittok arm. Pretty old now but still a good deck. I can’t remember when I last listened to a record. CD or Radio 3 for me.

Do you have any idea what that Linn is worth? A Basik is very expensive, my mate has one he bought new, and has had it upgraded, and it’s worth several thousand pounds now, LP12’s run to many thousands! Go online and you can find s/h LP12’s going for £1500-2500, but I’ve just seen two from petertyson.co.uk, this being the most expensive…

https://petertyson.co.uk/linn-sondek-lp12-50-turntable?clickref=1101lzQGeLdn&utm_source=partnerize&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=1101l69362

I gave up on vinyl in 1982, when I returned four copies of Peter Gabriel’s fourth album because they were unplayable, the surface noise made them unlistenable, and that coincided neatly with CD being introduced, and that album was one of the first. I happened to work part-time in a HiFi shop, so I had access to nice equipment, my turntable was a Logic DM101, Zeta tonearm with AudioTechnica MC cartridge, about £2.5k retail, so if vinyl was unlistenable on that, it must be bad. It was, vinyl was being recycled, ground up and reused for new albums, I had one that had lots of little white specks all over it – under a magnifying glass they were bits of ground up label embedded in the disks!

I wouldn’t trust vintage vinyl, tbh, without knowing the history. Plus it wasn’t unusual for the original stampers used to press the disks to wear out or get damaged, and a replacement cut from a copy of the studio master, which might be a second- or third-generation tape, so sound quality is degrading at every stage.

It’s possible to tell, by looking at the sleeve details, where it might say ‘Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk’, he’s accepted as the best vinyl mastering engineer ever, but you can look at the run-out grooves of the disk, and one side might say ‘Masterdisk’, the other might say ‘Stirling Sound’, so it can’t, by definition, be as good quality because it’s been mastered from a second generation tape, by a different person at a different mastering studio.

Having said all that, early CD’s were pretty crap because they were mastered from tapes EQ’d for vinyl, which has a totally different dynamic range.

But no shitty background noise, though.

Music snobbery seems to have peaked.

And paying all that money for vinyl and then playing it on a mediocre record deck makes no sense to me.

I do still buy the occasional bit of vinyl – new stuff from Trunk, or Ninja Tunes, etc. if I see something cool – but I’m not into these £30+ reissues of classic albums.

Luckily most of my vinyl purchasing was back in the 90s – 00s, when new vinyl was still relatively cheap, you could pick up proper bargains in places like Music and Video Exchange (I haunted that place when I lived in London!), and charity shops were full to brim with exciting finds as everyone was just chucking out their old LPs.

I clearly remember walking out of a Torquay chazza with David Bowie’s entire back catalogue for a cheeky 50p per LP 😆

I clearly remember walking out of a Torquay chazza with David Bowie’s entire back catalogue for a cheeky 50p per LP ?

Those were the days when you could get five pints, a bag of chips and still get changes out of a fiver

early CD’s were pretty crap because they were mastered from tapes EQ’d for vinyl, which has a totally different dynamic range.

Back in those days, CDs were labelled [A][A][D] or suchlike to indicate how far along the food chain it’d been converted. The first fully (mainstream?) [D][D][D] disc was Brothers in Arms.

I’ve mentioned this before but MrsRNP beloved father had a ‘gold turntable’, after his death it got lost in the garage.

I found it and discovered it was a Nottingham Analogue Dais. I contacted them and dropped it off for repair (they also replaced the arm & stylus) and did an amazing job.

Record playing in our house is a lovely emotive charged affair.

Those were the days when you could get five pints, a bag of chips and still get changes out of a fiver

😆 not quite, but old vinyl was literally as cheap as chips.

I had to look that turntable up as I thought it was a copy of my Systemdek biscuit tin from ’85

Very expensive indeed

I need to get some electrical repairs to my A&R Cambridge A60 amp from the same era and see if the Creek amp I’ve got up the loft fires up with no cracklin

Vinyl for me…but then I’m a old skool rave dj , 2 decks and a mixer turns vinyl into a instrument

Do you have any idea what that Linn is worth?

It’s a “standard” LP12 from the ’90s. No fancy stuff like Valhalla. I reckon it’s probably worth around £1000. That £50000 version has very little in common with mine. Still a bloody silly price.

CDs were labelled [A][A][D] or suchlike to indicate how far along the food chain it’d been converted.

Never knew what that refered to, thanks Cou2.

I buy cds generally, rip to an mp3 player for out & about. Vinyl is too fragile and so often I hear about substandard quality of small run presses. I get the impression that quality control is less of a thing now that plants are so busy and it’s hard to time stock with a tour or advertised release date so if there’s an issue with a batch a repress might take ages.

When cds became available I heard rumours that they’d be susceptable to oxidation / disk rot. First cd I ever bought still gets played every so often, no issues.

When cds became available I heard rumours that they’d be susceptable to oxidation / disk rot.

Seemingly it is a thing, I’ve had a couple of CDs and DVDs go bad but can’t say it’s been anything other than random. In any event it’s an easy job to rip discs to a hard drive and storage has never been cheaper. My plan is to rip everything and self-host.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Never knew what that refered to, thanks Cou2.

It’s something like Original Master, Duplication, Pressing. Or something. The final [D] being the disc itself.

Huh, it’s just occurred to me,

All the vinyl aficionados eschewing digital formats, any LPs pressed in like the last 30 years were probably recorded digitally in the first place and then converted back to analogue to press the record.

All the vinyl aficionados eschewing digital formats, any LPs pressed in like the last 30 years were probably recorded digitally in the first place and then converted back to analogue to press the record.

Likewise, if you’re listening to an older recording on CD or streaming, it was recorded on analogue.

Personally, I don’t care. Vinyl sounds great to my ears and that’s all that really matters.

that’s all that really matters.

Yep. It’s like riding a hardtail or full-sus; it’s all good, all that matters is you’re on a bike. I guess streaming is an e-bike, in that analogy.

It’s something like Original Master, Duplication, Pressing. Or something. The final [D] being the disc itself.

Yep. SPARS code

I guess streaming is an e-bike, in that analogy.

Except in the case of streaming the musicians creating the product get paid buttons.

that’s all that really matters.

Can’t argue with that. We can debate all we like, but only have you have your ears.

(I mean, they’re clearly broken, but… 🙂 )

Yep. SPARS code

Aha, I never knew what it was called. Cheers for that.

(And I was almost right 🙂 )