Shady scams and other silly business ideas to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors

vynl has a label now

VNYL and their special turntable might be scams designed to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors, but there's nothing stupid about describing turntables as intimidating. They're a lot more delicate and complicated than digital music players. You have to make sure you've got your tonearm counterbalanced and your cartridge properly aligned etc. etc. or you might damage your records. Of course that's intimidating. You never had to worry about iTunes messing up your MP3s.

my 3yo can operate my turntable

xxp think you mean a LBL

a friend of mine just bought one of those!

o wait no, she bought some Crosley that HBO is advertising as part of Vinyl

Oh god, I'm so shit at balancing tonearms, it's unreal.

xxp

a lbl, vnyl or trntbl?

spits out toothpaste

Sorry- was it a label, vinyl or turntable?

turntable, but I got mixed up, see above post

there's nothing stupid about describing turntables as intimidating.

Disagree. It's incredibly stupid.

xxxxxxp I've had Spotify completely fuck up my mp3 tags though.

even if you accept a typical turntable as intimidating, I don't know what feature of the trntbl is meant to make it less intimidating. certainly the signal cable connecting a turntable to the preamplifier is not what would make a turntable intimidating.

i've never had a turntable mess up my mp3s

"I am comfortable setting up my turntable for optimal vertical tracking angle with my cartridge, but I curl up into a fetal position whenever I try to plug the rca cables into the back of my amp."

Colored wires? What do I look like to you- the bomb squad?

it looks like the tone arm weight has no markings. so maybe you aren't allowed to change the cartridge or stylus? because that is intimidating?

To be fair to vnyl, any sales pitch for a new gadget is going to have similar rhetoric.

The VNYL turntable wouldn't help with any of the things that make turntables complicated. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

yeah, I didn't think you suggested that. fwiw I also agree with you that a turntable is obviously more intimidating to young folk than say a phone with spotify on it, and I don't understand why people would push back on that. I just thought it was funny how the trntbl didn't actually do anything to address this controversial aspect of turntables.

http://i.imgur.com/EQEq7Mb.jpg

turntables are far less intimidating than iTunes

i've never tried to give a friend a vinyl record and had the turntable grab it and say "yeah you can't do that, this stays right here"

i've never taken out a protractor and optimized the position of a DAC output pin on a pcb etc

this argument is absurd

"I've played over 100 hours of itunes on this spacebar. Time to order a new spacebar. But will this half-priced aftermarket Swiss spacebar fit my keyboard?"

gonna hook my mouse up to the azimuth meter and confirm the channel balance, just a sec.

i have never heard of any of those things and have been listening to records for 20 years. RCA cables aren't rocket science.

With the same needle???

I just want last.fm to pick up my plays, man.

no, separate players. i've gone through 3 maybe 4 turntables in that time.

never had to change out a needle. one i think i came across moving into a new house and there was a stereo already in the room someone was leaving behind. one was bought at a thrift store for like $20 bucks. you can still find plenty of second-hand ones around that still work.

well "work" and "sound good" are two different things

fwiw I've replaced my needle once in 20 years.

I guess a turntable isn't so intimidating if I treat it less like a delicate transducer and more like a disposable object of abuse. *stomps away from thread, arms folded*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IgF6_jVaj8

*stomps away from thread, arms folded*

I hope your turntable is vibration-isolated!

oh no, my pristine setup! let's try this again! *softly shuffles away from thread, unscrews turntable's grounding wire from the preamplifier's case and waves it around as an expression of displeasure*

"fwiw I've replaced my needle once in 20 years."

dude, what the hell, that's gross. don't do that. buy a damn needle.

you should have seen the one and only time i tried to figure out soulseek years ago. now THAT was scary.

i don't actually buy needles as much as i should though. maybe once every year or year and a half. ideally i should get one every six months. i play so many records every day. on my work and home turntables.

So should I keep chasing down legit Stanton brand needles on the web forever (they don't manufacture them anymore themselves) or just go ahead and get a new non-Stanton cartridge so I don't have to deal with it? This "Stanton approved" off-brand needle I got is terrible and/or I have no idea what I'm doing with set up.

Speaking of needles is all.

e-mail needle doctor. they are really very helpful! and they know their stuff. they would probably give you a list of good options.

Consumer and Vintage Needle Sales
A fantastic source for information on vintage needles and belt replacement.

http://www.needledoctor.com/Contact

Thanks!

Getting a new needle is always a happy day!

definitely. especially now that I know the aftermarket stuff sounds fine.

VNYL and their special turntable might be scams designed to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors, but there's nothing stupid about describing turntables as intimidating. They're a lot more delicate and complicated than digital music players. You have to make sure you've got your tonearm counterbalanced and your cartridge properly aligned etc. etc. or you might damage your records. Of course that's intimidating. You never had to worry about iTunes messing up your MP3s.

― JRN, Wednesday, May 4, 2016 2:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FYI literally hundreds of millions of people throughout history have used turntables with very little trouble

i mean, is a bicycle intimidating? to a three-year-old, possibly.

that said, it's all relative, right? my mom would have no idea how to use an iPod. it's actually kind of tricky to turn on, turn off, figure out how to scroll through a collection, etc. if you haven't spent most of your life using GUIs.

In a tangentially related moment, Barnes and Noble is now featuring a $150 single speaker tabletop radio in their stores.

i mean, is a bicycle intimidating? to a three-year-old, possibly.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, May 4, 2016 10:59 PM

Bikes are usually intimidating the first time you try to ride one.

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--13TFAQTi--/18ln3lx994ethjpg.jpg