CDs to Vinyl

Has anyone else got rid of all their CDs and gone to vinyl and digital only? I haven't listened to any CDs in probably a year because honestly if I am going to go to the trouble of getting something out of a case and put it on I would rather put on vinyl. And then digital is just easier then CDs.

Yep. I just got a half decent record player for Christmas, and the only CDs I have are in the CD changer in my car. All other ones have been tossed.

Are you kidding? I just finally organized my CDs after 20+ years! There's no way I'm getting rid of them now!!!

No way in hell. HiFi vinyl is a rabbit hole i refuse to go down.

I didn't get rid of my CDs, but I did rip them all to a NAS.

The only time I pull out a CD is to rip it to the PC, yet our vinyl (at least 1500 albums) is always on hand and in use. Whenever I buy records now, usually from the artist at a show (it feels great to put the money directly in the hands of someone) it now comes with a download card so it can go right into my phone for use in the cars.

Technically, CDs are "digital", they're just a less space-efficient storage mechanism than flash memory or hard drives. But yes, I haven't used a CD other than to rip it in about a decade, and I stopped buying physical CD media about 6-8 years ago.

Vinyl? No, I don't bother buying that. Why go to all that inconvenience just to get something with inferior sound quality? :)

I've got a 100 disk changer hooked up. I'm not even sure it still works.

I've got a stack of vinyl. The LP player has been in a box, somewhere, since we moved, two years ago.

Convenience has trumped anything else. I've got 100s of hours of music on my phone. It's always with me and with Bluetooth, it's as easy as clicking a few buttons.

When my daughter gets out of school and moves out, her room, the FROG will become the library/movie/study room. Then I'll set up a tube amp, the turntable, the projector aimed at a 70" screen, and a surround system.

Only one more year.

codrus wrote: Vinyl? No, I don't bother buying that. Why go to all that inconvenience just to get something with inferior sound quality? :)

You have bumped your head. Might want to get your ears checked.

Since I bought the Viper, I've been really interested in putting all of my d1g1t0l stuff onto cassettes! I mean, the Miata doesn't have a radio, and the Viper only plays tapes. I think it would be fun, so I can see what you're driving at. (And I have the little wired cassette that you plug into your MP3 player, but there's just something genuine about a E36 M3ty sounding tape.)

Vinyl is over! I have been trading all mine in for Edison wax cylinders.

I've been listening to vinyl lately. Got a new Ortofon 2M Red cartridge. I don't anything about it except it was in my less than $100 installed price range. The shop did a quick check on the Akai turntable from the 70s. I was listening through the tube amp I built but I gave it to my FIL. I've got another one on the bench though to fill the gap.

I still use CD's, although mainly in the car since the main drivers still have OE decks. The VW has a tape player, but I've never used it in almost 11 years. I have gigabits of mp3's, although I never play them... Someday I'll get on board with playing music off my phone... Maybe when all of the cars have working stereos with aux/usb inputs.

Vinyl sounds better when played through a good system. I have a couple hundred records, but my record player is crap.

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bastomatic wrote: Vinyl is over! I have been trading all mine in for Edison wax cylinders.

I was fairly into stereo equipment before CDs existed, and I have a couple hundred LPs and a very nice turntable in the closet. They've been there for 20 years. I just don't get the whole "vinyl is soooooo much more organic" thing. I'll trade not having to dust, destatic, and worry about scratches or stylus wear for that 0.00000001% loss of some mystical "warmth" any day.

codrus wrote: Technically, CDs *are* "digital", they're just a less space-efficient storage mechanism than flash memory or hard drives. But yes, I haven't used a CD other than to rip it in about a decade, and I stopped buying physical CD media about 6-8 years ago. Vinyl? No, I don't bother buying that. Why go to all that inconvenience just to get something with inferior sound quality? :)

Both CDs and MP3s are digital. But the MP3 has about 1/10 of the digital data and file size because of lossy compression. They sound different....to me.

On the other hand I like that mp3s have made it easy to hear music I would have never tried before if I had to go down to the old record or CD store.

I would love to get into the vinyl world, as I was spending some time listening to my FIL vinyl a few months back, and loved the whole idea of it. The album art alone is worth having them around! I grew up around vinyl being born in the 70's, but I don't even own a stereo, and never have. I want to buy an old one, but have no idea what to get. Any imput as to what to look for in an old system that I could play some vinyl on?

Mazdax605 wrote: I would love to get into the vinyl world, as I was spending some time listening to my FIL vinyl a few months back, and loved the whole idea of it. The album art alone is worth having them around! I grew up around vinyl being born in the 70's, but I don't even own a stereo, and never have. I want to buy an old one, but have no idea what to get. Any imput as to what to look for in an old system that I could play some vinyl on?

Doesn't have to be old. In fact, the only old things in my stero are my speakers (Klipsch KG 5.2 from... 1994?) Otherwise everything else is from 2006 or later.

