advantages of compact disks (CDs)
over vinyl—you’ll never hear a CD pop
or click, and you can access any track
instantly—the supposed perfection of
the format was overstated. Of course,
the companies were just as over-the-top about LPs. Here’s a quote from my
vinyl copy of Tony [Bennett]’s Greatest
Hits, Volume III: “You can purchase
this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future.” Pioneer
audiophiles felt that way about Edison’s cylinder phonograph of the late
1800s and the 78-rpm shellac disks of
the early 20th century. And even as
the “never obsolete” vinyl promise
was being made in the 1960s, guys in
lab coats were dreaming up cassette
tapes and eight-track tape cartridges.
Then came the CD in the mid-1980s,
What to PLAY THEM ON
New For state-of-the-
art players, Stereophile
editor Michael Fremer
suggests websites such
as musicdirect.com and
elusivedisc.com, where,
for example, the very
good Pro-Ject Debut III
turntable sells for
around $349, including
cartridge. Cheaper
turntables, which play
through your CD ampli-
fier, sell for under $100
at big-box stores such
as Target, Walmart, and
Kmart. Most also sell
self-contained record
players: Crosley (crosley
radio.com), a name in
audio since 1920, makes
a line from $79.95 to
$249.95. Some have CD-
recording hookups, but
isn’t that cheating?
Used Goodwill and
Salvation Army are a
budget-vinyl lover’s pals:
for $35, I found the same
model Fisher stereo
I sold at a yard sale a
decade earlier. — B.N.
and everyone knew that vinyl’s days
were numbered. But like those an-
cient tiny mammals that predated the
dinosaurs—and then kept skittering
around the feet of T. rex and his pals—
vinyl never completely disappeared:
throughout the ’90s, hip-hop DJs
spun vinyl disks, manipulating the
turntables by hand for musical effect.
The Sound of Silence
It wasn’t the sound that sold us on
CDs—it was the absence of it. Your
first CD experience was probably a lot
like mine. I was working at a tabloid
newspaper in Florida, and one day
the publisher called me into his office.
“Siddown,” he barked. As always, I did
as I was told. He just sat there staring at me, cigarette aloft in one hand.
Then, suddenly, the crashing opening
chords of Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Ital-ien came barreling out at me from two
large speakers. I leaped to my feet, as if
to escape. My boss clapped his hands
and laughed, sending ashes flying.
“It’s the silence,” he said glee-
