Buy records you like, not records you think other people will judge you for owning/not owning. "Collection essentials" don't exist. It's your collection, not anyone else's.
I'm hoping they're building capital for the products you mentioned. Not that they need it, but I think they'll do it on their own instead of with a record label. I recently listened to a podcast of Buzz Osbourne and his wife and she is working on the 10,000 Days vinyl. Makes it sound like it's just around the corner. The skulls do suck. If for no other reason than being a skull. Just too overused IMO
Flooding. Learned the hard way. It can be a burst pipe from above, a backed-up sump from below, a broken water heater, a leaky window, or any number of things. Sometimes a heavy rain is all it takes.
In my case, a basement that had never taken in any water since the house was built, but filled up quickly and took out everything that wasn’t placed high enough. Took out the bulk of my collection and kind of broke me a bit emotionally. I had started collecting as a kid in the early 80s and had inherited most of my parents’ and grandparents’ collections - lots of great stuff. My great grandparents owned a bar with a jukebox and gave my mother all the 45s as they were changed out (those weren’t necessarily all that valuable due to condition but they started my love affair with music - and luckily those all survived because they were on an upper floor, but the LPs were not so lucky). I started over reluctantly after a long layoff and I am still hunting down lost gems many years later, some of which will likely never be replaced.
I will say, vinyl is highly resilient and lots of records survived the flood … though the jackets were all turned to a moldy mushy stew and in many cases adhered to the records. I’ve never made the attempt to clean them, but I still have them.
So if you are going to set up shop in the basement, I’d say be prepared and maintain constant vigilance.
Damn. I am truly sorry to hear that. I lost a good chunk of my collection, but that was because it was covered in asbestos dust and I couldn’t deal with that.
As for my basement, I am setting up my studio there, having moved from a large facility. Believe it or not, the ceiling is 10’ in my basement. Quite special. BUT… it’s also right below the kitchen. I will be purchasing one of those systems that turns off the main if anything leaks. Unfortunately if the leak is in the wall, it won’t know it. Guess I could put a sensor in the basement as well… in the studio.
At the end of the day, they’re just objects. But it’s the memories and connections they evoke that gives them meaning. I listen to my copy of Meet the Beatles and I remember my mother’s love and her willingness to entrust the care of her beloved records to a small child. I listen to Johnny Cash at San Quentin and I remember the first time my aunt played me “A Boy Named Sue” and how I couldn’t stop talking about the records she shared with me, much to the annoyance of the rest of my family. I put on the Goldfinger soundtrack and there’s my father with his love of Ian Fleming novels telling me all the differences between the book and the movie. There’s a reason we’re all passionate about this hobby and it goes far deeper than just debating the merits of some minutiae on Discogs.
How different mastering can make a record sound. Not just hunting cheap copies of records, but specific pressing based on great mastering.
An add on to this is that first pressing doesn’t mean best pressing. Sometimes it is, but not always
You can always google for the best vinyl version of your desired title. Most often the Steve Hoffman forums will have the most extensive discussion on it, but other sites will sometimes pop up. Warning: you can go crazy trying to sort out what’s the very best and you can waste a lot of money chasing specific pressings down. It’s more useful to learn rules of thumb like “vintage North American pressings of Beatles records will rarely sound as good as UK or European ones, and the current in-print versions are decent” vs “OMG if I don’t have the exact matrix number of Abbey Road I might be missing out on 0.0001% better sound quality!”
The other useful resource is reviews on Discogs. This is more useful if you’re considering buying a specific pressing of a record and you want to know how it stacks up against other pressings.
Have fun, don’t get too wound up about it!
The "mastering" from the studio is mostly the same. It's when it comes down the quality of the lacquer they cut at the pressing plant, the stamp they make from it, the quality of the vinyl used and quality control in general.
Why did you put mastering in quotes as if it’s not a real thing? The mastering for vinyl has different requirements than digital. You can actually measure the differences between masters on frequency response on the same song with two different masters so it’s not sone hypothetical
By no means was I saying it's hypothetical.
