Monologue: You Should Get Into Vinyl - Better Offline

Summary

Better Offline Podcast Episode Summary: "Monologue: You Should Get Into Vinyl"

Release Date: July 4, 2025
Host: Ed Zitron (Ed Z)
Podcast: Better Offline by Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

Introduction

In the July 4th episode of Better Offline, host Ed Zitron delves into an unexpectedly analog topic: vinyl records. Amidst his ongoing discussions about his mental health journey, Ed explores how embracing vinyl has become a therapeutic tool for relaxation and personal growth. This episode weaves personal anecdotes with technical insights, providing both an intimate and informative exploration of the resurgence of vinyl in the digital age.

Ed Z's Journey to Vinyl

Ed begins by sharing his struggles with mental health and the conscious effort he's making to find relaxation amidst his challenges. He states:

"A big part of feeling better about myself has been finding ways to relax. I'm not like a lot of people, so I've had to... [00:36]"

Recognizing the need for a calming routine, Ed turned to older music, rediscovering artists like Joe Cocker, Charles Mingus, Lee Morgan, and Van Morrison. This rekindled his appreciation for music's depth and authenticity, steering him towards the tactile and immersive experience of vinyl.

Discovering Vinyl: The Field Trip That Changed Everything

The catalyst for Ed's vinyl journey was a spontaneous field trip with his friend Tori Elliot. Initially resistant to change, Ed found himself intrigued by the sight of vinyl records:

"I really have to sit down and say, like, look, Ed, you're gonna try and work out what relaxing feels like... [00:36]"

He recounts their visit to Music City Inn in New York City, a treasure trove of vinyl records, which sparked his interest and led him to purchase his first record player.

Understanding Vinyl: A Technical Overview

Ed provides an accessible breakdown of how vinyl records work, demystifying the technology for listeners unfamiliar with the medium:

"It is delightfully analog... [01:45]"

He explains the main components of a record player—the platter, belt, spindle, motor, tone arm, needle (stylus), and cartridge. Despite his admitted lack of technical expertise, Ed simplifies the process, making it approachable:

"In simpler terms, it's quite literally record player go. Brrrr. [04:15]"

Setting Up: Investing in Quality

Choosing quality equipment was crucial for Ed to avoid damaging his records. He invested in the Orbit Basic turntable from U Turn Audio and their Ethos speakers, emphasizing the importance of good quality needles and cartridges:

"Based on a little googling, it seems getting a cheaper record player can literally destroy the records... [06:10]"

Ed highlights features that enhance user experience, such as a built-in preamp, which simplifies the connection to speakers, and a Q lever to gently handle the stylus.

Curating the Collection: A Musical Expedition

Ed's quest for the perfect vinyl experience led him to curate a diverse collection of classic albums from the 60s and 70s, sourced from Discogs.com. His selections include:

Joe Cocker – With a Little Help from My Friends
Charles Mingus – Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
Lee Morgan – Cornbread
Van Morrison – Moondance
Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf (Remastered)
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue (UHQR Limited Edition)

He explains his rationale for choosing both original pressings and high-end remasters:

"I wanted to hear them as they were played on release... [08:30]"

The Vinyl Sound: Beyond Myths

Addressing common skepticism, Ed asserts that vinyl offers a superior auditory experience compared to digital formats. He shares his observations after listening to both versions:

"And no, it's not really a myth at all. The originals... all sound different, old, but not in a way that's crackly or bad. [09:50]"

Specific differences he highlights include:

Percussion Presence: "The percussion feels a bit more present..."
Bass Tones: "The bass tones are a bit more forceful..."
Overall Warmth: "It feels rounder, it feels more alive."

