New to vinyl .... any thoughts on a good starting deck?

[Lost Angeles]

FrankHarveyHiFi:

There's loads of vinyl being remastered and re-released - may cost a little more, but getting 180g and 200g versions of some great albums in mint condition are well worth paying the extra for........

You can get most new releases on vinyl nowadays, just keep an eye on the main sites like Diverse vinyl etc. I keep having vinyl buying spurts every 6 months......and I don't even have a turntable!

Lend them to me and I'll make sure they play and sounds OK.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Lost Angeles:FrankHarveyHiFi: You can get most new releases on vinyl nowadays, just keep an eye on the main sites like Diverse vinyl etc. I keep having vinyl buying spurts every 6 months......and I don't even have a turntable!

Lend it to me and I'll make sure it plays and sounds OK.Haha! Nice try........

Also worth mentioning that a hi-fi system sounds so much better being fed a signal from a good quality turntable. Once you're reminded just how good it sounds, you realise why hi-fi hasn't sounded as good for the past 20 odd years!!

 

[Anonymous]

FrankHarveyHiFi:
There's loads of vinyl being remastered and re-released - may cost a little more, but getting 180g and 200g versions of some great albums in mint condition are well worth paying the extra for........

You can get most new releases on vinyl nowadays, just keep an eye on the main sites like Diverse vinyl etc. I keep having vinyl buying spurts every 6 months......and I don't even have a turntable!

Unfortunately that's not true. A good original pressing will always beat a re-mastered new one, especially if it was made from original analog master tape, which is the case for by far the majority or LPs. Also, 180g and 200g add nothing, other than you can't do the Rolf Harris wobble board thing with your vinyl. I think it was RCA or CBS in the 60s who used to champion lighter and therefore thinner pressings, as they were thought to be quieter. To me the lighter/heavier thing is mainly about marketing.

 

[matengawhat]

i read somewhere that most vinyl of the last 30 years has come from digital masters - which started to become the norm from the seventies onwards so the aboves not true - will try and find the source of that

 

[matengawhat]

From Wikipedia: Commercial digital recording of classical and jazz music began in the early 1970s, pioneered by Japanese companies such as Denon, the BBC, and British record label Decca (who in the mid-70s developed digital audio recorders of their own design for mastering of their albums), although experimental recordings exist from the 1960s. The first 16-bit PCM recording in the United States was made by Thomas Stockham at the Santa Fe Opera in 1976 on a Soundstream recorder. In most cases there was no mixing stage involved; a stereo digital recording was made and used unaltered as the master tape for subsequent commercial release. These unmixed digital recordings are still described as DDD since the technology involved is purely digital . . . The first entirely digitally recorded (DDD) popular music album was Ry Cooder's BOP TILL YOU DROP, recorded in late 1978. It was unmixed, being recorded straight to a two-track 3M digital recorder in the studio. Many other top recording artists were early adherents of digital recording. Stevie Wonder adopted the technology in early 1979 for JOURNEY THROUGH THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS and used it on all later recordings . . . An early example of an analogue recording that was digitally mixed is Fleetwood Mac's 1979 release TUSK

 

[Anonymous]

matengawhat:From Wikipedia: Commercial digital recording of classical and jazz music began in the early 1970s, pioneered by Japanese companies such as Denon, the BBC, and British record label Decca (who in the mid-70s developed digital audio recorders of their own design for mastering of their albums), although experimental recordings exist from the 1960s. The first 16-bit PCM recording in the United States was made by Thomas Stockham at the Santa Fe Opera in 1976 on a Soundstream recorder. In most cases there was no mixing stage involved; a stereo digital recording was made and used unaltered as the master tape for subsequent commercial release. These unmixed digital recordings are still described as DDD since the technology involved is purely digital . . . The first entirely digitally recorded (DDD) popular music album was Ry Cooder's BOP TILL YOU DROP, recorded in late 1978. It was unmixed, being recorded straight to a two-track 3M digital recorder in the studio. Many other top recording artists were early adherents of digital recording. Stevie Wonder adopted the technology in early 1979 for JOURNEY THROUGH THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS and used it on all later recordings . . . An early example of an analogue recording that was digitally mixed is Fleetwood Mac's 1979 release TUSK

Which hardly disproves my comments, since it says nothing about whether it was the majority or not. Many early CDs were also mastered on analog tapes, hence the AAD and ADD you still see occasionally. Studios did not all switch to digital overnight.

Don't forget, too, that vinyl sales slumped with the rise of the CD, so that 20 something years represents far less LP sales anyhow.ÿ

 

[matengawhat]

i was just meaning that it shouldn't be taken for granted that vinyl is a pure analogue source as its far more complex than that

fair point - forgot about the old AAD, ADD and DDD tags

 

[Anonymous]

Sidestepping the whole LP vs CD debate for a while, I'm having the same dilemma. Namely, I have a very limited budget (up to 250 pounds) and am looking for my first turntable to couple with B&W602 S3 speakers and a Rotel RA-04.

