[Kele]

I put my turntable away and didn't open the box for ten years. When I
did set it up it didn't work and took it to an old school stereo
repair who just cleaned it and who said that playing it is the best
thing to keep it from gumming up. So it's set-up in my system for the
first time in ten years and upon the first play, I was amazed. For
ten years I'd been listening to CDs exclusively for music. This was a
revelation; the sound of the record/turntable was so much more, I'm
going to say, "juicy". The CDs are shrill and brittle by comparison.
Everything in my system is about the same quality level, high middle-
end. I play CDs in two players a DVD combo, and a dedicated CD player
using decent patch cables (cables, even power cables do make a
difference); both players sound similar - the dedicated CD player
maybe a hair sweeter. Neither sound as rich as the turntable. I
recently replaced the turntable's cartridge (Sumiko BP from a
Denon103) and now the turntable sounds quicker and less rose colored.
There's is definitely more detail now and I have no doubt I prefer
listening to Dark Side on the turntable compared to the GoldDiskCD.
The convenience of CDs is the thing that stomps turntables.

Something I find interesting... I use the computer to transfer albums
to disc. It's odd but those rips sound better in a lot of ways than
the store bought commercial equivalent. The rips don't sound as good
as the album; the CD-R seems compressed by comparison and that makes
it less involving for me. Why I think the DVD-Rs sound different and
mostly better than the store bought might have to do with the studio
that mixes to make the CD. The commercial CDs often sound tighter
less raw and flowing than the rips to disc from album I make. I wish
I had a new music album vs CD as the recordings are better to CD than
they were back in the 80's (which is the time frame I have redundant
albums and CDs). I bet the studios could make a CD sound closer to
the "album sound" if they tried, but so far CDs just don't sound as
juicy as records. - Kele