Putting the 'Record' Back in Michael's Record Collection

So...I bought a turntable. Joy ensued.

Happy Friday, dear readers. I apologize for being tardy this week, but here is your weekly missive from Michael’s Record Collection at last. This newsletter could use your support, but I’m not asking you for money. I’m asking you to let your music-loving friends know about it and see if you can get them to sign up for it for free. The more, the merrier.

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Today I want to talk about the circle of life — not the Elton John song from The Lion King (although that’s an excellent tune), but how what was once old is new again. I’m talking about the vinyl revival and how I’m now a willing participant.

I purchased a turntable recently and that wasn’t an easy decision. I started wrestling with the idea nearly a year ago, while undergoing a bit of retail therapy to combat the pandemic. I had long been resistant to the idea of buying one and getting back into vinyl, but maybe not for the usual reasons (expense, inconvenience, etc.). I’ll get into my reasons in a moment.

Several weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend who was telling me about the joy he experienced while rediscovering vinyl. I still had my reservations, but I found myself once again looking at turntables on Amazon. More recently, one of my favorite music podcasts had a vinyl expert as a guest and he laid out a lot of basic mistakes that people make when getting into vinyl and why records can sound either good or bad. He also played some music he ripped from his personal vinyl collection. Even his digitized versions recorded at who-knows-what bit rate on a podcast sounded excellent playing through my car stereo from my phone. That’s when I figured fate was taunting me and I made the purchase.

Here’s why I had fought the idea for so long:

I loved my stereo as a teenager and I spent countless hours spinning records from artists like Kiss, Boston, AC/DC, Asia, REO Speedwagon, Blondie, Cheap Trick, and dozens of others. I loved the tactile experience of putting on a record, holding the album jacket in front of me to examine the artwork, and following along with the lyrics when a record included them. The experience of vinyl could be truly outstanding. It was never background noise for another activity except perhaps while reading on occasion.

However, I was happy when CDs came along. My issue with vinyl was the opposite of what many would expect. I never saw the big deal in sound quality that record lovers had long touted. To me, my cassettes — and, later, my CDs — sounded as good or better to my ears and they had the added benefits of being less fragile and far more portable. But what I didn’t know then was that it was partly my fault and partly my equipment’s that my records crackled and popped so much and didn’t sound as good as they should have.

As a kid, I had a vague understanding that I wasn’t supposed to touch the grooves and that I should remove any surface dust with a special record-cleaning brush. However, I had no idea the role that static electricity plays in making records noisy or exactly how to properly clean my vinyl (or how often I should). I also had no idea that my records were being damaged every time I played them!

My stereo was an all-in-one unit from Sears that included an AM/FM radio and an 8-track player. The turntable’s tonearm had no counterweight or anti-skating feature, and I didn’t even know what those were at the time. As a result, my records often skipped. It was maddening. I’d either have to live with the skips or return the album. Since the local department store where I got them usually only had one or two copies, I typically had to exchange a record for another title or wait for them to order me a new copy. (I was a teenager, so I wasn’t big on waiting, so I often kept these records and learned to live with the skips.) Oftentimes, the replacement record would also skip. I now know that this was likely my tonearm balance being off and that these records might not have skipped if I’d had better equipment. Also, since the tonearm wasn’t properly counterbalanced, the needle was eating its way through my vinyl with every play, especially if I tried to weigh down the needle with a penny or a nickel to minimize skipping. This noticeably changed the sound quality of records over time.

Without proper or regular cleaning, my records were full of static, dust, and even tiny bits of paper from the inner paper sleeves, which (as it turns out) are not good for your records either. Being a clumsy teenager, I would occasionally mishandle the tonearm and drop it too hard, or it might slip out of my hand, creating scratches and damaging the stylus. So, the sound quality from my records wasn’t as good as it should have been and that was down to both me and my equipment. I also had no idea you were supposed to change the stylus every so often, so that didn’t help either.

