You would think, as much as I love music, that I would have some sweet set-up for listening to my tunes. A nice stereo receiver\/amp with kick ass speakers and some high end headphones for use when I couldn\u2019t crank it up to 11<\/p>\n
You would be wrong<\/p>\n
Since going fully digital about a decade ago, I\u2019ve relied on pretty modest listening hardware. Most of my music has poured from speakers hooked up to my rotating cast of Macs. What wasn\u2019t played there often got digitally spun on one iPod\/iPhone\/iPad or another, through either the cheap-o Apple earbuds or some $20 Sony headphones. That worked and I was always focused on pouring my hobby cash into the Mac side of the equation<\/p>\n
That\u2019s recently changed, though. As I shared in Wednesday\u2019s Reading post, I completed Michael Chabon\u2019s Telegraph Avenue<\/em> in January. Reading roughly 400 pages that were often set in a used record store got me pondering the world of vinyl. When I took breaks from reading, I did some casual research on record players. I wasn\u2019t necessarily going to make the jump, but wanted to know what it would cost if I did. Turns out it doesn\u2019t take much. About a week after finishing Telegraph Avenue<\/em> my Audio-Technica turntable arrived and I made a trip to one of our local record stores, which I had never set foot into over almost 10 years in Indy<\/p>\n My first vinyl purchases? Two recent favorites and one all-time classic: Slave Ambient<\/em> by The War On Drugs, Only In Dreams<\/em> by Dum Dum Girls, and Prince & The Revolution\u2019s Purple Rain.<\/em> I\u2019ve been spinning each LP a couple times a week, still hooked up straight to computer speakers1<\/a><\/sup> or through the Sony headphones. I must say, I\u2019m digging it. The sound is better than the compressed digital files I\u2019m used to. I was never a huge vinyl guy back in the day – my youth was dominated by the age of the cassette – but there was instant recall to the memories of my parents\u2019 music pouring from their turntable when I was little. The pops and hisses. The much-loved \u201cwarmness\u201d that was stripped away when music was put on tape, CDs, or converted to bits<\/p>\n And there was a different experience with the music. I select an album, put it on the turntable, and press start. Then the album plays, in the order the artist(s) originally intended, until it\u2019s time to flip it to the other side. That forces a keener focus on the music. There\u2019s no part of your brain guessing at what iTunes will select next. No wondering if I misidentified or accidentally deleted a song from my digital version of the album and I\u2019m going to miss what should be side 1, track 4. It\u2019s the purest listening experience possible<\/p>\n I checked in with a couple friends who had recently returned to vinyl for advice on how to balance more expensive platters with wanting to keep up with new music. Both suggested using vinyl as the medium for my very favorite albums, mostly ones from the past, and sticking with digital for tracking what\u2019s new and exciting. That seems like a solid plan, so I\u2019m sticking with it for the time being<\/p>\n I\u2019m allowing myself one trip to the record store each month, and then only 2-3 pieces of vinyl can come home with me. That way I have time to digest each work, rather than rushing through one to get to the next in the stack of new records. I\u2019m going to focus on albums that are in my 20-30 favorites of all time, even if I already own them in multiple formats.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n I made my second record buying trip on Wednesday. I added my (co) all-time favorite album London Calling<\/em> and Radiohead\u2019s The Bends<\/em>.3<\/a><\/sup> Last week I bought some nice Audio-Technica headphones that cost more than any headphones I\u2019ve ever owned, but still weren\u2019t ridiculously expensive. I’ve done some light research on receivers and speakers, knowing running a cord straight to computer speakers is still leaving out some of the depth of sound vinyl offers.<\/p>\n So it’s another old-man hobby, I guess. But it’s a pretty cool one, and a natural extension of perhaps the favorite pastime of my life. Let me know if you ever want to come over and listen to records together.