ACDC Vinyl advice needed

Lotus-eater

I love my old vinyl and tend to play alot of ACDC and the like. I was looking at getting a couple of new (to me, ie very old) records from ebay and it seems there are now new pressings being made.
So I wonder this.
What is the difference between a £10 and a £20 newly pressed 180g record?
And what's the difference between a newly pressed record and a original one?

My heart is saying go for a original and my head is saying a new one.

I've only just found out they are making vinyl again, so any decent pointers would be gratefully received.

kinkyjinks

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I love my old vinyl and tend to play alot of ACDC and the like. I was looking at getting a couple of new (to me, ie very old) records from ebay and it seems there are now new pressings being made.
So I wonder this.
What is the difference between a £10 and a £20 newly pressed 180g record?
And what's the difference between a newly pressed record and a original one?

My heart is saying go for a original and my head is saying a new one.

I've only just found out they are making vinyl again, so any decent pointers would be gratefully received.

I'm not an expert but a quick look at Wiki indicates that the weight of the album is important to the quality with 180g being the prefered weight. So I guess if both the albums had never been played they'd both be of similar quality, unless the newer version had been remastered.

As for which do you buy, well I'd say that was a personal preferance. Me? I'd buy it new and probably in MP3 format. My OH on the other hand would pick the original vinyl any day, even over CD :eek: Do you want the best listening experience or a collectors item?

Just as a point of reference though, depending on the age of the album you want, Wiki does say that albums in the 70's are of a lighter weight. HTH.

MrsBartolozzi

kinkyjinks wrote: »

Me? I'd buy it new and probably in MP3 format. My OH on the other hand would pick the original vinyl any day, even over CD :eek: Do you want the best listening experience or a collectors item?

.

I assume from the rest of your post you would attribute digital music (mp3s and CDs) as being the "best" listening experience. This is not the case. The sound quality is altered when a digital recording is made, therefore a vinyl LP will give a truer representation of the original sound. Obviously it's a personal preference, but having experienced the original on vinyl I find many of my favourite songs are somewhat duller, less fresh,on mp3 than vinyl,

"Original sound is analog by definition. A digital recording takes snapshots of the analog signal at a certain rate (for CDs it is 44,100 times per second) and measures each snapshot with a certain accuracy...A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost"
Taken from:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

(if I've got it wrong I apologise and ignore my post:))

kinkyjinks

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

I assume from the rest of your post you would attribute digital music (mp3s and CDs) as being the "best" listening experience. This is not the case. The sound quality is altered when a digital recording is made, therefore a vinyl LP will give a truer representation of the original sound. Obviously it's a personal preference, but having experienced the original on vinyl I find many of my favourite songs are somewhat duller, less fresh,on mp3 than vinyl,

"Original sound is analog by definition. A digital recording takes snapshots of the analog signal at a certain rate (for CDs it is 44,100 times per second) and measures each snapshot with a certain accuracy...A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost"
Taken from:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

(if I've got it wrong I apologise and ignore my post:))

Well I never knew that so thank you. But I'd still pick MP3 over vinyl only because I have a load of vinyl I don't like to listen to because of the hissing and the ill treatment I gave them over the years. I'm curious now though and will have to dig out something on vinyl that I also have on MP3 or CD and do a comparison.

SUESMITH_2

i would buy the original vinyl one, but that's just me

steveeeee

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I've only just found out they are making vinyl again, so any decent pointers would be gratefully received.

Again? They never stopped!


It depends what you want out of the experience. If you want to hear ACDC on vinyl and you want a top quality new pressing, go for the new 180g. If you want a used original pressing, with slight wear marks on the sleeve showing that it's been listened to and valued, get an old copy. The only gamble you're taking is on whether the owner took good care of the record. A bit of dirt can easily be cleaned (google it) but scratches/warps are something else.

FWIW if it was me I'd go for the old pressing, but then I have a garage full of 78s

Lotus-eater

Thanks, it's all interesting stuff. I too have alot of 33's and even 78's, although I don't have a 78 player atm.

I might go for a bit of a mixture of old and new vinyl, depending on what price I can get it for.
My OH did talk me into buying a couple of ACDC albums on CD yesterday, so it will be interesting to see what they sound like. I know I've had Maiden before on CD and been dissapointed compared to vinyl.

Apart from a few albums I really wanted, I've always relied on getting lp vinyl from bootsales before, I know I've brought alot of 7"s from ebay and the quality has been varied.

They never stopped making it huh? The shops certainly stopped selling it!

Shedrock

Lotus-eater wrote: »

And what's the difference between a newly pressed record and a original one?

I don't know if it's the case with the AC/DC album you're referring to, but reissued versions of old records sometimes feature remastered tracks, or contain different mixes to the original release.

abacab

As an avid vinyl collector during the 70's,any album made before the oil shortages of 1973 was thicker vinyl than after it.The lavish gatefold packaging all but disapeared too.I have albums made in the late 60's/early 70's and they still sound superb,a lovely pink label island"In the court of the crimson king" for example.

kinkyjinks wrote: »

I'm not an expert but a quick look at Wiki indicates that the weight of the album is important to the quality with 180g being the prefered weight. So I guess if both the albums had never been played they'd both be of similar quality, unless the newer version had been remastered.

As for which do you buy, well I'd say that was a personal preferance. Me? I'd buy it new and probably in MP3 format. My OH on the other hand would pick the original vinyl any day, even over CD :eek: Do you want the best listening experience or a collectors item?

Just as a point of reference though, depending on the age of the album you want, Wiki does say that albums in the 70's are of a lighter weight. HTH.

robin_banks

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Thanks, it's all interesting stuff. I too have alot of 33's and even 78's, although I don't have a 78 player atm.

I might go for a bit of a mixture of old and new vinyl, depending on what price I can get it for.
My OH did talk me into buying a couple of ACDC albums on CD yesterday, so it will be interesting to see what they sound like. I know I've had Maiden before on CD and been dissapointed compared to vinyl.

Apart from a few albums I really wanted, I've always relied on getting lp vinyl from bootsales before, I know I've brought alot of 7"s from ebay and the quality has been varied.

They never stopped making it huh? The shops certainly stopped selling it!

It's the best format for music.

And always will be.

Voyager2002

There may be some confusion...

When they refer to a 180g LP, they don't mean the weight of the record. They mean the weight at which the cartridge ('needle') tracks. On a high quality modern record deck, you can set the tracking weight and for the LPs now being made you should set this to 180g.

As for the discussion above about the relative merits of LP, CD and MP3: firstly, MP3 is compressed and most of the transient pulses that give music its impact are lost. MP3 is great for speech and for background music, but not for serious listening. CD and LP are different (for example, maximum distortion is at high volumes with LP, low volumes with CD) and which is best will vary from one piece of music to another. One thing is for sure: to get equivalent quality from LP and from CD, you need to spend a lot more on a record player than on the equivalent CD player. And LP will not begin to reveal how good it is on anything less than a Rega Planar 3, or something like that.