vinyl

To be perfectly honest, I'm more of a home theater enthusiast than an audiophile. But the latest NBS universal phono preamplifier really caught my attention with its extravagant finishing.

You see, this is one of the rare hi-fi components cast out of solid copper right down to the knobs for a combined weight of 66 pounds. While I'm not exactly convinced by the $30,000 price tag, this is what NBS has to say about the unique choice of material: "The solid copper chassis provides exceptional shielding and grounding. A generous grounding post is provided adjacent to … Read more

Vinyl accounts for less than 1 percent of overall music sales, but it's been making a bit of a comeback: sales almost doubled between 2007 and 2008 and grew another 33 percent in 2009, according to Nielsen. That's only 2.5 million records out of a total of more than 370 million albums sold in all formats, but record companies don't see many growing business areas, so they're suddenly jumping aboard.

New vinyl hasn't been this abundant since the mid-1980s--you can even find it in Best Buy and Wal-Mart. I give particular props to independent … Read more

Sure, to some a record might be just a piece of plastic, but to me an LP is a beautiful object. It feels great in my hands, and looks amazing spinning on a turntable. There are dozens of LP cover art books, but just looking at light dancing on a LP's spiral groove is something I never tire of.

I own thousands of LPs and sometimes use them in my art. Of course the LP's prime attraction is its sound, so even as CD sales continue to decline, the LP looks like it will be around for the … Read more

Sound & Vision magazine's Michael Trei recently tested three turntables: the Rega Research P1 ($395), Music Hall mmf 2.2 ($449), and Technics SL-1200MK2 ($699). And guess what: the most expensive turntable wasn't the best-sounding one!

Mike's an old friend and a major turntable guru in his own right. His knowledge of all things analog runs deep, and he regularly sets up finicky high-end turntables for the rich and famous, including the president of a major record company, here in NYC. Mike set up the VPI Classic turntable I bought last year.

The three turntables covered in his report, the Rega, Music Hall, and Technics are all excellent, but I was more interested in the belt vs. direct-drive aspect of the reviews. The Technics is a long standing DJ favorite, for its powerful, direct-drive motor, which is a big plus when you're back cueing and scratching records. Direct-drive 'tables never wowed the high-end crowd, they favor belt-drive turntables. The appeal is mostly based on the fact that the belt "decouples" the motor from the platter. So whatever noise and vibration the motor makes as it spins aren't directly transmitted to the platter, and therefore to the record. No wonder the vast majority of turntables sold to audiophiles are belt-drive designs.

Mike may be a hard-core audiophile, but he's not closed-minded about direct-drive turntables, and in fact owns a Technics direct-drive turntable (and many belt-drives as well).… Read more

The Rolling Stones' 1972 masterpiece "Exile on Main Street" is being re-released today in a new remastered version, complete with 10 outtakes or alternate versions that have never been released before. A friend posted the question on Facebook: "should I buy the remastered vinyl version?" The answer to this question is more complicated than you might expect: there are five different versions of the re-release available.

If you like rock music (or country or soul) and don't know "Exile," then I would start with the Original Recording Remastered. It's the original album … Read more

Sure, it's easier to buy downloads or CDs over the Internet, but if you're lucky enough to still have a local "record store," drop by today. It may be participating in Record Store Day celebrations in the U.S. and U.K. and offer special deals or discounts. And who knows, you might even meet other people who like music.

I've discovered so much great music in stores over the years playing over their sound systems, or talking with the stores' employees and customers. There's also something about holding a CD or LP in my hands that I can't get online.

If you love music, it's time to show respect for it in its tangible form, and stop music from becoming nothing more than disposable digital data. Musicians work long and hard to record their tunes, why wouldn't you want to hear everything they laid down? A 128Kbps or 256Kbps download "loses" a lot of music that was part of the original recording. How much is lost? Well, CDs run at 1,411Kbps; where do those other bits go?

One thing's for sure, you're not hearing them when you listen to downloaded music. And if you can't hear the difference today, you will in the years ahead when you get better speakers or headphones. You may have to buy the music you've already paid for again to hear what you've been missing.

But Record Store Day is a celebration of the little guy and independent record stores, and since the giants like Tower Records are history, most brick-and-mortar record shops are indies, owned by folks who have a real passion for music. … Read more

Ots CD Scratch 1200 is a fun and easy-to-use program that lets users play CDs in a virtual turntable environment. It's not as complex as some of the DJ software that we've seen, which may be a drawback for more advanced users, but this program is a great choice for those just getting started with turntable-style DJing.

The program's interface isn't the most intuitive we've ever seen, but it gets points for being fun. The design seeks to replicate the appearance of a real DJ deck, with two turntables and various cables and buttons. We … Read more

It's more than a little ironic; Linn Products, based in Glasgow, Scotland, burst onto the audiophile scene in the early 1970s with its LP-12 turntable. The LP-12 has never gone out of production and earlier this year it received a bunch of performance-enhancing upgrades.

When the CD was introduced in the early 1980s, Linn was a massive digital basher. The company spearheaded an anti-CD movement in the audiophile community. It wasn't just Linn; a sizable percentage of audiophiles worldwide didn't buy CD players through most of the 1980s.

Linn introduced CD players at the close of that … Read more

When the CD was introduced in 1982, everyone thought the LP's days were numbered, but it's still here. Now it's starting to look like the LP might outlast the CD.

Of course "record stores" are also on the endangered species list; here in NYC, Tower, Virgin, and Sam Goody are long-gone, but J & R Music World in lower Manhattan is the last remaining full-size outfit. Smaller shops are hanging in there, too.

You can still buy CDs and LPs online, and vinyl's selection is getting better and better. So if you're a music lover, what should you buy, CD or LP? First, it depends on whether you can get the music you want on vinyl.

Sound quality issues aren't black and white. CD wins in terms of noise-free listening, though clean records, played on a decent turntable can sound amazingly quiet. But even then, there will be occasional clicks and pops. That's a deal breaker for some, but if you've never heard records played on a decent turntable, you don't know how quiet records can be.

LPs can sound warmer, fuller, and more natural than CDs, and way better than low-bit MP3 and AAC variants. LP sound seems to engage listeners in a very different way than digital recordings do. It's not that digital sounds bad, but vinyl is more fun to listen to. Music on LP seems more immediate and realistic than digital. Oh, and it's worth noting that most people who use vinyl actually listen to music, while digital listeners rarely do. Digital makes do as background sound. That's just the way it is. If you can't see yourself ever really listening to music--without talking, reading, working on the computer, etc--sure, CDs and MP3s are perfectly fine. … Read more