Back to vinyl - share your journey, tips, LPs and picts

Hi all!

I just bought back an authentic Thorens TD 166 MKII, more then 30 years after i moved to CDs. I used to have a TD 145 (i believe) back in the late 70s and 80s. I’ve no idea where it ended up across all the movings. I gave all my LPs to a friend a couple decades ago… An there i am again, ordering LPs on Amazon…

The TT i bought was supposed to be working but it was not. I spent numerous hours tracking hum related electrical issues and finally managed to get it working. I still have some slight motor rumble and probably need to do some more basic tuning before it is fine. Welcome back to the analog world!

I have no phono input on my home theater amp, so i had to buy a preamp. I took a Thorens MM-002.

Why all the trouble? I’m not sure… A bit of nostalgia i guess. The TT looks good beside my lava lamp… An then i rediscover the pleasure to pick a big large LP, slide out the inner jacket, gently grab the disk and place it on the TT… then delicately push the cartridge harm over and lower it to hear the slight bump in the speakers and the scratchy prelude to the music. There is also the pleasure to listen to a full side, track after track instead of the common playlists you find on YT and else. An album is the result of month of work from a band or artist and it has been assembled in a certain way.

First LP i bought back was Pink Floyd, Dark Side of The Moon. The Amazon guy just dropped Made in Japan from Deep Purple… More to come.

I just got started again. Not sure where i’m going with it.

How about you? Still full digital?

Nothing wrong with old technology. I always said, to appreciate the new stuff you really need to understand the old stuff. I would love to dedicate a room to have an old school stereo, possibly Sansui, or Technics. Or McIntosh ($:money_mouth_face:. Its the only way to really listen to something like: Led Zeppelin Whole Lotta Love.

Having said that, unfortunately, turntables, cassette decks, reel to reel, etc. are a dead end technology today. Blank media is almost impossible to get, parts for your machine are even harder to get. The few records that are left are selling for the price of a small plot of land.

Our children and grandchildren will soon look at pictures of a record and say “do you believe this is the way they listed to music back then.”

I am sure most members on this forum remember rotary dial phones. When push button was invented, it was so high tech.

When our youngest was in college a store called the Needle Doctor was not too far from her apartment. Got a new belt and Grado cartridge for my turntable. Even with the tune up, before she graduated, I had put my turntable away.

Her son is now a teenager and loves Led Zepplen. Had to dig out my gear;-) Took very good care of my vinyl. The day is coming when I will have to get rid of the vinyl due to space concerns and he will be happy with his inheritance.

Even though I rarely listen to it, the sound is noticeably better than any other media that I have. There likely are modern digital music systems of higher quality. I don’t have such gear or media. Very happy to have the convenience and quantity of music on my phone / computer. Way, Way, Way superior to vinyl. Sound quality — the edge is still to my 40+ year old vinyl.

Just had to mention one thing about my turntable. Still have the paper hand written receipt for it. Got it from a little stereo store called the sound of music. While when I purchased my turntable this was a mom and pop operation that consisted of two stores and hand wrote receipts, you may know it better today as Best Buy.

I do not own vinyls, I started buying CDs since 2006/2007 more or less, and have around 200. Many of them heard once or twice in the CD player…

But if I had vinyls, I’d go through Queen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Tool. And listen to all of them in an endless loop!!!

I gave away my vinyl about 5 years ago to downsize as i simply don’t have the space for it. Still have my Garrard 301 in a box waiting for me to get around to selling it.
I miss it and keep thinking about going back to it but the space required and the cost involved stops me, and i can’t imagine that new vinyl will be mastered well enough to warrant it over other formats.

Cool you’re enjoying a resurgence though :slight_smile: I just (arrived yesterday) bought a 90s Marantz CD player which is my step back towards retro :slight_smile:

What I miss the most with vinyl is the expense, the inconvenience, the poor signal to noise ratio, and the snap crackle and pop of even virgin records. :smiling_imp:
Had the disease bad. Turntable worth more than the car, thousand or so lps.

Found myself enjoying digital far more than analog and the emergence of decent home theatre was really the last nail on my vinyl’s coffin.

Nostalgia is a powerful sales tool but I’m not falling for it.
My turntable days are in the past and I’m ok with them staying there.
It’s a digital world.

