Check your old vinyl before chucking it

Subject: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 02:48 AM

Having recently priced a psychedelic folk LP on vinyl by Comus at close to £1000, i urge folkies to check their old vinyl before chucking it out. It really is now quite collectable if in good condition and from certain artists. Davey Graham, the Dransfields, Jon Raven's Kate of Coalbrookdale, Tony Hall, are some of the vinyl LPs I have encountered being of value at discogs where, among other sites, they can be checked and resold. This postings just to say check before you chuck them.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 03:07 AM

Why chuck them anyhow? Why not just go on playing them?

~M~

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 03:23 AM

Because, often one's partner will say:

1you've got most of them on cd so get rid of them, they clutter
2 you no longer have a deck to play them
3 your children laugh at the technology when you put on a vinyl record!

Could be that though the young generation is on downloads, many folkies are only just getting used to the concept of CDs?

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 03:37 AM

My wife doesn't. I managed to find a new deck a few years ago; appears they are being made again. I don't have them on cd -- if I have the original album, have never seen any point getting the cd also. I have no children, but if I had I can't see why they should have any problems with vinyl~~ many people prefer[red] the tone of vinyl anyhow and lament its passing; and what on earth is so hilarious about the technology of putting a stylus on to a disc?

Puzzled!

~M~

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 04:59 AM

Nic Jones first three albums on Trailer from the seventies and Lal Waterson's Bright Phoebus on Trailer from 1973 are highly collectible.

John

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 05:03 AM

Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left. Still worth a fair bit.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 05:46 AM

NEVER chuck vinyl. If you just want rid of it, give it to me.

Unless it's Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, or other "easy listening".

Or military marches, swing bands or strict tempo for ballroom dance.

Or country or country and western.

Oh, or Eastern Mediterranean (whichever religion) or further east.

I like most classical, most rock and prog-rock, most pop (of almost any age) most folk or folkie, ragga and harder reggae (not lovers' rock), will listen with interest to most African and even some South American.

I only have about 1,500 7 inch singles and about 1,200 LPs, so I still need more, more, more!

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 06:26 AM

Richard, another thing you must have is a lot of space to store it.

sandra

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 06:38 AM

The technology of mechanical sound recording is among the most miraculous inventions of mankind, definitely not to be laughed at by anyone who really understands it. For any demands of sound reproduction, digital technology is nowadays superior, but collectors have a strong point.

One of the relative drawbacks is that vinyl records deteriorate when played on a conventional player (particularly of inferior quality). Owners of rare records should play them rarely, unless they own a no-contact laser player.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: G-Force
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 07:39 AM

Having got used to CD sound, I now find it almost distressing to hear all the surface noise you get with vinyl LPs. (Maybe after 40 years I need a new stylus.) Plus the fact that often one and sometimes both sides of a record was pressed off-centre so you had to ream out the centre hole if you wanted to hear it at a true speed. One way and another, I rarely play vinyl now.

But I know I've got some great old records. An album by Bob & Ron Copper comes to mind. Also 'Firebird' by Rosemary Hardman. All sorts of old blues and cajun and stuff.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 07:53 AM

A non contact laser player for vinyl - that's news to me. I am sure artists appreciate not having to lug vinyl around to gigs these days, although Michael Chapman had 3 vinyl offerings at recent gigs and his back catalogue is being released on vinyl. To put a vinyl album on is a nostalgic experience taking me back to when I first bought it and where I first heard it. The "heavy" pressing from Chrysalis and blues albums are particularly good in producing a warm sound. Meanwhile I can read the copious sleeve notes. Artists must make a better margin on CDs that they sell themselves since they cost next to nothing to manufacture.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 09:10 AM

Still buying vinyl - Oxfam in Lancaster have a nice selection of folky LPs currently, just found the Chieftains' "Celtic Wedding" album of Breton tunes there the other day (£2.99). They were asking rather more for classic Steeleye Span albums (£19.99 for Ten Man Mop etc) which seems a bit out of line as there must be thousands of them still out there.
Ross

