Turntables - help me understand the appeal?

[invaderzim]

^^^
You guys still wear watches? Must be a male jewellery thing like rings IDK. lol

I find it far easier and hopefully less rude when somewhere like a meeting or an appointment to casually glance at my wrist rather than drag my phone out and look at it. The old stretch and twist the arms move. But then again I don't walk around with the phone in my hand in a death grip either.
I'll actually go hours without looking at the phone. I have people trained not to expect instant replies. Sometimes they get "Oh, I left my phone in the car last night and didn't get your message until this morning" So sorry I didn't let you interrupt my enjoyable evening

 

[mansr]

With me it's the other way round. I can't see the point of a watch that doesn't keep perfect time, which is why I use a radio watch as even quartz isn't accurate enough.

My mechanical quartz watch is currently off by about 2 seconds. I set it as near as I could when DST ended in late October. That's an accuracy better than 4 ppm.

As to a beautifully made mechanical watch, what's the point?

It's a piece of jewellery that also tells time. That makes it more useful than a ring or a bracelet.

 

[jsrtheta]

^^^
You guys still wear watches? Must be a male jewellery thing like rings IDK. lol

For some, the choice of a watch is as important as the choice of a suit. And yes, many people still wear suits.

 

[bravomail]

My head exploded while reading this thread. What a bunch of baloney. If you have good vinyls - rip them to digital. End of story. No need for this ritualistic garbage. I was born in 70s and had my share of vinyl experience. It sucked balls. Dust, skippy/scratchy records, noisy sound, LPs going bad etc. CDs, right out of the box, sounded so much f..ing better! And they never went bad, never skipped, no dust issues, no noise. And then with PC evolution - Cds can be ripped, then streamed, played etc, so even mildly annoying physical aspect of CDs is gone. You are at the golden age on audio nirvana, people. Enjoy it, don't spoil it!

 

[MattHooper]

My head exploded while reading this thread. What a bunch of baloney. If you have good vinyls - rip them to digital. End of story. No need for this ritualistic garbage. I was born in 70s and had my share of vinyl experience. It sucked balls. Dust, skippy/scratchy records, noisy sound, LPs going bad etc. CDs, right out of the box, sounded so much f..ing better! And they never went bad, never skipped, no dust issues, no noise. And then with PC evolution - Cds can be ripped, then streamed, played etc, so even mildly annoying physical aspect of CDs is gone. You are at the golden age on audio nirvana, people. Enjoy it, don't spoil it!

Forgive me but....I find this sort of solipsism odd, if not somewhat fascinating. And I've seen it often enough from people who decry listening to vinyl.

If you enjoyed camping in the outdoors, it would be extremely odd and narrow minded of me to declare "There's no need for that ritualistic garbage of canoeing, setting up tents and building fires - don't you know we have powered boats now? We've been out of the forests for thousands of years, and any decent modern house will provide far more comfort and protection from the elements than some antiquated tent! How stupid can you be to choose camping over the modern alternatives??!!"

Isn't advising other people to dump that which suits their desires and gives them joy just because you don't like it, a bit much?

 

[MusicNBeer]

The "my way or the highway" attitude pervasing this forum is very irritating. It's one thing to argue against the analog only zealots, but much different to argue that no one should be listening to vinyl. I DON'T CARE IF IT'S TECHNICALLY INFERIOR! I have fun with it and certain recordings have the best sounding master on vinyl. Why is that so hard to understand?

 

[Sal1950]

For some, the choice of a watch is as important as the choice of a suit. And yes, many people still wear suits.

Used to keep 1 suit around for weddings and funerals. Thank goodness times have changed and that convention is no longer deemed nessacary, we can now dress casually any place and not be inappropriate.

Isn't advising other people to dump that which suits their desires and gives them joy just because you don't like it, a bit much?

As long as you don't try pulling a Fremmer claiming vinyl is a superior medium for the reproduction of music, your fine. We use science here to measure the quality of reproduction, not "sounds good to me". Vinyl is stuck in the 1950s technically and just can't compete with modern methods of recording and playback.

 

[jsrtheta]

Used to keep 1 suit around for weddings and funerals. Thank goodness times have changed and that convention is no longer deemed nessacary, we can now dress casually any place and not be inappropriate.

Not in court.

 

[Sal1950]

Not in court.

You have to straighten up you act.
Or quit getting caught.

 

[MattHooper]

As long as you don't try pulling a Fremmer claiming vinyl is a superior medium for the reproduction of music, your fine.