I was indicating that there are more variables in what makes a good pressing than just the studio mastering. I used quotation marks because there is the studio mastering and then there is the mastering of the lacquer. They are two distinct and separate processes.
Yes, mastering for vinyl is important, however that process varies a lot depending on the release.
A vinyl "master" is simply one that's not being pushed too hard. The loudness, limiting and basslevels can't be excessive being the bottom line.
It's not unusual for the digital release to simply be a louder version of the vinyl master where they can nudge up the loudness and effectively keep the rest of the mix as is.
Buy albums based of the entirety of the project. Too many times I’ve bought an album based off of one song that I liked and spent the listening of said album sitting through bad/average songs for the song I liked to come on.
This is a big one for me too. Streaming is still great, especially for playlists of shit I like. If I can't listen to an album front to back with no skips, it's probably not worth my money to have on vinyl.
I wish I had known what a piece of shit human my step brother would turn out to be, I would have stolen all his records. Well, all of them except the Journey ones.
Think of your turntable as an investment and splurge on a nice one the first time around. When I began collecting I would buy an $80 turntable, sell it, then buy a used $120 turntable, sell it, buy a $200 one, sell it, etc. Budget decks are fine if you only listen to vinyl every once in a while as a novelty thing but if you’re an obsessive like me, you really aren’t going to get the most of your records with one. Get something solid like a Pro-Ject or Rega that you can upgrade with a new cart when the time comes, it will save you a lot of headaches down the line.
Ahhh go to antique stores if u like to dig, been into records for 25+ years, I’ve found some records for $10 that were $200 records…. Yes there is a lot of overpriced crap but man some people just don’t know and it’s the weird stuff that is worth money a lot of times!
How to take care of them.
My first record was the 30th anniversary Dark Side of the Moon. I recently sold it to my local record store, only for a fraction of what it says on Discogs because the the condition was ok at best.
At this point in my collection I don’t buy reissues. I try to buy the first pressing or the best sounding pressing I can find
Spend money on quality inner and outer sleeves
I won’t buy an album I won’t listen the whole
Way through
Go with your gut. There must have been at least 20 times where I’m at a record store and I pick an album and put it back for some reason, leave the store and go back a week later and I can’t find that album.
Quality turntable
Spend money on a good cartridge
Isolation platform are worth it
Expensive cables aren’t really worth it
Agree with most of your post, but “no reissues” isn’t a great rule of thumb IMO. Plenty of reissues smoke the average vintage copy. It really depends.
But before buying a reissue I ALWAYS check out reviews on Discogs and the Steve Hoffman Forums. That has saved me a ton of money and heartache.
Certain labels are reliably good, and some others are reliably shoddy. Most are unreliable either, especially these days.
For me records were optimally bought new and buying used was only the option if new wasn't available. Now, I think a lot of represses sound really good, so I've no shame that I've bought a lot. In general they still offer alternate mastering to the compressed digital masters, so they sound much less muddy, and hearing the vinyl coloring and "snap" on your favorite albums is always fun.
One of the first things I bought when I got my first own turntable set was a repress of Abbey Road (possibly pre-2009) since it was one of the few Beatles albums I never had on vinyl. Sounded good. But when I got a Blue Box on ebay and listened to the copy in that, it was completely revelatory in just how warm and natural it sounded (funnily enough because that's the only Beatles album that can be a little sterile and shrill due to it being their only solid state studio work). Just incredible, a distinctly different sound than I'd heard a very familiar album before. And quite a few of the others in my Blue Box come across that way, though a number of the albums I already had vintage copies of, albeit warn and beaten by that point.
I'm never gonna be one of those people who gets obsessive over chasing down specific early pressings, just not the way I am. But if I'm in a good shop, and I have the option of buying a newly issued repress that is likely digitally sourced, or a vintage copy in good shape, I know that the repress probably sounds really good and is something I'd be happy to have if its an album I like, but it might not be the best option just because its new.
Don't be cheap. Get a quality turntable AND a quality phono amplifer, it's 1/2 of what you are doing.