I was buying vinyl beginning 1960's until CD's took over. Never bought commercial cassette albums. When HiFi cassettes became a thing, I'd buy an album, scrupulously clean it with vinyl wash and a record brush, record it to cassette & put the album away. Always used a higher-end, Thorens belt drive turntable using a very good Grado cartridge & a stylus I only used for transcribing. Recorded the cassettes on a high end Harmon Kardon three-motor recorder using 'metal' cassettes with bias set to 'metal' tape. Played only the cassettes in the house & car. Got the albums out sometimes just to look at the artwork & lyrics.

When recordable CD's became available I spent a winter recording all of my few hundred played-once albums to CD using the same Thorens/Grado setup and a PC running Windows NT(!) and a then-very-good sound card whose name escapes me at the moment. CD-R drive was a Sony device.

I never got rid of my albums. Almost all are played twice, first edition albums that have always been stored correctly. The album artwork is in VGC to excellent condition. The top outer corners of some of the covers show a little fraying due to being 'loved on' by various cats. Some of the inner paper sleeves are yellowing. The vinyl itself is flat & pristine. Might be worth a buck or two someday.

I still listen to those CD's I recorded that winter.

slmjim

I bought a fancy phono pre-amp with DAC and USB interface just a few years ago, and my brother-in-law gave me his old Technics turntable to digitize my vinyl and my mother-in-law’s massive LP collection. Due to space and time constraints, it’s all gathering dust.

My kids (all in their 20’s) have fond memories of listening to vinyl at Grandma’s house. But if I ever run across my dad’s old reel-to-reel deck, they won’t have a clue what it is.

Thank you all for the comments and stories.

The Amazon guy was here again for more LPs delivery.

Genesis - A trick of the tail
ACDC - Highway to hell
Pink floyd - Wish you where here

Still more to come. :smiley:

I had a few out today.
Lots more in storage.

Everything is on youtube now, but I miss the ritual and dedicating half an hour or more just to listening to an LP.

This thread dreged up a lot of old memories.

Onkyo receivers.

Klipsh Speakers.

Nakamichi tape decks.

A few other nice components.

I am scared to see how many of these things are going for pennies on the dollar that we may have spent 30+ years ago.

Here is a company that made the local news when I lived in Oregon.
.

Yeah, not sure how many shelf-feet of albums I have, but it’s a bit.

LAB-440 turntable, V-15 cartridge, tracks nicely to below ¼ g, but after the cleaning ritual and one play-through (maybe ¾ g for better bass and tracking), I’d record onto TDK SA or SA-X cassettes and the albums go back to storage. Awesome turntable, hidden gem that Rat Shack sold (ie, not the typische rebadged BSRs).

Back when it was Tower Records, that and St Mark’s Sounds on E8th/StMark’s were my 2 biggest suppliers. Some new stuff, but mostly “interesting” stuff at like 2.99 and 3.99 per album, vs 10-15 each, let me “expand my horizons”.

Loved the fullsize artwork on the albums and sleeves, not the pamphlets that came with ceedees, ’though the latter let me make flawless copies without the repeated ritual (once per side per album) and all that.

Still like the stroboscope and knob to tweak the motor speed. Ie, stuff that ceedees, etc., don’t have.

The mother of all live albums. In 1972, “Made in Japan” was the live album that started it all, and proved to the rock music world, a well recorded live music album can sell better than greatest hits studio albums. Just listened to a few cuts off that album a few days ago. Still amazes me how good that recording is.

I got that same exact album, ’though it was lots newer when I got it way back when. :laughing: wait… :open_mouth:

That album became the hit at parties, cranked up to 11. My copy got worn out, then the Master version came out, and bought it again!

The Nippon Budokan where it was recorded in 1972

But, But……… I thought Cheap Trick made Budokan famous?
LOL

Agree Deep Purple made the template.
Another of my Live album fav’s is UFO Strangers in the Night, last tour with Michael Schenker recorded 1978 and released in ’79
And Thin Lizzy Live and Dangerous, all Killer on Vinyl.

Good thread.
Anyone here have any Quad CD4 albums?

Made in Japan wasn’t the first live record, but definitely the template moving forward. The Who “Live at Leeds” was 1970. A great album, but not at the same technical recording level as MIJ