I recently found my father's old record player and vinyl records. I turned the player on and it appears to be working. Is it okay to play the records now after all this time? They are about 30 years old. Or will I damage them if I try? I'm ready to dust these off and give them a spin.
gofar99 Messages: 1969 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, Playing them regardless of age is not harmful. However they should be cleaned, at least dusted. Perhaps more importantly the stylus (needle part of the phono pickup) is probably worn or damaged. It really should be replaced before you play anything. If there is a "dud" LP you could use it as a test record and see if anything actually works. Replacement stylus are available for nearly all cartridges. You tend to get what you pay for in them. Cheap ones can possibly damage the records as much as an already bad one. High priced ones are probably overkill. The turntable itself will probably need to be cleaned and re-lubricated. The grease tends to dry out cause it to not operate correctly. My suggestion is to go to vinylengine.com and log into the forums there. There are a lot of great folks and they don't mind assisting newcomers. There are service manuals and plenty of good tips as well.
Thanks for the helpful info, gofar99! I took your advice and checked out the other site too. The record player is in good shape, but it needs a new needle. I found someone local who can fix it. At least I hope so.
The good thing about vinyl is that it is durable. I wonder if the digital stuff that we have nowadays will be able to last that long. Or is it just a matter of proper storage? It'd be interesting to play some of the records from my father's collection.
gofar99 Messages: 1969 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, Good storage is important, modest humidity and temperatures that are not excessive. LPs standing on their edges in the sleeves. Preferably with good liners. I use ones by MoFi. Putting the jackets in clear covers helps preserve them as well. As for playing...I have several original pressings from the 50s, 60s and 70s that play perfectly. Care and good equipment are really key to this. LPs from later periods are often iffy in quality and were not well made or recorded. New ones from the past few years however are beginning to up the ante and many are quite good. The technology is returning. Funny thing, its demise was premature. Sony has just announced it will start producing LPs again. It stopped in 1989. LP sales now ...if you can believe what is reported account for nearly 20% of purchased durable music media. What it means is CDs are dropping as well as all tape formats. i believe that I read recently that LP sales now were at the highest level in nearly 30 years. Amazing. I won't get sucked into the argument that they are better or worse than digitals, but they are different and being able to hold something in you hand has a certain appeal over something stuck in a PC or player. Do you really own the digits? The LP is yours and a bankrupt digital service (or cloud service) can not take it away.
So far, all the records are good except for one that skips too much. What's amazing is that even the records with a few scratches are playing better than CDs with scratches ever did. That's puzzling.
I think as a society, we tend to think innovation makes products better, so I'm wowed by the richness of the music coming from these old records and vintage Yamaha turntable. It feels like you're there, with the band. You can hear all the different layers of sound.
gofar99, I learned all about the difference between owning a license to use something while it existed and owning the actual product outright when Walmart closed up its .99 music store. Sadly, this idea has made it's way into non-digital products too ,including some John Deere lawn mowers.
gofar99 Messages: 1969 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, perhaps a bit OT, but I really think putting music (or anything else) on the cloud is a big mistake. If the cloud server company goes tilt, the cloud itself is corrupted, the web crashes and any of numerous things happens you may lose everything. Even keeping the material resident on your PC is not enough. I have duplicate copies of everything electronic on back up drives that are not near the PCs. For really sensitive things, two backup copies. It may be old school thinking, but I don't have a lot of faith in or trust the integrity of the cloud and web in general.
I agree with your assessment of the cloud. I keep a mirrored copy of my hard drive so that I can just put it in if my PC goes. I back up regularly and it is a good idea for everyone to do it. Not old school, just good advice!
gofar99 Messages: 1969 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
A bit OT...Keep two mirror copies. Flip flop them as you do back ups. That way if the PC gets something like a virus and you didn't know and copy it in one mirror the other while slightly older will get you back in business. With drives so cheap now, I keep one of the original configuration, and two to flip flop for backups. I am not a fanatic, and only do the back ups about once a month. It saved my hide about a year ago when a ransomware hit me.
If you clean them well you shouldn't have any problem. You might just have stumbled into a gold mine there. Some of those old records can bring a pretty penny.
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