vinyl v cd...

the P3 is a pretty good deck, but I reckon you'll need a pretty good cart, something like a MC15, then a decent phono stage, maybe the Pro-ject SE as a minimum. I reckon that may see off cD players up to £1000. That is if you like vinyl presentation. Vinyl is very different to my mind and it's a bit like comparing apples and oranges. You need to hear some and see whether you like it or not

 

I tried the Phono Box SE with my P3,and it didn't cut the mustard,so went up to the new X-LPS V3,and it was transformed (cart is a 100 quid jobby).

 

Yes,but we are talking about a Wadia,about 3k I believe,the Rega just won't compete.

 

Can you not borrow a friends rig or find a dealer that could do a demo for you? Either way, I would not be splashing the cash if I had no records to play .

As for needing to spend x amounts of cash to see off x brand and x cost of CD player, it all rests with your ears and preference, there are no hard and fast rules. If you are attuned to the sound of digital playback you may and will probably find analogue a bit weird at first. Analogue replay artifacts are the antithesis of digital sytems, but what they do well is what music is all about as far as I'm concerned (living, breathing and natural sounding). A budget deck will put you off if you are going to run it alongside the Wadia IMO.

I personally prefer LP over CD in my system, but then, my TT rig is a tad more expensive and I've tried to keep everything pure analogue (valves etc) to synergise for analogue and not digital. (Pure analogue rocks.....ahem...)

Don't can the idea, just try and get a demo of a decent rig, dip your toe in and see if you like the water!

KXF

 

I don't think it matters, a person who owns a Royce Rolls may well still have a lot of fun with a £10k Mini. A Rega P3 won't be a match for a £3k CD Player but it will give you a good taste. I don't think when I am watching DVDs this sounds crap compared to my CD Player.

 

Ive been using Caimen on Amazon a lot too. They are cheap, no doubt!

The only thing that has been pissing me off with them, they advertise some stock that they haven't got, and can't get. Worse though, they charge you and then just dont deliver the item or tell you its out of print.

They do refund when you chase, but they've annoyed me because I shouldnt have to!

You cant knock their prices of new stock though. They remind me of CD-Wow before the bubble burst.

 

Blakeaudio has the advantage of living in Notting Hill, home of many fine new and secondhand record shops. Not all of it cheap, but lots of things he won't otherwise find on CD, and plenty available for reasonable prices. So a P3, to minimise the entry cost, which will be resellable for almost what he paid for it, and many hours spent in secondhand record shops, will be the best way to find out if he likes vinyl. Spending a grand at this stage seems nuts to me. OTOH not buying a decent budget TT at all on the grounds that it won't be as good as his much more expensive CD player also seems nuts. You have to start somewhere.

-- Ian

 

cd or lp on caimen? or is cp some new hybrid ;-)

 

i don't spend the whole time thinking dvd's sound crap, but i certainly do notice the difference.

you're right on both counts, i just wouldn't want to have to feck around with it and upgrade later. surely a second hand high end deck could also be sold for minimal loss if i didn't get on with analogue. i also have acces to my brother in law's and my uncle's extensive vinyl collections (both collections in storage as both are, and have been with out turntables for going on 10 years but can't bare to part with their precisious black discs). so i probably have access to over 100 albums right of the bat.

 

Some good advice here, but to be honest it really depends on your motivation. My first love is music, but I'm also a bit of a collector and vinyl for me has far more appeal than CD - frankly I love records as objects to collect and CDs are just a very poor relation in that respect.

Often as not my vinyl rig pees all over my CD setup, however its hard to deny that it struggles to do it completely consistently, mainly because the quality of vinyl pressings can be so variable. Inconsistencies in CD are usually down to the quality of the original recording and/or the mastering - with vinyl there are those factors too, but all the inconsistencies that come in the pressing process as well.

Put another way, I firmly believe that a top quality vinyl pressing beats CD hands down (to my ears on my setup), but the difference between the best vinyl and the worst vinyl is a bigger difference between the best CD and the worst CD. This is especially so of eighties pressings which can be very shonky indeed - mind you some of the mastering on early CDs was truly shocking and even eighties vinyl is better in those cases. Most new vinyl is excellent and from the right outlet reasonably competively priced and often have bargains (try Selectadisc in Berwick Street)

I can live with it because my love for the medium outweighs the problem and love for my music means I can live with it anyway. However someone whose main motivation is simply to better (or at least equal) their CD setup, may be in for a little disappointment.

For those brought up on CD it can appear an inconvenient medium as well - the care you need to take, the cleaning and dusting etc. might seem tedious -for those brought up on vinyl its more like a well loved ritual.

Good secondhand stuff can be got cheap from the charity shops - Oxfam have some shops which specialise and you are saved from the Mantovani/Streisand/Phil Collins hell that is most charity shops. But specialist second hand vinyl shops aren't that cheap - you'll usually be paying upwards of £2 a disc and a lot more for anything vaguely collectable.

I shouldn't be surprised if you dropped £1500 or so on the right vinyl rig, you will most often be absolutely delighted with the results next to CD, but occasionally you may be disappointed.

