The apples to apples comparison is between the physical formats, not streaming or downloads. The story of the vinyl revival is that during an era when annual CD sales are falling off a cliff, vinyl sales actually make significant increases every year.
As I said in an earlier post, most independent stores report that the majority of their revenue now is from vinyl, not CD, and the shelf space proves it. In other words, vinyl (in the US, anyway) is disproportionately popular among people who use brick and mortar locations to buy music.
My hunch is that vinyl will taper off. CDs will be around till the boomers are gone, or maybe as long as Gen-X is around. There is going to be a huge market for lossless albums with more dynamic range that will get everyone to re-buy back catalogs again. Hi-Res doesn't seem to have taken off. It doesn't necessarily mean better sound. Most HDtracks/Pono downloads are from the same shitty, compressed masters and up sampled. Some do have more dynamic range. I know it's a crude measurement, but the last few DT releases on HDtracks have actually been listenable.
I agree that it will taper off, but as it goes, so will go physical media. Physical media is the product of a technological and cultural era that has passed. IMO there will never be another physical format that is adopted by mainstream music listeners. Who would buy it? Younger people have already been weaned off the notion that music is something that is purchased, album by album. Streaming is where it's all headed.
I agree with the caveat that what will replace the once beloved album art, lyrics, gadgets etc. will be a multimedia delivery: along with the digital download of audio files provide nice graphics/art, texts for lyrics (maybe real-time to the music), bios, videos etc. Perhaps an app. / provide exclusive content like a light organ designed just for the album, blah blah blah. I'm surprised this isn't more prevalent already... just my stinkin' opinion. Getting that stuff would make me feel better about not having a nice gatefold album with nice cover art.
If someone proved, once-and-for-all (just hypothetically) that vinyl sounded no better than any digital medium (in all cases), would you still buy vinyl (assuming you do now)? If so, does that mean it's something like the packaging or the experience of playing vinyl that you prefer (aside from sound quality)?
Actually, the vast majority of music is recorded in hi-res, even by bedroom hobbyists. The finished product has to be down-sampled to CD quality for CD production, not the other way around. The only time up-sampling is used is when older 20bit recordings are up-sampled to 24bit.
Yes, I would and do. I like vinyl and the sound of vinyl and have old vinyl records that sound superb. Having said that I think the jury is in and vinyl looses any objective test - I've been following this for years and years and my conclusion is that this is totally subjective. Objectively, CDs (or CD and better digital audio) is superior technically in every way to vinyl if measured by instruments. Furthermore, I have never seen a reputable double-bind test that shows vinyl sounds better than digital. People may prefer vinyl because it introduces distortion and less dynamic range perhaps lending that "warm" sound. You also have less and less playback material the closer you get to the end of the record - think about that - it's directly analogous to slowing the tape speed when recording with obvious results. The problem I think, lies elsewhere. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war).
Here's one interesting article: http://www.laweekly.com/music/why-cd...-vinyl-5352162
"As long as you can measure the difference, the CD will be better than the vinyl, absolutely," says Kees A. Schouhamer Immink, a former Philips engineer in the Netherlands, who was a member of the Sony/Philips task force that created the compact disc standards. "But if you say the whole experience — just like smoking cigars with friends — [is better], well, do it. Enjoy smoking cigars with friends, and drink beer and brandy and enjoy listening to an old-fashioned record player. But don't say the sound is better.
"You may say it sounds better to you. That's OK. That's a subjective matter."
Last edited by spacefreak; 06-14-2016 at 03:26 PM.
Phono cartridges, like speakers, are transducers. In other words, they turn mechanical energy into electrical energy (speakers do the opposite, turn electrical energy into mechanical energy). That is why they are susceptible to colorations. Not because of the order they fall in the reproduction chain.
You can't really consider the cartridge the second component in line after the stylus. They are one system. Stylus shape, cantilever material and length, whether their is a magnet on the end of the cantilever (MM) or a coil of wire (MC), compliance of the suspension, etc, etc all alter the sound of he entire system.
Shibata, micro line, line contact stylus shapes distort less than elliptical (which is the standard on most cartridges), and they track better. And they cause less record wear, also.
Most cartridges have aluminum cantilevers, which tends to add more coloration. Better cartridges use boron, which is less colored than aluminum.
There are also complex magnet configurations, exotic (nonresonant) cartridge body materials, etc.
Change one of these, and the sound of the cartridge changes.
And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell
I have a theory on the rise and fall of CDs and LPs, it's not original to me but it might be worth throwing out there.
The Baby Boomer generation (born approx. 1946-1964) came of age 1966-1984, which roughly coincides with the vinyl peak. So much great music was created and released in these decades -- we're still talking about and collecting it!
Around 1989-1994 CDs began appearing en masse, and many of us LP collectors dumped our collections to buy everything once again on CD (or sometimes two, three times). This coincides with the peak of CD sales. After our LPs had been replaced, there wasn't near the volume of good new stuff coming out, so sales fell off. Sales continued to fall as the Boomers passed their peak spending years, and now in our 50s to 70s we just don't buy much of anything.
Meanwhile, our kids and grandkids grew up with everything available anytime for streaming or download, so possession became a non-starter for most people. Why buy it when you can hear it anytime you want for free?
A few kids (and grandkids) discovered their fathers' (and grandfathers') LP collections, for the few that held onto them, and discovered value in the artwork, sound and ritual -- but I don't expect the revival to ever amount to more than a blip on the downward spiral to obsolesence for all physical media.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 06-14-2016 at 06:42 PM.
ditto - my daughter borrows cds from the Library and puts what she likes on her ipod. Is that wrong? maybe but its the future. She probably has more cds from presents I gave her. The other point about LP's for me is when I approached 1000 LP's they took up a lot of room, and were very heavy. I keep the favs but fit 2000 cds in less space.
Well, I don't think that will be happening, but I do think that people in the US who like to shop at brick and mortar record stores may as well get used to seeing vinyl on the racks for the foreseeable future. I don't see the point in denigrating either the people or the format - if one likes the record store experience then one should be grateful that vinyl is helping to keep it alive for a while longer. I don't buy anywhere close to what I used to, but I still like to go to a good record store once a month or so and go through the racks. There's probably a lot more shrinkage of the retail industry still to come before we settle on wherever it will be in, say, 20 years or so.
Didn't iTunes attempt that with the iTunes LP? HDtracks gives you the booklet in pdf which is nice. Thing is, I don't want to sit in front of a screen for everything. To me, it's exhausting. So, I hope some sort of physical product is available. I'm telling you, there's a market for lossless downloads and gatefold sleeves
EDIT: I might be wrong, but I think digital comics have not taken off.
I'm no expert. My conclusion with all of this hi-res stuff is that the focus is in the wrong place. It's the mastering and mixing that makes stuff unlistenable..compression..low dynamic range. I guess the stuff at HD tracks is 'not' down sampled, but left in the it's initial 24bit. But, if the master is 'loud' then the hi res will just be hi res loud. The reason some vinyl, HDtracks and SACDs sound 'better' is not because of hi-res. It's because of the more dynamic/less compressed master used. My point is that the hi-res movement is not addressing the loudness wars which is where the problem is.
You nailed it! Especially with the dearth of good music after we re-bought everything on CD. Hence the remasters and then the deluxe remasters etc. I'm sad my kids won't really get into music like I did and be able to pay attention to it as we were essentially forced to vinyl. However, the kids having iPods is so much easier than a tone of CDs laying around.
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