I finally try vinyl.

"It's not about sound quality, it's about vibe quality" hit the nail on the head.

What I'm struggling with is how one is supposed to listen to vinyl in Australia? With the turntable upside down, doesn't the record just fall off?

As a photographer, I've had nearly this same experience within my own world of analogue vs digital- it's super interesting to see nearly all the same points I've found made, but in another medium

you described vinyl perfectly. It's not for discovering music, it's for enjoying your absolute favorite albums in entirely new ways

This is a wonderfully grounded take on vinyl. It really is an enthusiast thing you do for fun.
"The two things that really drew me to vinyl were the expense and the inconvenience"

For those looking to get in vinyls my recommendation is to go secondhand on your table. You can get some AMAZING tables for cheap if you're willing to maybe replace the needle or something like that. I got an amazing Technics sl-1200 from the 70s for like 80$CAD last summer only had to replace the needle.

What I’m picking up, vinyl is like classic muscle cars. Inefficient, expensive, beyond obsolete, but so. much. character that it’s fun to have around anyway.

Quick notes on old vs. new vinyl.

Old vinyl really varies in sound quality. Year can play into it, vinyl made during the oil crisis in the mid-70's can be a bit spottier because more discs were being pressed from reused vinyl, therefore if you're picking up a disc from that era from your local record store, it could very well sound like shit. However, certain pressing plants, such as Monarch records, Columbia's Santa Maria plant, certain pressing plants in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Japan, used higher quality vinyl formulation which lead to thicker and higher quality records. Mosy of the time.

And see that's the big crux with older vinyl, it wasn't necessarily made cheaply, but it was produced in far greater quantities back then, meaning certain discs just werent't going to turn out as well for some reason and slip through QC. Especially if you get discs near the end of a stamper's life, it can sound worse. And then once they made new stampers, you get into the issue of represses, generally produced from copy tapes, which obviously have some generational loss. Some of the best sounding records I own are from the 60's, 70's, and 80's (ELP debut first UK pressing, Trick of the Tail first UK pressing, Moonglow by Tatsuro Yamashita, Fragile first UK pressing, etc.) But also some of the very worst sounding records I've heard were pressed in the same exact era. It really varies.

When vinyl started to make a resurgence, think 2012 or 2013, these record companies needed to sort of relearn how to press good vinyl, and in addition were dealing with decades old, worn out machinery and masterings that were generally the brick-walled, super-compressed digital masters in use at the time. Because of this, newer vinyl was pretty bad for awhile, but soon you started to get companies like Analogue Productions and Music Matters (along with veterans like Classic Records and MoFi) putting out higher quality 180g and 200g releases from original master tapes, or very high quality digital transfers (digitally sourced vinyl is not inherently bad, in fact if the source is a high quality digital transfer it can sound fantastic).

In the years since, more pressing plants have opened up, restored their tooling, and hired genuinely great cutting engineers so that we now have pretty consistent quality. Normal mass-market releases still don't compare to the audiophile releases coming out today, but they are consistently satisfactory to the point where I can buy a new album on vinyl and know it will probably sound pretty good with minimal QC issues, which was not the case even 6 or 7 years ago.

Imagine how crazy when he finally learn about CDs and how fast it spins

I’ve been listening to vinyl my whole life, and built up my own collection (including MUSE’s discography). Everything got destroyed in a flood in 2020, and I was absolutely gutted. Some of the vinyl itself was saved, but all the paper was destroyed.

9 months ago this video made me decide NOT to get into vinyl because it would sure as hell ruin me financially.

2 months ago I got into vinyl anyway and it ruined me financially, but it was worth every cent I've wasted so far, and every cent I still have to waste on it

seeing DankPods pull out a Muse album made me unbelievably happy for some reason.

What you said at 6:08 is so accurate, I recentley refurbished a walkman and I find myself listening to whole cassettes of music that I'd skip on spotify. It really does make you appreciate the art more

The only thing that interests me personally about vinyl is the big beautiful album covers, that actually display the album art properly and large enough that you can see it and appreciate it. But buying vinyls just for the cover is silly and wasteful, and just having a collection of covers with no vinyls is like collecting barbie dolls without the heads, it's just weird. So maybe one day I will get a turntable and try it out, LOL

"It's not about sound quality, it's about vibe quality" correct. This is why I collect audio cassette tapes. I need the grainy staticy hum and mechanical noises over the top of my music. Pure 100% top lo-fi vibe quality. And yes, like you, I only collect my faves on tape. Great video!

Why am I just staring at a green iPad

I love my vinyls. I inherited my dads old collection, and he was a music freak. If I were to listen to every record in a row, it would take three solid months. And every single one is different, not just is what is on them, but they in how they sound. They have skips and pops and scratches in different places. Some are heat warped, some aren’t. Some sound better at 33 then they do at 45. Some have been purposefully warped to create an endless loop of one song. Some of them date back to the late 40’s, and some were made in the late 1990’s It’s just magical having a piece of history that you can actually listen to. Something that has been held by dozens of people that have been listened to for decades. And every single one has a story.

"It's like a campfire". Man, you are good with words. Now I want to have some guests over for a nice conversation around a spinning vinyl. Playing soft instrumental music, of course.

YES! Exactly. I found myself listening to the whole album, start to finish, when bought my first vinyl record. It's totally different, it's like throwback to childhood when you buy a casette tape, and it says "Toxicity" on it, and you don't have any clue what the hell this band is sounds like, but record store guy assured you that it is freakin' amazing. And you listen to it. Over and over again, start to finish.
I think I started appreciating music a lot more with vinyl. This is the point. Neither the sound nor it's "warmth" (although it kinda warm, yeah)

i like buying them because its a great way to support smaller bands since spotify pays so little