So if your only motivation is simply to better your CD I'd say think carefully - you may not be able to live with the downsides, however if you are tempted by the whole vinyl thing anyway - get something reasonable on a budget like a P3 or something a bit more exotic second hand in that sort of price range - it may be cheaper but it won't fall too far short I hope - see if you like it and see if you can live with the inconveninces - does the upside of vinyl addiction outweigh the downside for you, if yes then you can upgrade without losing too much money.

Go to somewhere like Walrus for an audtion before deciding.

PS. I really don't get this storage thing - storing vinyl may require a deeper shelf, but if you store CDs spine out, most CD storage systems actually hold fewer CDs for a given area of wall than vinyl (they may be half as tall, but they are three times fatter and usually waste space between CDs because they sit in slots).

 

thanks for that uncle ants, and all. i was hoping that the forum would do exactly this, and help raise the various point that i should be considering. in contradiction to the other current thread, this forum does still seem to work.

i am attracted to the whole vinyl thing. as others have commented previously, turntables are just lovely objects as are records. music and good sound are equally important. overall it is just something new to lust after and contemplate before deciding whether or not to take the plunge... just trying to weigh up all the pros and cons and come to a decision as to whether or not it will be worth it to me.
and may i just say i am grateful to see the balanced answers coming back rather than just telling me that vinyl is always better!!!

 

Rest assured, it isn't - but it is surprisingly good and can hold its head up in the company of CD. Unlike Uncle Ants, to me, they sound exactly the same, but I like the convenience of CD and the fact that so much of my particular listening (pretty much 100% classical) is available on CD (including many performances from the days of 78s). I have no love of records and turntables as objects, but I have a big vinyl collection from pre-CD days, so I have a turntable to play it.

As Ian (Sideshowbob) said 'way back at the beginning, it depends on what you want out of the thing. If what you like can be had cheaply in vinyl, it could be the way to go.

 

it's a toy.... at the end of the day this whole hifi thing is a hobby that allows us to play with nice toys, listen to music and relax. i find music a very theraputic way to unwind at the end of a stressfull day. the more realism and increased sense of the performance i can get the better. someone (i think perhap son theis forum...) descibed their set up as a time machine, allowing the individual to escape back to the recording venue. i like that whole sense of escape to the performace. i think perhaps this whole hifi thing is like a drug, where we are trying to regain THAT high. each time it requires a bigger dose. i'm just wondering after playing around with cables and all the other tweaks (i'm also thinking about new preamps and amps...) if vinyl is that new bigger hit?

 

The problem with recommending a vinyl entry point is that there are even more variables than you've got already, just to get a sound from the system: t/t, arm, cartridge, preamp/headamp, cables. Oh yes, and then you've got to get the right turntalbe support/shelf/rack, and then you've got cartridge alignment, tracking force, (vta anyone?,) and dirty styluses. And mat material and....

Hence everyone's recommendations of, say, a Rega or a Project as an entry point. If you want any more and are undecided as to whether you should enter the world of vinyl, then you've got to go an do a LOT of listening before you take the plunge.

2nd hand gives you stunning value. I recommended/found a second hand Linn LP12/Ittok for my brother-in-law (21yo) from Loot, which he loves, and gives a wonderful entry point. But you've reached the stage where you care about the nuances of the sound you're hearing, and the Linn sound may not be one that you like.

In the house my son's got my dad's old Thorens TD160 and I've got a 2nd hand Rega Planar 2 which I bought while I'm (still in the middle of) restoring my 20+ year old Oracle/FR64s/Koetsu Black. I've still heard very few realistic CD players, hence my presence in a forum like this, to learn from others' experiences whilst still being capable of affording the equipment. I love vinyl, but it's very easy to dislodge a vinyl system from its state of loveliness (read the lists in the 1st paragraph), and you might not like the faffing about and the increased exercise every 15-20 mins.

And, as someone said earlier, the quality of 2nd hand LPs can be dire - scuffs, pet hairs, emulsion paint (!) and the rest. So my two recommendations to anyone considering vinyl - a good stylus cleaner (I still use my old Audio Technica ultrasonic thingy) and build yourself a vacuum record cleaner.

 

Encouraging, in particular for us newcomers.

I have a question, but as it's off topic I'll PM it to you

Cheers

 

More like a religion I'd say:

http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=11783

 

Tones, that had me rolling

It does lead to a slight theoligical problem though - it would seem that He Who Shall Not Be Named for Fear of the Wrath of the Moderator - is in a fairly good position to stand for Dope - or was he just a False Profit and Anti Dope?

 

If it's the same one I have in mind, he is already a False Profit, judging by an embarrassing gush elsewhere that made Baron Chauvin's pronouncements sound like harsh criticism. Of course, there is a hysterical precedent for Anti-Dope in the so-called "Babylonian Captivity", when the Head of another religion set up a rival shop in a remote corner (Avignon). A cue for an Avignon-type song?

Sur le pont d'Angelsey
L'on y construit, l'on y construit
Sur le pont d'Anglesey
L'on y construit en inox

(inox = stainless steel).