After hearing the vinyl expert on the podcast give extremely basic advice on how to get the most out of vinyl records, I did what I usually do with a new topic of interest and obsessively dove in to learn more about it. One of the things I discovered is that vinyl pressings from the mid-1980s were often thin and substandard, which had also helped cloud my judgment on the sound of vinyl, because that’s when I had bought many of my records.

I laughed at all the things I did wrong as a kid and wondered how many of my old records would still be around if I had known how to take care of them and had upgraded to a better system.

I wasn’t sure how to become a vinyl guy again and I had some concerns. My primary issue is that I have well over a thousand CDs. I’ve spent a lot of time and money building my music collection and it takes up a lot of room in my den. I didn’t want to simply go out and rebuild my CD collection on vinyl. That would be insanely expensive and I haven’t got nearly enough space to store that many records.

After a layoff left me out of work for nearly four months (thanks, COVID), I had completely given up on the idea of the turntable. I’d been out of work before, but this time was different. There were few jobs and many applicants, and it was difficult to even get a preliminary interview. It was stressing me out to the point I had trouble sleeping. But fate once again intervened, and I was hired back by my old employer at the beginning of March. I made the decision to purchase a turntable to celebrate the end of the unemployment stress and to combat the now-almost-normal pandemic stress.

A search on Amazon for something affordable turned up a price range I could manage and then it was a matter of selecting the right turntable. I had to have some basic audiophile features but at a budget price. I also wanted it to look good. I decided to get the one pictured above — a beautiful model by 1byone that goes well with my den’s décor and was nearly plug-and-play, while still having proper tonearm balancing features (an adjustable counterweight, anti-skate, and it even came with a special protractor so I could make sure the cartridge was properly aligned). It has a built-in preamp, which is important because for now I’ve got to plug it into the line-in of my home theater 5.1 system, which doesn’t have a dedicated phono input. It’s Bluetooth capable, so I can use my wireless noise canceling headphones and I can also hook it to my laptop to rip the tracks to my hard drive. But mainly I use it with the 5.1 system to keep it analog.

With the turntable, I needed some records. I also needed a more pragmatic approach to jumping back into vinyl than I have taken with my CD collection to avoid going broke and having no room in my den for any furniture. I started watching YouTube videos and reading blogs by vinyl collectors who had a lot of good advice on starting up. One of them counseled newbies to only buy what they love and what they are definitely going to listen to — not once or twice, but often. That sounded like a smart plan. I have hundreds of CDs that I rarely spin anymore. I like them, but honestly a lot of them I only own because I am obsessive enough to want a complete set for bands I love. But even most of my favorite bands have at least one or two subpar albums. My tastes have also changed a bit over the years, so some things I used to like just don’t appeal to me as much as they did back in the day (lookin’ at you, Spin Doctors).

The plan I came up with was simple. I would set a maximum amount I can spend on a new record. I would buy only new records or used ones in extremely good shape that have been properly rated by a trustworthy source. (There are a couple of record stores in the area that have a good track record with this, and I learned what to look for when buying used vinyl). I definitely am not going to buy everything on vinyl that I have on CD, so I set personal rules that I won’t go into here on what I’ll buy from my favorite bands, but the main thing is that I have to stop being a completist.

Finally, I also took a page out of one YouTuber’s playbook and created a spreadsheet to track everything I purchase, including date and location, the album’s pressing information, the price, and any special notes. This serves a few purposes. First, I can keep track of how much I’m spending on vinyl and then I can dial it back to limit expenditures. Second, it allows me to keep from making the same mistake twice. If I purchase a used record rated VG+ (Very Good Plus) from a store and I find it doesn’t meet those standards, I know the store’s rating system isn’t trustworthy. Finally, I’ll have all that information handy if I ever choose to sell a record. That’s good info to include in the listing.

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So, what did I buy in my first wave of records?

