Going vintage part I: Where to look?

After my first experience with vinyl I was hooked. I like many aspects about it. The deviation from digital media had a very positive effect on me. I felt less stressed and I was finally able to enjoy a whole album and not only some tracks. And so it was set, I chose to buy me a good turntable. So here I was, and I did not know where to start. I know that research is the key when you are looking for something good, but I did not know where to start looking. I was no member of any vinyl community or knew any places to look for. So I did what pretty much many people will do - search the usual suspects like Amazon or eBay for some models and google the hell out of them. So here's my experience so far:

1st step - Amazon:

A wise man once told me to look at the three star reviews to determine whether the item I look at is worth it. And this helped me a lot when browsing for a turntable on amazon. You see all those nearly 5 star turntables selling for 150-200 € and the first thing that goes through your head is: "Hey, not that expensive at all". But when you take a closer look at the 3 star reviews you usually find reviews of people who know a bit about the product. So I learned about why counterweights are important, got my first clues on what anti-skating is and found out why you never ever never ever should buy a Crosley or similar cheap turntable. (PSA: Skipping issues, may ruin your records). One review on a new Dual turntable mentioned the differences between the old and new models and how you can get a vintage one for less. That was the deciding factor to look for a vintage turntable.

2nd step - Google:
So after my trip through the depths of Amazon I got a few brand names. Namely Dual, Audio-Technica, Thorens, Pioneer, Kenwood, Rega and a couple more. So the next step obviously was to google what models they made back in the days and find reviews and other information about the models they made. I was really surprised to find tons of information and very active and helpful communities. I will write about some webpages which stood out in the future. If you want to check them out beforehand: r/vinyl - www.vinylengine.com - www.dual-board.de. These websites helped me a lot to narrow down my choices to a few brands and models: Dual 1219 or 1229, Thorens TD-180 and a Rega Planar 3. I made my choice based on quality of the original turntable, availability of spare parts and looks. Because hey, If I'd want to spent my hard earned money on a turntable and vinyl I might want it to look good.

3rd Step: ebay
To get a feeling on the costs I went to eBay to see how much a serviced one would cost. The prices varied so much that I was more confused than ever. Every seller claimed to have a perfectly serviced turntable and a special body. Fortunately, thanks to the communities mentioned above I was able to get an idea on how much a serviced turntable and non serviced turntables should cost. And I was warned to buy online with shipping from private sellers (as the turntable might get destroyed/bent or whatever due to bad packaging) I chose to buy from my local craigslist equivalent www.willhaben.at.

4th Step: Willhaben.at
Willhaben is basically the craigslist here in Austria. People sell all kinds of stuff here and it might be my only chance to find a vintage turntable near me. So I fed the search agent with the models I was looking for and a couple of hours later it yieled the first search results. The only problem: These models where either broken or not serviced as children where selling their parents/grandparents stuff after they passed away. The prices were intriguing to say the least. So the question which arose was: Buy a serviced and spend hundreds of Euros or buy a used one for 30 bucks. I knew the Dual turntables are not that hard to repair due to my previous research. So I pulled the trigger on a very nice Dual 1219 turntable with a Shure M91 MG-D cartridge and original needle. Luckily my in-laws live near the sellers location so I was able to get the turntable without shipping. And in retrospect it was the right choice.















Doing some reasearch is the key to find a  turntable. And starting with obviously bad choices like Amazon or eBay you get a grasp on what's garbage and what's not. I really recommend all the great websites dedicated to turntables and vinyl out there - just make sure it's a community and not one of those top 10 turntables to buy or Crosley related garbage websites claiming to be audiophiles. Make sure you understand what to look for when buying used. And be aware that you might have to replace some parts which cost extra (Needle, cartridge).
















Up next: Going vintage part II: Dual 1219 - the arrival.

