Teens say they like vinyl records over CDs

[Geoffcin]

A Canadian scientist says teens who used to view CDs as superior to older vinyl records now consider vinyl superior to the newer format.

Full Story;

http://www.physorg.com/news64807495.html

[JoeE SP9]

So do I!:cool:

[Bernd]

Me too!:)

Bernd:16:

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Am I going to listen to the opinion of group of folks who chose MP3 over DVD-A and SACD? Don't think so!

I can understand their objection to what is being offered on CD.

[texlle]

Finally...

My generation gets it...

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Finally...

My generation gets it...

Or not!

[Florian]

Vinyl rules.....and so do i! Muhahahah :cornut:

[E-Stat]

Finally...

My generation gets it...
Or at least some members do. The passion for music transcends any generation. Nice system!

rw

[Woochifer]

You mean the college crowd has stopped downloading MP3s and started listening to more of their music on turntables than on iPods? :rolleyes:

If anything, I've been hearing about this vinyl lovefest among the twentysomethings since at least the early-90s when alternative bands like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam pressured their record companies to put out vinyl releases of their albums. I've just yet to see the proof that it's amounted to anything more than a lot of talk and a few extra albums sold. I mean, has it actually translated into notable gains in market share or changes in actual listening habits? The sales figures for new LPs indicate not, since one hit CD can still outsell all LP titles combined. While vinyl's image has been turned around into this hip and anti-establishment embrace and the DJ market alone will keep the format alive past the next ice age, it's one thing to say that you're a vinyl fan for an academic study and quite another to prove it by actually buying vinyl. (Doesn't sound like the study includes any listening tests either, so it's really more about gauging perceptions and biases than trying to validate anything)

I love my vinyl and still have a turntable plugged into my main system, but these types of studies that talk about how consumer attitudes are so supportive of the vinyl format IMO reflect a lot of wishful thinking. Sure, these teens will SAY that they love vinyl (face it, the CD format is about as exciting as a 20-year old washing machine), but the finding means absolutely nothing if the vast majority of teens continue to download music; use iPods, computers, and car audio systems for most of their listening; and buy far more CDs than LPs. I would love it if vinyl were truly on the rebound, since it means more stores would carry LPs, turntables, and vinyl accessories. But, the evidence of a rebound big enough to make any kind of ripple in the market has been lacking from what I've seen. IMO, vinyl remains a niche market and probably will remain so even after another digital medium (whether high res, or multichannel, or downloading, or on-demand streaming) supplants the CD format.

[audio_dude]

I'm 14 and I love vinyl records, not because they are "hip" but because I love the music and some of it was only released on vinyl, also, I was raises around turntables and audio equipment, we were the first family on the block to have a "home theater". A harmon/kardon receiver, passive sub, celestion mains...ahhh, the joy of 2.1, lol

[texlle]

I just need a phono preamp so I can revive my 1976 B&O Beogram 3000. It works perfectly and looks new. Some kids don't know what good audio is these days...investing in infinity and monster cable. Give em a little dose of The Wall on LP amped by some tubes. Mmmm...doesn't get much better than that.

[emorphien]

I've been meaning to get a copy of The Wall. So far a good sample has eluded me.

[Mr Peabody]

I think the operative adjective in that story is "music enthusiasts". I've had vinyl since childhood and still do but it hasn't inspired my children yet to be vinyl lovers nor any of their friends. Look at the music chains that have died lately. I think it would be the same and the industry was the same when there was records. The majority of teens, I feel are into the downloading of music and sharing music on MP3's or whatever and care less what the sound is like. Well, let me retract that, it has to have some bad ass bass. On the other hand, some one is buying vinyl again. It's obvious that vinyl has made some what of a come back. Whether it's a passing fad remains to be seen. I can't remember the label but one of the big companies have recently reissued several titles on vinyl. So if the big boys are joining in some one smells money.

[PAT.P]

A Canadian scientist says teens who used to view CDs as superior to older vinyl records now consider vinyl superior to the newer format.

