Record player, AirPort Express. But how do I listen to my music?

TidBITS Talk
22

I regard streaming as more of an option, in the financial asset sense where option buyers have the right but not an obligation to take an action, or as a cover charge, where a fee gives unrestricted access to something. To me, renting involves paying for time-limited access to a single entity (like a movie, a car, or a sofa).

Semantics aside, I have a CD, tape, and record collection built up over several decades. I, too, used to be in the “who needs streaming” camp. But a few years ago, my mobile phone provider began including access to Tidal. I’ve grown to like streaming because streaming provides an easy and inexpensive way to explore and to hear music before buying discs. Or if I become interested in an artist or album through a review or a news story, I can quickly check out some tracks.

23

The paper cones or the foam (or rubber) surrounds? If the latter, they can often be replaced.

24

Yes. And that single entity is a library. :smiley:

But more seriously, my point about “rental” is that your continued access is subject to the terms of the owner (Apple and/or the record labels) and you may not have control over it. In addition to losing access if you cancel your subscription, you may also lose access if Apple drops a title from their catalog or if the service itself shuts down.

For example, my wife used to buy a lot of books from Amazon for her Kindle. Several years later, many of the books were dropped from the service because the contracts with the publishers expired and were not renewed. Which means they can not be re-downloaded once the Kindle device purges them from storage (to make room for new purchases). This would be bad enough if it was a subscription service like Kindle Unlimited, but these were so-called purchases. And the titles are DRM-protected (and I don’t think there’s any easy way to transfer a book from a Kindle to a computer), so there really isn’t any way around the problem.

And for the second point, does anyone remember the Microsoft Zune? After a few years, Microsoft shut down the service and turned off the DRM servers. People with subscriptions were left without access to any of “their” music. And people who purchased songs could no longer download their purchases (although tracks already downloaded to a Zune device would continue to play).

At least with Apple’s iTunes Store, purchased music tracks have no DRM, so you can back them up and transfer them to non-Apple devices (anything that can play an AAC file), which should be adequate protection against the above problems, but they still apply to subscription services like Apple Music (and Spotify and Amazon Prime Music and others).

25

I refreshed some Pioneer speakers by buying a kit from

It was easier than I imagined and they continue to work fine. If you think you are going to throw the speakers away, why not try this as a project?

26

Yes indeed. I’ve done a couple successfully myself. Great link.

Foam surrounds are pretty common and particularly susceptible to “rot.”

27

That’s a really great idea. I hadn’t thought to try and repair them. Both main speakers have gone, as I went and checked after David Lynch suggested spares might be available, so will need replacing. The tweeters seem fine. I live in the UK so can’t use your suggested supplier but there should be a British equivalent.

28

The tweeters may not be cones at all–most are domes made of various materials (paper, metal) and don’t have surrounds. ASFAIK they can’t be repaired, only replaced–used and NOS OEM parts sometimes show up on Ebay–and that’ll get you into wiring, etc., which is more than I’m willing to venture myself.

If you can’t find an OEM tweet you’ll probably need to replace everything (including the crossover inside the enclosure), since all the speaker parts, including the enclosure (and any vents in it) work as an integrated whole and and are carefully matched by the manufacturer.

Have fun, Dave!

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29

Yes. I took my screwdriver to my speaker to look more carefully at the problem and…I see exactly what you mean. This is not a job for a person like me who struggles to replace a lightbulb. This is a project for someone who Knows What They Are Doing.

30

I agree with all of the downsides of buying digital music and movies and of subscribing to streaming services. Even so, I’m a streamer now because I don’t view owning discs and streaming as mutually exclusive. Plus to be honest, I own a lot of music and films that don’t get played very often. Streaming has helped me to discover a lot more stuff and allows me to devote money and household space only to works I feel I must have (say, something rare, limited edtions, collector’s lust, want to make sure I never lose access).

31

If you like the whole LP thing, there is no substitute. I have two SME turntables, each with two tonearms so I can have four different cartridges to listen through. One is dedicated mono, and two of them are there to reduce wear and prolong the life of my irreplaceable London Decca Reference. Quad tube amps and Quad electrostatic speakers. My only concession to modernity is a little cheap bluetooth box that lets my server stream internet radio to the pre-amp, so I have thousands of radio stations available instead of four through a tuner. I’m happy!

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32

One option I took was to get a bluetooth transmitter for the turntable (my turntable has a pre-amp already), and my receiver has Airplay and BT. Or you could BT to the mac, and use the AE to the amp/speakers. I eventually just put the turntable direct to the receiver and can stream the audio to my AE and even my Vizio sound bar (a 2.1 soundbar is around $130 vs the $299 Homepod…which IMHO, if just streaming audio…)

I actually bought my first LP set since the 1980s, (Rush Signals 40th Anniversary) last year, and realized the turntable needed, gasp, a stylus! Glad I looked first.

