Why You Should Seriously Consider Getting A Turntable.
This is a gushy love letter. Sorry.
 I'm sure you've heard people (probably me) telling you why vinyl is so much better than CDs or MP3s and you thought something like, yeah that's great whatever.
 I am a fairly recent vinyl convert. Long-time music nut, long-time listener of that era of music when vinyl was all that existed. I still think that CDs are capable of better sound quality than a record can achieve. But I have fallen in love with vinyl, and this is why.
1. That sound when the needle drops. A little pop to let you know it's all working. This is on everyone’s list.
 2. Watching the needle creep towards the center of the disk. It’s much more satisfying than the little bar you get in iTunes.
 3. Those little lines that tell you where the songs start. Look at a record from the Allman Brothers Band and you’ll see a stripe or two, here and there. Marshall Crenshaw has six or seven, spaced perfectly evenly across the disk.
 4. The crackle. It's only particularly audible when the music is silent, as long as the record is in fairly good shape.
 5. The album art. LPs have acres compared to CDs—about four times the area. Next time you’re at a music store, go to the vinyl section and look at some covers you are familiar with. There is stuff in there you never noticed if you've only seen them on CDs or computer screens. Album art is not a dead art form, but it is vastly different from the way it used to be. Covers today tend to be very bold, with one or two elements filling most of the area. I do like those sorts of covers (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Parklife are a couple of my favorite examples). But it’s a shame that the cover to Revolver wouldn’t fly in today’s market.
 6. The smell. It's like an old book. MP3s can't possibly give you that, and I don't think those jewel cases they use for CDs will ever muster up any odor. Whenever you smell an old record jacket, you will be reminded of all the other times you've listened to old records. It's superb.
1. Having to turn it over. You have to want to hear more music. You have to choose to continue. LPs are not suited for background listening. Pay attention, dammit.
 2. The time limit. Forty minutes is a great length of time for an album. If you go over forty-five minutes, you should really have to think about it. It’s really hard to make an album an hour long that you can listen to the whole way through. Entirely possible, and many of my favorite albums are that long, but it is really hard.
 3. Two sides. They’re like two miniature albums. You get to have two first songs and two last songs, which everybody knows are the best parts. It also makes for a much more orderly double album. And you don’t have to listen to the entire album at once. You can listen to side A now and side B later. Or side B first and side A second.
 4. That soft bass sound. I can't tell you why I like it. I don't even think it's necessarily better; I just like it.
 5. Listening on real audio equipment. Speakers today are either tiny or HUGE! The sound systems we brag about today are composed of seven five-inch speakers and an eight or ten inch bass. It's for movies, not music. Listen to something through a pair of those big-ass three-way cabinets lying in your parents' basement to hear what I mean. Really, even plugging in your iPod to a system like that will make it sound so much better. They're designed to fill a room rather than an ear canal.
 6. The beautiful mastering. If you are at all curious, wiki Loudness War. To sum up, CDs are mastered today in such a way that the quietest parts of a song are brought up to the same level as the loud parts. It’s called audio compression, specifically a brick-wall limiter, and it results in the whole track being the same volume level, even when the musicians play at different volumes. LPs can’t handle that kind of mastering, so they’re all mastered without brick-wall limiters. However, not all CDs are mastered in this way. I have a CD of The Stone Roses that was pressed in the early nineties that is mastered in the old way and it sounds fantastic. More like there’s a band actually in the room and less like there’s one stuck in the radio.
 If this sounds like something you’d like in on, I have some advice to get started. Keep in mind that new vinyl goes from about $17 to 25 for the most part and often comes with a CD or download card so you can get your purchase onto your computer. The old stuff, though it used to be in the $5 to 10 range, has inflated a bit. You can still find plenty of good old stuff for cheap if you are willing to thumb through crates that haven’t yet been alphabetized. 180 gram disks are great since they are thicker and less prone to warping, but don’t ever turn something down because it isn’t on 180 gram.
 As for the player, you can get DJ turntables in a lot of places, but I don’t recommend them. They don’t have amenities like auto-start and auto-return, they often don’t have a cover to keep dust off the record, and they usually come with cartridges that want to put too much pressure (5 grams or so) on the disk.
 Instead, try to find an old used one somewhere. Keep in mind that few places repair turntables anymore, so if you are unsure it’ll work, skip it. Replace the stylus when you get it—they’re matched to the cartridge on the end of your tone arm, not to the turntable. If you can’t find a stylus to fit, buy a new cartridge. Don't spend more than $40 on a cartridge unless you really know what you want. Something that tracks with a pressure between 1 g and 2.5 g is good. And make sure to set the balance, pressure, and anti-skate on your tone arm up properly. There are plenty of videos on Youtube to show you how.
 I know I’m forgetting something, but I’ve got Side D of Electric Ladyland to finish and I don’t want to wait any longer.