Full Story;

http://www.physorg.com/news64807495.htmlThey dont say if teens were on drugs at time .I know by experience in the 70 after having a few I just sit and round and round the vinyl would go and if there was a great lable it put me in a trance:ihih:

[texlle]

Well, i just now had a little and i can literally hear the static on my burned copy of red light district, and it's a good copy. Never been able to do that before, haha. And I'm playing it quietly. http://www.celicatech.com/imagearchive/chris/smileys/hippy.gif

[PAT.P]

Well, i just now had a little and i can literally hear the static on my burned copy of red light district, and it's a good copy. Never been able to do that before, haha. And I'm playing it quietly. http://www.celicatech.com/imagearchive/chris/smileys/hippy.gifPeace Love ,Flower Power and if you cant smoke it dont grow it:ihih:

[DaHaq]

I view the vinyl resurgence as a direct reaction to the availability of MP3s. I don't believe for a second that the kids are interested in vinyl because of any real improvement they can hear in sound quality. Sure, they've heard that its supposed to sound better, and that becomes part of the appeal, but IMO you need a pretty good rig to hear the difference, and that's something the vast majority of teens do not have. The real reason for the comeback is that kids can download anything on MP3 for free, and then what is a CD but a flimsy five inches of plastic with some artwork you have to squint to see? Much better to buy the LP for its uniqueness and beauty and continue doing most of the actual listening with the MP3s on your iPod. Especially when many new LPs are cheaper than their CD counterparts and used vinyl is even less.

[shokhead]

I say BS. I bet you could take a poll of 100 13-16 year olds and plenty wouldnt even know what a record is,come on.

[JohnMichael]

I have a nephew who is now 17 and when he was young he made fun of my turntable. I think he thought it was for spin art. As he learned to love music and play the guitar all of a sudden turntables were cool. So for his 15th birthday I gave him my Thorens table with AT 440 ML cartridge. He thought that was so much better than the usual cash. He has purchased a lot of new and used vinyl.:5:

[PAT.P]

I have a nephew who is now 17 and when he was young he made fun of my turntable. I think he thought it was for spin art. As he learned to love music and play the guitar all of a sudden turntables were cool. So for his 15th birthday I gave him my Thorens table with AT 440 ML cartridge. He thought that was so much better than the usual cash. He has purchased a lot of new and used vinyl.:5:JohnMicheal Thanks now I know there another purpose for my 4 turntables none hook-up .I'll call Phono Art,a few blob of paint and let it rip.Any advice for Reel to Reel?:ihih:

[swwdts]

I was in my pre- teen years when vinyles were just like the older 8 tracks slowly fading away.I listen to old music groups like Ozzy/Black Sabbath & kiss.Their music sounded like sh.. on vinyl.But,when it got re-mastered to cd .It sounds alot better.Although,I hope they start doing more mini cds ( The size of a half dollar coin or a NGC console game)

[dwass5656]

I think certain albums need to be heard on vinyl to really understand how great the music was. (to our childrens children by the Moody Blues comes to mind right away) I am in my mid 20's, have a tiny vinyl collection but have since claimed my fathers massive collection when he passes (hopefully in about 35 years) but I love listening to records, something about the sound just seems to flow better.

dwass



Listen to Fake Tales Of San Francisco (Album Version) by Arctic Monkeys : http://www.napster.com/player/tracks/16351031

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Have any albums sold more than 50,000 copies on vinyl since 2000?
If they want to do a study I can find some teens who prefer the sound of wax cylinder or only listen to music played backwards. The biggest factor is that these people are so rare that it doesn't matter what they think, they can't change an industry that caters to the masses.

[nightflier]

Kexo, R&R Ninja,

You're all focusing too much on sales of new LP's. Most of the vinyl that is being sold is second-hand. The one thing I have noticed is how these have gone up in price over the last three years, both on eBay and at the flea markets. A good-quality LP will sell from $3-5 now, and if it's out of print and not available on CD, the sky's the limit ($30-60?). Now I don't know of many used CD's that sell for that.

I've also noticed that TT prices have gone up online, more so than what could be attributable to inflation. It's not significant in a let's-invest-our-retirement-savings-in-vinyl-sense, but it is interesting from an academic perspective. I would argue that maybe this is more about rebellion than anything else; rebellion against commercialization, high prices, bad music, repetitive playlists, and yes, also bad quality. When we were teens we wanted to belong, right? That's what teens want now, too. They see movies like Forest Gump, Almost Famous, Detroit Rock City, and they are amazed at how much more exciting life was for kids their age 20-30 years ago. Most kids today have never been to a a rock concert (attending the final of American Idol with prompted applause signs doesn't count). Tell them what a Kiss, RunDMC or Cool In The Gang concert was like, and they won't believe you. So they want to wear the same clothes, have the same parties, and listen to the same music. Most of that music is not easily found at Walmart or Circuit City. So they turn to LP's because its a rebellion in the medium as well as the music. It's kuuul, as they say on South Park.

And if in doing so they discover that it sounds a lot better than an MP3 and often better than a CD, what is the harm in that?

[shokhead]

I just bought a remastered Boston for 30 bucks. Worth every penny.

