Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ.

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Whoa! Slow down, big guy!

Posted by mr.bear (A) on July 29, 2003 at 01:00:30

In Reply to: Total solution for vinyl newbie ? posted by Doug Kim on July 28, 2003 at 20:45:55:

You must be subjected to my standard dose of philosophizing. This is recycled intellectual material, so if you've seen it, pass on...

Doug, it's good that you would choose to join the inmates in this pleasurable hobby. Keep in mind it is not all the bright lights and dancing girls you encounter here in Vinyl Asylum! Please consider the following features of the vinyl journey before plunking down the Platinum Visa for that turntable:

1. Hobbyist nature: Vinyl’s not purely a rational consumer choice. Many folks on VA are here not because they made a careful choice to get the last soupcon of audible purity for the dollar... The vinyl journey is a "lifestyle" for people whose records were acquired over much of their lives and MEAN a lot to them. I must play my records, they represent my past and future, IT'S ART HAPPENING, MAN!!

2. Limited availability of new vinyl: If you plan buy mainly new records, you will possibly be disappointed. New releases are quite expensive and do not cover the full range of music published in a given year by a long shot. Re-releases are erratic and cover a tiny portion of the musical spectrum. Not all new records are 'audiophile' quality even though the price is!

3. Inconvenience: You have to jump up every 25 minutes and pick up your toneram. Your records get scratches and pops sometimes. It is unbelievably easy to destroy the stylus on a $600 cartridge with the brush of a stray sleeve. Can you enjoy living daily with a complex, beautifully-machined device with a half-dozen sensitive adjustments? What about the cat?

4. Got to get out of the house: Much of the real fun of this hobby is finding cool, old records. There's literally billions of used LP's out there. Keep in mind they stop pretty much around 1985-1989!! Does that suit your taste? Where are they? You must go look, hanging out at thrift shops, rummage sales, etc. and talking to old codgers! Does that interest you at all?

You can buy a vinyl rig for under $1000 that will make good records sound awesome - better than any digital sound I ever heard. The notion of adjusting your ear for vinyl is very significant- the inner beauty of vinyl records is subtle and is not always there for you, depending somewhat on your state of mind, if you see what I mean. Not to discourage you, but you must think carefully. There's much more to enjoying vinyl than buying a lovely TT.

You didn't describe the balance of your system- there are many different paths depending on what you're trying to achieve. Put it on Inmate Systens someday. In absence of info, I suggest you might enjoy a cost-effective Music Hall, for example, to start. Try it for one year. Add a modest solid-state RIAA stage like the $125 battery-powered Hegerman (search archives). You have good sound, not the ultimate but like Krshna told Arjuna on the battlefield: "You can't jump to the absolute, dude!" Save some money for a record-buying spree.

The Music Hall TT comes with a decent Goldring MM cartridge- not great but good enough to make the inner beauty of vinyl come alive. Hey- Mike Fremer says so- must be true! Buy it locally so you can get help with set-up and advice. In a year you can upgrade it or, if you decide you don't like the whole business, sell it. The Music Hall will trade or sell easily when you're ready.

5 jazz titles to make you the coolest guy in Chicago:
Miles Davis "Sketches of Spain"
Weather Report "Heavy Weather"
"The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album"
"John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman"
Les McCann & Eddie Harris "Swiss Movement"

Good luck my friend!

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