Probably, many of those who read this material caught the era of gramophone records. In any case, among people over 30 years of age, there will be a clear majority of them. For example, I still have an impressive stack of records at home. Basically, these are, of course, children's fairy tales (or as they are called now, audiobooks), there are musical recordings of some incomprehensible and faded nowadays pop stars of the time of the socialist sunset, and there are really interesting records - Vysotsky, Okudzhava or, for example, a double album Pink Floyd, the origin of which I have no way to establish ... Whatever, I remember these records perfectly well, because they were part of my childhood, I remember listening to them on the heart-rending player (however, it became clear only now), not paying much attention to clicks, crackles, sound distortions, irregularities, detonations and other attributes of vinyl reproduction, well known to music lovers of the 70's - 80's. However, it is impossible to say that I was in love with gramophone records. I just had no alternative. When this alternative appeared (probably in 87 years) - in the face of black, shiny, with a streamlined body and built-in stereo speakers, two-cassette JVC (by the way, still working properly and sounding to my taste, much more interesting than modern "boomboxes"), the old player and the entire collection of records was immediately forgotten without regret. Listening to cassettes on a Japanese tape recorder was much more convenient, and that the sin of melting, much cooler.
Sometime later, CD players appeared on the market, and it seemed that with their appearance, which opened a new digital age in the recording, vinyl records and their players should irrevocably sink into the summer. Indeed, user-friendly CDs required virtually no maintenance, had an unattainable purity of sound (almost complete absence of extraneous noise during playback), provided instant access to any track recorded on the disk, and the players themselves did not need any cleaning, care or adjustment.
Time has passed, but gramophone records and equipment for their reproduction do not think to leave the market, keeping a small, but quite stable, and lately even a growing niche. If in the very beginning, after the appearance of digital media and equipment for their reproduction, this fact could be explained by a certain inertia of thinking of people who are used to gramophone records, as well as nostalgic for the sounds of clicks and rustles produced during their reproduction, now, after two decades, such explanations are not suitable. It is all the more surprising that among vinyl buyers there are very young people who simply cannot feel any nostalgia due to their tender age.
It's no surprise. People refuse vinyl players for two reasons. Firstly, they are not satisfied with the sound quality of the players (low signal-to-noise ratio, small dynamic range, limited bass, and treble capabilities), and secondly, they find the process of disc playback too tedious - cleaning and the need for proper storage of the records themselves, setting up the players and complying with all the boring regulations of their manufacturers. If there is nothing to be done with the second circumstance - the recorders need to be cleaned and turned over, and the players need to be adjusted not once, but periodically, in time, to change the needles, to protect them from the harmful effects of the environment, the first, i.e. the low quality of sound is a question rather controversial. The fact is that few people listened to a good record on a good and perfectly tuned player. I have such experience. I can't say that I was shocked and said goodbye to digital audio technology, throwing away my entire CD collection. Such populist statements you can hear from the militant fans of vinyl recordings, which in excess can be found at all kinds of audio exhibitions and in thematic Internet forums. I like how good CDs sound on good equipment and my ears do not kill the presence of notorious "digital artifacts", which preachers of "true" analog sound say. Nevertheless, I have admitted that vinyl recordings can sound no worse than CDs, although not worse - it is not quite the right word that characterizes only the level of noise, dynamics, level of detail and spatial resolution. It would be more accurate to say that they sound different. The sound of a vinyl player did seem more natural to me, more like a live musical performance. Another thing I noticed when testing record players was that their sound was not tiring at all. Usually, after a few hours of tests you leave the listening room with a completely "cast iron" head, and here, after spending the whole day in the company of "turntables", there was no fatigue insight. I am not ready to conclude from this fact, but this fact leads me to certain thoughts.
All of the above is given on this channel to explain that all those horrors in the playback of gramophone records (clicks, cracking, unevenness of sound and much more) are attributes of poor quality or improperly tuned players. Setting up the player correctly is not as trivial a task as it seems at first glance. I likewise read in Robert Harley's book: "There's nothing easier than losing vinyl incorrectly. On this channel, we will touch upon the aspects of proper setup, and first, we will get acquainted with the device of gramophone records, players, and give the basic concepts and terms that are used in this industry.