Also helping some Gen Z with their pursuit of albums made me young again. One grad student I help, found a Vintage Technics Linear turntable and is all about restoring it (known for drying grease issue). LOL…Vintage.

While I appreciate audiophiles and those that still have amazing hearing, thing is, I don’t miss records. From pops, scratches, flipping over, monitoring levels, having to make tapes for friends ( although the free XLIIS-Maxell 90s they would give me) was all supplanted with my first NAD CD player and Japan-pressing of Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd). I could shuffle! And leave on pause to return to same spot after having supper with family! And I could easily isolate listening to instruments and actually understand the lyrics (goodbye late night recording of King Biscuit Flour Hour!). And the Zerostat cleaning products!
My vinyl collection, would get stored in the attic for a 30 year reunion after becoming an orphan (Parents born during the depression, tend to save EVERYTHING). I gave some vinyl to the grad student, who’s father also used to listen to. Let another generation experience what we did, I feel.
The “how cool!” factor is bizarre and yet, rewarding. And no, I don’t dislike vinyl anymore, just realize that now, we have it so convenient…the Columbia House Record/Tape club is now replaced with subscriptions. But so much more music, so better quality and so many amazing musicians out there!

Thanks Dave Watts (appropriate name for audio!) for letting me reminisce!

33

Watts is a great name to be associated with music but I invite you to play ‘I want to be like David Watts’ by The Jam. For years I couldn’t pay by credit card (when they had to go through the roller machine and then be signed) without the cashier saying ‘hey there’s a song with your name’.

I lived in a very rural area of the UK during my formative LP buying years and recall buying records by mail order, an astonishing innovation, from a small start up run by a certain Richard Branson. I still have many of those LPs. But I must check the stylus. Good point, figuratively and metaphorically.

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34

Would also recommend Crutchfield for devices that may help move analog to digital. They have a free help line and are very accommodating and professional.

35

While I’m not dissing others choices, this latest vinyl revival is bemusing to me, given the somewhat massive flaws of the vinyl format.

Coming of age in the UK in the 1990s, it was all about vinyl in electronic music. Mixes were often only released on vinyl, record shops dealing with new and promos were all over the place (especially here in London), so digging for those rare or hard-to-get cuts were the order of the day, and somehow I accumulated over 10k records over the years. I eventually gave them all away, as I couldn’t stand dealing with them anymore, on several levels.

The trouble is they are so much work to deal with. As others have stated, they have so many quality issues to deal with that go along with the format, making it really the worst mass-produced format to deal with now in the early 2020’s.

  • Dust, scratches, bad pressings, wear & tear, are all negatives just for starters.
    The number of new pressings you read about from Discogs users (when researching track versions/remixes), that are badly done or have intrinsic faults, are everywhere. And people are paying lots for these things, as well.

  • Convenience (lack there of!), is another major problem.
    You cannot play vinyl in most situations, for obvious reasons. Not very good Soundburger type devices aside; usage in car, transit, in multiple locations (at a friend’s house… oh the record is on a shelf at home, so I can’t listen to it right now!), on holiday, etc. is impossible.

  • Weight.
    Vinyl weighs an absolute ton. Even a hundred discs weight a lot! Doing things like moving home several times with a vinyl collection and you’ll wish you never had the things. It’s costly and back-breaking work, even after removers have dumped your collection in your home; try sorting it all out, often buying new (heavy-duty!) expensive shelving, and finding space for such things in ever smaller more expensive housing in urban areas.

  • Costs.
    The records themselves cost a lot of money now. Sure old used un-rare stuff can be gotten for cheap, but the stuff many are buying seem to be new box-sets or reissues, sometimes on coloured &/or virgin vinyl, that cost a bomb per release. Add the costs with dealing with them (shelving, moving, etc.), and you have a VERY expensive hobby for most people.

All of this takes time to deal with, and also takes your time away from actually listening to the music itself. Cover artwork has improved in digital somewhat (Apple servers can serve up to 12,000px images now!), and most (though not all) booklet info is available on the internet for addition to digital library metadata.

All these and more are reasons to avoid starting a bad vinyl addiction habit, lol! :grinning: Like street drugs, just say no, kids!

Just digitise vinyl (if that’s the version you like) into lossless, and/or use lossless FLAC and ALAC from digital sources in Apple Music app and Roon (or similar), to avoid virtually all the bother above.

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36

I have my vinyl collection from the 1960s through the 1980s on the bottom shelf of my home theater setup to help stabilize the units in case of small to moderate earthquakes. Occasionally, I pull one of them to play on the Sony turntable that connects to the system.

