horchata wrote:i'm also considering asking for a record player for xmas and getting into collecting but i'm worried it's gonna be pretty expensive, how has your guys' experience been w record collecting? is it a total money sink lol or (and does it sound better than digital?)
I bought a turntable for myself last Christmas, mainly because I wanted to have a "reason" to buy
all the albums from my favourite band on vinyl (since I already owned all the CDs, how was I supposed
to support them now? haha)
I've now spent a total of 500 USD on records.
It's definitely expensive, especially when you like so much different music like I do. I have like 100
albums I still want. If you start collecting, I will also recommend that you buy poly-lined (or fully
polyethylene like the ones from Mobile Fidelity, even thought these are a bit more expensive)
inner sleeves for your records. A lot of records, even expensive ones, often come in these terrible
paper inner sleeves. They do nothing good for your records, other than leave paper particles in the
grooves and some even have big holes around the middle of the record, allowing the record to
collect dust and static. Polyethylene sleeves are a lot better, they're anti static and will protect your
records. And don't forget the outer sleeves. If you want to protect the artwork on the cover, buy
any kind of plastic outer sleeve. I didn't do this at first, and I got ugly scratches on the cover of my
first records, along with ugly and bent corners.
And: if you choose to buy a record player, don't settle on a very cheap one. Read some reviews online
before buying it, preferably buy a known brand. A bad record player may hurt your records, if the
tonearm is just a little bit crooked and the stylus is of poor quality it will leave your records scratched.
Pay a few extra bucks for the record player itself to avoid having to buy multiple of the same record
just because your record player is of bad quality.
But even if it's expensive, it's definitely worth it! I love collecting records, there is just something so
special about the feeling of sliding a record out of the sleeve and carefully placing it on the turntable.
You have to handle it gently, and it makes you appreciate the experience of sitting down to listen to an
album. It's almost religious. Like the music is a living thing. The sound of a vinyl record is slightly "warmer"
than that of a CD (which is digital), it's hard to explain any other way. You'll have to hear it to understand.
I like to compare records to books, and CDs/digital music to an eBook/kindle.
A book on kindle is technically better quality, but I prefer sitting down with a physical book in my hands
where the quality is limited to what is printed on the paper rather than an ebook where I can zoom and enhance
and all that kind of stuff.
The quality of sound also has a lot to do with how you listen, and the album itself. A CD can be terrible quality
if the mastering was poorly done, the compression was loss-full etc. A vinyl record can also suffer from bad
mastering, or if your speakers are bad, that will also subtract from the experience. CD will for the most part
be the best way to listen to Digital music in my opinion. Spotify for example have very poor sound quality,
even iTunes have a somewhat loss-full compression of their digital music. I don't know about Amazon or Google
Play music, but unless you buy the music, most streaming services cut the sound quality of the music for the
purpose of a smoother streaming experience.
All that being said, I think record collecting is wonderful. Like books, it's a format that have existed for decades
without much change (If it ain't broke, don't fix it?). In many cases, a record will be the closest to what the artist
wants you to hear (if they record their music on tapes, that is. This is more common in rock than in pop, but some
pop artist also do it). After I started collecting records, it feels so weird to hold a CD - it's so small! And the album
cover is so small! My hands feel gigantic! - and I don't regret starting my collection and I hope that one day I'll be
one of those people who have multiple shelves full of records.
And one more thing: Most records nowadays come with either a digital download code or a CD, so in most cases,
buying a vinyl is a win-win - you get the album both as the beautiful analog format and as a digital album ;)
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