Review: Paradise Lost - Symphony for the Lost

Review: Paradise Lost - Symphony for the Lost

Today, I'm going to review a record of a band which accompanied me through my teenage years. Paradise Lost was one of the very first bands I listened too when I was 16 years old. Not necessarily because I saw the excellece in their music but because of the song "As I die". Pretty perfect song for my "everything is bad and I must hate the world" period. But that is how it starts very often. You like one song, play it over and over again and suddenly you are into a band and start to enjoy their other songs too. So I was pleasantly surprised when I spotted "Symphony for the Lost" in the shelves on the very same shopping tour I purchased Between the Buried and Me's Coma Ecliptic record. Before I go into more detail - let's check out the record.

Paradise Lost - Symphony for the Lost

Label: Century Media

Format: 2 x Black Vinyl, Gatefold, Limited Edition + DVD
Country: Germany

Released: Nov 20, 2015

Price: 19,90 € @Saturn

Side A:
01. Tragic Idol
02. Last Regret
03. Your own Reality
04. Over the Madness

Side B:
05. Joys of Emptiness
06. Victim of the Past
07. Soul Courageous
08. Gothic

Side C:
09. The Enemy
10. Erased
11. Isolate
12. Fatih divides us, Death unites us
13. As I die

Side D:
14. One Second
15. True Belief
16. Say just Words
17. The last Time

DVD:
- First Half (with orchestra)
- Second Half (without orchestra)
- Documentary

The album was recorded live at the Ancient Roman Theatre of Philipppopolis in Plodiv, Bulgaria on the 20th of September 2014 featuring the Orchestra of State Opera Plovdiv and Rodna Pesen Choir. So far so good. The gatefold is very thick. The cover is quite interesting. At first I saw only some surreal painting. When I looked closer it is actually people dancing. The whole gatefold depicts maybe something from greek mythology. Quite interesting to look at as you find more and more details like the severed arm. Nevertheless, what you see is up to your imagination.

The 16 page booklet contains pictures of the show - mostly closeups of the band. Again the quality is really great, nothing compared to the CD booklets I was used to. I feel there could have been done more. There are no lyrics or any other informations inside. Still nice to browse when listening. 

So, Symphony for the Lost is basically a Paradise Lost Best of Live record. What struck me as odd is the decision to issue the first part of the album with orchestra (LP one) and the second part (LP two) without the orchestra. I feel a lot of potential to make this a great record got wasted because of this decision. Interpreting classics like As I Die or the slow Faith Divides us, Death Unites us with an orchestra could have been epic.

If you have been to a Paradise Lost show the Live album is no surprise. Cut the talking and play music. And the music sounds amazing. The quality of the record is good. The audience is loud, the music is clear and the mastering was done perfectly. However this does not compensate for the obvious flaws of the album. To me, the orchestra part failed. As much as I tried to like tracks like Gothic or Tragic Idol I failed. Don't get me wrong, the orchestra is good but the reinterpretation of the songs is weak. It's definitely not on the same level as Metallica's S&M. If I'd been able to see this concert I would propably been blown away by the performance but it simply does not work on this record. It's not bad but I feel the potential was wasted.

The second part of the album on the other hand is epic. Pure Paradise Lost live. There's nothing else to say. So as you can see, I am quite torn here. The album is miles away from being good and miles away from being bad. I might update this review when I get a chance to upgrade my setup but for now I can only recommend this for die hard Paradise Lost fans.

Up next: My search for a vintage turntable.

Review: Between the Buried and Me - Coma Ecliptic

With my first setup in place the only thing missing were some records. As I could not wait to finally play some nice music I went to the nearest store which sold vinyl. It's one of the bigger chains here in Austria so I did not expect to find anything good. But boy was I wrong. They had a pretty decent stock of mostly metal records. And I was even more surprised to find many bands besides the usucal suspects like AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Metallica. I had not listened to the album before, so this could be regarded as a rather impulsive decision. I got the Parallax: Hypersleep Dialoges and Parallax II: Future Sequence on CD so I knew the chances to like this release were pretty high. Did a quick check on my phone to see if the price is okay. I always do this. Not because I'm a scrooge - I'm okay with paying a few bucks more for buying local if the price is not that off. I'm often surprised that retail prices are sometimes cheaper or the same as online prices. Enough said - let me give you some quick facts about the version I bought.

