Tales of Vinyl: Walk Softly and Carry a Record Brush

Good ol' vinyl records seem to be making a comeback, but reports on its death are not greatly exaggerated. I suspect that this will be a passing fad, and you probably have hipsters to thank for that. Vinyl has always been a source of debate amongst audiophiles since CD's virtually wiped them out from the market. Granted, if someone has an extensive collection of rare Jazz LP's numbering in the thousands, owning a good turntable makes sense. Otherwise owning a turntable these days, can be fraught with complications. There are many manufacturers still making them, but not everyone stocks them. It can be hard to find replacement stylii, because unlike past decades where cartridge manufacturers abounded, only a handful are left.

Kind of reminds me of guys who are part of these vintage MG clubs that are around  in various parts of the world.They chose one of the most unreliable cars ever made and try ( many times in vain) to keep them running. The most difficult aspect of this seemingly stressful hobby is locating parts. Some guy named Nigel in the English countryside might be advertising one on line, but it's gonna cost big. Probably take 8 weeks to ship overseas as well. More than likely, it will be the wrong part, and back to square one. These days finding someone who is able to properly mount and align a phono cartridge on a tonearm is just as difficult as finding a qualified MG mechanic.

One could suggest to these avid collectors of vinyl that they might digitize their collection and be done with it. There are a few problems associated with that ( more on USB turntables later), but mainly it would take an excruciatingly long time and in some circles, them's fightin' words.

So what does all this have to do with hipsters you might ask. That pesky sub-genre of alternative culture doesn't seem to be going anywhere. judging by the amount of so-called craft breweries and their pretentious "tasting rooms ", artisan pickle makers, gluten free hamburger joints and armies of skinny jean-clad road warriors weaving in and out of traffic on fixed gear bicycles.

Among the annoying characteristics of these aloof scenesters is their fondness of adopting obsolete technologies. Not because they feel nostalgia towards such things as manual typewriters, rotary phones or medieval looms, it is to demonstrate actual disdain and revel in the irony of it all. What is truly ironic (ironically) is that the hipster brigade love their Macbooks. They will tote these ( very expensive) pieces of technology everywhere and howl with condescension should any coffee shop not have wi-fi ( or nine dollar lattes for that matter). Enter vinyl.

They started scouring used shops for mostly unwanted records, sitting forlorn and sad in the racks gathering dust. They weren't buying no Blue Note jazz records either; they were buying ironic music.
These are not the idle ramblings of some old greaseball, this is fact. My own neighborhood  (as many in every North American city) was gentrified seemingly overnight. Not gentrified in the traditional yuppie sense, but hipster-fied. Commercial rents have skyrocketed as hipster cafes with excruciatingly slow service, too-cool-for-school joints with pinball machines serving 12 dollar hot dogs and pet spas featuring an on duty cat psychologist have proliferated. In the center of all this hustle and bustle is, you guessed it, a hipster used record shop with some inane pretentious name that eludes me at this point. No CD's, just used vinyl.

Even the old dusty used CD shop that I used to frequent in another 'hood has made the switch to vinyl. Even worse, one of the last used audio shops recently changed hands. Granted, the old owner had an uneven inventory with high prices, but one could find something cool once in a while. The current owner ( I ain't naming names, but that dude rubs me the wrong way) has changed the focus.

Upon entering this shop, amongst the pile of beat up receivers, speakers that look like they were dredged up from the river and over-priced components that may or may not work, sit piles upon piles of turntables ( and I do mean piles). Some of you vinyl lovers may be wondering what my problem is. What's wrong with that you might ask. Before you get excited, these are not piles of Linn LP-12,  Rega, Well-Tempered or Pierre Clement forgotten gems that we are talking about here.