[Resident Loser]

...it's hot, it's now (in a cool, retro way) and there's money to be made from it...

So gather up your single-sided shellacs and Gramophones, your waxen cylinders and your Edison Talking Machines...there's gold in them thar hills...and dales...(and if you don't get the reference, you're just not old enough)

My collection is overwhelmingly them big ol' 12in. black things...

jimHJJ(...cactus needles anyone?...)

[shokhead]

How does those 12 inchers play in your car?

[Feanor]

A Canadian scientist says teens who used to view CDs as superior to older vinyl records now consider vinyl superior to the newer format.

Full Story;

http://www.physorg.com/news64807495.html

Does vinyl sound better? Do I know? I'm not sure. Do I care? Definitely not.

I gave up on vinyl circa 1985 when I accidentally smashed a brand-new and expensive (at least for me) stylus. All the rituals of handling those huge plastic wafers had already become a pain in the butt. Yeah, my Yamaha C2 CDP was a bit like glass splinters on the top, but it didn't have rice krispies.

I refuse to look backwards. Actually, slinging CDs is becoming a bit of a nuisance now that I'm old and past my prime. Give me my iTunes and USB DAC -- that rules :cornut:

Time for vinyl -- and this thread -- to die, die, die :ciappa:

[Resident Loser]

How does those 12 inchers play in your car?

...I have 12 inches but, I don't use it as a rule...RIM-SHOT!!!

jimHJJ(...once they're recorded onto 8-track they're great!!!...)

[AudiosAmigos]

well, teens SHOULD like vinyl more than cds - and they probably SAY they like vinyl better - but are they just being hipsters? probably. too bad. cuz vinyl is the BEST!!
i LOVE vinyl - but i'm old. & i'm like dwass - i inherited my dad's collection. which is amazing - hendrix orig. pressings? yes!!
(love the arctic monkeys, btw, dwass.)

[shokhead]

...I have 12 inches but, I don't use it as a rule...RIM-SHOT!!!

jimHJJ(...once they're recorded onto 8-track they're great!!!...)

Odd,i use mine as a ruler. 12"=1':ihih:

[shokhead]

well, teens SHOULD like vinyl more than cds - and they probably SAY they like vinyl better - but are they just being hipsters? probably. too bad. cuz vinyl is the BEST!!
i LOVE vinyl - but i'm old. & i'm like dwass - i inherited my dad's collection. which is amazing - hendrix orig. pressings? yes!!
(love the arctic monkeys, btw, dwass.)

Pretty tough to carry around vinyl and listen to it as most teens do with music.

[nightflier]

Pretty tough to carry around vinyl and listen to it as most teens do with music.

That's the ubiquitous argument against Vinyl. I've been hearing it for 20 years now, along with the one about playing records in the car. Fact is, people move around a lot less now than they used to. It may not be healthy, but it's a fact. When I was young we used to play outside all the time, but you hardly see that anymore.

Most kids stay indoors and while iPods have their place, like it or not, playing records is a new trend that is growing.

[shokhead]

Your kidding right? Guess teens around where you are must be different. I dont see a teen outside without music. I also dont know any that just sits there and listens to music. They have it on while they do everything. Quality doesnt count. Quanity does.

[nightflier]

Not to start on stereotypes, but it also has to do with the music styles. LP's have always been popular with the DJ crowd (even with the new "scratching" & mixing cd players), so I suppose that's one group that still uses them. But I've also noticed that the most popular records at the local swap meets and online are the 60's & 70's classic rock & disco stuff. This is not your typical DJ crowd, but I would venture to guess more the sit-down-and-listen crowd.

As an aside, I was at a student center at a local campus and my wife & I were sitting next to group of kids who were discussing, or rather bragging about the speakers they had. And while I was expecting the usual Infinity & Klipsch names to come up, they were actually throwing out names like Bohlender & Vandersteen. Granted, the students around here have a bit more money to spend, but that still threw me for a loop. Maybe they were talking about their old man's speakers, I don't know, but at least they know a bit about good sound - those companies don't make iPod speakers.

[shokhead]

I'm thinking Newport is different then North Long Beach. LOL

[GMichael]

TT's do have their advantages. The first few plays do have a better sound than a CD. But that advantage doesn't last long as the crackles and pops begin. I had a huge LP collection and have worn out every record. Some I even bought several times, recorded them to tapes and kept the records as masters. But as the tapes wore out and I made more & more copies, those masters wore out too. In all the listening that I've done, I have never wore out a single CD. I'll take that trade off. Others would rather have those first few plays that are better more than a 1000 plays from a CD that aren't as good. I can understand that. Why not? Some people would rather eat a 6 oz filet than a 16 oz NY strip. Sometimes, I'm one of them.
Kids are getting into TT? Do they know why or is it just a passing phase? Although there are some youngin's here who, I'm sure, understand why, I don't believe that the masses do. They are just followers. Maybe some of them will learn why though. Maybe I'll remember why and get back into it myself. But not until life slows down a little.

