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¿End-of-side distortion — inherent to vinyl?

What a very silly thread.

End of side distortion should be inaudible on all but a handful of knackered records. If it isn't, your record player is faulty or you don't know how to set it up properly, or you've been stupid enough to only buy ruined vinyl, there are no other possibilities.

There is plenty of new and old music available on vinyl, both new and second hand, and there are hundreds of tons of perfectly playable second hand vinyl still available. And if, like me, you have many, many records and have been buying and playing them all your life, you might still be sensible enough to want to play them rather than buy them again on a digital format. And for a few hundred pounds you can do exactly that, and achieve excellent playback, or you can spend few thousand pounds if you want something swisher. Just the same as every aspect of audio, in other words.
 
What a very silly thread.

End of side distortion should be inaudible on all but a handful of knackered records. If it isn't, your record player is faulty or you don't know how to set it up properly, or you've been stupid enough to only buy ruined vinyl, there are no other possibilities.

There is plenty of new and old music available on vinyl, both new and second hand, and there are hundreds of tons of perfectly playable second hand vinyl still available. And if, like me, you have many, many records and have been buying and playing them all your life, you might still be sensible enough to want to play them rather than buy them again on a digital format. And for a few hundred pounds you can do exactly that, and achieve excellent playback, or you can spend few thousand pounds if you want something swisher. Just the same as every aspect of audio, in other words.

Or you could digitise them to FLAC & shove them on your NAS. Best of both worlds. All the inherent deficiencies of vinyl, but at least with the convenience of a modern music storage system.

Chris
 
Or you could digitise them to FLAC & shove them on your NAS. Best of both worlds. All the inherent deficiencies of vinyl, but at least with the convenience of a modern music storage system.

Chris

You could. Assuming you have access to a decent ADC. But would you? Really? If I worked at it in 8 hour shifts, every day, it would take me the best part of a year. No chance.
 
Why would I want to waste hours digitising thousands of records? Life is too short, and there's no benefit. I use a NAS for CDs because it takes no time to rip a CD, but I really don't see any point in doing the same for vinyl. Edit: John got in first.

If you have a small record collection, fair enough, but I've been buying records since 1978 and I've always had exceptional taste, so I have a lot of great records. Like many other people here.
 
You could. Assuming you have access to a decent ADC. But would you? Really? If I worked at it in 8 hour shifts, every day, it would take me the best part of a year. No chance.

I have about 1200 LPs. Fortunately, all bar a very few of them I have managed to acquire digital versions. I estimate there are about 70 LPs which I have to digitise, & I digitise about 6 per month.

Chris
 
If I did 6 a month I would be dead before I got much beyond the letter E. And I'm not interested in buying CDs of things I already own on vinyl, or in downloading mid-res MP3s of them from P2P sites. The records play extremely well with only a few exceptions and I have a nice record player which does the job very well. Problem solved.
 
The one thing us hifi types are never short of is opinions. Can I put in a word for the only true solution to end of side distortion...a parallel tracking arm. But then such problems have never worried me. I am baffled by those who think CD a decent medium, not to my ears it is not! But then, as I said, we're never short of opinions. Doesn't actually matter does it, as long as we have fun (I use a 15ips reel to reel..but what to record on it?)
 
sideshowbob,

Could you provide a link to some of this 'new vinyl' please?

Oh! Classical only, if you don't mind.
 
Basil, everyone knows there is almost no new classical vinyl. I don't think I've ever claimed there is. The same is not true of many other musical genres however.

Having said that, the best hi-fi system I have ever heard had thousands of second hand vinyl classical records as its primary source material, and it's the closest to a concert hall experience I have ever had from a domestic hi-fi (albeit a very expensive one in a dedicated listening room and with no immediate neighbours to worry about achieving realistic volumes).
 
If I did 6 a month I would be dead before I got much beyond the letter E. And I'm not interested in buying CDs of things I already own on vinyl, or in downloading mid-res MP3s of them from P2P sites. The records play extremely well with only a few exceptions and I have a nice record player which does the job very well. Problem solved.

I never download anything that is not FLAC, APE, WV, ALAC or WAV. And I only ever d/l things I already own on vinyl or cassette.

Chris
 
Weak, and you know it.

Look, I'm not a format evangelist at all. I'll listen to vinyl, CD, MP3, anything, and the format only rarely matters at all to me. Most of my classical collection is on CD, probably for the reason yours is, because records do sometimes have surface noise which can be intrusive in quiet passages, because classical pieces tend to stretch over more than one side or even more than one record, and because there are many good remasters available digitally very cheaply. All of these are good reasons for buying classical in digital format, but none of them are good reasons for suggesting that records in general are a dead format and essentially unlistenable. Most records in my collection play perfectly well, and end of side distortion is a non-issue except in a handful of cases of records I know are knackered. It simply isn't an audible problem. End of story.
 
I was recently hearing end of side distortion, it was a sign that my stylus was well worn. It has now been replaced and the distortion has gone away.

Vinyl will never die for me as I have thousands of records in my collection I like to listen to and probably hundreds more I will eventually purchase in the future, including classical music of which I have hundreds already!

Aren't there enough good performances of most classical repertoire on vinyl?
 
Weak, and you know it.

Look, I'm not a format evangelist at all. I'll listen to vinyl, CD, MP3, anything, and the format only rarely matters at all to me. Most of my classical collection is on CD, probably for the reason yours is, because records do sometimes have surface noise which can be intrusive in quiet passages, because classical pieces tend to stretch over more than one side or even more than one record, and because there are many good remasters available digitally very cheaply. All of these are good reasons for buying classical in digital format, but none of them are good reasons for suggesting that records are a dead format and essentially unlistenable. Most records in my collection play perfectly well, and end of side distortion is a non-issue except in a handful of cases of records I know are knackered. It simply isn't an audible problem. End of story.


I guess we'll just have to agree to differ, but I'll leave you with a few recommendations that I hope you might consider.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grieg-Peer-Gynt-Sigurd-Jorsalfar/dp/B0007DHPPS/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1299672560&sr=1-5


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mendelssohn-5-Symphonies-7-Overtures/dp/B00005ONMP/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1299672591&sr=1-1


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uchida-plays-Schubert-Mitsuko/dp/B000654OUG/ref=sr_1_7?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1299672614&sr=1-7
 
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I have about 1200 LPs. Fortunately, all bar a very few of them I have managed to acquire digital versions. I estimate there are about 70 LPs which I have to digitise, & I digitise about 6 per month.

Chris

I just record mine as I listen to them. I only record those I listen to regularly. It's not much extra effort to turn on the CD-R and slip in a blank disc prior to playing the LP. As a result I listen to some of my LPs much more frequently (on CD) as I can listen to them when I work, safe in the knowledge that I can pause them for phone calls, and I don't need to run across the room at the end of the side.
 
I get some weird end of side distortion on side 2 of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I probably need a new cartridge.

Joe
 
It's been a while since I've played that, but I think it's meant to do that?

On the BTVS front,

Doppelgangland - outstanding

'Oh F...'

Good start to S4

Spike & Harmony...ROFL!
 


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