Just before Christmas and the most surprising sales phenomenon is turntables. I knew we would be supplying lots of streaming solutions but never expected that over 100 turntables in 3 months wouldn't be enough!
Clients of all ages are interested, fuelled by media articles about the 'vinyl sound' and how vinyl record sales passed the million mark in 2014. Some are choosing Rega RP1s from £ 230 and getting into vinyl for the first time while others are finding vinyl that has been sitting about for years and giving it a new lease of life. The whole experience of lifting an LP from the cover and placing it on a turntable is a tactile delight we thought was disappearing so the resurgence in interest is brilliant.
We have even been treated to Sir Paul McCartney on a tv interview saying that Beatles' music sounds better on vinyl than cd!
Who knew? Has he not been listening for the past 25 years?
At Lyric we have always said that music sounds great on vinyl and that cds had limitations, even the best ones had a different sound character
That is also why we have been so impressed with high quality streaming, which is better than cd and in some circumstances better than vinyl. I stress the high quality part, while it is great to have so much music on Napster/Spotify/Deezer online the performance is about a quarter of cd. And they dont have most of the Van Morrison collection!
Streaming from a hard drive from an uncompressed ripped cd can be fantastic, comparable to vinyl, and Studio Master quality is even better. The 'can be' caveat applies because we have streamers from Sonos and Denon that can stream through your hifi from £ 279, and do a good job, but a Linn DS is a different world and can also do justice to Studio Master performance.
As for arguing which is definitively better then it can be very close and can come down to the software choice
I have some cds that sound great and some that sound poor, and the same applies to my vinyl collection.
I can pick particular music to prove it either way but I think that a Rega RP3 or RP6 is a great value way to get excellent sound.
Move above that into a great streamer, Linn/Naim at £ 999+ and it will not only sound superb from ripped cds it sounds amazing from a Studio Master source.
A new addition to streaming is a service called Tidal. This online stream of music is true cd quality offering a huge range of music and also details of the band that's playing, a fascinating and useful tool.
I thought £ 19.99 was expensive until I started using it embedded in the latest Linn DS software.
If you want to hear how good vinyl or streaming can sound, or if you want to find out more about how streaming can work in your system then call in, and if possible give me a call first so that I can have something appropriate setup and ready to go.
Fascinating times!