Between the Buried and Me - Coma Ecliptic

Label: Metal Blade Records GmbH

Format: 2 x Vinyl, Gatefold, Limited Edition (500 Copies), 180g
Lenght: 68:31

Country: Germany

Released: July 10, 2015

Price: 22,90 € @Saturn

Side A:
01. Node
02. The Coma Machine
03. Dim Ignition
04. Famine Wolf

Side B:
05. King Redeem/Queen SErene
06. Turn to Darkness

Side C:
07. The Ectopic Stroll
08. Rapid Calm

Side D:
09. Memory Palace
10. Option Oblivion
11. Life in Velvet

 

I like the cover they have chosen for the album, quite minimalistic and and least to me peaceful. The whole concept of the album is about a man in a coma journeying through his past lifes. As serene and beautiful as the cover is, the backside of the sleeve is quite different. 

I like the constrast here, depicting the dreamstate and maybe the harsh reality on the other side. When I opened the gatefold it revealed two printed inner sleeves holding the records. There are images on the front and lyrics on the back of each sleeve. I am pretty much aware that the album is about a man journeying through his past lifes, but the pictures seem quite random. You get some feet in the sands and next to them the red cables running into/or out of the ground. The other picture is quite odd. Four people in dark robes holding torches in front of a man hanged by his feet. The inner gatefold is printed as well - depicting a hooded figure kneeling on grass in purple mist. Again compared to the front and back this kinda looks it does not belong here. As odd as they seem, the pictures are explained via the lyrics of the different songs, otherwise they seem quite random. The records themselves are pure 180g black vinyl.

So enough for the looks - time to give these records a spin. Please not that I'm writing this review based on my third setup. I replaced my cheap hifi with a vintage turntable and amp and my generic speakers with some high quality stuff. More details on the setup coming soon. The advantage is, that I can compare how it sounds on a crappy turntable with low-end speakers and a vintage model with higher-end speakers.

When talking about how the album sounds one thing stands out. It's less heavy and more prog compared to the previous releases. The clean vocals are great as ever, subtle and fit the overall theme of the album. The music seems to flow from dreamy, slow and soft parts to heavier parts. What stands out to me is how they make good use of all the variety they have in their music. The various styles and vocals are placed perfectly. Really heavy parts often surprised me as I did not expect them at this stage of the songs. Yet, that's what makes listening to Coma Ecliptic a great experience. I'm still not sold on the vocals though. Don't get me wrong, Tommy Rogers is a gifted vocalist. What bugs me on this album is that I feel like there is that the vocals vary too much. On some songs like "The Coma Machine" it feels like there's one style change too much. I get the impression they tried to hard to fit everything in. Does this make the album a bad one? Not at all.

The biggest strength of Between the Buried and me is definitely how they are able to link every song together. I listened to the whole album maybe a dozen times and if I had not have to turn the record over I would not have noticed any song ending. The songs flow in each other and overall they feel like only one song. A great story told via the means of music. And that's maybe the biggest problem of the two disc vinyl release. Turning the record often destroys what the songs where able to build in your mind. So high-quality audio files may be the better choice if you don't need anything physical in your hands and are all about high quality.

Even when the music creates a nice flow, some songs stand out as they differ a bit from the whole concept. "King Redeem, Queen Serene" is a surprisingly heavy song placed perfectly. When I turned the first record to side B I expected the album to continue as "Famine Wolf" ended. This helps a bit with the break created by changing and turning records. Somehow the album reminds me of an opera. Certain elements just throw me back to the times of Aina or old Avantasia. Here I get the impression I'm not listening to a prog concept album about a man in a coma anymore. It feels more like a fairytale. When you expect Between the Bured and Me like on the Parallax release or Colors you may be disappointed. First I disliked this change but it grows on to you.