Unsurprisingly, these are depressing piles of crappy, busted-up turntables from the 70's and 80's. The kinds of turntables that you and I might have used to slice baloney or throw at barking dogs next door back in the day.  Broken down Pioneer or Kenwood turntables are bad enough, but nobody there seems to know anything about turntables. Their idea of re-furbishing a turntable is buffing the dust cover ( true story). As you might have surmised, the prices for these worn out, virtually useless components is outrageous.  I feel sorry for the young 'uns going in there wanting to experience vinyl for the first time. Hipster and non-hipster alike, it's a pretty sad intro to vinyl.

I am not attempting to downplay vinyl and its historical importance. I grew up on vinyl, as did my father and his father before him, Vinyl was the format that music came in and that was it.  This was so right from the start. Emile Berliner opened a record plant in 1899 in Montreal QC, of all places. He soon had a few record shops. Here is his first shop on Ste. Catherine St.

Yes that's an American flag but look closely and you can see the Red Ensign next to it. Also I think I see a hipster .

As mentioned in a previous post, others have tried to usurp vinyl's crown over the decades.
The company that made Lear jets developed the 8-track in the early 60's ( the early Lear jets even came equipped with 8-track players, kind of makes you re-think getting aboard one of these planes). Everybody is familiar with this "format", for lack of a better term. Some people collect them, and I would assume it is for comedic purposes. Of all the useless formats and bad ideas, this one ranks at the top of the list, yet some people accepted this a serious format. Third-rate Elvis impersonators, out of work motivational speakers, Hosers with jacked-up '72 Plymouth Dusters and scary rednecks bought tons of these things.

Then the record companies began marketing prerecorded cassettes in a big way. And people bought them is astounding quantities. More than likely the popularity of the Sony Walkman helped bolster the sales of these abominations. What a marketing coup that was. Sell high-priced low-fi plastic things that will unravel within a matter of weeks. Some of you might remember using a BIC pen to rewind cassettes that had spewed their guts.

Vinyl was king and it held on to its throne for many decades until another mysterious disc made its appearance.

Here is a picture of one of my first turntables. It was cool-looking and my friends were mightily impressed, I guess it kinda made me the weirdest kid ion the block. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very good table. It would howl with feedback and the needle would jump uncontrollably if you so much as looked at it funny. Still, the J.A Michell Hydraulic Reference turntable is one of only a few audio pieces in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC ( as a side note, J.A. Michell designed and built all the models in 2001; A Space Odyssey).

I didn't know what to make of CD's when I first saw them. Record stores used to have a small section dedicated to CD's and for the most part, it was classical music. My friends and I would observe people flipping the large ( and completely superfluous) plastic holders that CD's were held in. We would snicker and being semi-obnoxious smart-asses would wonder aloud as to what kinda weirdo would buy those things ( and how the hell do you play those things?). Little did I know that I would soon be the weirdo.

I used to frequent a pretty cool record shop located on the second floor of a dilapidated Victorian house. They had new and used records and their new stock was specialized in roots music like Rockabilly, Rhythm & Blues, Western Swing and other obscure and very hard to find music. It was the go-to place for aficionados of old music and the people who worked there were knowledgeable. I spent a lot of time and money in that joint, and I barely noticed the gradual transition that was taking place right under my nose.

I guess I completely missed it, because one day, on one of my regular pilgrimages to this shop, I walked up the off-kilter winding staircase, entered the store and soon realized something was missing. All the racks had shrunk. No wait. Something else was amiss. The shrunken racks contained CD's. I froze like a deer in the headlights as I tried to process this information. The vinyl was nowhere to be seen.  My immediate reaction was primal, rather than civilized. I launched into a tirade, denouncing this ridiculous new format, calling the owner's sanity into question and threw in some cursing for good measure. The staff were not amused for long, and that unfortunate day, I was the asshole retail customer that is the stuff of urban legend amongst retail workers. Needless to say I didn't buy anything that day.

