I haven’t played a record on a turntable since the early 80s and yet I drag these dozens of unopened boxes of LPs from house to house thinking, someday I’ll go through them, put them on a shelf, buy a new turntable and listen to them. Worse yet, I think many of them are scratched to hell and gone or are so warped from sitting in moving crates that they’re probably just plain old defunct. I admit, it’s sentimental and completely idiotic – they’re expensive to move, take up space and the albums I really love have been replaced with CDs and mp3s ages ago, but still I hang on.
So, what have you done with your LPs, old fart Dopers? Papered your walls with the covers? Donated/eBayed/chucked them? Or, do you still listen to yours?
I still have about a 6’ shelf of LPs, about 2/3 classical and opera. I think they’re still in good condition, or at least they’re not scratched from being played a lot. I’ve toyed with the idea of seeing if they are worth anything to vinyl-audiophiles or anyone like that, but I don’t know where to get started.
I’ve also toyed with the idea of getting one of those digitizing turntables, but that seems like a lot of time and trouble for recordings that I probably wouldn’t listen to very much anyway.
So there they sit. Nicely displayed behind glass doors, never played, although I do have a turntable. I am open to suggestions.
Roddy
Twenty-two feet of shelving are filled with vinyl. I know, because I built the shelves to hold it. I’m set up so I can digitize them, but the process is so boring - clean record, set up computer to capture a side of an LP, process captured sides to remove surface noise, edit captured sides into individual WAV files, process WAV files into FLAC and MP3 files, name each file…each LP represents two hours of time. I only go through the process for things that are never going to be released on CD and my wife really want to have it for her MP3 player or podcast.
I have two custom-made “end tables” (which I actually intended to use as speaker stands, but that’s another story), total linear storage of about 4 feet, about 3/4 full of my old vinyl (LPs and a significant number of 12" singles). The last bit is filled with laserdiscs and CD box sets. I have a plan to digitize a lot of it, but I never plan to get rid of them. Vinyl still sounds great, and I hope one day to have a nicer turntable.
Fourteen feet here of vinyl rock, pop, classical, jazz, soundtracks and comedy. I still listen to them regularly even though I have many more CDs than LPs now.
In a box, in the basement. One of these days I’ll probably take some of the rarer, “can’t-find-an-MP3-anywhere” stuff (looks like no one ever digitized Tuff Luck’s first [only?] album) over to my brother-in-law’s place. He’s a major audiophile, and has all this pricey equipment to recondition albums and then convert them to MP3. One of these days…
In the basement, mouldering away. I was looking for The History of Eric Clapton a couple years ago. The dust jackets were literally falling apart, some of the disks were mold-speckled.
Probably should just throw them away since they will never be rare collector’s items in my lifetime.
I’m not an old fart (24) but I have a fairly big vinyl collection, and I listen to them daily. I’d say most new music is still put out on vinyl. The vast majority of my vinyl collection is by current bands and is music released within the last 6 or 7 years. The three popular indie record stores around here have significant vinyl stocks (only one of them carries used vinyl, all three have new vinyl) and you can buy new vinyl in Best Buy, FYE and even Fred Meyer’s electronics department. So anyway, vinyl is far from dead.
I still listen to it. My son loves it, since most of the ones that are mine (not my Mom’s) are children’s records from the early to mid eighties and only a couple have been put to CD. (Raffi mainly).
I even have one which I now realize wasn’t really for my age, but someone bought it for me thinking it was. It’s a comedic take on bible stories, with sound effects and everything. I really need to get a turntable I can hook up to my computer so I can digitize it.
I still play them now and then, after moving the stacks of CDs off the dust cover. I’m told I can get a turntable with a USB output, so I could put the LPs on some more modern form. When I get finished with that, there will be another recording medium that makes everything else obsolete. :smack:
In the back of a closet. I didn’t really start spending money on records until I was done with school, so I only have 2 feet of vinyl. I have a good 20 feet of CD jewel cases.
I have about 3000 records, mostly FL style breakbeat and electro dance music…mostly underground stuff…many are worth 20-40 bucks each and quite a few break the $50 barrier. I even have a few that are worth over $100. It is EXTREMELY tedious to rip them to to CD…lord it stinks. I do a few records here and there when I have time.
Eventually, I will sell off most of the records, and probably keep the ones that are autographed by the producers/djs who made them. I’ll also keep most of my electro bass collection. I have around 50-60 promos that were records pressed in very limited numbers (usually under 50 copies) and sent out to clubs or DJs for evaluation and feedback before they were sent off to be pressed for commercial release…Many of these are autographed and basically priceless…I mean I have a promo version of a DJ Huda Hudia album with the sleeve autographed saying that this copy is one of 2 made, that he wanted direct personal feedback from the DJ and then left his cell number and autograph on the liner notes…so what is an autographed promo version of record worth when only 2 exist in the world? Or an autographed promo of one of DJX’s biggest hits, of which only 20 were made? I also have some unreleased and very limited release stuff from AUX88 that easily fetches 75$ and up per vinyl. I’ve been tempted to sell them all to finance my purchase of some CDJ1000MK3 CD turntables, but it would be like selling a baseball card collection. Almost every record has a story behind it, and I feel like I’d be selling part of who I am and my memories to let them go.
I sold the majority of my 800+ LP collection at a Flea Market in '96. After four moves in four years, I was just tired of dragging them from place to place. I kept a handful of bootlegs and a sentimental favorite or two. I wish I had them all back, especially every time have to get out a magnifying glass to read CD liner notes.
I still have a few milk crates full of old albums. I’ve sort of sorted them into the “I have this on CD now” and “This will never be on CD” piles. I’ve tried digitizing the “never” pile with very limited success. I’d forgotten how noisy and crappy old albums can sound, what with the popping and the hissing. One of these days I’ll get the process down though and record the 10 or 20 albums that deserve it.
Parenthetically, it’s kind of surprising what has shown up on CD – fairly obscure stuff that I thought I’d never find has been released and at least one very well-regarded album (Peter by Peter Yarrow) has never been put on CD.
You ain’t just whistling Dixie. I was dumbstruck when I saw that Bill Cosby’s 200 M.P.H. had finally made it to CD. The crazy thing was, I had just the year before found a cassette of it via Inter-Library Loan and digitized a copy … for, um, research purposes.
