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Thinking of selling my CD collection for Vinyl...and some existential mumblings...

post #1 of 9
2/6/11 at 6:13pm
Thread Starter 
Looking for some perspective... While under the influence last night, I attended a friend's home and nearly melted in my seat listening to records of Wagner and Vivaldi on a second-rate stereo system. When my buddy popped in a CD of the same music, we looked at each other in a mutual "WTF" moment. It struck me all of a sudden that - at least as far as classical music goes - the shit that comes out CDs is NOT the tone of a violin...or cellos...or wind instruments, etc. but some odd-ball hackneyed synthetic suggestion of the same. Fuck. I'm still pissed off about the whole thing. Not just what you might figure is a cliched, hipster "revelation" that CDs suck, but a much deeper sense (at least at the time) that the digital age has killed music in a way. A fucking iTunes library with 60 days worth of music I either listen to at the gym or while surfing the web...degraded in sound and place at once! Anyways, I've spent the past decade slowly amassing a classical CD collection. Now I'm thinking of unloading just about everything to create a vinyl fund. As attached as I am to my collection (some of it is quite rare), I can't think of a single good reason to keep any of it. I could probably obtain a healthy sum for it all, and once it's all transferred onto my computer at a high bitrate, what could I possibly lose out on? An equivalent work on vinyl is probably more valuable and - however rare a CD might get - the vinyl will only be that much rarer. Which is to say nothing about the fact that LPs sound so much better. Has anybody got rid of their physical/digital music collection? I realize that rock/pop and classical may be a bit apples/oranges, but still... FWIW, I own a nice Thorens Turntable...some good old-school KEF Speakers, and a beautiful Marantz Stereo Receiver...so in a way, vintage has somehow always permeated my DNA... Your perspective is welcome.
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post #2 of 9
2/6/11 at 7:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sherman90 View Post
A fucking iTunes library with 60 days worth of music I either listen to at the gym or while surfing the web...degraded in sound and place at once!

I think this is an appropriate use of digital music. You can carry lots of music in your pocket and listen to it in places that wouldn't allow for indepth listening in any case - the gym, driving, public transport, etc.

I have lots of vinyl, mostly bought some time ago, and plenty of CDs as well. Like yourself, I have been considering getting rid of most of it and just keeping some vinyl for listening to while at home, when sound quality counts and I have time and space to enjoy it.

Storage space is also an issue for me, so I'd prefer to have only the important stuff in a physical form.
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post #3 of 9
2/6/11 at 7:57pm
I think there is a time and place for all these formats. Vinyl is great. This is especially the case if you have the room for it and don't plan on moving much in the future. The market for classical records is pretty robust. Though not everyone took great care of their records over the years.
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post #4 of 9
2/9/11 at 6:22pm
Never liked CD's much for the same reasons you've mentioned. Several years ago, I dug out my old stereo (late 70's - Hafler pre-amp, Nikko power amp, Technics & Ortofon, Large Advents) and the vinyl sounds so much better. A-B a record with a CD on the same system, the CD sounds like crap. Last year, after my CD player gave up the ghost, I bought a high end single disc Marantz CD player. Made a world of difference. Since my old pre-amp and power amp were making lots of popping sounds, I figured after 30+ years, I could update that equipment and bought a high end NAD integrated. Net effect is that I have trouble now telling the difference between CD's and vinyl (still using my old Large Advents, that I re-foamed).
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post #5 of 9
2/10/11 at 4:27am
I don't have many CDs. If I could buy in Apple Lossless I wouldn't have any. Most of my music listening is done on my iMac or in my truck (I don't think $5k speakers are necessary to really enjoy the Velvet Underground), there's no reason to have them anymore. Everything was digitized at various times, I started selling when I got to Apple Lossless. Need to go back and re-rip the last of what I have.
Worst part is that I have ~500 CDs with no cases that I stuck in binders before one move, I can't do anything with all of them.

Thinking of getting vinyl again when I have space - I don't care about sound quality, I'm interested in the physical act of putting a record on and listening to it, instead of jumping from spot to spot in iTunes. And a lot of good stuff is coming out that only exists on 7" or LP form these days, perhaps with a digital download to accompany it.
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post #6 of 9
2/10/11 at 12:08pm
I love vinyl..cds for the car, car is one of the BEST places to play your music
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post #7 of 9
2/10/11 at 3:08pm
The dynamic range of digital audio, even at the standard 44.1/24 of an audio CD, is superior to vinyl. On any given playback system, vinyl is inherently more prone to distortion. While pressing vinyl, rolloffs at around 40Hz and 14kHz are required to avoid damaging the press. What you may be hearing in the CD version of audio is the super-compression used to partake in the modern era's "loudness war," in which all but about 8db of dynamic range is used in an effort to be the loudest song on your iPod. Also, human hearing has probably grown to prefer the soft saturation of analog media because we've been used to it for so long. And if you're burning your iTune's songs to the CD you're listening to, then all bets are off. iTune's uses lossy compression.
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post #8 of 9
2/10/11 at 3:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by milosz View Post
Thinking of getting vinyl again when I have space - I don't care about sound quality, I'm interested in the physical act of putting a record on and listening to it, instead of jumping from spot to spot in iTunes. And a lot of good stuff is coming out that only exists on 7" or LP form these days, perhaps with a digital download to accompany it.
This is the real reason to enjoy vinyl. Unfortunately, records aren't made like they used to be, and we're probably lucky if we get a couple years of quality playback from today's vinyl.
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post #9 of 9
2/13/11 at 3:36am
Hi Sherman90,
Welcome back to vinyl! Always let your ears(listening) be yuour guide to good audio. Digital has been foisted upon us under the guise of good sound. Nonsense. Analogue will always sound better, have better imaging, and provide a richer and fuller pallete, whewre instruments can be heard in all their glory. Soundstaging, ofcourse, is superb. Having said all of that, have you considered TUBES? A good tubed system with an audiophile CDP and well recorded CD can approximate vinyl in surprising ways...it can be the best of both worlds. Just a thought.
Nice to meet another audiophile!
Larry
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