<\/p>\n \u2181<\/p>\n You would think, as much as I love music, that I would have some sweet set-up for listening to my tunes. A nice stereo receiver\/amp with kick ass speakers and some high end headphones for use when I couldn\u2019t crank it up to 11 You would be wrong Since going fully digital about a decade ago, I\u2019ve relied on pretty modest listening hardware. Most of my music has poured from speakers hooked up to my rotating cast of Macs. What wasn\u2019t played there often got digitally spun on one iPod\/iPhone\/iPad or another, through either the cheap-o Apple earbuds or some $20 Sony headphones. That worked and I was always focused on pouring my hobby cash into the Mac side of the equation That\u2019s recently changed, though. As I shared in Wednesday\u2019s Reading post, I completed Michael Chabon\u2019s Telegraph Avenue in January. Reading roughly 400 pages that were often set in a used record store got me pondering the world of vinyl. When I took breaks from reading, I did some casual research on record players. I wasn\u2019t necessarily going to make the jump, but wanted to know what it would cost if I did. Turns out it doesn\u2019t take much. About a week after finishing Telegraph Avenue my Audio-Technica turntable arrived and I made a trip to one of our local record stores, which I had never set foot into over almost 10 years in Indy My first vinyl purchases? Two recent favorites and one all-time classic: Slave Ambient by The War On Drugs, Only In Dreams by Dum Dum Girls, and Prince & The Revolution\u2019s Purple Rain. I\u2019ve been spinning each LP a couple times a week, still hooked up straight to computer speakers1 or through the Sony headphones. I must say, I\u2019m digging it. The sound is better than the compressed digital files I\u2019m used to. I was never a huge vinyl guy back in the day – my youth was dominated by the age of the cassette – but there was instant recall to the memories of my parents\u2019 music pouring from their turntable when I was little. The pops and hisses. The much-loved \u201cwarmness\u201d that was stripped away when music was put on tape, CDs, or converted to bits And there was a different experience with the music. I select an album, put it on the turntable, and press start. Then the album plays, in the order the artist(s) originally intended, until it\u2019s time to flip it to the other side. That forces a keener focus on the music. There\u2019s no part of your brain guessing at what iTunes will select next. No wondering if I misidentified or accidentally deleted a song from my digital version of the album and I\u2019m going to miss what should be side 1, track 4. It\u2019s the purest listening experience possible I checked in with a couple friends who had recently returned to vinyl for advice on how to balance more expensive platters with wanting to keep up with new music. Both suggested using vinyl as the medium for my very favorite albums, mostly ones from the past, and sticking with digital for tracking what\u2019s new and exciting. That seems like a solid plan, so I\u2019m sticking with it for the time being I\u2019m allowing myself one trip to the record store each month, and then only 2-3 pieces of vinyl can come home with me. That way I have time to digest each work, rather than rushing through one to get to the next in the stack of new records. I\u2019m going to focus on albums that are in my 20-30 favorites of all time, even if I already own them in multiple formats.2 I made my second record buying trip on Wednesday. I added my (co) all-time favorite album London Calling and Radiohead\u2019s The Bends.3 Last week I bought some nice Audio-Technica headphones that cost more than any headphones I\u2019ve ever owned, but still weren\u2019t ridiculously expensive. I’ve done some light research on receivers and speakers, knowing running a cord straight to computer speakers is still leaving out some of the depth of sound vinyl offers. So it’s another old-man hobby, I guess. But it’s a pretty cool one, and a natural extension of perhaps the favorite pastime of my life. Let me know if you ever want to come over and listen to records together. \u2181 The turntable I bought has a built-in pre-amplifier so you can run it straight to bookshelf speakers and get nice sound. ↩ I\u2019ve owned Purple Rain on cassette, CD, and probably repurchased a song or two digitally over the years. ↩ A controversial choice since my other co-favorite album of all-time is Radiohead\u2019s OK Computer. But The Bends is more of a pure rock album, and I thought that would sound better on vinyl. OK Computer will join the collection at some point, though. ↩<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,9],"class_list":["post-2690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14553,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions\/14553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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