Comments on: Poll: Why don't you have a turntable?

What's wrong with you? Haven't you heard? Turntables are the next big thing!

[Sugith1]

I still have my valiant Thorens turntable from 1984, and it may yield better sound, but you can't beat the convenience of having 250 gigs of lossless music played through an external DAC. And the sound is pretty darn good. The turntable plays things that I've owned from youth, still love and will never be released on CD.

I teach college students whose musical terms of reference are based on a laptop playing MP3's through cheap speakers or earbuds. Their musical taste and experience is coming from living through the most painful recession in 8 decades, so I doubt they will ever care much for spending money on quality reproduction. Recorded music for them is all about convenience and portability. I suspect most have seldom even paid for music, so why would they pay good money for equipment to play it on? When I was their age, buying LP's was a religious experience and playing it was a tactile one. I dreamt I would have the money some day for a great sound system. I still have LP's I bought when I was 13. Recorded music is now is an intangible and disposable computer file - press delete - and worthless - or 99 cents at most and only if you're a luddite sucker who doesn't know how to get it for free.

It is to weep.

[pubmat]

A "Luddite sucker", or simply a capitalist that prefers to PAY for an artist's service or intellectual property, rather than STEALING it--like you.

[HerbieK]

I never stopped listening to records. Recently I enjoyed restoring a Thorens TD-124 and can tell you that vinyl at it's best is better than digital in many respects, mostly in the lack of ear fatigue that digital can give you after extended listening. Don't get me wrong, my iPod is still connected to my system and gets equal, if not more use. But for me the smooth, sweet sound of diamond on vinyl can't be (POP!) beat!

[textorama]

So I can´t answer the qustion because it is not imaginable not having a turntable. I have to admit the number of the CDs gets bigger every month, but I never would miss my god old Thorens.

[laqa]

I just bought a US$1,000 tonearm and a US$1,200 cartridge for my turntable. Both brand new, and you can easily spend US$200,000 on a turntable these days.

[buzzvader]

But,....................................I Do! Four of them, in fact.

[osynnek]

Yes I do. Recently copied a collection LPs to CD for somebody and he gave me a Thorens TD160 and his record collection as payment for the work. So now I have two decent turntables. One is set up to my stereo and the other is plugged through an ADC to an iMAC. I also recently bought more new recordings on Vinyl by Diana Krall, Coldplay, Plain White T's and others so my rather extensive LP collection is still expanding.
Put your friends in front of your system and listen to the same recording on LP and CD (volume matched) and watch their jaws hit the floor.

[make_or_break]

But I DO have a turntable; several actually. My Rega is a cherished possession that I'll deeply mourn if anything bad ever happens to it, but I still use my old dinosaur of a Denon and Yamaha. But the Rega P3 with the Dynavector DV-10X is the one I covet and use the most.

The big thing that kept me spinning the vinyl even after I bought into the CD hullabaloo was my acquisition of a VPI cleaning machine. I don't care how careful I was with the manual brush method; hand cleaning never could minimize the noise from the residual dirt that the hand-cleaned Discwasher system (and others I tried) always left behind. The VPI makes a hell of a difference...and a hell of a racket, but as long as I don't clean while the tunes are pumping, it's all very good.

And despite the advancements in compact disc equipment over the decades...yeah, I'll still favor the fussy, analog, more natural sound of vinyl over clean, clipped, manicured, ice-cold CDs any day. The bloody technology just seems more involving and HUMAN than those brittle spinning discs of aluminum, though I have to admit I'm not FOND of the price of new vinyl particularly when compared to their CD counterpart.