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 09:44 AM

Our vinyl is still stored away, but I've got the equipment to play it -- as well as 7" reel-to-reel tapes. I want to transfer all of it, as well as the cassettes, to CD just as soon as possible. That means as soon as my office is redone and I get the software.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 10:04 AM

£20 for steeleye's Nine Man Mop may be because it is a first pressing, Ross. For collectors rather than players.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 10:17 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_turntable

I shall look into one.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 10:19 AM

well...perhaps not, given the prices and technical issues.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 11:41 AM

Kids laughing at the technology?.... these would be the same snotty little buggers that don't know vegetables come out of the ground. I wouldn't be put off anything they say. They are going to laugh at anything you say or do, because they know everything. Just bide your time; there will soon be another generation of smartarses who will laugh at them, and their grandparents (us) will encourage them. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Actually, vinyl and the necessary equipment to play it have never gone away. The switch to CDs was, to a large extent, driven by the large retailers deciding to stop stocking it. They did the same thing with video. As far as I know, video is no longer available, but vinyl is. It may yet come back as, CDs deteriorate. I've read elsewhere (on this forum, I think) that digital information is deteriorating, and will eventually be lost. All things considered, I don't think tapes or CDs have improved on vinyl, but these new laser decks seem like the future.. I haven't encountered them yet - just heard tell of their existence.
In general, I'd say it's a bad idea to chuck anything out just because some clever bugger has thought of something new. They're trying to sell you stuff, and they will always tell toy it's brilliant and that you should throw out the old stuff. It's called business.
Jhn Kelly.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 11:42 AM

Or John Kelly, even.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 11:50 AM

Just reading through that post, I find it's full of typos. II meant to preview it, but hit 'submit' instead. I find I make more typos on the laptop than on the PC. However, the PC is acting very strangely. Bloody technology. One day we'll have to go back to having conversations with people we know actually exist.
JK

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 12:37 PM

Some of these young folk do buy vinyl, and some of the newer pop stuff does come out in disc sets, large vinyl, EP size vinyl and CD. If you get all 3 it may have some collectors' value from day 1. (Or so my snotty-nosed son tells me!)

And thread drift, but here on iPad it does a lot of predictive text, so mistakes are not all down to typos. In a recent email, I said I was going to send a reminder, but it came out as reindeer! And it does my head in when it adds unnecessary apostrophes!

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: pavane
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 01:34 PM

Check anything on the Leader or Trailer labels - many were 'Bulmerised' and are just not available on CD. Nic Jones, Dransfields, Peter Bellamy to name just a few

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 02:00 PM

Too many are NOT on CD, or not on CD in the same form as on the LP. Plus the liner notes are generally much much better on the LP jacket. Even more valuable knowledge if there was an insert.

No, I don't often USE my turntable, but we still have one. A good one.

Linn

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 02:26 PM

I'm using my turntable again more and more. I can listen to lp's all day and still feel refreshed.   An hour or two of listening to cd's and I'm exhausted....overwhelmed.   I think it's because cd's are more 'compressed'.....not as much range.   So all that mid-range can feel overwhelming.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 02:33 PM

By co-incidence, Linn is the name of a Scottish company who have continued throughout to support the playing and production of material on vinyl. I haven't got any of their stuff, but friends who have swear that nothing beats it for faithful reproduction of recorded sound. Some years ago I saw a televised blind test between a live performance by a traditional singer (no instruments, just solo voice) and a recorded version of the same song played on their equipment. Auditors found great difficulty in distinguishing between the two.

Ross

PS I checked out ELP laser LP players on eBay. The "high end" model was over £10,000, the "standard" (sic) model was over £5,000, so I may have to wait a bit.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 03:45 PM

TB: Love the idea of sending a reindeer. Next time you mean to say "just a reminder", do a little cartoon reindeer's head instead. Could catch on....
JK

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 04:10 PM

O.K. so you checked before you chucked, not to worry, you can always make a bowl...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_cHuAkJf_s

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 04:20 PM

It is ALWAYS about finding a BUYER...Check this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j7F_4S2lgM

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Gurney
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 05:17 PM

To paraphrase Les Barker, don't ask for everything unless you have a reeeally big cupboard.
Must have been thinking of Richard B and the guy on YouTube.

