Not new vinyl though.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Heavy sigh.Why why why do these kids want ticks and pops? I don’t get it.“There's a depth to it. There's also sometimes you get that flat surface noise the pops and cracks,” said Hale.
The person who wrote the article must be a millennial... they used the term 'vinyls'.
And no, I dont get the infatuation with surface noise, limited dynamic range, low signal to noise and ritual either. The instant I could get away from ticks, pops and hiss I never looked back.
My very first CD player, in 1984, was a Sony CDP-101, if memory serves. It sounded somewhat brittle, the high end was very strident. It still sounded head-and-shoulders better than any of the several turntables I’d owned, including Sony SL-10 with the moving coil MPS-310 cartridge (if memory serves). Of course a lot of that was the total elimination of surface noise and distortion.
CD players got smoother and more musical with time, to the point that today I think all of them are pretty darn accurate. So I just don’t understand what people are listening on that leads them to describe “vinyls” as “smoother.”
And I wish -- just to continue the thought -- that somebody could explain to me, in plain language using small words and simple grammar, what this "depth" is that people keep claiming for LPs. I have a few CDs that display greater depth than most others. They are binaural recordings. On my speaker system, in binaural recordings the instruments spread out in a soundstage BEHIND my speakers, as if looking into a room (with your ears) where the instruments are playing. Most CDs (and all LPs that I know of) are not recorded binaurally, and the sound pops out in *front* of the speakers. You don't get a "soundstage" so much as a collection of mono recordings, mixed on top of each other, often with relative volumes that are totally unrealistic. This, to me, is not "depth."
The best of these mixes can be clear, with each individual instrument (or voice) audible -- but there's no mistaking it for live music. It sounds like "a recording." An unrealistic totally artificial -- though not necessarily unpleasant -- recording.
It's like the difference between a painting and looking out a window. Some painters went to great lengths to paint realistically, particularly the Dutch Masters. Others -- Klee, Picasso, Rothko -- paint canvases that can be intriguing but would never be mistaken for a photo.
And yes I know I sound like a broken record about this stuff. I know I'm in a "Popular Judea People's Front" of one person here. I'll shut up about it. Sorry.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 10-22-2019 at 11:41 PM.
^ The best I could probably do is this: With vinyl LPs, I've noticed I can crank the volume up much higher without it ever sounding shrill or harsh, which I've never experienced with CDs.
It's less about the soundstage, for me at least, than it is the sonic feel -- and of course the ritual of using a turntable and taking out the LPs. Plus, the colored vinyl is really pretty.
By "outsell" they're talking about revenue, not units, right? Aren't most vinyl releases premium products, that sell for much more than their CD counterparts?
^They are, and yet, still this article keeps coming around with that misleading headline. It's because of the price of these new 'vinyls'. When you bear that in mind, it's not remotely surprising.
The title IS misleading because the decline in CD sales has been happening for some time.
The reason, most people are either streaming or downloading digital versions of a song or album.
The statistics only reflect physical media sales.
I don't know why this reference to clicks and pops always comes up in any discussion of vinyl and what a terrible listening experience it is.
People who care about their vinyl are very careful to take good care of it, cleaning and storing them properly, including the correct sleeves, will most often yield a quiet non crackling or popping audio experience.
And if you factor in new vinyl releases, most are super quiet.
It's also important to have a good turntable and stylus, setting the proper weight and anti skid settings.
Although I understand people not being interested in vinyl and how digital done properly in this day and age can sound wonderful, I believe their opinion of vinyl is based on decades old experiences.
I have both options available to me, and I can do side by side comparisons and to me in some cases a vinyl record sounds better on my system. Especially some of the new remastered vinyl.
Soundcloud page: Richard Hermans, musical meanderings https://soundcloud.com/precipice YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@richardhermans4457
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
downloads are what is killing CD sales, not vinyl.
For me, the best CD players/dacs did not surpass vinyl in sound quality for at least another decade after '84.Originally Posted by rcarlberg
I found it much easier to listen "around" the slight noise of vinyl, because it was separate from the music being reproduced. The brittleness and strident sound of early CD/DACs was reproduced as part of the music. There was no way to ignore it, or listen "around" it.
The only aspect of sound reproduction that vinyl surpasses CD, as far as I am concerned, is soundstage depth and width, and image specificity and 3D quality. As I've explained before, this seems to be due to 16/44.1 not being able to reproduce the extremely low interaural time differences the human auditory system is able to detect.CD players got smoother and more musical with time, to the point that today I think all of them are pretty darn accurate. So I just don’t understand what people are listening on that leads them to describe “vinyls” as “smoother.”
And I wish -- just to continue the thought -- that somebody could explain to me, in plain language using small words and simple grammar, what this "depth" is that people keep claiming for LPs. I have a few CDs that display greater depth than most others. They are binaural recordings. On my speaker system, in binaural recordings the instruments spread out in a soundstage BEHIND my speakers, as if looking into a room (with your ears) where the instruments are playing. Most CDs (and all LPs that I know of) are not recorded binaurally, and the sound pops out in *front* of the speakers. You don't get a "soundstage" so much as a collection of mono recordings, mixed on top of each other, often with relative volumes that are totally unrealistic. This, to me, is not "depth."
This problem is corrected with higher res PCM and DSD. It is not until 96K PCM where the ITD resolution is high enough to get below the threshold of human audibility of 7 microseconds.
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 work with teens everyday and they all stream exclusively, with only the older ones buying the occasional vinyl for the artwork.
None of them care about fidelity.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
This has been my experience as well. 95% of them are listening to all of their 'music'* through their smartphone speakers. It's about as full and lush a sound as you'd get from an old transistor radio. I have seen young people from time to time at the record store or at record shows though, which is nice to see.
* - I use the term 'music' loosely, as to my ears what most of them are listening to is a series of computerized noises and samples with angry men speaking overtop of them. I certainly don't hear any musicians.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
No, in terms of units, new CDs sell double the amount of new records. That's what is misleading.
http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2019/10...s-do-the-math/
I can only laugh at people paying out for reissues of common 70s/80s albums that you could get the original copies of for basically pennies even ten/fifteen years ago. Madness.
Thank you for posting that. Always makes me laugh.
This is certainly true, hip-hop music is not designed to show off high fidelity.
But these 'vinyls' that everyone's buying, are they hip-hop? Or vintage music from the LP-era?
Last edited by rcarlberg; 10-23-2019 at 12:04 PM.
That makes sense. Thanks
The mix as a whole sounds more open and transparent. The reverb in particular sounds lighter, airier, and more free flowing. Plain enough for you?
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
OOOOhhhh!!!!.... Goodie, another chance for....
and here is my 0.02p why one wouldn't want to buy (new) vinyls
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-vin...ver-1500721202
They're putting it deep in your arse.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
They're buying everything, It's a big, big world.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
Biggest selling records in the US last year:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/c...se-prince-porg
Abbey Road has previously been Number 1 and might be again this year due to the release of the remix.
My response to what little of that article I was allowed to read, without subscribing: 1) Most reissues are cut from the original analog tapes. 2) Even if it's from digital files, it's typically from higher res files than a CD. 3) For this reason alone in my mind, new vinyl records are well worth the price of admission: vinyl records can't be brickwalled to death like digital media can. If records were, they'd be unplayable. It'd be like running one's stylus over a saw blade.
Here's yet another very compelling reason the buy new vinyl records: the artists get their cut. They don't see a thin dime from anything sold on the second-hand market.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
By that logic, downloads provide the artist with the most revenue with the least investment.
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