Originally posted by Steven Toy
Gary is right about the clicks and pops - if you're that easily distracted then you shouldn't really bother.
When they're several times louder than the music you're trying to listen to they're tough to ignore! I do mostly find them less irritating than more continuous low-level background noise though - they're over and done with so much quicker, whereas the background hiss etc just screws everything up.
So my reasons:
1) Side length - can get to listen to nearly an hour and a half of music without artificial breaks to turn the bloody disc over. As nearly everything I listen to is longer than half an hour this is a major issue. In the worst cases (e.g. Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, Mahler Symphony no 2) this actually required breaking music in the middle of movements (in the case of the Berlioz to avoid spreading the 50 minutes of music onto 2 discs). Even now, when I get to those points on CD or live performance it feels strange not to have to get up and fix the disc.
2) Backgound noise. OK with a mint LP and good kit, I've been shown that this can approach CD, but background hiss etc is the biggest killer of the recording=real illusion. I have several recordings where you cannot hear the softest notes above the surface noise - so you're left wondering what the heck's going on.
3) Related to the above....Dynamic range. CD may not be perfect, but it's clearly better than LP. In a direct comparison of the same recording on CD and LP (Solti's recording of Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils), we set the levels equal at the start of the piece (fairly delicate, quiet and subtle), and had to turn up the LP volume by about 3 levels by the end (none of the above!) to keep the two level matched.
4) Not really checked, but I doubt much of the more obscure music I get now is available on LP.
I am still considering getting a TT though, depending on how bothered I am about checking out the huge classical back catalogue. Even this is a dubious argument, as one of the major benefits of modern technology though is that the major (only?) growth area in the classical music industry is cleaning up old (i.e. pre-1953....out of copyright) recordings, so the music behind all that hash, crackle and pop can now be heard. However, since I've not had chance to listen to many discs in my current CD collection more than twice - I may be better off paying more attention to that. I'd probably be looking at at least a grand or two to get a TT to match my CD playback - and then the same again in LPs to match the repertoire.