Clean your records. You take a shower everyday (I assume..QED).
If you take this hobby seriously you will be rewarded. If you don't..you've wasted your money.
It can be just a hobby. Buying records, playing the shit out of them with your friends over, and putting them back on the shelf to play again another day is its well worth the the price of admission.
I generally change sleeves when the record is first cleaned by me (so it starts pristine), and only then if it somehow becomes dirty and gets put away dirty (never happens when I’m handling the records, but others are less careful when I’ve lent out albums, so another pass through the MW-1Cyclone and a new inner sleeve)
I always put my records in a fresh sleeve after the first clean/spin, but I guess the room they’re in gets a little dustier. I’ll keep an eye on that :)
I know this is counter to the point of this post, but I feel like it needs to be expressed. I have no major regrets when I started out a few years ago. Why? Because I researched things, formed opinions and asked questions when absolutely needed. For the amount of time people spend on Youtube, reddit and the internet in general, it seems like researching things in depth is sometimes lost. But most of your questions can be answered if you spend more than 5 minutes in a search bar or watch a few videos explaining things. If more people did that, this subreddit and others wouldn't be filled with "why does this sound so crappy on my crosley" or "what turntable and speakers should I buy for $200"
From researching audio forums that I had never used in the past, product review sites, threads here, I was able to put together a really solid setup with a roadmap of other components I wanted down the line. I learned what discogs was and how to figure out indicators of good pressings. I learned good maintain/cleaning practices. I don't claim to be anywhere near an expert. But it's a hobby that I was interested in so I took the time to learn.
The info is at your fingertips just as long as you put in the legwork yourself.
it’s so much more rewarding when you take time to find an answer for yourself. I feel bad for kids these days that have no ambition when it comes to searching for information about the hobby.
its crazy because literally every question you could possibly think of theres a 100% chance its been asked before and 99% chance theres an answer somewhere on the internet.
Don't buy records at the grocery store, namely PathMark at the time. Either the records were defective from the start or it didn't take long before they sounded worn.
That all this stuff would become valuable in 35 years and that in 15 years when you can buy used LPs at 2 for a dollar, pick up everything you are even remotely interested in. And don't get rid of any LPs just because you "upgraded" them to a trendy new Compact Disc thingie.
To start keeping a eye out for deals on Facebook, eBay etc for equipment or just record hauls people were practically throwing away before the record craze came up again a few years ago now you got too many people with the “I know what I got” mentality. I just want to give them new life and home not resell or buy from snobs and ignorant snobs😩
1. Buy used vinyl. It’s usually cheaper, and the thrill of the hunt / element of surprise is half the fun of the hobby.
2. Clean your records. At the very least, buy a spin-clean machine, don’t just rely on a spritz and a wipe. If you play dirty records they’ll start sounding bad really quickly.
3. Condition is everything. I’ll still buy somewhat beat-up copies of things if they’re cheap enough, but more often I’ll pass on a record with any noticeable flaws whatsoever. Paying a little more for a pristine copy is usually worth it.
4. Upgrade your turntable to a decent level, then upgrade your cartridge & stylus from there. A mid-fi table with an excellent cartridge & stylus will sound way better than a hi-fi table with a shitty one.
5. Clean your records. Seriously.
That the records I listen to the most are weird old jazz records I find on the cheap, and maybe havn't even heard of the artist, not the expensive new re-pressings of modern albums that were released in the post-vinyl era anyway. I can listen to those on streaming, having them on vinyl doesn't add anything to them for me.
I appreciate your response. Sorry you’re getting downvoted. I’ve heard bad things about dish soap on records, but then again, that what I use on my car…
I specified those two brands because they do not leave residue. Diluted blue Dawn with a microfiber cloth is all my local record shop uses and his records are notably cleaner than anything I've gotten from discogs. At 2-3 drops per gallon, spread across hundreds of records, I'm not concerned about any buildup.
Tried harder to buy sun ra saturns in the 90’s/early 2000’s
159 in recent auctions fetched £95+k (not all og’s).
