When things go wrong, check the simple things first . . .

Almost had you longing for the days of vinyl?

I can barely remember my vinyl days (no vinyl for 20+ years now) . . . but yes I cannot pretend that these funny issues crop up with networked music and don't with vinyl.

That said, I'm sticking with hard drive based music.  I am assuming at now that I'm of the ripe old age of 54, the lossless files I now own are going to last a lifetime.  If they don't, I guess I'll deal with it ;-)

Ah, good old vinyl.

Buy the album. Take it back, having noted all the distortion and artefacts due to poor pressing/packing. Get another copy. Take it back and wait for the next batch. Go back to collect it and listen to a different set of faults. Repeat. Give up and either put up with it or buy the Japanese import.

Static cracks, bowls of water, humidifiers and ritual dust removal. Pre echo on transients and end of grove distortion. Screaming at anyone who even looked at the turntable - don't jog it, don't get fingerprints on the vinyl. Or the lid.

I’ll take a loose Ethernet connection.

I'm not so uptight. I just enjoy listening to my vinyl. The majority of it is 35 years old and bought at department stores. Sure, I remove the dust as part of the ritual, and I love the pre-echo. And I've yet to see anyone here have any streaming/fileformat/NAS/UPNP/Uniti2/UnitiServe/Firmware/Sonos/iMac/Synch/iTunes/FLAC/Ethernet/Hi-Res/Nested folders (and on and on seemingly endlessly) issues playing their LPs.

Hi Harry

So, on a scale of 1 – 10 how would you say you rate vinyl?   

Don’t think I have read a post I feel so completely in agreement with in a long time – nightmare. I am beginning to find I almost resent having to spin a CD once – to copy it – now that streaming has become so easy, convenient, simple to control and sounds so good.

It really does not take much effort to set up a solid network; there is a lot of help available here if it is required after all.

ATB, Peter  

In the 70s and 80s I rated it very highly indeed Peter. It was nearly as important as taking my next breath. But let's face it, most of us were treated like dirt by the industry and a fair few retailers. And relatively speaking, thinking about what I was earning and the cost of stuff in general, it was a very expensive passion. 3/10 maybe now, but 8/10 back then because I didn't know any different and I just HAD to get my fix. FM radio would have scored highest, but could be just as variable.

CD wasn't perfect. In comparison I would say streaming is. Contentious, I know.

Heathens. 

+1 

Indeed Harry couldn’t agree more, and to think we put up with such variable quality for 30yrs is quite depressing. Mind you, I wish we could say that was a thing of the past but although better, not perfect now. I never did enjoyed the process of playing vinyl.

FM has always been important to us and I think we were really rather lucky with reception at least, and in the main content was pretty good most of the time.

Oh well, better stop this now before I’m accused of be a boring old ****.

Steve & Quad33

Wish we could refresh before posting!

Anyway, don’t you two think its time you two got modern, like what Harry and I have? 

No thanks Peter. 

Agree with you about FM though. Digital radio sucks. IMO comparing FM to Digital radio is similar to comparing a top vinyl system, 'like what Graham and I have', with CD replay or streaming. 

ATB

Steve

Peter, what you talking about...... me and my bro Dr Blues is proper modern 

G

I would agree with Harry if it were not for the fact that my relatively(!) modest vinyl front end regularly out performs my NDX/nDAC/555 by some margin.

i share the frustrations listed above but, on the other hand, vinyl does not suffer from loud and compressed mastering to anything like the same extent that digital does.

Keith

Glad you chaps enjoy what you have, that’s the main thing, guess we can all agree on that.

Apologies to Bart did not intend to distract from your OP, Harry’s post resonated so much with my own experience I could not resist.

Peter

Agree about FM, a really superb medium and occasionally stunning, and I guess we are really spoilt here in the UK with the BBC. Certainly my 5 ele into NAT03 into 282 is very satisfying.

However once I tweaked my NDX->NDAC/555PS I found I was listening to vinyl less and less and once i got my 282 i then decided to sell my Nottingham Analogue deck. Still have my vinyl.. I may return to it at some point.. But right now don't miss it at all.. With the analogue organicness of the the carefully dressed NDAC.

Not bad at all this Naim stuff....

Simon

Thanks, Peter!  Most discussions end up as "vinyl vs. computer" for some reason   I participate in such, occasionally, myself!

Simon, I assume this is then combined with the fact that you have started to listen to higher resolution files. Or are you also listening still a lot to standard CD quality rips ?