I have a handful of vinyl collected over the past few years. I have a Project turntable. Nothing fancy but it works perfectly for me. My small collection is pretty obscure stuff though. Mostly weird records, oddities (like religious stuff, odd folk music albums, 1950's and 60's stereo demos, 1970's lounge music) and other weird stuff about 3 people on Earth are probably interested in I would imagine. Any other platters I buy need to meet the criteria of being unavailable anywhere else, or anywhere else in decent quality.

I think the last record I bought was a 7" single by Deborah Van Valkenburgh (yes, Mercy from The Warriors). She sang a song called Dangerous Strangers for the awesome 1981 film King Of The Mountain. The record is fairly obscure and, as far as I am aware, only properly available on 7" vinyl (there's an unrelated for want of a better word 12" picture disc too, but it came later on). Great track and it fits a great film really well. Talking of obscure did you know the film is based off of a magazine article about street racing on Mulholland Drive in the mid 1970's?



One I really want at the minute is Mike Delgado's Murder EP from 1994. It's not super cheap but it's a classic.



My absolute pride and joy in my collection (apart from an album I have by Ken Dodd) is my copy of Rodney Arias ...Live! which is the wonderful 1979 pressing on the Silvercloud label. The whole album was set up to resemble a live cocktail lounge concert but in a recording studio. Table service, drinks, everything! It's a mix of covers and original material from the Hawaiian legend and one of the best albums I've ever owned.

I think I scored it from a random thrift store in the USA that I found by pure chance in a Web search. It cost $5 plus heartbreak tax to ship it (so about $872,000 then) but it was when it arrived that the true brilliance revealed itself. THE F'ING RECORD WAS SIGNED! Not just by the great man himself but ALL OF THE PARADISE SERENADERS!!!!

Pride and f'ing joy that record is. I'll never part with it.



Only other one I'm after right now is Phase 7 - Windjammer. Can't find it anywhere though. It's absolutely lethal!

I don’t think I have a Pride and Joy record. Maybe a Joy record but not so much pride. I’m not sure I was born with the necessary receptors to feel pride, to be honest.

I’d have to think about what my Joy record is...

I always read something about distortions. I do not hear any distortions on vinyl. But it really depends on your system. If you use a cheaper cartridge you will hear distortions. If you use a more
expensive system, you will not hear any distortions at all. Just try one with a shibata diamond needle.

There are many DDD recordings from the 80s that sound excellent on vinyl, "Like a Virgin", "Brothers in Arms", Jean-Michel Jarre's Zoolook etc. Just because something was recorded using digital equipment does not mean it
does not make sense releasing it on vinyl. There is a lot of great new vinyl out there that sounds fantastic even if it is not really 100 % analogue. Just try the more recent Kraftwerk rereleases.

To me the sound that I get through vinyl is very rich, full and close to perfection. I do not care about the technical specs. I trust my ears and playing a very good vinyl record sounds considerably better to me than
most of the CDs I have heard in my life.
I can really recommend the more expensive Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab or Analogue Recordings double vinyl 45 RPM releases. No way a CD can sound anywhere close to this. The level of detail is unbelievable.

I mostly buy vinyl nowadays because I love music and a CD often simply does not satisfy me. Many CDs sound horrible. They are OK to listen to if you like the music but that's it.

If you think the record sounds better then you ARE hearing distortion. If there were no distortion the record would sound exactly like the master tape or the DSD. It’s the distortion of LP that you enjoy. I’m sure you don’t enjoy pops and hiss and mono bass (which in themselves are distortion that anyone can hear) but you probably do enjoy the compression and the dynamic response that is just as inherent to the medium, and that is also distortion.

I agree that you should listen to what you like best. Scientific measurements are of limited usefulness when describing audio IMO since human ears are currently far better at processing the totality of sound than any measurement system is. People who point to what can be seen on a scope always puzzle me. People seem to think that audio isn’t real unless it can be visually charted and quantified but that ignores the almost supernatural ability of human hearing. Why should we ignore our own ears to trust a line on a chart? Can you tell what language a song is being sung in by watching it through a scope? Unlikely, but it’s easy just by hearing .5 seconds of the song. And those useless polls that show most people can’t hear the difference between CD and SACD...come on. Most people think Apple Earbuds sound good. Most people don’t listen very deeply, IMO.

There I agree with you. I think SACDs are far superior to CDs and I can hear a clear difference between both of them. But I can't hear any difference between a 96 khz and a 192 khz file
of the same song at all. Even 48khz/24 bit files already sound far superior to a standard CD.

However I stick with my original opinion. Vinyl sounds fantastic to me and that is what I mostly listen to nowadays. Call it distortion whatever. I bought the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
release of Bob Marley and the Wailer's Catch a Fire last month. To me that is one of the best albums in music history. It cost me a bit but to me it sounds like coming from the master tape and it
was worth every penny. It sounds like the real thing, the instruments, stereo effects, background vocals, the bass guitar coming from the right speaker in Stir It Up, etc. It sounds excellent. Period.
The CD does not stand a chance.

Thank you for your input. This is an interesting threat.