[Woochifer]

Kexo, R&R Ninja,

You're all focusing too much on sales of new LP's. Most of the vinyl that is being sold is second-hand. The one thing I have noticed is how these have gone up in price over the last three years, both on eBay and at the flea markets. A good-quality LP will sell from $3-5 now, and if it's out of print and not available on CD, the sky's the limit ($30-60?). Now I don't know of many used CD's that sell for that.

Sorry about the tardiness of the response, but I hadn't followed this thread for a while!

Anyway, you're right that a lot of vinyl is now traded second hand, but there's no data as to how many units are actually sold (especially compared to how many used CDs change hands). As for what drives prices for LPs, a lot of it will fall under the typical factors used in evaluating collectibles -- scarcity, condition, and demand.

Unlike with CDs, the vast majority of LP titles are now out of print, and the prices for LPs can vary wildly. Also unlike with CDs, the condition of the LPs will vary a lot, as will the sound quality as you look into different versions and press runs of a particular title. With LPs, collectors will scrutinize the condition of the record (mint, near mint, VG++, etc.), as well as which edition/press run it came from. LP collectors will also look for pressings made from earlier stampers, which presumably are a closer match with the original lacquer master.

CDs don't need this kind of scrutiny with the condition (it will either play or it won't play) and might not have gone through as many remasterings or version changes as LPs, so their prices are more driven by simple supply and demand. The LP market is very different because the condition and sound quality of a particular title will vary from copy to copy, which makes the scarcity dimension far more prevalent.


I've also noticed that TT prices have gone up online, more so than what could be attributable to inflation. It's not significant in a let's-invest-our-retirement-savings-in-vinyl-sense, but it is interesting from an academic perspective. I would argue that maybe this is more about rebellion than anything else; rebellion against commercialization, high prices, bad music, repetitive playlists, and yes, also bad quality. When we were teens we wanted to belong, right? That's what teens want now, too.

With the turntable (and cartridge) prices, it boils down to simple economies of scale. Turntables are not mass produced on the scale that they were before. Not a lot of turntables made now date back to the vinyl heyday, but plenty of cartridges do and I can tell you that the prices on those units have gone way up. The Ortofon OM20 that I used on my turntable and continually replaced since 1985 used to cost me $60. Now, it goes for $190. The Shure V15 cartridge in the mid-80s sold for $150, and cost less than $200 when it went out of production in the early-90s. When Shure brought it back a few years later, they increased the price to over $300 and produced at a much lower volume.

I don't know if it's rebellion against commercialization, because if anything the MP3 downloading culture has a definite anti-establishment and anti-commercial angle to it. Like I said earlier, I've been hearing about vinyl revivals for at least the past 15 years and everytime I hear about it, it's phrased as if this revival is a new thing. When Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and a whole slew of indie rockers were touting the virtues of vinyl in the early-90s, that was hyped up as a sign of a vinyl revival, and the vinyl revival talk has periodically popped up ever since. IMO, it's nothing more than an evolution of a niche market that never went away in the first place.


That's the ubiquitous argument against Vinyl. I've been hearing it for 20 years now, along with the one about playing records in the car. Fact is, people move around a lot less now than they used to. It may not be healthy, but it's a fact. When I was young we used to play outside all the time, but you hardly see that anymore.

While it's true that teens don't play outside as much, what they do indoors typically does not involve sitting in front of their stereo playing LPs either. Just look at the size of the video game industry if you want to see how teens occupy their time!

And while teens don't play outdoors, they still like to carry their music with them wherever they go (they may not exercise, but they do drive). Not really a new phenomenon here either, since before MP3 players, we had Walkmans, and before that we had boomboxes and 8-tracks. Why do you think prerecorded cassette sales passed LP sales before the CD format was even launched? Lack of mobility is often cited as a reason why multichannel music has so far failed to catch on with the teen crowd.


Most kids stay indoors and while iPods have their place, like it or not, playing records is a new trend that is growing.

While anecdotally it might seem like a growing trend (and maybe it is), MP3 player sales in 2005 totaled more than $4 billion, which more than tripled the $1.2 billion in sales tallied by the ENTIRE home audio component market. The iPod definitely has its place -- basically in a dominant position and bigger than the combined remainder of the home audio market.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6319031.html

[Mr Peabody]

The things I've been hearing are true. And even though kids are in the digital age with Ipods, some are definitely into vinyl and Classic Rock.