Ed acknowledges the potential for psychosomatic effects but firmly believes in the tangible benefits of vinyl:

"I've listened to this album a great deal digitally... It just sounds different in a nice way. [10:45]"

Personal Transformation: The Vinyl Effect

Adopting vinyl has profoundly impacted Ed's relationship with music. He describes a shift from passive, repetitive listening to a more engaged and deliberate experience:

"Vinyl sounds warmer and more present... [11:20]"

This transformation has not only improved his appreciation for music but also served as a therapeutic ritual, helping him stay present and mindful:

"I found peace and happiness in LPs, and I think you will too. [13:00]"

Conclusion: A Call to Embrace Vinyl

Ed wraps up his monologue by passionately recommending vinyl to listeners seeking a deeper, more fulfilling musical experience. He emphasizes the joy of the ritual and the enhanced emotional connection facilitated by vinyl records:

"Give it a go. If you've been considering it... I can't. I just cannot recommend it enough. [12:50]"

Key Takeaways

Therapeutic Benefits: Engaging with vinyl has aided Ed's mental health by providing a structured and immersive form of relaxation.
Superior Sound Quality: Vinyl offers a richer, warmer sound that enhances the listening experience beyond digital formats.
Deliberate Listening: The nature of vinyl encourages listeners to engage more thoughtfully with music, fostering a deeper appreciation.
Community and Craftsmanship: The current golden age of vinyl is supported by passionate audio engineers and enthusiasts dedicated to preserving and enhancing the medium.

Final Thoughts

Ed Zitron's heartfelt exploration of vinyl on Better Offline serves as both a personal narrative and an informative guide for anyone curious about the resurgence of vinyl records. His journey underscores the profound impact that tangible, analog experiences can have in a predominantly digital world, offering listeners not just music, but a pathway to mindfulness and emotional well-being.

Note: Timestamps referenced correspond to the episode's transcript for accurate attribution.

Transcript

Ed Z (0:00)

This is an Iheart podcast.

Dexter Thomas (0:04)

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-IHeart Callzone Media.

Ed Z (0:24)

Hello and welcome to your weekly better offline monologue. I, of course, am Ed Z.

Tori Elliot (0:33)

What's up?

Ed Z (0:36)