Which is why I don't make that claim. It bugs me as much as it does you. Perhaps I should make: "Digital has greater potential for technical accuracy over vinyl" my tag line so I won't have to keep repeating it. ;-)

Vinyl is stuck in the 1950s technically and just can't compete with modern methods of recording and playback.

Though as I've already noted, I think it's fair to acknowledge that in practice, the difference between the sound from high quality vinyl recordings and their digital counterparts can be surprisingly minor. It's one thing to appeal to the objective measurements which is great; another issue is the audibility and perceptual consequences and clearly those do...and have to....matter. Otherwise what are the points of measurements in the first place if not to correlate to our perception? Amirm does an excellent job constantly reminding people that measurable differences in performance don't automatically entail audibility, or add up to significant perceptual differences. Yes, the differences between vinyl and digital are audible to us but, again, the best of the breed from each is sonically closer than many who remind us of the superiority of digital imply.

We've seen another example of that just a few posts ago. Had I taken Bravomail's description of the sound of vinyl seriously before hearing vinyl on a decent set up, I would be shocked to encounter the sonic performance I've experienced, and how closely it competes with my digital sources.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I can appreciate the craftsmanship of a good mechanical watch movement but to be honest I really can't get excited about a spinning plinth.

That is why you should consider RTR. Two things spinning.

 

[Sal1950]

That is why you should consider RTR. Two things spinning.

RTR is SO much more techno kool than turntables
Check out this bad-ass sucker!

 

[RayDunzl]

Wow.

At first glance I thought I saw twin joysticks.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Same guys make a turntable too. Not nearly as cool by half as the RTR machine however.

 

[ryanmh1]

My apologies if this was already mentioned. After the first two pages of the thread my attention wandered... See step 6 here: https://www.secondlinevinyl.com/a-guide-to-mastering-for-vinyl/. That's why vinyl often sounds better. Vinyl can have significant dynamic range compression, but the old LPs at least didn't achieve it by simply digitally slicing off the waveform, result in something that looks like a square wave. It's a real nightmare to try to cut something like that to vinyl and have it sound like anything but utter garbage on a vinyl record. Something about needles not being very happy when asked to trace square waves.... And even when they do it, and drive the guy trying to cut the record nuts, the deficiencies of the medium help to smooth off all the clipped transients.

 

[cjfrbw]

Turntables: never have so many struggled and spent so much so long and so hard to be so imperfect.

 

[Waxxy]

Used to keep 1 suit around for weddings and funerals. Thank goodness times have changed and that convention is no longer deemed nessacary, we can now dress casually any place and not be inappropriate.

As long as you don't try pulling a Fremmer claiming vinyl is a superior medium for the reproduction of music, your fine. We use science here to measure the quality of reproduction, not "sounds good to me". Vinyl is stuck in the 1950s technically and just can't compete with modern methods of recording and playback.

Fremer

 

[bigx5murf]

One sometimes wonders if smartphone users have a forum where they fill page after page reminiscing over a highly regarded rotary dial black Bakelite desktop phone.

https://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Antique-Telephone-Bluetooth-Speaker/dp/B01M5ICZ7K

 

[Sal1950]

Same guys make a turntable too. Not nearly as cool by half as the RTR machine however.

View attachment 21051

View attachment 21052

Always wondered, why the two arms?
So you can play two different tracks at once?

 

[Frank Dernie]

The "my way or the highway" attitude pervasing this forum is very irritating. It's one thing to argue against the analog only zealots, but much different to argue that no one should be listening to vinyl. I DON'T CARE IF IT'S TECHNICALLY INFERIOR! I have fun with it and certain recordings have the best sounding master on vinyl. Why is that so hard to understand?

To be fair whilst there is a bit of this here it is nowhere near what you would suffer in the opposite direction on a forum like What’s Best if you type facts!
I like my existing LPs too and, as you may have read, I use one of my four from time to time. I can easily understand a pop music enthusiast finding LPs better than CDs since LP masters are often not hammering against the limiters all the time, like they are on so many digital releases.
For classical music, which I listen to 80% of the time, the limited dynamic range of LPs was always limiting so a CD is a better bet, for recent stuff LPs may well be a good bet, though I don’t buy much any more, and Leonard Cohen has died...
Having written that whilst I understand people keeping record players to play LPs they already have, buying a new record player and starting to collect LPs is definitely not what I recommend, far too expensive.