I knew that I was going to probably quickly purchase about a dozen records to get started. So, I went in with some ideas of things I wanted in my collection right away. The most important thing was that I wanted to pick up at least a couple of titles that I played religiously as a kid. I had thought Alive! By Kiss would be my first purchase but I could only find it used locally and I didn’t want to order it. (I’m not a teenager anymore, but I’m still impatient.) I picked up Boston’s Don’t Look Back and a good used copy of Thomas Dolby’s The Golden Age of Wireless.

It appealed to me to get something on colored vinyl, even though it typically gets worse sound ratings than standard black vinyl. I did some research while at the record store on the Discogs app and it turned out my favorite album by my favorite band was available brand-spanking-new on white vinyl. It was getting great reviews on Discogs, so I picked up a copy of Duke by Genesis. This killed two birds with one stone because even though I have everything Genesis ever released, I wanted at least one Genesis title on vinyl.

I wanted something modern, so I found a recent Steven Wilson release and the added bonus was that it was mastered as a 45-rpm double album. Now I had a 45 rpm record and didn’t need to buy a 7-inch single. I just don’t see me picking up a bunch of 45s this time around. The last item on the wish list for my starter collection was just something random that caught my eye while browsing. Record store browsing, after all, is one of the best parts of the vinyl experience and an activity I dearly missed over the years. I grabbed a VG+ rated copy of an original pressing of Stranger to Stranger from an obscure 80s band called Industry. I had an EP of theirs on cassette back in the day and could never find their album in a store before in any format.

Having picked up something that checked each box on my wish list, I went to a few more stores in the area — often on my lunch hour, plus one Sunday afternoon excursion to two stores in nearby DeLand — and picked up some more records. There are some fantastic record stores in the Orlando area and my searches were rewarded. I got an original pressing of Asia’s Alpha used but in great shape. I found a new copy of Talk Talk’s It’s My Life on translucent purple vinyl. (Man, that record holds its static and needs frequent cleaning!) I got a used original pressing of Eve by The Alan Parsons Project that sounds terrific. I also found an unopened original copy of Steve Winwood’s Arc of a Diver that had been in a cutout bin once upon a time, and a cheap used pressing of Gap Band IV.

Rounding out my starter set was a new copy of the 50th anniversary pressing of Abbey Road by the Beatles, which I got for free. There was a coupon for a free gift in the box my turntable came in and you got to pick the prize. I chose Abbey Road (my favorite Beatles album) and in exchange I just had to post a review of my turntable on Amazon and fill out a form online. Additionally, my friend who had put the bug back in my ear about vinyl, gave me some used copies of the first Van Halen album and a Doobie Brothers’ greatest hits compilation.

These records should hold my attention for a while. I enjoy all of these titles and there are several I never got on CD, such as the Gap Band, Steve Winwood, Industry, and the Doobie Brothers. Eventually, I’m sure I’ll buy more but I kind of have a maximum number in mind of around 200. If I go over that, I will need to sacrifice one to make room. It’ll take some discipline, but I just don’t want a huge wall of records taking up half my den, and if I buy too many, some will end up sitting and rarely get played.

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Well, that’s the story of my return to vinyl. I have finally put the “record” back in Michael’s Record Collection. I’ve already gotten immense joy from listening to records again. The best sounding titles to my ears are Abbey Road, Eve, and Steven Wilson’s To the Bone. But everything I have purchased so far sounds great. Don’t Look Back absolutely transports me back in time to the basement of my parents’ house when I hear the title track kick in.

It’s a fun hobby and one I didn’t enter into lightly. I’m storing my records in anti-static inner sleeves, cleaning them frequently, and am considering some affordable options for even better ways to clean them to keep them sounding perfect. I’m logging the hours of use my stylus gets. I have my eye on upgrading my audio equipment at some point. I am, in short, a vinyl nerd.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this (rather long) edition of the newsletter and I hope you’ll share it with your friends and family who enjoy music. I’ll be back to doing artist interviews and album reviews soon. In the meantime, don’t be bashful. Respond to this email and tell me what kinds of things you’d like me to cover in this newsletter.

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