I eventually came around and traded some equipment for a brand new NAD 502 CD player, which was considered to be by Stereophile magazine to be a good bang-for-the-buck. Sounding pretty good. The CD players that I had heard before that didn't impress me that much. The reason was simple. There weren't any inherent flaws in the CD's themselves, it's just that the chips in the digital to analog conversion section were still in the embryonic stage and not quite up to par. I upgraded to various CD players over the years and and eventually traded in my Linn LP 12 turntable for a Linn Karik/Numerik transport/DAC combo ( used of course, that stuff is hellishly expensive) and made the commitment to digital.

Can be traded for a case of whiskey in Glasgow. Adios turntable, hello booze.

It began to dawn on me what a pain the ass records were in comparison. Not long after this, the Swing revival came into full force and I was getting DJ gigs. If you enjoy giving yourself hernias, carrying records from bar to bar is a great way of achieving that. To make things even more inconvenient and annoying, due to the fact that the Canadian government had decided to switch to the metric system years before, carrying 12 inch records in metric-sized milk crates became an exercise in futility.

Gimme that hammer, I'll make 'em fit

It was so much more convenient to tote a bag of CD's to gigs ( although still hernia-inducing, those little suckers are heavy). I also didn't have to worry about gouging chunks of vinyl from my records on the bar's crappy Technics SL-1200's with worn out needles. No more greasy fingers on the records as I back-cued the albums to find the beginning of a song.

This convenience soon found its way into my home as well. there are some that will argue to the death that vinyl sounds better. I don't think it does. The first limitation is the RIAA equalization applied to vinyl recordings since the fifties. It messes with the frequency response and the dynamic range. It permits companies to squeeze more information, thus more playing time, onto the surface of the record. That means no bass for you. If it weren't equalized, the stylus would jump right out of its groove at the first open E on a bass guitar.

Then is rumble and feedback.The motor noise can eventually find its way into the speakers. Then there is that most insidious of acoustic phenomenon, mechanical feedback. Hard to avoid when a stylus is that close to enormous woofers.

Speaking of stylii, I once had to replace the stylus on a rather expensive Goldring cartridge. I don't remember all the details, but suffice it to say that, after a slip of the wrist, I was in the hole for 300 bucks. That's quicker than getting mugged or playing blackjack in Vegas while heavily inebriated.

Then there is wow and flutter. Inexpensive turntables cannot maintain dead-accurate rpm, so there will be fluctuations in the speed and therefore the pitch of the music. Improperly punched records can have holes that are slightly off-center, also resulting in messing with the pitch of the music. Either way, it makes the musicians sound like they might be hammered.

One thing people with crappy turntables don't have to worry about is the complex adjustments of high precision tone arms. Vertical tracking angle, azimuth, tone arm height and the other fiddling that requires a PHD in advanced mechanical engineering. Not mention replacing the cartridge. A nerve-wracking experience even a good day, and woe is you if you break one of the terminations on those tiny little wires.

For those wanting to play vinyl or thinking about getting into it, I can offer a few pieces of solid advice. Get the best turntable that you can afford ( Rega still makes some decent, affordable turntables) and forget that "vintage" crap that you might see at the flea market. Make sure that you have a phono section in your preamp, integrated amp or receiver. You would be surprised how many people ignore this, hook up the turntable to an auxiliary input and then wonder why all their records sound like munchkins singing.

I cannot stress the following enough: change your freakin' needle ! Every thousand hours is the rule of thumb. Also don't touch the needle with your fingers. Don't let some of your friends who might happen to be yahoos near your turntable. Get rid of your cat.

For optimum performance, a turntable should be wall mounted. The floors are usually mechanically decoupled from the floor, so there is a definite mechanical advantage to wall mounting. I don't mean you should install your turntable like a picture frame with large screws. I mean get a wall mounted shelf. If you are really serious, get one of these.

Basis Audio . Will set you back $150,000, Will kill cats instantaneously.

As for myself, I worked this out years ago. I sold all my vinyl , said " Adios cursed black disc " and finally found closure ( although once in a while I miss the austerity of my old Linn LP-12). Now I spend my days converting FLAC files to AIFF.