"Coma Ecliptic" is certainly no album to listen to as background music or when doing something else. I'm listening to it as I write this and I have a hard time to concentrate on the music. This is an album which should be enjoyed without any disturbance. You have to focus on the music to grasp everything which is hidden. And it's certainly no album you like on the first playthrough. This one needs to be played a couple of times before it unfolds it's whole potential. Still, I'm not convinced that they were able to transport the concept of the album entirely.















I'd still recommend the album to any fan of progressive rock/metal. If you find this record for an acceptable price - go for it. When I compare this record played on my first setup and now there's a huge difference in quality and I always discovered tones hidden to me before. But the most important part is: You have to turn the volume up when you listen to "Coma Ecliptic". Otherwise It may sound dull at times. It defnitely needs some power to unfold.

Just a little reminder. I'm no music critic. I don't know anything about reviewing albums. I just want to write down my own impressions and thoughts as music is an integral part of my life. It's more like some therapeutic approach for me. So take everything you read with a grain of salt. You may have a totally different experience with the records I review. Oh and as you might have guessed, english is not my first language - so please excuse some minor (or major) mistakes.

Next up:
A review of Paradise Lost's Symphony of the Lost. A live album of a band I've listened to since my teenage years. And after the review I plan to write a little about my search for a vintage turntable and how I ended up with a Dual 1219.

Every journey has it's beginning...

... and the beginning may be considered straight out of the textbook. On one of my recent visits  I stumbled upon my 90s hifi in my parents cellar. It was in pretty bad shape - missing button to open the disc drive, broken speaker connection, dusty as hell. I wondered why my parents never threw it away. Nevertheless, what caught my attention was the record player on top of the setup. Some of my friends are into vinyl but I never paid much attention to it as I was happy with my humble CD collection. This time I was curious and I decided to test if it was still running. The model is a Samsung/Noblex SCM-6500.

 The only information I found on this model was from websites in spanish so unfortunately I can't give you more information on this specific model. Teenager me must have been pretty happy with this setup. Cassette decks, cd-player, equializer along with some big speakers. I can't remember ever making use of the record player on top. But before I could try this one out I had to fix the broken speaker connection. As you can see in the pic below there was no way to fix the speaker cable in place for the leaft speakers. I used some tinfoil and tape get the speakers to work. Nothing to last for ages but this would suffice for a first test.

   

Fortunately my parents have quite a vinyl collection so I had my testing material ready. Unfortunately my parents record collection consists of 90% Neil Diamond records. Among the other 10% I found an old Creedence Clearwater revival compilation album from the 70's which was probably the only album I could listen to without getting annoyed. The whole player has a very plastic look and feeling. The tonearm is entirely made out of plastic, has no counterweight and even the needle looks like one of those things you find as a gimmick in cereal boxes or kinder surprise. The platter is made out of plastic too with some rubbery patches. There is no I/O button, no tonearm lift - everything is manual. Moving the tonearm to the middle set the platter in motion. So everything was working and ready for a first run. 

It's a pretty special feeling to manually place the tonearm on the record - very different from tapping with your fingers on your smartphone to start a song or pushing a button. And it was the first time since several years I consciously listened to an entire album. I'm pretty much a victim of my own habits here. My CD collection I exclusively used in my car as I can not stand my local radio stations and even then I caught myself skipping songs to the one I like and changing the CD afterwards. With streaming It actually got worse. I found myself creating playlist after playlist, categorizing all songs I like and redo this ever other week. I actually stopped listening to music - I had my masterpieces playlist and I never listened to anything else despite of me having about 5000 songs in my library. This continued up to the point where I could not even play my favourite songs from the beginning to the end. But this time it was different. You can't skip a song this easily on a vinyl and there's no screen telling you which song is which. You have to look at the back of the outer sleeve, find the song you want to skip to, count the grooves on the record and place the needle there. Long story short - I enjoyed music for the first time in years. And I enjoyed a record I would otherwise not have listened to. I got hooked - and this was the beginning of a wonderful journey which should cost me a small fortune.

Up next - Review of my very first record
Between the Buried and Me - Coma Ecliptic