37

Oh yeah, I forgot people in earthquake zones have even more problems, lol! ;-)

If people in quake zones have high shelving with vinyl on, PLEASE whatever you do, do not stand near it when a large quake happens. I can only guess the chances of sustaining serious injury when a stack of records decides to break the shelving unit and fall on you or one of your loved ones. :astonished:

38

Music appreciation certainly differs between consumers. - however:

  1. Cleaning a record is not difficult, I’ve had some NEW vinyl sound Crappy and some old vinyl sound Excellent - manufactured MMV, mostly the complaint is mastering - the crappy one just sounded crappy. but you can listen to it. Don’t buy a really dirty record if you can’t clean it. — My 1967 mono Pet Sounds on a 1961 Silvertone console sounds so authentic. It’s pretty scratched (not by me!) but still amazing.

  2. Convenience - lol. I sit down and listen to my stuff…playing a record, reading liner notes and listening to the music - is fun for me - but i also do other stuff listening to albums happy to take break every 15-17 minute to flip the record (the other day I played through 5 lp Biograph, while editing someone’s powerpoint) Yes, I’m married and she was sitting right there doing her arts newsletter.

  3. Weight - no-one NEEDS 2000 albums (like I have) but I also have books. and guitars, and guitar amplifiers and tape decks and recording gear… weight is a ridiculous argument. I guess if you have nothing you have nothing to lose.

  4. Costs - this point is what had me write this here… I routinely buy records for 5 or less dollars - I often leave a store spending under 20 bucks with 3-5 albums. Part of Listening is discovery. I collected Joan Baez’s first 5 (actually I have 6 ) albums in mono and stereo. I always buy a Roger Miller album unless I already have it. last things I bought? Larry Coryell/John McLaughlin, The Pretty Things and a Frank Zappa promo single (RSD 2016).

(i’m streaming Eric Von Schmidt right now from my Match library)

As a music artist - I appreciate the beauty of the 70’s music era - Radio/Tape/Vinyl and Live - these were things that were shared. Streaming compensation is really crappy and liner notes are missing where they should be required meta data. I am proud of ownership because music is Art.

(As to smaller housing - that’s Real Estate Capitalism problem not a record collecting issue. )

anyhow - I replaced the needle on my main turntable (Yamaha Natural Sound Turntable w ortofon 10/Rotel 150a amp - fresh caps!- / KLH speakers) a couple months ago and it does indeed sound excellent. By the way - outside of touring - Records are one way to sell merch for an artist. so I’m pushing back on your post. ! cheers, benj

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39

Warning: Note the vinyl addiction tendencies in the above user. Like I said, it’ll swallow you A L I V E! :laughing:

Yes, I know, I used to be infected with ‘vinyl addiction’ too. So I get the arguments made for how and why people use records, but there are others. Ultimately it’s horses for courses, like everything in life.

Other things wrong with vinyl, that modern vinyl-heads may not be aware of (of simply bury their heads in the sand about)…

• Vinyl is a dirty production process, with oil as the main raw material.

Pressing vinyl even in the best pressing plants in the world is one of the most dirty and polluting production processes there is. Even people who work in them will tell you this (a friend used to work in one), and there are plenty of Youtube videos showing the process and/or explaining why.

Oil is the major material in the production of vinyl – PVC plastic; carbon/ethylene, mixed with salt in the form of chlorine (non-biodegradable). Most of the vinyl pellets made today are also sourced from petrochemical manufacturers in Asia, who often have much lower standards than western companies for pollution during production. Other materials used in the pressing process include vast amounts of water (distilled), acetone (acetate lacquering), and disposal of the greasy cocktail remnants afterwards, tinned chloride, liquid silver – all used to make the mother for the final stamper. Then your finishing materials: plasticisers, lubricants, and other heavy additives (mostly carbon black, used to give the black shiny finish and help stylus playback; but again a dirty production process).

To give a rough figure for the oil part, c. 23m records were pressed in just the US & UK in 2019, and that used some 2500 tons of oil. While that’s not much compared to overall oil consumption in the two countries; it certainly isn’t helping cut emissions either. Add along other chemicals that have to be produced and dirty productions process, of course, along with the extras for inner/outer sleeves, distribution by trucks.

Of course, everything physical uses resources, one could argue. But a stream/download from a server uses a fraction of the overall material/energy/disposal costs. Vinyl is at the top-end of the scale when it comes to polluting production. For new records especially, while vinyl was recycled in the past to make new records, most plants these days do not do this, as the finished product is inferior in quality when recycled vinyl is used.

And when done with, most vinyl is landfilled, due to being non-biodegradable, and the limited amounts of and issues with recycling the material (maximum 5-7 times, but mostly avoided due to quality issues).

/preachy rant over. :neutral_face:

40

Thanks all, this has been tremendous fun to read.

42

C’mon… there’s lots of USED vinyl out there and new could be recycled or made from other material (someone was cutting old CD’s into singles at one point ) . I’m interested in recycling all my Dick Hyman and George Feyer records. - I bought ONE new double LP last year. (Late Night Tales Presents Don Letts Version Excursion) all the rest i am second (or more ) owner - i think this oily argument is over-reaching especially when some of my records are over 80 years old. Bet you don’t have tires that old.

/I can discuss this to death no doubt.

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