In the 90’s that would’ve been £5k ish.
I shouldn’t have purchased the amount of vinyl records that I have now as I’m planning to migrate out of the country halfway to the other side of the world in the future as the logistics side gonna cost me tons.
Selling locally is one of the options but I will have to sell them under market value I supposed, idk yet. And selling locally gonna be a challenge as the vinyl community here is so so small and we don’t even have any record shops.
PS-How safe is it to ship my whole collections using sea logistic? Or air logistic? Anyone got any idea?
When you have someone sign their album do it on the front... I have a complete Trooper Discography signed on the BACK hanging on my wall backs showing to show off the autographs because the me who had Ra McGuire and Brian smith sign it thought it would be cool to have them sign the back near where their picture is on the album. Now you can't even tell that that copy of Untitled is the rare no sticker version of the album.
If you see it and are able to afford it - buy it!
Every single time I pass on something that is more rare in the wild, or is unusually good condition or price for that specific record....I've regretted it. I go back the next day and of course it's gone and I haven't seen it in the wild since.
I’ve been collecting for a long time and the biggest things that I learned that would have had more value if learned early on.
Learn what marks on a record will have no bearing on sound degradation. Some scratches or marks can be a disaster and some not.
Never pay too much for a low quality grail, if you do it’s perfect alternate will show up the following week at half the price.
Either the sleeve or the record must be in great shape (preferably the record) in a compromised situation, but it must be cheap, then seek out its opposite for a great sleeve/record pairing.
Don’t buy a collectors level record that is in bad shape (unless it is very cheap).
Wish I knew that at some point in time, each record or piece of my collection will eventually be $40 plus dollars to own due to generation Z and their vinyl fetishization. Surface level Fandom took over.
Buy records you like, not records you think other people will judge you for owning/not owning. "Collection essentials" don't exist. It's your collection, not anyone else's.
This. A thousand times over.
Please no more screaming man
Unless you really dig "21st Century Schizoid Man." It is a pretty cool track.
Or in the court of the crimson king. The last track is worth the build up of the album.
Or the entire album
It’s a great album, I like it and it’s essential in my collection. If you have it or don’t, that is your choice, it’s your collection.
It's still one of the best albums ever made though.
Not true. Head over to /r/vinyljerk for starter packs. Don't be naive.
Buy 20 copies of Tool - Ænima in 96/97...keep 19 of them sealed!!! Easy $30K lol
I remember buying mine, if only I'd known.
Still got it at least??
And I listen regularly. It's a masterpiece.
Very jealous!! One day I'll be rich/crazy enough to shell out for it 😂
They'll reissue. TOOL is on a money making rampage currently. Should be out before we die.
The fetus skulls 🤦🙄 yet still no Ænima, quality Lateralus or 10K Days vinyl... It's bordering on idiotic
I'm hoping they're building capital for the products you mentioned. Not that they need it, but I think they'll do it on their own instead of with a record label. I recently listened to a podcast of Buzz Osbourne and his wife and she is working on the 10,000 Days vinyl. Makes it sound like it's just around the corner. The skulls do suck. If for no other reason than being a skull. Just too overused IMO
Never trust your finished basement.
Oooh this is a good one
Please expand on this as I am presently building my studio in my basement. Are you referring to flooding?
Flooding. Learned the hard way. It can be a burst pipe from above, a backed-up sump from below, a broken water heater, a leaky window, or any number of things. Sometimes a heavy rain is all it takes. In my case, a basement that had never taken in any water since the house was built, but filled up quickly and took out everything that wasn’t placed high enough. Took out the bulk of my collection and kind of broke me a bit emotionally. I had started collecting as a kid in the early 80s and had inherited most of my parents’ and grandparents’ collections - lots of great stuff. My great grandparents owned a bar with a jukebox and gave my mother all the 45s as they were changed out (those weren’t necessarily all that valuable due to condition but they started my love affair with music - and luckily those all survived because they were on an upper floor, but the LPs were not so lucky). I started over reluctantly after a long layoff and I am still hunting down lost gems many years later, some of which will likely never be replaced. I will say, vinyl is highly resilient and lots of records survived the flood … though the jackets were all turned to a moldy mushy stew and in many cases adhered to the records. I’ve never made the attempt to clean them, but I still have them. So if you are going to set up shop in the basement, I’d say be prepared and maintain constant vigilance.
