Waxing nostalgic over vinyl records

It's got nothing to do with 'retro' and everything to do with depth of sound. Digital is exacting to the point of too much perfection for the human ear, which is highly attuned to the nuances of timbre, overlaid harmonics and rhythms that digital music has eliminated from the listening experience. Just a musician's point of view, of course, probably not worth sh*t to people who plug things into their ears and destroy their hearing.

At $4000 for the limited edition 1200, Panasonic has CLEARLY been smoking something off. No DJ in their right mind will pay that ransom for a turntable that has barely been improved over the original that had NOTHING wrong with it. Clearly, the bean counters at Panasonic figured that they could make some easy money based on all the groups out there demanding the 1200s be brought back into production.

Panasonic is about to feel the full fury of those groups soon. Already on facebook, several groups are outraged at that price and are contemplating buying other brands as a form of protest. I have already bought a pair AudioTechinca AT-LP1240USB super OEM turntables which may look different but have the same guts as the 1200s. To hell with bean counters gouging us for profit. Panasonic, you have truly disappointed your long term loyal customers.

LoL-What? No 8-Track tape players?

No DJ in their right mind will pay that ransom for a turntable

I agree. Way too overpriced. But at least the Bluetooth feature allows for "ripping" into digital files from the actual vinyl.

I shipped my LPs over to Japan in the mid 90s & listen to them off & on, maybe now I shud look into getting a TT rip them to a hard drive so I can balst them in my car etc as well!!

I have occasionally been buying some J-vinyl as well for my nephew back home who got into it a bit & loved I cud buy J-vinyl pretty cheap!!

Don't know that it can be characterized as "waxing nostalgic" for vinyl as nearly every "album" made by serious artists today is issued on vinyl as well.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6538585/us-vinyl-album-sales-up-by-53-in-q1

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/27/sales-music-vinyl-18-year-high

Fact of the matter is there is still no widely available digital format that isn't compressed to some degree.

While this player appears to be very good, it's still using physical playback format with a long list of downsides (improperly made records, needle mistracking, turntable rumble, wow and flutter, and being a physical playback format, both the record and record needle will eventually wear out).

Besides, there are increasing rumors that Apple is about unveil an improved Apple Lossless digital audio format with the sound quality equivalent to 24-bit 96 kHz sample rate digital audio--in short, the same audio quality as studio digital audio master tapes. With none of the downsides of the LP format, this could be the future of music sales, especially using H.265 digital compression, which could make file sizes with the new Apple Lossless format not much different than the music you can buy from the iTunes Store now.

wipeoutJAN. 13, 2016 - 09:34PM JST That's not an issue - in particular as every single drawback you list is exaggerated (I mean, turntable rumble, for Christ's sake?)

That was pretty much eliminated in mid- to high-end turntables forty years ago.

Vinyl still has a place (for some people), but it's never going to be mainstream again. It can, though, with decent and properly maintained equipment, be audiophile, and both the software and hardware are durable.

Beyond this, even if you want to have everything digital, how many "music lovers" today even own proper stereos systems? Who listens to music communally anymore? You can spend $400.00 on your headphones if you want, but a well produced CD played through an amp and speakers is the only way you're ever going to know how your music really sounds if you don't want to listen to vinyl.