Why vinyl is kind of a miracle

[parlophone1]

17 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

I remember going into a record store to see that most of the available CD's were $20, with a VERY limited choice, mostly classical. Meanwhile, you could buy an LP for $5.00, just to give you some perspective. Now, LP's cost $30-40 and CD's are about $10-15. What a world!!

 

Yes, now is a great time to buy CDs.

In 10-15 years we will probably face the situation that we have now with vinyl, the resurrection of CDs 🙂

[ClaudeJ1]

9 hours ago, parlophone1 said:

 

Yes, now is a great time to buy CDs.

In 10-15 years we will probably face the situation that we have now with vinyl, the resurrection of CDs 🙂

According to an inflation calculator, I was paying, with tax included, $55.00 per CD back then, based on today's inflated dollars. Also my Sony CD player was $2,500 in today's dollars. How soon we forget.

[MeloManiac]

On 5/16/2019 at 2:45 PM, ClaudeJ1 said:

A better story was when my wife walked into the store to also buy me my very first CD to go with the Sony player (One on One by Bob James/Earl Kliugh), the lady asked her if we actually owned a CD player. "Of course I do, why would I buy a CD if I didn't a player for it?" The lady said that some people had bought CD's and returned them all scratched when they tried to play them on their Vinyl TURNTABLE!! (as seen on the first "Austin Powers" movie) As if the huge hole in the center wasn't enough of a CLUE. Talk about clueless consumers, OMG!

 

I was a young teenager when the CDs came out in Europe, I believe it was in 1983/84. CD-players cost more than a €1000 (let's say a months worth of wages), so I couldn't afford it at all. CDs cost €20 (or more), vinyl cost €10. So I continued to buy vinyl records until in my first or second year at university. I still have those albums (most of U2, Prince, Van Morrison etc.)

The CD sound is obviously superior to that of vinyl, but the small size of the CD and its fragile plastic case has always been an annoyance to me, so here are a couple of quick tips to make the CD even more attractive, if anyone in the industry is reading this:

 

1. Improve the plastic casing: I hate it when you drop the cd case, that the plastic piece of the hinge brakes of.
2. I hate it when the plastic teeth brake of (holding the cd in place in the case). If 3 or more break off, the cd floats around in its case and gets damaged.
3. I hate it that I need a magnifying glass to read the CD booklet
4. The small CD case simply is too small to really allow to enjoy the sometimes beautiful artwork of the albums

 

Of course, many alternative packaging exists for CDs, from cheap cardbox sleeves to expensive audiophile boxes, but to my feeling nothing can beat the size of a standard vinyl album.

[ClaudeJ1]

2 hours ago, ILI said:

 

I was a young teenager when the CDs came out in Europe, I believe it was in 1983/84. CD-players cost more than a €1000 (let's say a months worth of wages), so I couldn't afford it at all. CDs cost €20 (or more), vinyl cost €10. So I continued to buy vinyl records until in my first or second year at university. I still have those albums (most of U2, Prince, Van Morrison etc.)

The CD sound is obviously superior to that of vinyl, but the small size of the CD and its fragile plastic case has always been an annoyance to me, so here are a couple of quick tips to make the CD even more attractive, if anyone in the industry is reading this:

 

1. Improve the plastic casing: I hate it when you drop the cd case, that the plastic piece of the hinge brakes of.
2. I hate it when the plastic teeth brake of (holding the cd in place in the case). If 3 or more break off, the cd floats around in its case and gets damaged.
3. I hate it that I need a magnifying glass to read the CD booklet
4. The small CD case simply is too small to really allow to enjoy the sometimes beautiful artwork of the albums

 

Of course, many alternative packaging exists for CDs, from cheap cardbox sleeves to expensive audiophile boxes, but to my feeling nothing can beat the size of a standard vinyl album.

I share your interest in knowing the artists names who play the instruments, the lyrics, the production, etc. In other words, all the  information. They could have molded into the plastic a magnifying loupe for free, of which, I purchased many. The best loupe you can get is an old manual SLR 50 mm lens that can be had for $15-25, especially the old Pentax screw mount lenses.

[Allan Songer]

I remember hearing my first CD in around  1981 at The Sound Well in Berkeley CA. They had a huge in store event with some guy from Sony there and demonstrated the player through some super high end amp

and the big KEF speakers. Everyone was ooohing and ahhhing and then I spoke up and said “am I the only person here who thinks this sounds like crap?”  Early digital was AWFUL.

