My vinyl collection...

[Fergus]

is out of storage. Well more the bedroom wardrobe.

The set-up is in my tinkering man shed.

Deck: Technics Quartz SL-QD33. Inherited from my late Dad and never been seriously connected to anything other than a bass amp for testing 5 years ago. I also taught our first grandson how to load and play vinyl.

Phono Preamp: Behringer Micro PP400 Supplied yesterday by Amazon...in one day.

Sound Bar: Sony MT500. Again inherited...yes, one of those inheritance which saved my son from going to the tip.

Vinyl: Tull, Stones, Dire Straights, Bowie, Donavan (Phillips Leitch), Graham Parker and the R, Sir E John and a few more...and yes Tony Hancock. I have owned many since the 70's, adding to it occasionally with 50p buys from the local tip (now called the recycling centre). Anyone else noticed you can't buy albums from there any more or charity shops for that matter.
The cardboard box contains an unoped, still plastic wrapped, 20 Years Jethro Tull set purchased in 1996. A rare beast to obtain then and it came from the states.

[pip]

I am as envious as can be. I have all mine in various places around the house waiting to be set up again after many years. We are due to move in the north too distant and when that happens I’ll have my man cave / watch workshop where it will get set up again. And as always, I will test the turntable by playing Cool for Cats by Squeeze and the CD by playing Just by Radiohead.

[leffemonster]

I think the last vinyl I put on the deck was Anno Domini High Definition by Riverside, a Polish prog band - and that was a few years ago.

Most, if not all, of mine is rock - Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Queen, early Whitesnake, Rainbow, Dio, Gary Moore and a little-known band called Terraplane who went on to become Thunder. A few rarities including a master pressing picture disc of Meat Loaf’s Deadringer album. 

Most of what I have/had is now replaced by CD and that’s mainly what gets listened to. That said, I still think vinyl sounds the best.

Thorens TD160 Mk.II with SME 3009 Series III tone arm, Cambridge Audio amp and bi-wired Kef Cresta 3 floorstanders.

[Myles]

Jul 6, 2022 7:56:40 GMT -8 pip said:

I am as envious as can be. I have all mine in various places around the house waiting to be set up again after many years. We are due to move in the north too distant and when that happens I’ll have my man cave / watch workshop where it will get set up again. And as always, I will test the turntable by playing Cool for Cats by Squeeze and the CD by playing Just by Radiohead.

The turntable won't work in zero-g, Colonel. No tracking force.

I'm very lucky to have an audiophile father-in-law. I inherited his Music Hall MMF-5 when he upgraded to something more extravagant.

[inboost]

Jul 6, 2022 12:25:23 GMT -8 Myles said:

The turntable won't work in zero-g, Colonel. No tracking force.

Hilarious point! I had an argument with a fellow Engineer back in the late 1990's - I claimed that you cannot drop things in space.He disagreed.  From your comment I'd say you're on my team Myles

pip - Cool for cats!!!! Love it and Squeeze - brings great memories growing up. I still somehow know all the words to "Hourglass"

[HiBeat]

Fergus when I moved in 2004 I sold off the vast majority of my vinyl, I had a giant wall in the old family room and it was well over 2,000 LPs.

FWIW I had well over 1,000 CDs most were placed into the bin or given to the kids to listen to and then do who knows what.

I too have mostly every Stones album and definitely every Springsteen official release plus a zillion bootlegs but that collecting area ended when this interweb thing came around.

Hey Nick what's a "CD"       My new car literally doesn't have a CD player, it's all streaming or bluetooth or Satelite radio.   From 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs and now the nothing - waiting for them to eliminate the "Free Terrestial Radio" old man's medium next.  So bizarre.

[inboost]

HiBeat, you're so right. I have just over 1,000 CDs and they are still with me. They're in a relocation holding pen at the moment as they had to move out to allow my new watchmaking bench in. They'll be back 'on line' in about 30 days (waiting for some shelving to be built). Does AAD / ADD / DDD mastering on CDs sound different to you? I thought they did when I was young but I'm so deaf now it's not even a thought anymore.

I was listening to Big Audio Dynamite on CD for my commute today

The old 1997 Ford is pretty high tech with an in-dash single CD player . Meanwhile my Daughter's Fiat 500 has no CD slot and she could care less.

I can't handle the streaming thing. I need to own my music on a physical medium so no one can take it away from me and an internet outage doesn't clobber my ability to play what I want. I get pretty mad when I go to buy music from modern artists and they don't offer physical media. Am I really that old? Maybe...

I was just at the age of collecting music when CDs hit the scene, so no vinyl for me but I can absolutely appreciate it and treasure it. Interestingly my 30 year old Son who'd never experienced a record player until he moved out has a solid collection and a player. He mainly samples it all digitally and uses it to create new music.

To each his own, right?

