Your father-in-law was right: Vinyl records sound amazing and super cool. If you're just starting your collection journey, here's everything you need to know.
Your Miles Davis-loving father-in-law has been harping on about the superior warmth and soundstage of his pristine vinyl collection since you married his daughter, but it’s time to face the facts: Sometimes old people are right. The resurgence of vinyl’s popularity over the last several years is no joke and is showing no signs of waning. Vinyl is going strong as the preferred physical form of music in the U.S. and worldwide, easily outselling CDs.
Buy some recordsRecord collecting has looked a little different over the past couple of years, largely due to the pandemic forcing many record stores to either close, go out of business altogether, or greatly adapt their operations to more online-focused models. Good or Good+ : Not quite as straightforward as it sounds, a G grading doesn’t always mean good. Discogs describe this rating as a record that can be played without skipping but could have scratches, surface noise, or visible groove wear. The sleeve is likely split, cracked, or held together with tape.
Mint : These are perfect vinyls, having either never been played or potentially even still factory sealed. Used record retailers rarely label their records with the Mint grading. If it’s a quality bootleg , it can be a real steal, but you should always try to give it a listen for yourself if there is a listening station available.
Oh, and if you need a little help discovering record stores in your area that will be celebrating Record Store Day, we also recommend Vinyl Hub — “it’s like Discogs for record stores” the website exclaims, and it offers a great way to find a local shop. There are several different types of turntables out there, and many of them are now conveniently available in what used to be very unlikely places. The resurgence of vinyl is seeing turntables being sold at mega-stores like Target and Walmart. But don't do that. If you want to experience all the warmth and detail vinyl has to offer, and make sure your records are treated right, you’ll want to make a small investment into something with a bit better quality — you'll thanks us later.
For most newbs, a decent turntable with a built-in phono pre-amp and a pair of sweet powered speakers is all you need to fill a room with music. If you’re a Sonos person and also love your digital streaming setup, with the addition of a relatively inexpensive external phono pre-amp and the proper cables, you can use the Sonos Play 5’s line input to add a turntable to the mix for a whole new avenue of music.
Keep your gear cleanWe talked above about cleaning your used records before giving them a spin, but arguably more important is the regular cleaning habits you should adopt to keep your records and your turntable’s ever-important stylus in tip-top shape. This will help them to both perform better and last longer. We have a full explainer on how to properly drop the needle on your records you should check out, too.
How-To Record Store Day Turntables Vinyl 101 Vinyl Records Vinyl Resurgence
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