Hi all,

I'm amassing a list of budget christmas ideas for vinyl lovers. Especially those with extended families who need great gift ideas on sensible budgets. Here are a few on my short list. Add or critique as necessary!

Prices quoted are ballpark and not the lowest I'm sure, just what I happened upon.

Ideas so far:

Crosley Record Cleaning Kit (AC20) ~20$
Mobile Fidelity Inner sleeves- pkg 50 ~20$
Music Hall Cork platter Mat ~50$
Audio Technica AT95E Phono Cartridge ~70$
Audio Technica AT120E Phono Cartridge ~120$
Shure M97xe Phono Cartridge ~90$
Spin-Clean Record Washer MKII ~90$
Tracking force guage - prices vary greatly. ~20-150$
Quality interconnects/cables- prices vary greatly. ~20-50$ (or much more if inclined)
Bannana Plugs- ~2-4$ each
Swiffer duster or similar (really mandatory for us all with gear)

And finally for the DIY people:

Led strip lighting with a pantry switch for your LP storage cabinet or accent lighting. Prices vary. ~50-200$

So far so good, but we can do better eh?

No socks this year!

Ironically the one thing missing from a gift list for vinyl lovers seems to be the records themselves.

The list given is actually pretty complete, but someone who still loves vinyl technology might also appreciate a gift of this technology .

Damn, John.... I was expecting your link to go to a CD player.....

Snicker

Hi,

No vinyl enthusiast's kit of record-care devices is complete without the Discwasher Zerostat anti-static gun. You can find used ones on ebay for $50 or so; new ones seem to be wildly overpriced, around $100. It uses a piezo-electric crystal which, when you squeeze the trigger, produces a static-canceling charge. No batteries are required.

I still have mine and it works well to eliminate the annoying ticks and pops due to static electicity that build up on vinyl records. Even withdrawing one from a sleeve imparts a static charge, especially in dry winter air.

Alan

Couldn't you just hold the record, scuff your feet on the carpet, then sneak up and touch someone with it. Charge is trasnfered and you get some fun out of it.

Ha! I think a certain amount of the appeal of vinyl playback (not for me anymore, thankfully) draws on an O/C component. I used to like the ritual of cleaning LPs with the Discwasher brush and fluid, then destaticizing with the Zerostat gun, then (finally!), placing the disc on the turntable for playback. Of course this was all before the appearance of digital recording and CD playback, when LPs were the only major source of recordings.

All of those rituals were lost with the CD player and CDs. Frankly, I found it liberating to be freed from those vinyl rituals, not to mention the painstaking calibration of tonearm tracking angles.

Regards,
Alan

I had the same rituals and equipment, Alan.

Ninety-five percent of me doesn't miss all that, but five-percent does. There was a bit of a ritual to listen to good music then, and that preparation helped set that time aside as something special.

Very true, Mark. Setting aside the time and going through the rituals meant you were going to sit down and enjoy the playback. And I admit I have a certain nostalgia for those times.

100% agree.

It's definitely a lifestyle oriented way of enjoying your music. Vinyl for me is a treat that I use when I have time to relax and kick back for a while.

For younger enthusiasts like me I think the vinyl resurgence in popularity over the last few years is definitely due to a backlash against the organic part of music delivery being erroded away. There is something to be said for holding music in your hand, preparing it and then sharing it with friends over drinks and laughs.

Its kinda silly, but I enjoy that feeling of being the custodian of something delicate and fleeting. Especially since lots of used vinyl out there came from estate sales at some point; or at the very least someone's youth. There is reverance in appreciating something that was cared for and loved in someone's past. Geez, what a hippie eh?

I have one of these and they work great .

http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/nagaoka_cleaner_e.html

I still live in that world! Call it nostalgia or whatever, vinyl playback in my system with a good LP can still trounce my digital front end. But you CAN live in both worlds.
Most of the time, when I just want to play something for background, while cooking, or whatever, I stream from a music server to a Roku player connected to my system. It's fast, convenient, and sounds good. But when I want to listen for pure enjoyment, or to a particular rendition of a classical work, I always reach for an LP. It does help that my vinyl collection is seven times that of my CD collection.

A few items for the list:

A good quality spirit level. This is one of the most important, and many times overlooked, aspects of setting up a turntable. I'm not a fan of the cross-point or circular levels as they are not very accurate.

A good quality record and stylus brush. I'm a fan of the old Decca and Hunt brushes from the UK, but there are a number of excellent carbon bristle brushes on the market. Lyra makes an excellent stylus brush that comes with their cleaner.

The Disc Doctor cleaning system. Simply the best brushes and fluid I have ever used for really deep cleaning an LP.

Finally, if you have the scratch, the biggest improvement you can make to your record collection is a vacuum cleaning machine. They are expensive, starting at around $600, but they make a world of difference! I'm a fan of the smallest, auto rotating Nitty Gritty model (1.5?) which I've used for over 20 years with no issues, other than replacing the cleaning pads from time to time. The VPI 16.5 is also excellent and runs around the same price as the Nitty Gritty.

Enough! I could talk about this all day, but I have work to do!

Just document the time as "customer service" well vouch for you.

Hey hellcommute,

Far out, man. Nice thoughts of yours on vinyl and the place it holds in one's life. Although I hardly ever play vinyl, I can't bring myself to get rid of the hundreds of LPs I own. I can pull one out and tell you where I got it, what age I was, etc. There is something organic about the big LP jackets and the graphic impact.

With rare exception, I hold no such affection for any of the many CDs I've acquired (except for the sound quality and freedom from distortion). The graphics are annoyingly tiny.
However, there is one CD I bought in Germany while on a press trip before CDs were released in Canada. It's a gorgeous performance of the Brahms Liebeslieder waltzes by an excellent German male & female chorus with piano accompaniment, still the best version I've found.

Alan

Having grown up collecting and listening to vinyl, I don't miss it at all. I vividly remember all the scratches, warped records, feedback from bass, wow and flutter (having said that in a while), accidental bumps of the tone arm… I had hundreds of albums and got rid of them all except for 1 box of about 50 I still keep in storage for the kids who may be able to sell them for a tidy profit one day.

Sure brings back memories…

Noted!

My biggest issue with vinyl, and you rightly point out a number of equally valid examples, is that there is a very high cost threshold that you need to cross to get at the best a good LP can offer. People that hear my system regularly ask how an LP can be so quiet, and "If I buy a turntable will it sound like this?". Unfortunately the answer is no unless you are willing to invest time and serious money into both the playback equipment AND the records and cleaning methods that go with it.

One funny story about vinyl is in the town I grew up in, there was a woman that ran a record shop, the only record shop in town, other than department stores. We always thought of her as a witch. I remember buying a Beach Boy's album from her. When I tried to play it on my cheap turntable, it was so warped that it kept knocking the needle out of the grooves. I took it back for an exchange. But she was trying to convince me that there was nothing wrong with it, by placing it on her turntable, which was much smaller in diameter and playing it. It played successfully on hers, but still warbled up and down. She almost got mad when I refused to go away without a refund or exchange. This is when I ended up with my first Vanilla Fudge album.

That was my first and last trip to her record shop.

Witch eh?
Did she float like tiny pebbles?

She always wore black and reminded me of the wicked witch from OZ. "Buy my records, my little precious. I'll see that you get what you deserve. Oh, is that your little dog? I'll see that he gets what he deserves too. Ahh Haaa Haaa Haaa."

As Uncle Ben once said....
"With disturbing avatars comes great disturbing stories."

Then he said, "Peter, you look hungry. How about some instant rice?

What's really strange is that he started saying this in 1967!