And this week, I'm going to be talking about something completely analog. Vinyl. Okay. It's not completely analog. There's some electricity. Anyway, now, some of you might have paid attention to how I've been talking the last few months about my mental health journey and all that shit. And a big part of feeling better about myself has been finding ways to relax. I'm not like a lot of people, so I've had to. I have to teach myself things. I really have to sit down and say, like, look, Ed, you're gonna try and work out what relaxing feels like. And I've literally had to teach myself. And I'm getting close. And a lot of this has been about returning to older music and letting things just kind of play instead of pecking around. So the older music in questions like Joe Cocker, Charles Mingus Lee Morgan, Durando, Van Morrison. And as part of this, I decided to get into vinyl because I was walking around with my dear friend Tori Elliot, Wired, and she said, we're going to go on a field trip. And I said, I don't like change. Where are we going? She took me to Music City Inn in New York City, and it was just full of vinyl. And I thought, you know what? This looks like fun. I want to get one of these. Every week I'm in New York, so I have been doing so, and it's been great, genuinely. It's been wonderful for me. And I want to kind of walk you through why and how vinyl works, because surprisingly enough, there's not been a ton about it. There's been a lot of audio pervert stuff, and there's been people saying, oh, vinyl's having a resurgent. Fuck all that. I just want to talk about listening to it. So if you don't know how it works, it is delightfully analog. And it's. I did not know how it worked before, so I had to look it up. So a record player is made up of a few pieces. The platter, where you put the record. The belt that spins, the platter, the spindle, which is the thing that you put the record on like the hole in the record goes on that the motor which turns the platter to spin said record and the tone arm which holds the needle or the stylus, which sticks onto the record and goes along the grooves of the record, sends the signals to the cartridge, which is the little box on the top of the stylus that takes the vibrations and turns them into electronics called signals that play music. Signicles. We're not editing yet. I'm just gonna let that one fly. Now. If I miss the piece there, do not bother correcting me. I'm not gonna edit it, not gonna fix it. But in simpler terms, it's quite literally record player go. Brrrr. Now I basically only spend my money on Diet Coke and going to baseball. So I allowed myself a little bit of an extravagance. I got myself the Orbit Basic turntable from U Turn Audio, which is the wirecutter's budget pick, along with their Ethos speakers, which set me back about a grand. You can go cheaper on record players and speakers, but I think this is absolute get what you pay for. Based on a little googling, it seems getting a cheaper record player can literally destroy the records because if the needle and the cartridge aren't good, it scrapes them. I didn't really understand why, but it sufficiently scared me. I'd also already bought the other things, so it didn't really scare me that much. I should note that I got the Orbit Basic because it has a preamp built into it, meaning that you can just plug it directly into some speakers rather than having to get a separate amplifier. If you're not super technical, just know that this means a plugo read in a yellow cables red and white maybe into a speaker rather than a giant box that has a bunch of other stuff. I also got something called a Q lever, which is a little arm that delicately raises or lowers the arm and the stylus onto the record. You need one of these. You must have one. My ape like hands would probably just shove the needle repeatedly into the into the record, destroying a beautiful Relic of the 60s. Anyway, all this took about 10 minutes to set up. And it was mostly because I was learning how record players worked as I went. And also I was on two hours of sleep and I'm 39 years old. I shouldn't be taking a red eye. You have to loop the belt around the platter, which is the round bit, and then click some stuff into place, then connect the speakers with the cables that come with it and there you go. You just kind of start playing records. Now, as far as actually getting records, I'm a nasty freak. So I decided to go to a website called discogs.com which is both a great place to organize what records you have and buy the ones you don't. I decided to get a selection of classics from the 60s and 70s originals. Joe Cockas, with a little help from my friends Charles Mingus, Black Saint and the Sinner, Lady Lee Morgan's Cornbread, Van Morrison's Moondance. In part because I wanted to hear them as they were played on release, and in part because these are records that came out when my mum was in her 20s, which is when I moved to New York. So I was kind of like, ah, fuck it, play records like my mum. I also got a few newer records and remasters of things like Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf and working with the Miles Davis Quartet, as well as this insanely high end limited edition pressing of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. Because I was curious and I had some Amazon credit. Now, the reason I got such a selection was I was curious whether things sounded different based on how old they were and whether the whole vinyl sounds better. Thing was a myth. And the answer is, yes, they do sound different. And no, it's not really a myth at all. The originals from Mingus, Morgan and Morrison all sound different, old, but not in a way that's crackly or bad. The percussion feels a bit more present and the bass tones are a bit more forceful. It feels. I don't even know how to say it because I'm not a music journalist, but it feels rounder, it feels more alive. And I realize this might be psychosomatic, a thing I'll say later, but, and I'm gonna be honest, like Cockers help with help from my friends. I've listened to this