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Why Do I Listen To Records?

This last Saturday was a rather rough day. Roofing contractors were working in my neighborhood, got the wrong address, and mistakenly began tearing the roof off my house. I awoke at 7:25 am to people ripping holes right above my bedroom. It was only a 4 year old roof. Now, they have since come back, and done a marvelous job repairing their damages, but let me tell you, it made for a stressful day.

To comfort me, a couple groups of good friends came by with two of my favorite things, craft beer and records to play. Since my blog isn’t about craft beer (though I could I go on and on about how I love that, too), I’m going to stick to why I love these wonderful round discs of music.

Is it the sound quality? It’s true, the fidelity is often times much better than that of a CD, and is always far superior to that of an mp3 or streaming audio. Even through some clicks and pops, surface noise, and some occasional static, it’s still a better sonic experience. But, am I sitting there each time, marveling at how incredible each record sounds? Well, sometimes, but not usually. There are a few times where I just can’t help but be pulled in by the sheer quality of the experience, but not that often. My Pro-Ject One turntable, with its Oyster cartridge has certainly spoiled me, even for being a somewhat entry-level table.

So, is it the novelty? That seems to be what has drawn so many people to vinyl. For me, unequivocally not. Records have been with me since day one, and have never been some kitschy thing I picked up to impress my friends. I’ve never bought a little Crosley tabletop record player, nor would I, but have always had a quality turntable.

Is it nostalgia? That would suggest that I’m stuck in a bygone era. Hardly. I still buy newer releases on vinyl, as well as older records, too. It’s certainly not that. I have both newer and vintage turntables in similarly newer and vintage systems. I can relive the past, should I choose, but my technology is also decidedly modern.

So what exactly is it then?

I’ve come to realize that it is truly the tactile feel of playing a record that keeps me doing it. Part of the reason that we, as audiophiles, invest so much into our systems is for the realism of the music. We want to get as close to the live or studio experience as possible. Having that platter in front of me, turning at a comforting 33-and-a-third RPM also keeps the music in the same room as me. A CD slips into a drawer and disappears, spinning at hundreds of revolutions per minute. Streaming audio comes from the cloud. That’s just voodoo. Vinyl is there with me, in the room, bringing me the music, in person- so to speak. Its flaws- pops, clicks, even the skips, etc.- only serve to remind me how much more human the experience really is, and that keeps bringing it home even more. The added fidelity, the lack of digital jitter, the analog warmth, are all just added bonuses to enhance the experience and make it what it is.

What we begin to pour into it, in things like high-end cables, isolating pads, cork mats, and all the other accoutrements that go into making this an expensive hobby (people are shocked when I tell them you can spend over $100,000 on a turntable) just make it our own personal journey with the turntable.

If the CD is truly dead, which I don’t believe that it is, its demise can only be blamed on its lack of humanism that vinyl has always had. I think that people are beginning to reconnect with the human aspect to records in the same way that I always have because of the inhuman nature of the download. Music, even in the recorded sense, has always been something we have been meant to connect with; as we have lost that in recent years, it has only been natural for there to be some sort of clamoring for a tactile reconnection with it.

The ebb-and-flow of our relationship with media formats through the years has led us back to vinyl, and the album itself as a real thing. People need something to hold. That feeling never really left me. I’ve always needed that album cover to look at. The artwork of an album cover used to carry such heavy weight, and with the advent of the 5” CD, began to lose some of that workspace and artistic expression. Once people began downloading music, suddenly, there was no album cover. Where was the art? I think we know that the art will always prevail somehow, and album covers are showing up on new vinyl, CDs, and the screens of media servers. However, there’s still the inner sleeve, poster, gatefold, and any other surprise one might find inside that beautiful record.

And that for me, is why they’ll never go out of style.

Bring On All Challengers- Pioneer Elite DV-79AVi

For many years, I’ve bounced back-and-forth on what my “reference” CD player has been. C’mon, haven’t we all? Isn’t this hard sometimes? If you’re like me, we end up accumulating several cool players over time. So what goes in the system as the main player? A changer? A single? What format? Oh man… the choices!

