Turntables & vinyl: just a fashion thing or a sincere appreciation for the sound?

Its a fact of life that when a bloke gets past 35 he will;


start reading The Sun again
watch 24 with the wife
buy a pair of sandals
and rediscover vinyl

its just the way it is

 

Yes, indeed, very much a social event too. Always more fun if there's a couple of you going record shopping, although you're more likely to buy stuff you might not as you can get talked into it. A few pints afterwards is mandatory. Roll on Wednesday, the ultimate combination, record shopping, pub and concert.

Has anyone found an LP emoticon yet?

 

Yes Ian - thanks to you I nearly break both arms every time I leave MVE in London Mind you, I think I've probably cajuled you into some purchases in my time too - though still no Sam Fox (as yet) - he he!

I reckon we should just get some vinyl and have done with it for this Arthur Lee/Love gig dude - just hang onto it (and still rock out!). Can't wait!!!

 

Real Record Revival -?

Hi! I'm in western Canada and don't see any real record revival.
The main record shops forced us out of vinyl in late 1980s; that annoyed me, so I refused to get a CD player for 10 years, when someone gave me one for my birthday! S/H shops had vinly LPs another decade, but even stalwart "Recordland" now has far more CDs than vinyl left.

I have quite a few vinyl 33.33 rpm, mostly classical works, notably some rare modernist works never re-issued. I have two SONY TT and still play records sparingly, so as not to wear them out! (I even bought a pile of great classical records for 10 cents each when our library removed the collection!)

A good fresh LP is better sound than a CD, but once they get too worn or scratched, they annoy me. (My own are in good shape, the library collection varies.) I still collect LPs! I get very few CDs, mostly cheap 2nd hand country music, often off the web, since I now collect that too, but dislike paying country artists the full fare of real classical musicians since I have been into both as a musician and classical is far more demanding work. I buy CDs full price when they have NEW composer classical works of merit - I have written some myself and know it's a thankless tast - and I listen to CBC-radio to hear new works first. Most are not on LP.

Lately I've gone into folk and celtic and bluegrass music of our roots. Weekday evenings David Duke (www.davidduke.org) has OLD TIMEY music featuring music before radio took over and our culture changed to a globalist multicultural agenda.

David Duke's music show Old Timey music (followed by Celtic Music and news on free speech suppression etc) introduced me to early 78 and cylinder music of the early Edison era. Fascinating!

I've considered getting a cylinder phonograph... costy for low-fi and costly cylinders, but with some music not re-issued.

Researching cylinder technology I'm surprised to find it was more durable than later discs, and possibly more lasting than CDs since fine metal patterns can readily tarnish; probably most will decay in 50-100 years. Cylinder music is 80 to 110+ years old, durable and easy to figure how to play (hang a needle on a cone and rotate the cylinder until the speed sound about right!) unlike CDs whose more obscure technology may die and they'll be useless!

There are other cylinder advantages. Playing grooves at constant speed, unlike a disc surface with fast at the start and slow at end, it allows a constant quality. The needle is driven to follow the groove and is not dragged along at an angle by the groove, which wears grooves unevenly, and makes needles prone to jump or stick in a groove. Full driven cylinder machines don't stick or jump. Recordings wear out far more slowly. In fact the needle was soft steel and hard amberol had fine silt to wear the needle and keep it sharper... but this caused a little hissing. If our advanced recording technology were used on cylinders, you'd really have something! I'm trying to experiment on this. comments welcome.


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