[HiBeat]

Jul 6, 2022 16:23:46 GMT -8 inboost said:

HiBeat , you're so right. I have just over 1,000 CDs and they are still with me. They're in a relocation holding pen at the moment as they had to move out to allow my new watchmaking bench in. They'll be back 'on line' in about 30 days (waiting for some shelving to be built). Does AAD / ADD / DDD mastering on CDs sound different to you? I thought they did when I was young but I'm so deaf now it's not even a thought anymore.

I was listening to Big Audio Dynamite on CD for my commute today

The old 1997 Ford is pretty high tech with an in-dash single CD player . Meanwhile my Daughter's Fiat 500 has no CD slot and she could care less.

I can't handle the streaming thing. I need to own my music on a physical medium so no one can take it away from me and an internet outage doesn't clobber my ability to play what I want. I get pretty mad when I go to buy music from modern artists and they don't offer physical media. Am I really that old? Maybe...

I was just at the age of collecting music when CDs hit the scene, so no vinyl for me but I can absolutely appreciate it and treasure it. Interestingly my 30 year old Son who'd never experienced a record player until he moved out has a solid collection and a player. He mainly samples it all digitally and uses it to create new music.

To each his own, right?

B.A.D.  one of my favorites.   "You can lick my s$#@&#_" oh my, the memories........

[Fergus]

Just spent a few hours eliminating huuummmmmmm.

Everything is now earthed, huuummmmm gone and only crackling vinyl left.

[Fergus]

I was perusing a few Tull album booklets and there's pics of Ian Anderson wearing a Rolex Daytona. Still you can't hold that against him when poor old Mick wore a 6309 diver's.

[small]

Wow Vinyl was on the way out when I first started acquiring, cassettes and bootlegs were my thing. Spent most of my day and nights cruising around in a car so...I kind of missed out on the CD thing, though my DD has a cd player that I play Bootlegs taken off Limewire???  And B.A.D. is one of them!.

FIL gave us his Realistic Linear and it sat for a long time. Until one night I was at 1/2 price books with my daughter and noticed they were selling vinyl's. I garbed a Doors Greatest Hits and Zeppelin's untiled Fourth Album as well as few others. All went for more then they original sold for new! Set it up through a Heathkit of one kind or another. Realized TT needed a replacement belt, which cost$$ and was a PITA to find... Anyway once up and running we'd sit back and chill, she thought it was pretty cool. Over the next few years we grabbed some more albums. Then the popularity of Vinyl came around again (be it for a short time) and prices spiked and quality and inventory dropped. Then the fire hit us and all was lost...and not yet replaced...priorities I guess. 

I still pay tapes in my Jeep, although it now has an Aux output, and I share XM radio with my wife...


 

[leffemonster]

There was a time they almost couldn’t give vinyl away, back in the late 80s. I remember many an hour spent pouring through all the displays in Selectadisc and Roadrunner Records in Nottingham, grabbing stuff like Gary Moore’s G-Force album on picture disc for £3.49.

And then Reddingtons Rare Records in Birmingham when I was at polytechnic, selling them Marillion picture discs for £10 a pop that I’d bought a few minutes earlier across the road in WH Smith for £5.49 

CDs arrived on the scene and LPs became very much unloved, much the way that CDs have been usurped by downloads and streaming. Yet vinyl never really went away, and now it’s very much de rigueur. And as with all things ‘in fashion’ the prices have rocketed - vinyl is now at least 2x or 3x the cost of a CD. Granted, they’re mainly 180g vinyl which was rare back in the day apart from on half speed master pressings, but come on! Me, I’m sticking with the 5 (or sometimes 3) inch silver discs.

[inboost]

Jul 11, 2022 5:47:54 GMT -8 leffemonster said:

 ...I’m sticking with the 5 (or sometimes 3) inch silver discs.

Hah, amazing leffemonster ! I have a stack of those 3" CDs (not MD - minidisc -  but honest to goodness 3" diameter compact disc minis). Mostly Japanese imports of The Pet Shop Boys and New Order (my two top bands in my youth). The bugger is getting them to play in anything these days. Back when I bought them I had an ////ALPINE 7909 in my car (I worked at a car audio shop while in university and got righteous discounts) and it hoovered them up no problem. I mean come on, they were Japanese import CDs going into a high end car audio Japanese deck. Like wise my Sony 5-disc carousel changer back at the apartment had wells in it to cuddle the cute little CDs bullesye of the 5" wells so it was no sweat to play them at home too. All that to say I threw all the cheesy adapter rings away as I didn't need them.  

It goes without saying I ate Top Ramen and Macaroni and Cheese for the bulk of my meals those days as the rest of my spending cash was tied up in the above.

small - That's such a shame about losing it all in a fire but a great story about sharing it with your Daughter. Makes it that much more special. Good story!

[tempelkim]

Haha, look at all these old white men.

Luxman PD-284, Luxman C-02, Fisher BA-3000 and a pair of big wooden speakers Toshiba made in the early 70s. ...and several meters of beatles, jazz, classics, 80s, what we called 'dark wave' back then and all sorts of curiosities.