I was at a gathering over the weekend and just sitting in a room drinking some ice water. In the room was several kids ranging from 10 to 15 and one had a guitar playing at it. I began to listen to what they were talking about which was music. That's what caught my ear. These kids were telling each other they had Tom Petty, The Stones, Zepplin and other Classic Rock artists in their collection. One kid bought some kind of all in one stereo from K-mart which had a turntable and he had a few vinyl records. I didn't even know those kinds of stereos were still available. I know things seem to come back into style after so many years but darn, am I that old. I was truely astounded. I thought they would be into the latest Pop or Alternative being force fed on the radio today.

[Sabbath_Bloody_Sabbath]

im 15 and i listen to old music (60s/70s predominantly). until i was about 12 i listened to nothing but classical (very intense pianist), until i was introduced to new "music". after listening to the disgusting mess that is new popular music for about a year, i stopped and borrowed my dads old beatles cds (unfortunetly my mom had him throw out all his vinyl when they got married...there was just too much of it :ihih: ) named revolver and sgt peppers. at the time those names had no meaning, besides a gun and a soldier! however by 14, i had started listening to what would become staples of my music: led zeppelin, the beatles, the who, the doors, eric claptons numerous bands and of course pink floyd. about a year ago i really got into it (although admittedly 99% was downloaded unfortunetly) and discovered bands like racer x, black sabbath and iron maiden. maiden would quickly become my favourite band, closely followed by sabbath.

now at 15 i am unemployed and poor (and thus cant afford to buy records) but as the bands i listen to arent releasing music anymore, i tend to look for new (to me) bands to listen to. vinyl at this point is a novelty. i dont buy cds whatsoever, as i cant afford them and sound quality is dissapointing. when i get an opportunity i buy up all the vinyl i can, and with my friends (with whom i collectively buy vinyl) we have 20 some records.

shamefully i admit to owning an ipod (although $70 headphones help a bit). i tend to still download 99% of my music from a program called bitlord. however in the mess of 128kbps tracks, i managed to find a gem. nearly 200 grateful dead tracks in uncompressed, unaltered tracks ripped from vinyl (aparently you can do that these days). i have a few at 500+ kbps which is phenominal considering 320 is the max from cds. if i had the opportunity (i think my dad would skin me alive) i would have a very nice stereo system (dont know enough bout audio stuff yet to tell you just what) with more vinyl than you can shake a stick at.

music today was obviously totally destroyed by mtv, and it really is sad how most people are stuck listening to emo bands and so-called punk rock like greenday. however i have noticed a great increase in the number of people listening to our parents music.

i suppose i went way off topic but the point is that there are some of us out there that listen to good music and really honestly do love vinyl on a nice stereo system.

there ya go
-John :cornut:

P.S.
i DO know that ronnie james dio invented the devil horns and i AM appalled at my generations excessive overuse of the great devil horns! (it most certainly was not gene simmons and he can complain all he wants)

[Mr Peabody]

SBS, you seem to have developed good taste in music from my point of view. Don't turn your back on the Classical. I have both Iron Maiden and Vivaldi co-existing in my collection.

A good place to find cheap vinyl is yard sales and thrift stores. If any of the Salvation Army or Goodwill stores keep vinyl, most do, check it out. If you are diligent you may even be abel to pick up a turntable or other assorted hi fi gear. Used vinyl is stores has gone up but some of the more available titles can still be reasonable. Some stores even have a budget bin but be careful, some are budget because of condition, not overstock. My brother worked for a sanitation company and used to bring me all kinds of vinyl. I couldn't believe people were just throwing away. What was even more amazing is that most of it would be in good shape, being rescued from the trash.

[maxg]

Its been about 2 years since I last visited this forum - I wonder if there is still anyone on here that I know.

Anyway - just a few things to add to the discussion that may be of interest to some:

1. "i have a few at 500+ kbps which is phenominal considering 320 is the max from cds" Actually the figure is 150 for original CD's and it is in kilobytes per second not kilobits. There are 8 bits to a byte - assume 1200 kilobits per second for normal CD.

2. MP3 / IPod etc. There is a lot of talk of quality when refering to digital music - or the lack thereof - most of it is really irrelevent. The point of all these digtial formats is that they are portable formats. Portable music in all its forms has never been very good. Was a Transistor radio hifi? How about a Walkman (tape or CD)? A boombox? I would say not. Some MP3 players are capable as being every bit as good as these items that preceded them. No - it is not as good as my vinyl rig (but that cost a lot of money relatively), nor are they as good as my CD player (again rather more expensive).

