Okay, who's in Burlington VT? HiFi Lounge to check out...

The internet's a weird space so never mind how I found this... but someone out East-a-way needs to do a bit of reconnaissance for us all!

Pay special attention to the stereo system here, folks.



And they're spinnin' some good tunes!

Now that’s pretty cool. I’d definitely spend some time there if I could.

We will put it on our summer road trip list for y'all ;-). Burlington is a great town. I need another run up through the islands and North Hero as well.

Looks like the food might be worth checking out, too -- Paradiso's chef is a James Beard Award semifinalist this year.

i guess we are all hipsters now:

"Our house turntable is a legendary vintage Garrard 301 modified for us by EM/IA and sporting a Schick tonearm and a Denon 103 cartridge. For visiting selectors we have a DJ booth sporting a pair of modified Technics 1200s with Das MM cartridges and a Condesa rotary mixer. Our speakers are vintage Klipschorns for that unmistakable horn speaker sound."

Nice! I need a place like this, just a touch closer to home.

I mean... I get up that-a-ways occasionally.

Burlington is a great town. I lived up there for a short while in the 90s. Too bad I'm on the wrong coast to visit it these days.

“WHY ANALOG?​

We’d argue that the sound is warmer, fuller, and more spacious than digital. More importantly, analog is about experience and ritual. By playing a whole album we have a clearer window into the artists intent and emotion that drives the music. Playing vinyl is a resistance to the algorithm tearing apart the experience of the album. It’s a less passive consumption of art.”

Yeah that’s pretty much why I listen to records 90% of the time. Not that it’s warmer, but the rest.

JohnVF said:

By playing a whole album we have a clearer window into the artists intent and emotion that drives the music. Playing vinyl is a resistance to the algorithm tearing apart the experience of the album. It’s a less passive consumption of art.

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This would suggest it is somehow impossible to play a whole album in a digital medium, which is ridiculous, or that all digital media is subject to the evils of algorithms and such. Total nonsense if you ask me, however I understand their hipster schtick.

Vinyl Disc-Jockey vs. Digital-Jockey? Yeah, I get the Vibe...

MikeyFresh said:

This would suggest it is somehow impossible to play a whole album in a digital medium, which is ridiculous, or that all digital media is subject to the evils of algorithms and such. Total nonsense if you ask me, however I understand their hipster schtick.

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It’s just a preference. And it’s how I feel and why I listen to vinyl. Some of us have a different connection to it and with “physical” media in general. Some don’t. It’s not a contest and just because I feel that way doesn’t mean you can’t get the same thing from digital.

JohnVF said:

It’s not a contest and just because I feel that way doesn’t mean you can’t get the same thing from digital.

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Definitely not a contest, and for full clarity I was quoting their hipster cool website copy, and not you personally. That said, my post stands for itself, there is no mutually exclusive aspect to the playback of full albums via analog vs. digital, nor any algorithm specific requirement to the listening of anything in the digital realm whether that be physical media (discs or their rips) or streaming from the cloud. For them to suggest otherwise is pure poppycock. One definitely can get the same thing from digital, and I know that I'm no unicorn in that regard.

Barcelona chair, G301, EM/IA…my faves!

Am I the only one who noticed a Victrola Orthophonic soundbox amongst the piccies*?




*Dr. Hardy-ism

Those 50 amplifiers -- as they used to say -- do not inhale deeply.

Lordy, and I was listenin' to PP EL34 amplificationalism last night. Apostasy!

I wrote this elsewhere awhile back as just a thought piece on records. Seems to align with their “hipster schtick” :

I'm fascinated with records not so much because I think they're better than something, but because they ARE something. Tangible, flawed, difficult to use, extremely difficult to get the most out of, THINGS that exist as physical objects in the real world, a world that's increasingly intangible. A world where the very idea of 'real' is in question.

With an LP, you are dealing with a physical reality that is extremely flawed, yet almost magical in how well it can succeed despite every inclination that it shouldn't. The forces at play are beyond miniscule. The grooves of a record can be measured in microns. One MILLIONTH of a meter. One thousandth of a millimeter. The groove itself is about .07mm wide, while the information in that groove is many many times smaller. Yet an album side is about 500 meters long, if you were to stretch that groove out.

To get music off of this incredibly convoluted idea of how to store music is not hard to do in a flawed way that, to be honest, doesn't sound very good. To get music off of it in a way that sounds, in my opinion, better than most any other way is... umm... I'll just say it's taken me about 30 years to truly figure it out to the degree that I have. And I'm still learning things.

It's a beast. It's a battle. It's incredibly finicky and, to be honest, a royal pain in the ass. But it's so rewarding when you beat it. When it's not just 'audiophile' records that sound good on it, but the less-than-perfectly recorded stuff you actually like to listen to. When the same Led Zeppelin record you had at 17 sounds better than it ever has at three times that age.

I rarely encourage people to 'get into vinyl' because I think it's something that has been over-sold as far as how easy it is to get it to work well, to sound good much less great. But I'm also thrilled to help anybody try.

Because I think we're all on a a bit of a precipice, as it is, when it comes to everything real vs everything fake. Facsimiles vs facts.

That's a lot of thought for just playing some tunes! And that's the best part about it.

(But then they use a DL-103 to do this and just lose me while running it through kilpschorns …but to each their own!)

They’re far too esoteric with their setup to be hipsters. Or maybe I’m a hipster…because if they’re hipsters then I’m totally ok with their club.

If I run the Fall rally, our overnight is in Montpelier, only about 40 minutes from Burlington. I may have to take one for the team and investigate. 😁

MikeyFresh said:

This would suggest it is somehow impossible to play a whole album in a digital medium, which is ridiculous, or that all digital media is subject to the evils of algorithms and such.

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I tend to listen to complete albums more in digital. If I'm on an LP, there are times I'm not inspired enough to play the flip side, and I put it away. I'm more inclined to stick it out if I play the digital (as I tend to queue a few albums at a time in Roon).

As to digital...who outside our "audiophile" world can even identify really good digital playback? Many today are listening to streamed, lossy music over Bluetooth. An excellent high-res mastering of a decades-old reissue sounds frighteningly good. (And I prefer this for classical, especially in DSD.)

A cool twist would be to record some of that music to 15 IPS reels for playback. That is something most of the public hasn't seen in person.

JohnVF said:

(But then they use a DL-103 to do this and just lose me while running it through kilpschorns …but to each their own!)

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They're not my cuppa either. In a noisy restaurant/lounge, it may not even matter.

I’m a big 103 fan but the only stock ones are a 103M & D, all the others are modified….

Fran604g said:

Am I the only one who noticed a Victrola Orthophonic soundbox amongst the piccies*?

Click to expand...

Probably.






🙂