For a few years, I went between a Rotel 955 and a JVC DVD-A changer. I never ended up biting onto the DVD-A format, but the JVC is a very nice player, and I was always running digitally out of it anyway. The Rotel, on the other hand, has always been used as an analog deck to take full advantage of those amazing Philips DACS. In its price point, it’s still virtually unrivalled, in my humble opinion. And of course, in typical Shoestring Audiophile fashion, I picked it up for a song. The JVC came my way as part of a trade.

So, there I was, a somewhat content little amateur audiophile, until 2017 comes along with two new bargain players, and shakes my whole world up. Early spring, I’m walking through a flea market, and I happen across a Sony NC-555ES changer, which later casts me into the deep, dark work of SACD… this is another article waiting to happen… I’m getting ahead of myself.

But I digress. The player I’m really talking about happened in fall of 2017. I came across a seller unloading his brother-in-law’s Pioneer Elite DV-79AVi player on the local garage sale site for 25 bucks. I immediately began doing searches on this, and found huge, favorable reviews. Obviously, I put it an immediate offer to the guy, and bought it. As I was waiting for him to get back to me, I kept reading more and more on this player, and how- at the time- it was stacking up to players 3x its price.

Originally a $1,000 player in 2006, this was criticized only for its lack of ability to play the new Blu-ray format. Otherwise, it was praised, in particular, for its low-end definition. I was anxious to put this to the test.

I could bore or excite you with months of details on my experience with this player, depending on what you’re hoping for out of this. Needless to say, I’ve spent a lot of time with this player. It has even become my reference SACD player, beating out the Sony ES a few weeks ago. Everything it does, it does better than everyone else can. I’ve heard players ranging into the 5-figure realm, and I will still challenge them all with this one. It might not be a world beater, but it will hold its own against everything I’ve heard. What more can I ask for my 25 bucks?

Recently, an audiophile friend of mine got me into an older CD by a group called Blue Tofu. This is a notorious test disc for any subwoofer. I couldn’t wait to get this into the system, to hear it in the Pioneer, and to feel out the Legend Audio subwoofer I’ve just upgraded to (yet another article to come). This sub is a 12”, 500 watt monster, but is still oh so musical at the same time, and I was anxious to hear the whole system now… I was not disappointed! The clarity and definition from this standard CD was absolutely outstanding, and the sub hit hard without being overwhelming. Vocals were nicely out front, and the space was defined, but open. The 24 bit 192 kHz DACs in this are truly amazing, probably ruling out my need for ever buying an outboard unit, like so many people are doing these days.

The real test came a few days later when I took delivery of Genesis “A Trick of the Tail” in 5.1 DSD SACD surround. This is where the Pioneer really got to shine. I heard things that I’ve never heard before, primarily in the lower registers. Bass was tight but had so much more definition. Everything I had read about this player was absolutely on the money.

Speaking of money, I have since seen these players selling very reasonably on e-Bay. I’ve spotted a few for under a hundred bucks, even. For what you can pick one up for, you’ll have yourself a bonafide contender. Bring on the challengers, I will welcome them all!

Part 2- A Small Victory in the Cable Wars- Revelation Cadence II

I’ve spent a couple months evaluating a value cable, and I have to report that I actually rather like it! I was skeptical about an e-Bay cable, but I gave the Revelation Echelon a chance about a year ago on one of my systems. They seemed to be a nicely-built cable that did the job quite well. After buying several, the seller asked me to evaluate the slightly upgraded Cadence II, especially after hearing about my column here. Again, I was somewhat skeptical about putting a $5 cable into my main system, but I will tell you that I’ve quite pleased with the results. Like the Echelon, it’s well-built, nicely jacketed, has solid, beautiful connectors, and a deceivingly high-end feel to it.

I’ve been running the cable between the Pioneer Elite SACD player and my receiver for my 2-channel playback. For multi-channel, I am using the Silver Series from Acoustic Research. I have found that it has been nicely balanced, with nothing lacking, and nothing to complain about at all. In fact, it’s kept up with the AR cables pretty decently. Who knew you could get that for 5 bucks? All-in-all, I’m impressed.

The cable market is a hotly-contested one, just to grossly understate that. There are lots of budget and blossoming audiophiles that either gripe about the cost of cables, or regularly ask about lower-priced ones. From this point on, I would have to point them to the Revelation Cadence II.