album a great deal digitally. It's down pitch and it has a softer feel to it and it just sounds different in a nice way. Describing sound with words is difficult, which is why I'm not a music journalist. But the way this record plays was and is incredibly special. And what was heartening was even the cheaper, by which I mean 30 buck records I got, like Herbie Hancock's Imperial Isle or Art Blakey's Caravan. They still played marvelously. And I must say, Caravan is a fucking incredible record. Just the drums at the beginning is insane. I just. I stood up and I did the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing thing at my record player. And all of this is possible because we kind of live In a golden age of vinyl, we've got these dedicated audio engineers who dig out master tapes and perfectly press them onto these gorgeous, gorgeous records. And they sound amazing. And my favorite example of that is this UHQR pressing of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue I mentioned earlier, and it came from this company called Analog Sounds, and it just sounds insane. Like the instruments are in the room and Miles Davis is watching me write a post saying, what if Anthony Bourdain saw JoJo's Bizarre Adventure? I don't think Miles Davis would love that. I think. I think Charles Mingus might have liked JoJo, but I don't think Miles Davis would have. This is based on my very thin knowledge of jazz history. Email me if you if you have any thoughts about this. Watch. Famous musicians would or would not like JoJo, but nevertheless, the UHQR stuff is insane. I'm gonna put a link to them in the notes I'm gonna find. There's a story from the times, I believe about them. It's just there are people dedicated to vinyl right now, more dedicated than any tech CEO, and they love it. And perhaps it will destroy them like a cursed amulet. But they have found this incredible way of recreating music. I guess if you could even call it that. And it sounds just bonkers. I've already ordered a few others because I really wanted to hear Steely Dan's dirty work on an extremely expensive vinyl. And I'm not even being sarcastic. That song is a complete banger. And if you disagree with me, you're simply wrong. I love listening to vinyl. It's changed how I listen to music for the better. The convenience of digital audio means that I have this kind of bad habit. I imagine some of you do as well. I skip around, I repeat songs. I find myself stuck in these musical ruts where I'm just listening to one or two songs again and again and again because of my emotion or state or because I want to feel a certain way, because I want to sustain a mood or banish a mood. And while that can be useful, kind of takes the fun out of music at times. Vinyl obviously naturally forces you to sit with at least one side of it. And I found myself keeping going regardless. Like, I'll flip it over. Now. Redditors and engineers will argue that vinyl does not sound better, but I, a moron, fully disagree. I've listened to LPs, I'll sleep when you're dead, maybe a hundred times, an MP3, that song, that album even got me through college without it I would have probably got on the train out of Aberystwyth and simply never returned. Wouldn't have gone back to London either. But that album helped me. And I will tell you, the vinyl based version is different. The synths are more insistent, it feels dystopian and brutal. It's overwhelmingly dire. And it's because vinyl sounds warmer and more present. And I don't know if this is all in my head. I really do not. But I am someone that is naturally a bit cynical. And I'm just having more fun listening to music than I ever have in my life. Instead of those loops, instead of finding myself kind of just using music as a tool, as just a thing that exists in my life, it's become this deliberate, not even mood setter because sometimes, you know, you might feel like an album, you don't feel like a song. And you'll find yourself really enjoying something you didn't really think of. Marjorie off of with a little help from my friends. For example, a song that I on on my mp3s would skip every time has this warm Hammond organ shit to it. This just sounds marvelous. And you can also talk about music in this incredibly insufferable way, like I am right now. But I don't know, insufferable or not, I'm having the time of my fucking life with this. And I really recommend you do too. The ritual of putting on a record feels good, the sound's amazing, and we're in this digital age defined by convenience over joy. And it's a deliberacy and a way of focusing more. Even if it's on in the background, it feels more significant. I don't know I'm talking in the wanky way that I'd usually make fun of AI people for, but this is music. You can be emotional, you can be esoteric with the things you love. You're not hurting anyone. Telling people that vinyl is superior or makes you feel better because it is a very personal experience and you can quite literally travel back in time. You can pick up things from the 60s or the 70s and hear it as they were then. And yeah, there are some crappy vinyl pressings. I'm hearing the no Doubt's Tragic Kingdom just doesn't have a good vinyl release, which sucks, because that's one of my favorite albums. But it's helping me return to albums I love and listen to them deliberately and with just a whole new different soundstage, I guess you'd call it. I don't know whether or not this is exact or not. Whether it's anything more than just the ritual and the environment that's making me feel this way, I feel fucking good doing it. And I can't. I just cannot recommend it enough. Give it a go. If you've been considering it. I found peace and happiness in LPs, and I think you will too. Did it occur to you that he charmed you in any way? Yes, it did. But he was a charming man. It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story. Because this ties together the Cold War with the new one, I often ask myself now did I know the true Yan at all? Listen to Hot Agent of chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.