The amount of different possibilities is quite scary for a complete amateur. I'm not really sure I can adequately evaluate second hand equipment, so I'm shying away from buying a used Rega P3, but I'm also unsure that buying a real budget turntable (Project Genie, Debut etc) and fitting it with a better cartridge is worth the money.

 

[Anonymous]

jaraujo:
Sidestepping the whole LP vs CD debate for a while, I'm having the same dilemma. Namely, I have a very limited budget (up to 250 pounds) and am looking for my first turntable to couple with B&W602 S3 speakers and a Rotel RA-04.

The amount of different possibilities is quite scary for a complete amateur. I'm not really sure I can adequately evaluate second hand equipment, so I'm shying away from buying a used Rega P3, but I'm also unsure that buying a real budget turntable (Project Genie, Debut etc) and fitting it with a better cartridge is worth the money.

I'd avoid the cheaper Pro-jects. The Rega P1 and P2 are much better decks, and not far off in price now that the pound has dropped. ÿ

 

[Frank Harvey]

Tarquinh:FrankHarveyHiFi: There's loads of vinyl being remastered and re-released - may cost a little more, but getting 180g and 200g versions of some great albums in mint condition are well worth paying the extra for........

Unfortunately that's not true. A good original pressing will always beat a re-mastered new one.....Aaah, I didn't actually mention which was better, just that there are a lot of remasters being released

 

[Anonymous]

Tarquinh:Which hardly disproves my comments, since it says nothing about whether it was the majority or not. Many early CDs were also mastered on analog tapes, hence the AAD and ADD you still see occasionally. Studios did not all switch to digital overnight.
Don't forget, too, that vinyl sales slumped with the rise of the CD, so that 20 something years represents far less LP sales anyhow.ÿ

Not commenting on if vinyl is better than cd, but after an experience on friday night i think that AAD may well be better than the current DDD.

We were listeng to The Corries (The Compact Collection) and it sounded fantastic. So much better and 'real' than cd's normally do.

Sadly a couple of the tracks skipped and after i ripped it, the apple lossless files just didn't sound the same to me (which may well be due to the airport express not going through a dac).

Would be interested to find more cd's which are AAD to see if this really is the case.

 

[Anonymous]

Tarquinh:I'd avoid the cheaper Pro-jects. The Rega P1 and P2 are much better decks, and not far off in price now that the pound has dropped.

Not much influence if you pay in pounds to start with For my budget it seems to be between a new P2 / used P3 or a new Project Debut III / used Project Xpression III or possibly an RPM5, although they rarely show up used.

 

[Anonymous]

jaraujo:
Tarquinh:I'd avoid the cheaper Pro-jects. The Rega P1 and P2 are much better decks, and not far off in price now that the pound has dropped. ÿ

Not much influence if you pay in pounds to start with For my budget it seems to be between a new P2 / used P3 or a new Project Debut III / used Project Xpression III or possibly an RPM5, although they rarely show up used. ÿ

Not really, the Pro-jects now cost more to import because the pound is worth less when compared to other currencies. The Regas are far better turntables, and the P2 is a good deck, though I might be biased, since I have one!

I've also owned, albeit briefly, a Debut III, and was unimpressed. The noise floor was unacceptably high, and it has a steel platter which means it won't accept moving coil cartridges. Frankly I'm a bit puzzled as to why it got so many rave reviews,ÿ

 

[the record spot]

fast eddie:[
Would be interested to find more cd's which are AAD to see if this really is the case.

Eddie, you could do a lot worse than spend a bit of time going round the secondhand record shops and checking out the older CD releases. Very (very!) roughly speaking, I look out for anything beginning "CDP" on the EMI catalogue number roster for instance, this'll likely get you an original AAD disc, so Queen, Pink Floyd, Bowie, etc. It's only later they switched numbering to "0777..." prefixes.

Take the time to look out the inner ring of a CD - if it says "Mastered by Nimbus", or "DADC Austria", then you're often onto a winner. For companies, DCC and Audio Fidelity, along with MasterSound and MObile Fidelity (often shortened to "MoFi") are definitely worth seeking out, but can be pricey (MoFi for sure!).

Have a look at the Steve Hoffman site too, he's a mastering engineer and the forum there is loaded with rather knowledgeable sorts (some a bit puritanical about it), but also an excellent search facility where you can specify a particular album.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks very much. I'll have to have a look. Probably have a trawl through Europa in sterling, and take the chance to fight my way through their vinyl selection too.