I’d also run a dehumidifier, basements can be a damp place that love to make moldy sleeves.
Damn. I am truly sorry to hear that. I lost a good chunk of my collection, but that was because it was covered in asbestos dust and I couldn’t deal with that. As for my basement, I am setting up my studio there, having moved from a large facility. Believe it or not, the ceiling is 10’ in my basement. Quite special. BUT… it’s also right below the kitchen. I will be purchasing one of those systems that turns off the main if anything leaks. Unfortunately if the leak is in the wall, it won’t know it. Guess I could put a sensor in the basement as well… in the studio.
At the end of the day, they’re just objects. But it’s the memories and connections they evoke that gives them meaning. I listen to my copy of Meet the Beatles and I remember my mother’s love and her willingness to entrust the care of her beloved records to a small child. I listen to Johnny Cash at San Quentin and I remember the first time my aunt played me “A Boy Named Sue” and how I couldn’t stop talking about the records she shared with me, much to the annoyance of the rest of my family. I put on the Goldfinger soundtrack and there’s my father with his love of Ian Fleming novels telling me all the differences between the book and the movie. There’s a reason we’re all passionate about this hobby and it goes far deeper than just debating the merits of some minutiae on Discogs.
How expensive of a hobby it was gonna become
And addictive
VG doesn’t mean “very good” AT ALL
That by 2015 used and new prices would start going up and by the early 2020s things would be insane :P
Yep. I wish I’d snapped up every dollar copy of Runours, Purple Rain, Thriller etc that I’d ever seen. I could be retired now.
To buy things when they came out in the 90s. Change your cart.
Good news is lots of good represses now, many better than original
How different mastering can make a record sound. Not just hunting cheap copies of records, but specific pressing based on great mastering. An add on to this is that first pressing doesn’t mean best pressing. Sometimes it is, but not always
What’s a good way to find this out?
You can always google for the best vinyl version of your desired title. Most often the Steve Hoffman forums will have the most extensive discussion on it, but other sites will sometimes pop up. Warning: you can go crazy trying to sort out what’s the very best and you can waste a lot of money chasing specific pressings down. It’s more useful to learn rules of thumb like “vintage North American pressings of Beatles records will rarely sound as good as UK or European ones, and the current in-print versions are decent” vs “OMG if I don’t have the exact matrix number of Abbey Road I might be missing out on 0.0001% better sound quality!” The other useful resource is reviews on Discogs. This is more useful if you’re considering buying a specific pressing of a record and you want to know how it stacks up against other pressings. Have fun, don’t get too wound up about it!
Thanks so much for the tips! DiscoGS has been great
I’d expand on this a little: I wish I knew about grey market labels sooner.
Like the giant rock in the sky that reflects sunlight vibrating?
The "mastering" from the studio is mostly the same. It's when it comes down the quality of the lacquer they cut at the pressing plant, the stamp they make from it, the quality of the vinyl used and quality control in general.
Why did you put mastering in quotes as if it’s not a real thing? The mastering for vinyl has different requirements than digital. You can actually measure the differences between masters on frequency response on the same song with two different masters so it’s not sone hypothetical
By no means was I saying it's hypothetical. I was indicating that there are more variables in what makes a good pressing than just the studio mastering. I used quotation marks because there is the studio mastering and then there is the mastering of the lacquer. They are two distinct and separate processes.
No you said it’s mostly the same and it’s not. I also didn’t say there weren’t more variables just that the vinyl mastering is an important factor
Yes, mastering for vinyl is important, however that process varies a lot depending on the release. A vinyl "master" is simply one that's not being pushed too hard. The loudness, limiting and basslevels can't be excessive being the bottom line. It's not unusual for the digital release to simply be a louder version of the vinyl master where they can nudge up the loudness and effectively keep the rest of the mix as is.
