lencotweaker
Mostly dreaming of record players
I've been somewhat intensely focused on records and their replay over the last 30 years, and obsessively so in the last 10 years but I've found myself taking a break over the last few weeks in favour of CD! Despite me being a massive vinyl snob (its borderline insane the amount of record players and associated paraphernalia I have here), I've recently started to notice again the huge wall full of CD's I accumulated over the years. I've started listening to them again, even started buying again, and there are some absolutely gems to be had! I'm secretly enjoying them too. Theres real joy going on.
So here are a few observations that led to this:
- new records are stupid expensive and it galls me as a vinyl lifer who's bought records every week for over 30 years. Now that the vinyl revival in full swing, the marketing departments and rip off merchants are in overdrive I suppose I'm just getting properly tired of it all. And let's not even talk about new pressing quality.
-used vinyl is hit and miss. Ebay is a crapshoot. Discogs is only marginally better. In any case, what to even to buy? I've probably got most of the 'reasonably priced' back catalogue I really wanted already. The stuff I didn't get back in the day, especially from the 90's, is now insanely expensive.
-streaming. I have a pretty high end, Roon based, multi-room, streaming set up... and I never use it. I dunno, its either tiresome because it needs an update every single time I rarely use it or its broken and needs me to put my old 80's/90's geeky computer sleuth head back on, or the choice is just plain overwhelming. I only tend to use it if I'm aware of something new or intriguing and I want a quick listen before buying a physical copy.
-over the last couple of years I've been frequenting the charity shop CD sections. In between the seemingly endless Il Divo, Frank Sinatra, Robbie Williams and Dido CD's, there are some really great discs to be had for a quid a pop. 3 for a quid in some cases! I thought the quid I paid for 'World Party - Egyptology' yesterday was a proper little nugget of gold. Oh, and quite laughable armful's of classical CD's to be had. There is so much classical on those shelves I just limit it to major label discs and you just can't go wrong.
-CD's on eBay can also be stupid cheap. Most of the stuff I've bought over the last month or so is not even on streaming services, or on vinyl. The morning delivery from the postman is getting embarrassing!
So there it is, I'm being sucked back into a format I never really fell for in the first place and now I'm thinking about CD replay hardware again for the first time in over 10 years. What I have is sounding really good anyway, an old Denon DVD2900 as transport through Luxman DA-06 DAC on one system and a Naim CDX2 in the home office, but what does top class CD replay look like in 2024 if I wanted to get the best out of this format?
Its a bit of a Saturday night wine fuelled ramble but what say you? CD's in 2024?
So here are a few observations that led to this:
- new records are stupid expensive and it galls me as a vinyl lifer who's bought records every week for over 30 years. Now that the vinyl revival in full swing, the marketing departments and rip off merchants are in overdrive I suppose I'm just getting properly tired of it all. And let's not even talk about new pressing quality.
-used vinyl is hit and miss. Ebay is a crapshoot. Discogs is only marginally better. In any case, what to even to buy? I've probably got most of the 'reasonably priced' back catalogue I really wanted already. The stuff I didn't get back in the day, especially from the 90's, is now insanely expensive.
-streaming. I have a pretty high end, Roon based, multi-room, streaming set up... and I never use it. I dunno, its either tiresome because it needs an update every single time I rarely use it or its broken and needs me to put my old 80's/90's geeky computer sleuth head back on, or the choice is just plain overwhelming. I only tend to use it if I'm aware of something new or intriguing and I want a quick listen before buying a physical copy.
-over the last couple of years I've been frequenting the charity shop CD sections. In between the seemingly endless Il Divo, Frank Sinatra, Robbie Williams and Dido CD's, there are some really great discs to be had for a quid a pop. 3 for a quid in some cases! I thought the quid I paid for 'World Party - Egyptology' yesterday was a proper little nugget of gold. Oh, and quite laughable armful's of classical CD's to be had. There is so much classical on those shelves I just limit it to major label discs and you just can't go wrong.
-CD's on eBay can also be stupid cheap. Most of the stuff I've bought over the last month or so is not even on streaming services, or on vinyl. The morning delivery from the postman is getting embarrassing!
So there it is, I'm being sucked back into a format I never really fell for in the first place and now I'm thinking about CD replay hardware again for the first time in over 10 years. What I have is sounding really good anyway, an old Denon DVD2900 as transport through Luxman DA-06 DAC on one system and a Naim CDX2 in the home office, but what does top class CD replay look like in 2024 if I wanted to get the best out of this format?
Its a bit of a Saturday night wine fuelled ramble but what say you? CD's in 2024?