There are a couple of firms making turntables, including Optimus, and they usually nowadays come with pre-amp for direct connection to a computer. Still connect to a stereo too, though.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Tyke
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 05:41 PM

You can Check you Collection here!

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 06:02 PM

Spray them gold.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST,Grihska
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 06:40 PM

"Larry The Radio Guy", the (you?) radio broadcasting guys are the ones guilty of shameless compression. Vinyl allows for a considerably higher dynamic range, CDs - and all other digital technologies - have no such restriction at all. You may well be right though, that modern productions of popular music tend to be more strongly compressed than ever, but it is the producers' free decision.

The lifespan of CDs is limited indeed, but data as such can live forever, without any loss of quality. Backup techniques are available, by far safer, cheaper, and taking less space than vinyl collections. We just have to use them. (BTW: make digital scans from your family heritage of photos, documents, films, magnetic audio and video tapes, rare vinyl records, etc. - with backups. Though paper, vinyl, etc. might outlive the data, but the converse is more likely, especially for the magnetic stuff.)

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 06:42 PM

I have space (the final frontier). Current turntables include a belt-drive Rotel (not bad at all with a Sontra cartridge), a Garrard Zero-100 (belt drive), a JVC parallel tracking thing - a bit of a classic in it's own lunchtime, a Garrard AT70, and of course an SP25 - oh and a couple of Goldring GL78s and a couple of BSR things.

Wish to God I still had my Radford SAT 100 and SC22P that I sold at university.

Main amp is, in default, a classic Pioneer SA1000.

Main speakers, some big old KEFs with B139 bass drivers and some B&O 3800s.   Not huge power capacity by current standards but I can hook up a PA rig if I just want LOUD!

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 01:38 AM

I was working in my office this evening and pulled out a vinyl record to play on the turntable in there just for old time's sake. They really do sound good still. (I have two turntables, both work, but are rarely used. I should remedy that. I have a lot of LPs and they sell a lot of them in a local used book store.)

SRS

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: redhorse
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 04:16 AM

Surely a laser vinyl player that plays through your computer must be digitising the analogue signal somewhere along the line. If you want a digitised version of the music, why not buy the CD where the analogue master tape has been professionally (probably) digitised? £5000 for a player that generates a digital output possibly indisinguishable from that from a £50 CD player does't say value to me!

To me the only advantage of vinyl is the dynamic range of analogue reproduction, which is always somewhat curtailed by the digitising process. For that I will put up with the surface noise of vinyl, if the recording is good enough.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST,David E.
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 12:11 PM

For me I find that it's the sentimental value of certain albums. Yes, I have many Leader/Trailer/Topic/Transatlantic etc albums that are all in mint condition in poly liners and sleeves, but yes, I would part with them in a heartbeat given the proper situation. But the copy of Bert Jansch's Birthday Blues that my wife (then girlfriend)and I bought on one of our first digs around a record shop together in 1972? Sometimes it goes beyond the music.

David E.

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: Speedwell
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 03:21 PM

Those of you who have Argo vinyl or want info on it check out this "labour of love" site.
http://folkcatalogue.wordpress.com/

Subject: RE: Check your old vinyl before chucking it
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 05:33 PM

The original laser turntables are claimed to be fully analogue, kosher to the most orthodox observance. It is a cult, quite similar to mechanical wrist watches.

For quality of sound reproduction, the best digital technology (right from the start) safely outperforms anything analogue in all respects, at a fraction of the price. The AudioCD format is slightly inferior, a trade-off.

According to Wikipedia, a digital optical turntable has been developed, but never sold yet. It would be great for archiving purposes, but in terms of cult, it is as if a Jewish shokhet were to slaughter a pig.