[DizRotus]

38 minutes ago, Allan Songer said:

Everyone was ooohing and ahhhing and then I spoke up and said “am I the only person here who thinks this sounds like crap?”  Early digital was AWFUL.

 

Subtlety and Studebakers seldom go hand in hand.

[Marvel]

Speaking of tape... still is being made...

 

Interesting comments here:

 

https://www.atrtape.com/sound-of-tape

 

As has been mentioned, original tapes can sound wonderful. Definitely more to maintain to make it work.

[thebes]

If cee dees are so wonderful why did  they come up with DVD-A and SACD?  My ratio of vinyl to zeros and ones is 20 or 30 to one.  While technically digital may be superior, it sure doesn't transfer to the overall listening experience.

 

Music is an emotion, it's not a clinical trial.

[kevinmi]

1 hour ago, thebes said:

If cee dees are so wonderful why did  they come up with DVD-A and SACD?  My ratio of vinyl to zeros and ones is 20 or 30 to one.  While technically digital may be superior, it sure doesn't transfer to the overall listening experience.

 

Music is an emotion, it's not a clinical trial.

That very well may be be the second smartest thing you ever said!

[glens]

56 minutes ago, thebes said:

If cee dees are so wonderful why did  they come up with DVD-A and SACD?  My ratio of vinyl to zeros and ones is 20 or 30 to one.  While technically digital may be superior, it sure doesn't transfer to the overall listening experience.

 

Music is an emotion, it's not a clinical trial.

 

They came up with those two storage formats because of their increased capacity over CD: more playing time and/or more channels of information and/or increased bit rate/depth (neither of which are necessary since the standard used on CD is already above what's needed for super-high fidelity).  Are there still titles being offered on either of those two schemes, which pretty much competed themselves to death more than ten years ago (it's like asking which do you prefer: Beta or VHS?)?

 

As to whether the technical superiority of digital over vinyl transfers to the listening experience, my ratio of >100 to one (shit, might be 200 to one) ought to answer that question.  Since I don't even have a working turntable any longer, my 30-some remaining vinyl discs are technically to be counted as zero, which makes the ratio infinity to one in practical terms.

 

So long as you derive enjoyment from nostalgia, it's all good.

[thebes]

3 hours ago, kevinmi said:

That very well may be be the second smartest thing you ever said!

Uh, oh. I said something smart.  I'm in trouble now.

[thebes]

3 hours ago, glens said:

So long as you derive enjoyment from nostalgia, it's all good.

To characterize listening to vinyl as simple nostalgia is an ill considered insult at best or a glibe expression of colossal stupidity at worst.  Please note that I am not making a personal attack against you, simply condemning your statement.

 

I have heard and experienced every, and I mean every, form of recorded playback since the Edison player came along to the smarty pants phones of today and of them all I find vinyl playback to be the most compelling in terms of sound, accuracy, and emotion. I am not nostalgic by nature. Well I admire and use well crafted equipment from the past (and the present, of course) in pursuit of audio nirvosa, it is not out of nostalgia. It's because sometimes, people get it right, and what follows is simply a pale shadow rendered in ones and zeros.

 

Maybe I'll go off now and listen to my Dolby, DTS, Atmos gobblygook 9.2 speaker surround sound system. Now there's a playback format that sounds like the real thing. Sure it does. Uh huh. Right . Very natural. Accurate. Cohesive. Comprehension. Compelling. Transcendent...

[glens]

No offense taken.  My dad had an Edison cylinder player with a large box full of cylinders - I guess left to him by a deceased relative.  Every once in a while as a child I'd flip open the lid, affix the horn, wind it up and have a listen.  I'm glad he was able to find a buyer and enjoy the cash before he passed.  Technically it was superior, with its fixed-pitch grooves and tracking angle, to a spinning disc and tonearm (with only two places the stylus is at a right angle to the groove, if the arm is bent in some way, which then necessitates anti-skating).  Unless maybe you've got a Rabco/Harman table that emulates the cutting lathe...  Still, there are way too many "synergistic" factors when reproducing a wriggling groove to get it as easily right as turning numbers back into voltage levels over fixed time.

 

As a possibility, you might consider there are folks who've been doing all this stuff, possibly at a greater depth, for a longer time than you, and I just might be one of them...