Duke wrote:

bastomatic wrote: Vinyl is over! I have been trading all mine in for Edison wax cylinders.

I was fairly into stereo equipment before CDs existed, and I have a couple hundred LPs and a *very* nice turntable in the closet. They've been there for 20 years. I just don't get the whole "vinyl is *soooooo* much more organic" thing. I'll trade not having to dust, destatic, and worry about scratches or stylus wear for that 0.00000001% loss of some mystical "warmth" any day.

Bingo.

In a very perfect and expensive world, Vinyl is king. In the real world for 99.99% of us, CDs are the best way to get the best quality.

freestyle wrote:

codrus wrote: Technically, CDs *are* "digital", they're just a less space-efficient storage mechanism than flash memory or hard drives. But yes, I haven't used a CD other than to rip it in about a decade, and I stopped buying physical CD media about 6-8 years ago. Vinyl? No, I don't bother buying that. Why go to all that inconvenience just to get something with inferior sound quality? :)

Both CDs and MP3s are digital. But the MP3 has about 1/10 of the digital data and file size because of lossy compression. They sound different....to me. On the other hand I like that mp3s have made it easy to hear music I would have never tried before if I had to go down to the old record or CD store.

"mp3" is one encoding standard for digital music commonly used on phones, iPods, computers, etc, but it is not the only one. There are other, better codecs (AAC is one) that have fewer audible compression artifacts and some which are lossless and thus have none (ALAC, straight WAV, etc). If you're using a lossless compression format, you get exactly the same sound as you would have gotten playing the CD that the file was ripped from. It all depends on how much you notice the artifacts vs how much you're willing to spend on flash storage to be able to store the bigger files with fewer artifacts in them.

Duke wrote: I was fairly into stereo equipment before CDs existed, and I have a couple hundred LPs and a *very* nice turntable in the closet. They've been there for 20 years. I just don't get the whole "vinyl is *soooooo* much more organic" thing. I'll trade not having to dust, destatic, and worry about scratches or stylus wear for that 0.00000001% loss of some mystical "warmth" any day.

Exactly. Vinyl may be romantic, but from a technical standpoint it's vastly inferior to CDs or other lossless digital encoding technologies. I don't get tube amps either. The "warmth" they supposedly add to the sound is actually distortion that some people find pleasant to listen to. Personally I'd rather have a nice MOSFET amp without enough headroom that it doesn't ever clip, and then if I want to deliberately introduce some distortion I'd do it in a DSP where it could be controlled properly.

I will certainly admit that tube amps look cool, in a steampunky kind of way. I just don't really value visual aesthetics in my audio gear, certainly not to the extent of compromising the audio to get them. :)

I use Vandersteen 2ce signatures with a 2W subwoofer, a Rotel RB985mk2 amp, and digital sources with the D2A converter in the pre-amp/receiver.

Personally I like music... I have records, tapes, CDs, mp3s, aacs, and flacs. I don't really have any desire to have only one of those. It's all good (sort of)!

Even on say, good studio monitor headphones(Sennheiser HD 25-1 II), I can't really tell the difference when you get nicer than 320k MP3, most of my lossless stuff is just because I can.

I'm starting to build my physical media library again. Thrift shops and yard sales always have a decent selection of CDs or vinyl for like fifty cents each.

Music is an art, just as theatre is art. The venue can change a performance, as can the media it's recorded on and the equipment it's played back on.

I've spent some time listening on all sorts of gear in all sorts of formats. (Used to hit all the local ClubPolk gatherings.)

And i find that when vinyl is done "right" (played on good equipment with the record in perfect shape and all that), it really does sound best to me.

HOWEVER, i'm unwilling to go through all that work and money to chase the 1%. CDs are simply easier, more convenient, and if i want to convert them into a compressed file, or even an uncompressed file that's more "portable," i can do so easily and cheaply. None of this happens with vinyl.

What i still have a problem with is that recordings themselves can be so inconsistent. I have CDs that sound awesome. I have CDs that sound berkeleying TERRIBLE. Vinyl won't change that. My 2-channel system probably isn't studio-accurate in how it reproduces recordings, but i've run a ton of gear through it trying to create a setup that's very "forgiving" of awful recordings, and i think i've succeeded decently. Even Pandora running off the PS3 sounds pretty good.

B&K Reference 5 S2 preamp
Modded Onkyo M5150 power amp
Yaqin CD2 tube buffer w/ some old Soviet tubes rolled in
Pioneer Elite BDP/CDP
Audioquest Scarlet Viper interconnects throughout
Paradigm Titan V.3 speakers

I've been idly shopping for a DAC and would like to upgrade my amp. It's starting to get a little noisy and the caps are shot. Takes forever to "warm up" which shouldn't be happening with a solid state amp.