When I bought a new mobile phone I got one that was basically a computer. It plays videos and music (MP3 and WMA / WMV). Relative to my Walkman cassette player the sound it great - and holds a lot more music (about 18 albums on a 2 gig card).

3. Vinyl. I am a vinyl lover through and through. I have about 1500 records and will never be parted from them. Unlike others I have not worn through them - there are some that are noisier now than when I bought them but not enough to make listening a chore.

When at home and listening properly (i.e. just listening - not as background) I listen to vinyl. When listening as background I can happily have a CD playing, or a decent MP3 or even the radio.

In the car I listen to CD mainly and radio ocasionally.

On foot I listen to MP3's on my phone.

In other words - however dedicated you are to one format or another a music lover will listen to what is avaiable at the location and that is the deciding factor.

4. Buying vinyl. I live in Athens, Greece. Maybe things are different here. I know of 25 shops that sell vinyl records within driving distance of my house (not DJ shops - they are separate) and 12 within walking distance of my wife's office. There are now more shops selling vinyl than CD in the centre of Athens (not counting the flea market - there are innumberable stores there too). Most of the vinyl is second hand. Pricing varies more with the contents of the records than the condition. Classical music (my main love) is typcially 1 euro per record (about $1.28) and all the shops I use have a TT to test a record out prior to purchase.

5. The younger crowd. In Greece at least it appears they have not yet discovered vinyl. In the shops I frequent I am usually one of the younger buyers - and I am 41. Does it really matter much? On the odd ocasion a younger person comes to the house and expresses an interest I will play them a record. The response it always positive - but I do not see them rushing out to get their own TT's - maybe they do - I have no idea.

[nightflier]

Ironically I was called in to work this weekend to deal with a "substantial security issue." My assistant had found what he thought was a huge stash of downloaded MP3's on our network at work - this is strictly forbidden and punishable by drawing & quartering, to hear our director. Anyhow, it turned out not to be music at all, but speeches and lectures. More interestingly when we rounded up the usual suspects, we found that it was one of our interns who is still in college. He told us that this was part of a research project he was working on after hours (so he claims), but, get this, they were all recorded from old records. I asked him where he got the gear and he described a pretty fancy setup that he had put together over the years.

Anyhow, that got me thinking about this again. I remember when I was younger, my dad had some of these with Kennedy speeches and other stuff. So I'm wondering how much vinyl content will never make it to CD at all. Not only is there a tremendous amount of music that will not be transfered (wasn't that the fear with Beethoven's Creatures of Prometheus?), but also social and political speeches that few people would be interested in now a days. Heck who doesn't have an old George Carlin record laying around?

And this kid had a whole vinyl setup at home. He told me he regularly rips his LP's to MP3's so he and his friends can listen to them on their iPods. And that brings up another "hypothetical" question: if he were to share these analog-sourced files online, is this the same crime as sharing CD-ripped files? I'm only asking because my numbskull of an assistant got the bright idea to cc the top brass about his fine detective work, and they are going to want to see some heads roll.

[Woochifer]

Anyhow, that got me thinking about this again. I remember when I was younger, my dad had some of these with Kennedy speeches and other stuff. So I'm wondering how much vinyl content will never make it to CD at all. Not only is there a tremendous amount of music that will not be transfered (wasn't that the fear with Beethoven's Creatures of Prometheus?), but also social and political speeches that few people would be interested in now a days. Heck who doesn't have an old George Carlin record laying around?

A lot of this historical content has already been archived digitally and made available online, but a lot of it won't make the transition simply due to lack of interest. But, so long as some library copy exists in the LP or other format, it will at least be available for review.

The thing to keep in mind is that a lot of these speeches and old recordings were originally in some sort of tape or film format. There's a big race right now to preserve the archived materials before the film or tape medium deteriorates (analog audio tapes are only supposed to last about 50 years). Sony actually developed the DSD format (which is used for SACD) to archive their music library. I read that some analog master tapes have deteriorated to the point that any further playback will basically destroy the tape, so they are getting transferred to DSD as quickly as possible.

Ironically, the biggest challenge that archivists face in the upcoming years will center on how to deal with obsolete digital formats. For example, some PCM digital recordings were recorded onto Betamax video tapes, and others might have been archived onto an older hard drive that uses a connector that's no longer supported. And there's the issue with what to do with old mainframe tape reels, data created with obsolete operating systems, etc. Think of all those digital camera pics you got stashed on a memory card. Will that memory card format and the JPEG format still be supported 20 years from now?


