{"id":4824,"date":"2018-10-12T06:15:31","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T06:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/?p=4824"},"modified":"2018-10-12T12:24:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T12:24:49","slug":"vinyl-explorations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2018\/10\/12\/vinyl-explorations\/","title":{"rendered":"Vinyl explorations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The seed was planted over a year ago, at my brother-in-law\u2019s house, when we sat down to listen to some records. For the first time I can remember, I was blown away by how good vinyl can sound. The seed was then watered by That Classical Podcast<\/a>. Or, more accurately, this tweet from one of the hosts:<\/p>\n

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Bloody hell @snow_poet<\/a> this is a DELIGHT!! Such a beautiful album from start to finish https:\/\/t.co\/u0IA9cKaes<\/a><\/p>\n

— Kelly Harlock (@Kellegogs) April 23, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Snowpoet\u2019s Thought You Knew<\/a><\/em> is a stunning, beautiful, delicate album. Since first hearing it in June it quickly raced up my \u2018most played\u2019 chart<\/a> and has been on my mind all of the time. The band are relatively unknown. I wanted to give something back and support them, but had long since retired my CD player in favour of mp3s and Spotify. I ended up buying a vinyl copy for my brother-in-law but it didn\u2019t completely scratch the itch that I had. I wanted to hold this album in my own hands.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019ve heard vinyl over the past few years, I\u2019ve generally not been impressed. To my ears it didn\u2019t sound better than a CD or even a good streaming service. That evening with my brother-in-law changed my perception completely. He\u2019s been a vinyl collector for many years and has a lovely set of refurbished 1970s hi-fi separates to play his records on. The sound quality melted the wax in my ears. Somehow this experience paired up with hearing Thought You Knew<\/em> and I started to think about investing in a decent turntable myself.<\/p>\n

After a lot of research I settled on getting a Rega<\/a>. The reviews for their turntables are overwhelmingly positive wherever you look. The only question was which one of their range to save up for and buy. Although we have a \u2018proper\u2019 (cheap) amp and speaker setup in our lounge there isn\u2019t any room to place a turntable nearby, so I had decided that it would sit near to our trusty old Sonos ZonePlayer S5<\/a>, feeding its signal to the \u2018line in\u2019 connection. This would have the added bonus of being able to send the audio to any of the other Sonos units in the house.<\/p>\n

As much as I love my Sonos, I was sure that it would quickly become the limiting factor for audio quality \u2014 spending more money on a turntable beyond a certain quality level would be pointless \u2014 so I sought professional advice from my local hi-fi shop, Deco Audio<\/a> in Aylesbury.<\/p>\n

Located on a generic-looking industrial estate, Deco Audio is a shop where you need to ring the doorbell and wait for someone to come and let you in. When you step through the doors you see why \u2014 the shop is filled with beautiful equipment of all shapes and sizes.<\/p>\n

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I explained that I was looking to buy a Rega, but wasn\u2019t sure whether to go for a Planar 1<\/a>, a Planar 2<\/a>, either of these first two with their respective \u2018performance pack\u20191<\/a><\/sup>, a Planar 1 plus with an integrated phono stage, or a Planar 3<\/a>. Too many choices. They made me a coffee, and were only too happy to spend time with me discussing my options. Given that it would be going through the Sonos, they tried to talk me down to the cheapest of the three models. In the end after a bit of debate I plumped for a Planar 2 because (a) the parts can be independently serviced and upgraded over time, (b) it was in stock and (c) I wanted<\/em> that beautiful glass platter as opposed to the plastic one that comes with the Planar 1. I had to pick up a phono stage as well and went for the simple Rega Fono Mini A2D<\/a>. Plus some cables, and a carbon fibre record brush to clean the LPs before they get played.<\/p>\n

Deco Audio also have a record shop in-house with a great selection of vinyl, all of which has been put through their in-house Moth record cleaner<\/a>. I spent some time flicking through the racks but was already feeling poor from my impending purchase so I didn\u2019t pick anything up.<\/p>\n

It was very exciting to get it home and put it together. Setup was extremely simple \u2014 the most difficult part was balancing the tone arm accurately with the counterweight, but watching someone else do it on YouTube first<\/a> helped.<\/p>\n

I had a few records in the house that my parents had passed to me and wasted no time in testing one out. The sound was instantly stunning<\/strong>. A friend paid a visit the next day and was stunned also. Both of us, stunned. It\u2019s hard to put my finger on exactly why it sounds so great. I know that in part it is confirmation bias \u2014 I really wanted it to be a great experience and I am sure my brain is willing my ears to accept that it is<\/em> \u2014 but that\u2019s not all of it. There\u2019s something different about it sonically, even though it is being output to a speaker that lives firmly in the digital realm. Maybe I\u2019m just listening with more care and purpose again after so many years. By definition, older records will be completely analogue from recording to mixing to mastering (known as \u2018AAA<\/a>\u2019); there is no sampling to create a digital signal and they therefore contain much more information. Whether that makes a difference is up for debate<\/a>. To me, owning the records, holding them in my hands, caring for them, looking at the artwork, sitting around and purposefully listening<\/em> is filled with pleasure. Anyway, every man needs a hobby.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of things I\u2019ve had to do on the Sonos to make it work well. Firstly, I\u2019ve had to move buffering to maximum<\/a>. I found that with a low setting I kept getting dropouts when I sent the sound to other speakers in the house. A side effect of this is that there is a substantial delay from what happens on the turntable and what comes out of the speakers. It\u2019s really weird to lift the needle from a record to have the music stop a couple of seconds later. More substantially, if you sit close to the turntable you can hear the unamplified music coming off of the cartridge, and this can be a little distracting from the music from the speakers given that they are behind, particularly when playing something that goes from quiet to loud. Closing the lid on the turntable helps to muffle this noise.<\/p>\n

Secondly, I adjusted the level of the line in connection<\/a>. The Sonos app lets you pick an appropriate level, which has the effect of increasing the \u2018default\u2019 volume for the component. I found that setting this quite high as described here<\/a> gave a better sound without any distortion.<\/p>\n