I was talking to a friend back home about an early anniversary present (celebrating 10 years together with a partner is a milestone I never thought I’d ever reach with anyone) a custom U-Turn turntable; a much-needed upgrade from our gen-one U-Turn Orbit (a Kickstarter original). My buddy texted back asking for all the specs and then pressed on about my amp and speaker setup, the distance my couch sits from the speakers, type of stylus I’m using... I knew that these questions were coming. I have spent more than one night talking about “sweet spots” and hot setups with this guy.
Honestly, I love hearing about high-fi audio, especially since my friend has both a passion and knack for such sound systems…but I am decidedly out of my depth talking about any and all of it. I smile, nod, and chime in where I can (like tracking pressure and geeking out over the Ortofon stylus). For the most part, I take my seat at the learning tree, doing my best to keep up with his ongoing quest for sonic nirvana.
When Aubrie and I started dating, our first non-dinner date was to see Marc Maron in St. Louis. Not sure if I wanted to expose her to my crippling vinyl addiction, we steered clear of Vintage Vinyl and Euclid Records but seeing a comedian who was clearly obsessed with records felt like a good way to test the waters.
In his special Thinky Pain, Marron talks about vinyl collecting and the dilemma of spending thousands of dollars on sound systems…only to recapture a sound from a cheap stereo. The cranky neurotic angst is perhaps a little too easy for me to relate to as a junior curmudgeon. Up until I moved to Central Illinois, most of my turntables (and stereo equipment for that matter) were given to me — from taking my parents’ old LXI (Sears) and Denon stereo components to being given vintage Bose speakers for helping my friend Dan move — with a Frankenstein resolve. I was always more interested in the music than the player. As long as the turntable didn’t destroy my vinyl with Crosely-like aplomb I was fine with compromised fidelity.
(Sidebar: Crosely does have some higher-end turntables. In full disclosure, we actually own their Technics knock-off direct drive DJ-style turntable. It’s pretty good. Where Croselys get its well-earned reputation is in its novelty retro-style turntables with ultra-cheap needles. Most sound is forgivable but a bad stylus will just straight up destroy a record--don’t do it. Ever.)
I think it says a lot about Aubrie and me that our first shared investment as a committed couple was a turntable, a Kickstarter-supported vertical turntable by Gramovox. The U-Turn Orbit was still our primary player, but we were drawn to the novelty (and the surprising fidelity) of the vertical turntable. Watching records (especially that galaxy of colorways, merges, and splattered variants) spin like sonic pinwheels were mesmerizing and a great conversation starter for guests and friends.
As we moved around, the Gramovox became the turntable of choice in the rooms where we’d entertain, meaning our friends who were not as obsessed with records — the folks who came over for the explicit purpose of listening to vinyl were treated to the full library experience with the big stereo set-up.
Honestly, not much has changed in terms of how we entertain today, save for the fact we’ve retired the Gramovox. It turns out a vertical turntable (regardless of build and quality of tonearm/stylus) does not hold up to the regular rigors of playback that our day-to-day turntables can offer (anywhere from two to five hours a day)...
Back to Maron. On Thinky Pain, he equates his record buying as his take on a mid-life crisis, and on some level, I think that’s pretty valid. I think about all those folks slightly older than me who relayed the same story at countless record stores: “I used to have [insert band] on vinyl but in the 80s I sold all my records and replaced them with CDs. Now here I am buying [insert album title] again on vinyl…”
As someone too young to really buy vinyl in its heyday, I had always seen it as an addendum to my high school Friday night rituals at Muggsy’s Discount Records. Instead of using my lunch allowance at school, my ten bucks could get me one or two used CDs with enough left over to plunder the 25-cent vinyl bin. It was always choc-full of classic rock staples, some of which are still in my collection: Boz Scaggs Silk Degrees, Simon and Garfunkel, Beatles, Bowie, Stones…you get the picture. All the same, I can understand those older Gen Xers and their buying binges. Seeing some of these guys buying wax a dozen LPs at a time blew my mind…until I became one of them.
While I don’t think my urge to collect stems from a desire to recapture nostalgia (usually) I cannot help but laugh at myself staggering out of a record store with way too many records tucked into a small army of tote bags, or worse, when the shop offers up a box and someone to carry them out to my car. It’s a special type of madness that I hope each one of you experiences at least once in your life and then is reasonable enough to regret, just for a moment.
Maron’s journey into vinyl includes a great routine talking about Captain Beefheart, which feels like a rite of passage right out of High Fidelity (for better or for worse). “All I’m trying to do IS catch up,” he quips to himself while buying Safe as Milk (again the High Fidelity punchline parallel writes itself). Listening to the routine on vinyl feels even more meta.
Thinky Pain was one of the first presents Aubrie bought me (along with a copy of Social Distortion’s Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell). These buys were bold moves from someone who was a vinyl neophyte, especially given the size of my record collection at the time. All the same, they are two of my most prized records in our shared library and were two of the first records I played on our anniversary present while she was at work.
Unpacking the new U-Turn, it’s clear to me that expensive/cheap, novice/expert, and obsessive/tourist are all relative terms. It’s as much an act of classification as breaking your collection down into genres. What we are chasing as far as sound, fidelity, or physical artifact is so personal that getting hung up on where we are in relation to other music lovers’ journeys kind of defeats the purpose.
I was in a record store earlier this year and had two guys telling me how they could never understand belt-drive turntables compared to their direct-drive DJ setups. I wasn’t sure what there was/is to understand but knew I wasn’t going to get into any long-form debate over it.
I’m a vinyl guy, first and foremost. For me, turntables and sound systems are tools of the trade, and if it came down to buying a rare LP or better system to listen to it on, I’d always choose the record…or several records…or a box of records…can I get a hand loading these out into my car?
Still, hearing our U-Turn fill our house with sound does cause me to wander out from my office, staring at the candy red turntable with its acrylic platter and upgraded Ortofon 2M red stylus and knowing that the money for the record player was well spent.
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There is an adage shared by some Bourbon/Whisky aficionados that says "The best bourbon is the bourbon you like the way you like it." I'm certainly a bit of an audio geek, and a vinyl lover as well, but even if you spend a ton of money on your turntable, cartridge, and system, there is a point of diminishing returns. More importantly, on the subject of vinyl, it is not really about "superior sound quality" but more about ambience and artifact and the tangible quality of the holding it in your hands. The physics of the medium is limiting in terms key audiophile elements (dynamic range, noise, etc), but the analog nature of the signal has an aspect to it that is "magical" for lack of a better term, and you don't need thousands of dollars of equipment to experience that. As an example, I played Mikael Akerfeldt and Steven Wilson's brilliant collab Storm Corrosion for friends in three different formats, in this order: vinyl, CD, and 5.1 blu-ray. When we got to the 5.1 mix, they said, "oh, that's just not fair." But they LOVED the sound of the vinyl at the outset. Ironically, my vinyl of that album is worth 5 times the blu-ray version. Great reflection, Jim--keep them coming!