And this kid had a whole vinyl setup at home. He told me he regularly rips his LP's to MP3's so he and his friends can listen to them on their iPods. And that brings up another "hypothetical" question: if he were to share these analog-sourced files online, is this the same crime as sharing CD-ripped files? I'm only asking because my numbskull of an assistant got the bright idea to cc the top brass about his fine detective work, and they are going to want to see some heads roll.

This is kind of a gray area. The so-called Betamax decision in the early-80s established a doctrine of "fair use" that's been applied to a variety of recording devices. Fair use includes making copies for your own personal use. One of the areas that has also been delineated under fair use is the use of copyrighted materials for "educational" purposes. I'm not a lawyer, so maybe someone who knows more about intellectual property laws can chime in.

I would guess that sharing CD-ripped files runs afoul of copyright laws, but that would also depend on whether the shared material is copyrighted to begin with. Things like political speeches are typically in the public domain, and sharing MP3s of old speeches would be perfectly legal.

[Sabbath_Bloody_Sabbath]

1. "i have a few at 500+ kbps which is phenominal considering 320 is the max from cds" Actually the figure is 150 for original CD's and it is in kilobytes per second not kilobits. There are 8 bits to a byte - assume 1200 kilobits per second for normal CD.


i use winamp to play music on my computer, and in the media library there is a bitrate column. in that bitrate column i have files that range from about 90 kbps to (as i had said) 500+ kbps. when you rip a cd to computer, the highest bitrate you can rip at is 320, and cds are (if i remember correctly) between 128 and 196 kbps.

-John :cornut:

[Koggit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_(audio_CD_standard)
"Bit rate = 44100 samples/s × 16 bit/sample × 2 channels = 1411.2 kbit/s (more than 10 MB per minute)"


For the record, I don't actually know what I'm talking about, I just Googled because I was curious, but 1411kb/s seems to be true.

[nightflier]

For the record, I don't actually know what I'm talking about, I just Googled because I was curious, but 1411kb/s seems to be true.

Just out of curiosity, what would a typical vinyl recording converted to digital clock in at? If there is a difference, then I suppose that difference could hold up the argument that analog conversion to digital-compressed (ie. MP3) is not the same as digital to digital-compressed.

[Koggit]

Just out of curiosity, what would a typical vinyl recording converted to digital clock in at? If there is a difference, then I suppose that difference could hold up the argument that analog conversion to digital-compressed (ie. MP3) is not the same as digital to digital-compressed.

You can capture analog audio uncompressed, at a VERY high bitrate but you'll still lose some of what was in the original recording. This is because there are limitations in analog recording and there are limitations in digital recording -- when you digitally capture an analog recording, the result has both restrictions and loses quality from each transfer (live to analog, then analog to digital).

Bitrate is purely a digital term, measuring how much data is decoded in a certain timeframe, the more data the higher the quality. Since analog isn't comprised of bits - no digital data - there's no bitrate. The only way to give a bitrate to a non-digital source is to determine how much data would be required with no loss in quality. Since there will always be loss, there's no hard word on how high the rate would have to be.

It's similar to video. You can shoot a film digitally at higher resolutions than 35mm film, but if you shoot in 35mm film and then make a digital transfer you lose quality due to technical limitations. There's no set bitrate that the digital video would have to run to give the same quality, because of what's lost when scanning and creating the video from physical slides.

[nightflier]

Koggit,

So legally, an analog-to-digital copy is not an exact copy, whereas a digital-to-digital copy is, theoretically, and exact copy. I'm curious to know how this has played out in the courts, or if it has been heard as an argument at all.

[Koggit]

Oh, interesting point. I didn't consider that. Analogous to tracing the Mona Lisa with paper and pen infringing upon copyrights.

I'm not sure. I'd assume it'd fall under the same law, since it's a near-exact reproduction (afterall, digital compression changes the file also). Definite gray area, I wonder if there's any line that has to be crossed. At what point does a copy become a copy, how true to the original must it be?

[Woochifer]

Koggit,

So legally, an analog-to-digital copy is not an exact copy, whereas a digital-to-digital copy is, theoretically, and exact copy. I'm curious to know how this has played out in the courts, or if it has been heard as an argument at all.

It's not the copying per se that has gotten end users into legal trouble, but the sharing and distribution of these files. As I understand it, transferring an LP to MP3 or uncompressed PCM for your own personal use is not illegal under the fair use clause. But, taking that MP3 file and sharing it with millions of other downloaders on a peer-to-peer network is what the RIAA and MPAA have been cracking down on. I have hundreds of MP3 files on my computer, and nearly all of it is legal because they were ripped from CDs that I already own.

