W.H.Smith to restock vinyl across 80 stores!

[OneWorld]

If only they were selling them in old money, when you could buy an album for a few quid

I wonder if the vinyl will be going cheap in the closing down sale?

[Arpangel]

This thread has come alive again at an auspicious moment!
I have just spent best part of a week rearranging my living room and putting up shelves to hold part of my late son in law's hi fi rig*.
It consists of a Rega Planar turntable with an Ortofon MM cartridge . An Arcam Alpha 6 int' 50Wpc amp feeding two tiny 3.5" 'media' speakers. I don't need full fi as the signal will be routed eventually to my M4 and harkened unto on my Tannoys...but not a lot! I had it working for the first time yesterday and put on a Nonesuch disc of the Bach Inventions, something not played for a decade. Oh! ****! the noise! I had forgotten all about rumble and rice crispies.

My idea was to digitize some of my vinyl but I am going to have to find some way to deep clean them first.

*Anyone in the market for a pair of Mission 775s?

Dave.

Dave, what Rega is it? a 2 or a 3? the 2 is noisy, rumble and deck resonances, the 3 is much much better. As for record noise, shouldn’t be that bad, cleaning is simple, a soft wide nail/hand brush, place the record on kitchen roll, then go around it a few times with the nail brush soaked in water that has a bit of fairy liquid on it, then rinse the record thoroughly under a cold tap, repeat for side B! this works like magic for me, always done it this way.
New vinyl these days is amazing, I bought three new pressings last week, they were like playing CD's they were so quiet.

[BigRedX]

New vinyl these days is amazing, I bought three new pressings last week, they were like playing CD's they were so quiet.

Because if pressings were as terrible as they were in the late 70s and early 80s no one would buy them.

[Kwackman]

My idea was to digitize some of my vinyl but I am going to have to find some way to deep clean them first.

IMHO it's a lot of grief to digitise vinyl.
Clean it, play it into your computer (obviously in real time) then edit it into the separate tracks, then labelling the tracks and artist details..... no thanks.
If any of the LPs are available on CD (2nd hand CDs can be really cheap on eBay) or better still as a quality download (some artists use Bandcamp or downloads for sale on their website), it's a much easier route.
Obviously not all may be available in CD or download, but the fewer LPs I had to digitise, the better.
It's only an idea, and YMMV.

EDIT - If you don't have a DVD/CD writer/reader attached to your computer, some of the above isn't relevant

[Arpangel]

New vinyl these days is amazing, I bought three new pressings last week, they were like playing CD's they were so quiet.

Because if pressings were as terrible as they were in the late 70s and early 80s no one would buy them.

That's true, but there's loads of dodgy pressings from those days that are selling for £20/30 or more and people pay it, like me

[ConcertinaChap]

IMHO it's a lot of grief to digitise vinyl.

If you're a Mac user then VinylStudio makes the whole procedure a lot easier, does a lot of the donkey work like looking up the details of the tracks in online databases, dividing up the tracks (partly using some of that online data) and even including some quite effective noise reduction algorithms.

CC

Edit: apparently VinylStudio is now available for Windows too.

[ef37a]

My W.H.Smiths used to be a great place.
Large ground floor with a vast selection of books and magazines. Stationary and other office supplies including computer kit such as DVD media and memory stick. Upstairs was the record/DVD/CD dept. All in all a lovely store.

Then they moved it across the concourse (Grosvenor centre Npton) to a pokey hole and drastically cut stock. The place is awful, if someone is browsing you can't get past them. Not a shop I would now go into "for pleasure". Definitely no room for vinyl.

NOT! That I ever want to buy that **** again! Done that years ago and got a lot in boxes. I was never happy with vinyl sound. When Radio 3 stereo was at best reception which was most of the time, a recording on TDK SA Dolby B was much more "fi" than black disc.

Dave.

[BigRedX]

IMHO it's a lot of grief to digitise vinyl.

If you're a Mac user then VinylStudio makes the whole procedure a lot easier, does a lot of the donkey work like looking up the details of the tracks in online databases, dividing up the tracks (partly using some of that online data) and even including some quite effective noise reduction algorithms.

CC

Edit: apparently VinylStudio is now available for Windows too.

From what I can see of the screen shots it looks as though the interface hasn't been updated for about 25 years.

I started digitising all my vinyl 15 years ago. I quickly came to the conclusion that it was more cost and time effective (for me) to buy the CD and rip that. The only vinyl I digitise these days is that which is unavailable in any other format.

[James Perrett]

The only vinyl I digitise these days is that which is unavailable in any other format.

Same here - though most of the time I'm getting paid to do it. It is amazing how many master tapes were sent off to be cut to vinyl and never seen again.

[ConcertinaChap]

From what I can see of the screen shots it looks as though the interface hasn't been updated for about 25 years.

Possibly. As a UI it works quite well so why change it? There are regular updates under the bonnet, though. Digitising LPs works for me, not for you. Such is life.

CC