How do you start off in vinyl?

[MrsJamin]

DH's birthday is in a fortnight and I think I have decided to get him a turntable. He's quite an audiophile and is very picky about sound quality, even has a few records but nothing to play them on! Was going to get a couple of classic vinyl records to start him off - what is considered as a classic album to have in vinyl, that has that "warmth" people talk about? He's into rock, old and new.

[joydivisionovengloves]

Rock is a pretty wide genre. Can you be a bit more specific?

[biryani]

What about Rumours by Fleetwood Mac?

[tethersend]

Astral Weeks by Van Morrison.

Might not be Rocky enough.

Something by Can?

[RippingYarns]

How about buying his favourite CDs on vinyl?

[lovelychops]

Do a google search of classic albums magazines like Q used to do them quite often.
Fleet wood mac is a great suggestion. What about Beatles, led zeppelin, nirvana, Bowie, queen, bob Dylan?

[Ferguson]

I don't want to discourage you, but is the rest of your equipment up to the job of revealing this 'warmth'? Does your present amplifier have 'phono' inputs, and if so is it 'moving magnet, 'moving coil' or 'ceramic'? (I don't even know if ceramic exists anymore.)

Unless you DO have a phono input stage, you will need a 'phono pre amp' as the equipment inputs nowadays are virtually all what they call 'line level' and accept CD players, DVD, BluRay, tuner (radio), tape-deck etc, but NOT LP pick-ups unless a pre-amp is used to boost the weak signal from the cartridge

Decent vinyl playing equipment will cost a few hundreds of pounds, the best will be several thousands. Unless a turntable is on a stable, inert base there can be room and floor vibrations from the loudspeakers (or from people walking about) that will distort the sound. Although vinyl CAN be better than CD, I think that will only apply if all the equipment in the system is of a reasonable quality. Poor quality vinyl replay will be WORSE than CD if it has a lot of surface noise, static, warped LPs, or distortions from the turntable motor, etc.

I think you need to do a lot of research, to find out how your present system will accept vinyl replay, what is involved, and what gains will there be. I USED to have all vinyl (started collecting LPs in the 1950s), but haven't used it for years. I have Musical Fidelity amp & CD, and Spendor speakers, in total costing around £4000, but only play CD, radio, TV, or cassette deck through it now.

Sorry if that has upset your plans, but it is probably better than you spending money on something that isn't suitable.

[piratecat]

Pink Floyd The Wall
The Who Quadrophenia
Led Zepplin
The Killers

[piratecat]

yeah you need an amp