Buy albums based of the entirety of the project. Too many times I’ve bought an album based off of one song that I liked and spent the listening of said album sitting through bad/average songs for the song I liked to come on.
I learned this so hard. Just because an album has that one song you like on it, doesn’t mean it’s worth your shelf space.
I’ve sold off 100 records over the last few years fixing this
This is a big one for me too. Streaming is still great, especially for playlists of shit I like. If I can't listen to an album front to back with no skips, it's probably not worth my money to have on vinyl.
But I've also had albums I bought for just one song and went "Damn I really like the rest of these bangers on here"
Don't sell your record collection for peanuts in the 90s because it's heavy and you're moving.
I wish I had known what a piece of shit human my step brother would turn out to be, I would have stolen all his records. Well, all of them except the Journey ones.
L O L
Think of your turntable as an investment and splurge on a nice one the first time around. When I began collecting I would buy an $80 turntable, sell it, then buy a used $120 turntable, sell it, buy a $200 one, sell it, etc. Budget decks are fine if you only listen to vinyl every once in a while as a novelty thing but if you’re an obsessive like me, you really aren’t going to get the most of your records with one. Get something solid like a Pro-Ject or Rega that you can upgrade with a new cart when the time comes, it will save you a lot of headaches down the line.
Agree. At the very least, buy a turntable where the cartridge can be upgraded and can track at 2 grams or less.
Don't buy from antique shops. Ignore vinyl snobs.
I would tell myself the opposite actually.
Ahhh go to antique stores if u like to dig, been into records for 25+ years, I’ve found some records for $10 that were $200 records…. Yes there is a lot of overpriced crap but man some people just don’t know and it’s the weird stuff that is worth money a lot of times!
How to take care of them. My first record was the 30th anniversary Dark Side of the Moon. I recently sold it to my local record store, only for a fraction of what it says on Discogs because the the condition was ok at best.
Should have bought more records in 1997 than I did.
Everything gets repressed. Missed out on an album because of time/money/etc? It will get repressed - Don't pay the scalper prices.
>Everything gets repressed. Well it's been over a decade since Rain Dogs from Tom Waits lol.
Fair. You know that if you buy it, it will get a repress. You might have to take one for the rest of us...
I'm actually sitting on a copy of this that has been for sale for months.
Been waiting for one album for 5 years for a repress. It really sucks waiting but in most cases there have been represses
At this point in my collection I don’t buy reissues. I try to buy the first pressing or the best sounding pressing I can find Spend money on quality inner and outer sleeves I won’t buy an album I won’t listen the whole Way through Go with your gut. There must have been at least 20 times where I’m at a record store and I pick an album and put it back for some reason, leave the store and go back a week later and I can’t find that album. Quality turntable Spend money on a good cartridge Isolation platform are worth it Expensive cables aren’t really worth it
Agree with most of your post, but “no reissues” isn’t a great rule of thumb IMO. Plenty of reissues smoke the average vintage copy. It really depends. But before buying a reissue I ALWAYS check out reviews on Discogs and the Steve Hoffman Forums. That has saved me a ton of money and heartache. Certain labels are reliably good, and some others are reliably shoddy. Most are unreliable either, especially these days.
I wish I knew when I was 13-14 buying records for $6.99 that the price was gonna fuckin go through the roof! Might have grabbed a few more!
