The age old question. Quality or quantity. There is nothing like shoving thousands of mp3s generally free or cheap of charge. Beyond that the uses for a mp3 player are endless. Porn, games, stalking. Its all a music and media dork could ever hope for.

But have you ever wanted more? The ability to to hold a piece of the ownership pressed in limited quantity. Just this past year I've began to collect vinyls, and I couldn't believe the quality differences between that and a mp3 player. Granted you cant take a record player to the gym however home is a haven for gamers so I challenge you to go out and spend what it costs for a mp3 player on a vinyl player. The constant search for rare albums at the highest quality of sound becomes more and more addicting, and not expensive. And Unlike a mp3 player that breaks or becomes a hand me down, vinyls only increase in cost. (granted the music you like surpasses age) :P


I was just curious if anyone else has found a interest in vinyl players. I suppose it would be idle to own both.

I am also curious if anyone else has noticed how bad of a quality hit mp3s truly take. I feel we've become so used to poor fidelity through compact discs that mp3's were easy to accept.

Later on I may take up vinyls but I doubt it because I have a ton of other stuff I want to do with my money.

I stopped dl'ing mp3s whenever possible and dl flacs as much as possible.

.flacs and vlc media player = butts3x with strange.

I have round a hundred vinyl records, however both the record players I have are broken. :(

I have a really hard time finding flac music though. :( quality awesome with the ones i find tho

Im old school (born in the wrong era) I have around 75 albums on vinyl but no record player atm :(
Ive got a few Beatles records, Bob Dylan, Journey(lol). Also have a few new releases on vinyl.

I rip my CDs into flacs for backups (yes, I still buy CDs...), but I'll rip them into 320 kbps mp3s for mp3 players and such as well (F*CKING ipod won't accept flacs).

I don't have any vinyls myself as I'm really not that much of a music nerd. I have a friend who used to give a lot of shit to people who bought vinyl records. Then his girlfriend bought him a record player and now he swears by vinyl.

I think there's one point missing on your list. Versatility. You can listen to an mp3 almost anywhere thanks to the numerous mp3 players. You can't really do that with vinyls.

I still buy CDs too, about 75% of my music I say (it might be more these days) is of purchased CD music, other other 25% of is download music.

320KBS in a LAME encoder is what I use, I would use FLAC but I do not have the space at this time and won't until I settle down with a job and a get a desktop.

I tried doing CD player like when I am out and about but MP3 is so easier cause I have a tendency to switch artists every two songs or so.,

If you want to play flac quality music on an ipod convert it to apple lossless its the same format. But i wish i bought cd's i want that quality music

lets see if I still remember the equations

Lossless to Lossless = fine

Lossless to Lossy= fine

Lossy to lossy= no no

lossy to lossless= no no

It really depends on one thing: was the album recorded with analog recording, or was it digitally recorded?

A lot of vinyl record that come out now'adays are digitally recorded, which is dumb. If you lose information from compression before the record is pressed, you're defeating the purpose of vinyl.

I have a relatively extensive vinyl collection, and absolutely ALL of it is recorded to tape. My collection includes mostly White Stripes and old blues music (Son House etc) with some Willy and Johnny thrown in the mix. I don't buy any hiphop/electronic music or metal on vinyl because most of it is recorded digitally. Good old Jack White still records with tapes, and he still edits the tapes himself with scotch tape and a razorblade. Dude's a G.

But yeah, an all-analog recording > a digitally compressed recording.

They say you can't tell the difference between analog and digital because digital compression only removes the parts you "can't hear," but I've listened to the same song on an analog-to-analog vinyl print vs an analog-to-digital print and the difference is amazing. Also, pops and clicks add character to music.

I've got an amazing White Stripes record called "Digital is Evil" that was only produced on vinyl and other analog media (tape maybe). It's some of the best recorded music I've ever heard in my life. I've got an extremely rare Son House record. I'll pull up the details of it and post 'em if you guys are really that interested, but it's a German print valued at about $500 at the moment. Near mint condition (only played 2-3 times ever). F*CKING amazing.

flacs can be pretty hard to find although some sites have a pretty good selection. i need a couple more TB drives to start backing up my personal cd collection. i think i bought my last cd at least 5 years ago.

Ive been wanting to start getting into vinyl, so I recently bought a a old Ramones record, and have been trying to find a good used Vinyl Player