 

I respect your right to have an opinion.  Please return the favor.

[billybob]

Going to sit on my opinion a 

bit longer...

[robert_kc]

The assertion that “the standard’s used on CD is already above what's needed for super-high fidelity” is hotly debated.   I won’t beat that dead horse other than to express my skepticism that science understands all facets of human hearing as it relates to music, and express my skepticism that Red Book CD can’t be bettered in terms of audio quality.   (FWIW, I learned about Nyquist Theorem long before CDs were invented.)

Modern high-quality classical recordings are released every month on SACD.   SACD is not a dead format.  And modern high-quality classical recordings are currently sold in several PCM hi-res formats.   (Perhaps this isn’t true for all music genres.)

  
Older recordings (including LPs) can deliver significant enjoyment, and are of course the only choice for historically significant performances - in all genres of music.  With that said, if you only listen to decades old recordings, you are limited to what was state-of-the-art recording technology decades ago.

  
Many older recordings have been remastered and delivered on SACD - however, garbage-in/garbage-out – i.e., a hi-res consumer deliverable won’t perform magic on a decades old recording.   You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.   Provenance of a recording is critical.   Some remastered analog recordings as old as 1950s era can sound pretty good - e.g., a few RCA Living Stereo recordings.   For example, I have a 1950s LP pressing of this 1950s recording that sounds surprisingly good, but IME the SACD also sounds surprisingly good when played via my Oppo UDP-205 universal player and tube amps, and Klipsch speakers.    (The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto was originally recorded in 3 channels (left, center, right) on analog tape, and the SACD delivers the original 3 channels.  The Technical Notes state:  “In remastering these tapes, we kept the signal path as short as possible.”   “No signal processing was necessary to ‘improve’ these extraordinary tapes.”)

However - IME – these older recordings (whether in LP or SACD format) pale in comparison to modern hi-res recordings when delivered in a modern hi-res format.  

I mostly listen to modern performances of classical music that were captured and mastered in hi-res (i.e., 24 bit/192kHz or DSD), and delivered in a hi-res format.  My favorite format for recorded music is Blu-ray or Ultra HD Blu-ray, featuring surround sound (i.e., 5.1), hi-res audio recording quality, and high-definition video.  Hi-def video is particularly relevant for opera and ballet (because these are visual as well as musical artforms), and I also greatly enjoy watching the conductor and musicians perform orchestral music.

  
Blu-ray’s video capability delivers another benefit:  displaying the libretto of an opera on the HDTV screen, so that I don’t have to turn on a reading light and use reading glasses to try to follow a language I don’t understand in a printed libretto (with tiny print) in order to see the English translation – which is a huge PITA.  I think that the creative community has only scratched the surface regarding what can be done with hi-def video to enhance the enjoyment of music.  

There are numerous Blu-ray audio/video recordings of classical music that are excellent, as well as many Blu-ray (and a few Ultra HD Blu-ray) opera and ballet recordings.  And more are released every month.

I like the combination of vintage tube amps and state-of-the-art recordings.  On rare occasion I’ll spin an LP as a novelty when someone is visiting and they’re intrigued by LPs.   I agree that it’s a miracle that LPs can sound as good as they do, considering the technology.  However, IME - for classical music - particularly large-scale orchestral music - there is no comparison between LPs and modern high-quality hi-res recordings when they’re delivered in a hi-res format, such as Blu-ray, Pure Audio Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray, SACD, or 24bit/96kHz or 24bit/192kHz download.

IMO comparing CDs with LPs is like comparing Beta vs. VHS – i.e., none of these technologies is state-of-the-art.  Again, music can be enjoyed when reproduced at less-than-state-of-the-art audio quality.  And LPs can be very enjoyable.  I’m just trying to share a perspective that includes modern hi-res recordings.

[DizRotus]

16 minutes ago, robert_kc said:

  I agree that it’s a miracle that LPs can sound as good as they do, considering the technology.

 

That’s the miracle.

[thebes]

Ah you Angels can dance upon your digitally processed pin head, but riddle me this:

 

Have you ever, whilst playing your 128 bit heart out and head boobing away, suddenly have your head going flying off and go rolling around the floor, whilst your body crawls around on hands and knees seeking to reunite its disparate parts?

 

Happens to me every time I play Zevon's "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, on vinyl, of course.