I feel that, records in the 90’s were 25 cents to 5 dollars, bought records back then but a lot of CDs at that time
For me records were optimally bought new and buying used was only the option if new wasn't available. Now, I think a lot of represses sound really good, so I've no shame that I've bought a lot. In general they still offer alternate mastering to the compressed digital masters, so they sound much less muddy, and hearing the vinyl coloring and "snap" on your favorite albums is always fun. One of the first things I bought when I got my first own turntable set was a repress of Abbey Road (possibly pre-2009) since it was one of the few Beatles albums I never had on vinyl. Sounded good. But when I got a Blue Box on ebay and listened to the copy in that, it was completely revelatory in just how warm and natural it sounded (funnily enough because that's the only Beatles album that can be a little sterile and shrill due to it being their only solid state studio work). Just incredible, a distinctly different sound than I'd heard a very familiar album before. And quite a few of the others in my Blue Box come across that way, though a number of the albums I already had vintage copies of, albeit warn and beaten by that point. I'm never gonna be one of those people who gets obsessive over chasing down specific early pressings, just not the way I am. But if I'm in a good shop, and I have the option of buying a newly issued repress that is likely digitally sourced, or a vintage copy in good shape, I know that the repress probably sounds really good and is something I'd be happy to have if its an album I like, but it might not be the best option just because its new.
Don't be cheap. Get a quality turntable AND a quality phono amplifer, it's 1/2 of what you are doing. Clean your records. You take a shower everyday (I assume..QED). If you take this hobby seriously you will be rewarded. If you don't..you've wasted your money.
It can be just a hobby. Buying records, playing the shit out of them with your friends over, and putting them back on the shelf to play again another day is its well worth the the price of admission.
I’ve gotten into the habit of giving my records a clean before every spin and would still be surprised to see the dust that settles during storage
If you put clean records back into the same sleeves they have always been in they will become dirty instantly.
How often do you suggest changing sleeves?
I generally change sleeves when the record is first cleaned by me (so it starts pristine), and only then if it somehow becomes dirty and gets put away dirty (never happens when I’m handling the records, but others are less careful when I’ve lent out albums, so another pass through the MW-1Cyclone and a new inner sleeve)
I always put my records in a fresh sleeve after the first clean/spin, but I guess the room they’re in gets a little dustier. I’ll keep an eye on that :)
I know this is counter to the point of this post, but I feel like it needs to be expressed. I have no major regrets when I started out a few years ago. Why? Because I researched things, formed opinions and asked questions when absolutely needed. For the amount of time people spend on Youtube, reddit and the internet in general, it seems like researching things in depth is sometimes lost. But most of your questions can be answered if you spend more than 5 minutes in a search bar or watch a few videos explaining things. If more people did that, this subreddit and others wouldn't be filled with "why does this sound so crappy on my crosley" or "what turntable and speakers should I buy for $200" From researching audio forums that I had never used in the past, product review sites, threads here, I was able to put together a really solid setup with a roadmap of other components I wanted down the line. I learned what discogs was and how to figure out indicators of good pressings. I learned good maintain/cleaning practices. I don't claim to be anywhere near an expert. But it's a hobby that I was interested in so I took the time to learn. The info is at your fingertips just as long as you put in the legwork yourself.
it’s so much more rewarding when you take time to find an answer for yourself. I feel bad for kids these days that have no ambition when it comes to searching for information about the hobby.
its crazy because literally every question you could possibly think of theres a 100% chance its been asked before and 99% chance theres an answer somewhere on the internet.
So you're telling me other people have asked why their crosley suitcase player sounds like crap? I don't believe you. /s
“record skipping sounds weird crosley turntable”
Don't buy records at the grocery store, namely PathMark at the time. Either the records were defective from the start or it didn't take long before they sounded worn.
It’s not like PathMark would have had records specifically pressed for them on inferior vinyl. I think your problem lies elsewhere.
Wow I forgot all about Pathmark
That all this stuff would become valuable in 35 years and that in 15 years when you can buy used LPs at 2 for a dollar, pick up everything you are even remotely interested in. And don't get rid of any LPs just because you "upgraded" them to a trendy new Compact Disc thingie.
But CDs were the future
To start keeping a eye out for deals on Facebook, eBay etc for equipment or just record hauls people were practically throwing away before the record craze came up again a few years ago now you got too many people with the “I know what I got” mentality. I just want to give them new life and home not resell or buy from snobs and ignorant snobs😩
I agree with looking around as much as you can before buying. Also make sure to check out the band /label websites.
When you see it, buy it. It makes me nuts thinking of the records I left behind 30 years ago.
Pretty much everything. I started collecting pre-internet so info was tough to come by.
Damn. I feel for you old ass
I heard that about you.
😭😂
1. Buy used vinyl. It’s usually cheaper, and the thrill of the hunt / element of surprise is half the fun of the hobby. 2. Clean your records. At the very least, buy a spin-clean machine, don’t just rely on a spritz and a wipe. If you play dirty records they’ll start sounding bad really quickly. 3. Condition is everything. I’ll still buy somewhat beat-up copies of things if they’re cheap enough, but more often I’ll pass on a record with any noticeable flaws whatsoever. Paying a little more for a pristine copy is usually worth it. 4. Upgrade your turntable to a decent level, then upgrade your cartridge & stylus from there. A mid-fi table with an excellent cartridge & stylus will sound way better than a hi-fi table with a shitty one. 5. Clean your records. Seriously.
Most of the time Beatle records cost way way more then they should
I found this out too. Tell me why I was paying $60 for a VG copy of please please me in mono. Like 👍🏼 bye bye money
That the records I listen to the most are weird old jazz records I find on the cheap, and maybe havn't even heard of the artist, not the expensive new re-pressings of modern albums that were released in the post-vinyl era anyway. I can listen to those on streaming, having them on vinyl doesn't add anything to them for me.
That you can make a gallon of record cleaning fluid in about 30 seconds for $2.
Details
Gallon of distilled water + 2-3 drops of plain blue dawn dish soap. I've also used Dr bronners sal-suds.
Ughhh no. Please don’t use dish soap.
correct. Leaves residue.
Exactly
I will.
I appreciate your response. Sorry you’re getting downvoted. I’ve heard bad things about dish soap on records, but then again, that what I use on my car…
I specified those two brands because they do not leave residue. Diluted blue Dawn with a microfiber cloth is all my local record shop uses and his records are notably cleaner than anything I've gotten from discogs. At 2-3 drops per gallon, spread across hundreds of records, I'm not concerned about any buildup.
It works fine, people be trippin, and they probably never worked at a record store, we used this exact ratio at a store I worked at for 10 years.
...that some of the older records..maybe the 78s...have a different groove angle and should use a different stylus :o
Tried harder to buy sun ra saturns in the 90’s/early 2000’s 159 in recent auctions fetched £95+k (not all og’s). In the 90’s that would’ve been £5k ish.
I shouldn’t have purchased the amount of vinyl records that I have now as I’m planning to migrate out of the country halfway to the other side of the world in the future as the logistics side gonna cost me tons. Selling locally is one of the options but I will have to sell them under market value I supposed, idk yet. And selling locally gonna be a challenge as the vinyl community here is so so small and we don’t even have any record shops. PS-How safe is it to ship my whole collections using sea logistic? Or air logistic? Anyone got any idea?
When you have someone sign their album do it on the front... I have a complete Trooper Discography signed on the BACK hanging on my wall backs showing to show off the autographs because the me who had Ra McGuire and Brian smith sign it thought it would be cool to have them sign the back near where their picture is on the album. Now you can't even tell that that copy of Untitled is the rare no sticker version of the album.
If you see it and are able to afford it - buy it! Every single time I pass on something that is more rare in the wild, or is unusually good condition or price for that specific record....I've regretted it. I go back the next day and of course it's gone and I haven't seen it in the wild since.
I’ve been collecting for a long time and the biggest things that I learned that would have had more value if learned early on. Learn what marks on a record will have no bearing on sound degradation. Some scratches or marks can be a disaster and some not. Never pay too much for a low quality grail, if you do it’s perfect alternate will show up the following week at half the price. Either the sleeve or the record must be in great shape (preferably the record) in a compromised situation, but it must be cheap, then seek out its opposite for a great sleeve/record pairing. Don’t buy a collectors level record that is in bad shape (unless it is very cheap).
To not to.
THIS is the one 😎
Wish I knew that at some point in time, each record or piece of my collection will eventually be $40 plus dollars to own due to generation Z and their vinyl fetishization. Surface level Fandom took over.