Doesn't matter if it's analog-to-digital or digital-to-digital, so long as the material is copyrighted, it's still illegal to distribute that material. Even in the analog days, it was technically illegal for you to make tapes of your LPs or CDs for friends. But, the technology of that time limited people to duplicating these items one at a time, and in real time, so there wasn't all that much incentive to enforce those laws. Plus, the RIAA had negotiated a blanket royalty payment from the cassette tape manufacturers, so anytime somebody bought a blank tape, the record companies were getting a cut. Situation with downloading is very different because the technology now allows users to share thousands of files and download those files in a matter of seconds, which is why these laws that have been on the books for decades are now getting enforced.

In general, you need permission from the copyright holder anytime a copyrighted song gets broadcast, distributed, or performed in a commercial venue that charges admission. Just last week ASCAP and BMI cracked down on some local nightclubs that were playing jukebox songs without paying the annual licensing fee. This is why you'll sometimes see an ASCAP or BMI sticker near the entrance of a restaurant or nightclub -- because they've paid the fee that allows them to play copyrighted songs in a venue that charges cover.

[nightflier]

the RIAA had negotiated a blanket royalty payment from the cassette tape manufacturers, so anytime somebody bought a blank tape, the record companies were getting a cut.

But that fee is also applied to blank CD sales. More importantly, many CD's specifically prevent you from copying them with software and it also says this on the sleeve. It specifically says that copying the disk is a federal offense. So something still does not compute.

The other problem with this is that if a person can show that they have some copy of it (cassette, cd, vinyl, 8-track, whatever), then they have a right to have it in the mp3 format. But then why can't this same person download a free copy if they have it in another format?

I have a ton of mp3's and ogg files as well and if I didn't rip them myself, then they were downloaded, but they most certainly were files that I have on vinyl or cassette somewhere in the garage. I would bet that's the case with most people who downloaded gigabytes during the height of Napster.

[Woochifer]

But that fee is also applied to blank CD sales. More importantly, many CD's specifically prevent you from copying them with software and it also says this on the sleeve. It specifically says that copying the disk is a federal offense. So something still does not compute.

I don't remember whether or not that blanket royalty applied to blank CD media. I just know that the original royalties were negotiated in the aftermath of the Betamax case, which legalized the use of recording devices.

I know that the DCMA law made it illegal to circumvent a digital encryption protocol like the CSS copy protection used with DVDs, but I'm not so sure how it would apply to CDs because a lot of those copy protected CDs simply make the disc unplayable on a CD-ROM drive (and there's also Sony's ill fated digital rights management scheme, which would have allowed for CD owners to rip the songs onto their own computer, but prevent those files from getting duplicated). Nothing in place that would prevent duplication of that CD using an analog output.

Like I said, there is a fair use clause in the court cases that deal with this subject, and my understanding of it is that you can make copies for your own personal use.


The other problem with this is that if a person can show that they have some copy of it (cassette, cd, vinyl, 8-track, whatever), then they have a right to have it in the mp3 format. But then why can't this same person download a free copy if they have it in another format?

I have a ton of mp3's and ogg files as well and if I didn't rip them myself, then they were downloaded, but they most certainly were files that I have on vinyl or cassette somewhere in the garage. I would bet that's the case with most people who downloaded gigabytes during the height of Napster.

I'll admit that the "illegal" downloads on my computer are mostly songs that I already own on LP or cassette. But, I don't think it matters whether you already own that title on a different format -- it's still illegal to distribute and share those files. It would not be illegal for you to make MP3s from your LPs or cassettes for your own personal use.

But contrastly, I would bet that only a small fraction of those Napster, Kazaa, Grokster, etc. users already own the music that they are downloading. I remember the big siren call to those networks was the promise of all the "free" music you could download. The majority of people using those peer-to-peer networks during Napster's heyday were under-30, and college aged (at that time, college students had much greater access to high speed networks than the rest of the population). I doubt that many of them had been collecting music long enough to have purchased a large number of LPs or cassettes.

[nightflier]

I'll admit that the "illegal" downloads on my computer are mostly songs that I already own on LP or cassette. But, I don't think it matters whether you already own that title on a different format -- it's still illegal to distribute and share those files.

Therein lies the legal language, however. Downloading is not the same as distributing or sharing. While I know that many downloading programs ecouraged the sharing of files, this was not absolutely necessary and could be turned off. If the RIAA were to try and demonstrate this with audit logs, for example, I'd ask them with what authority they gathered those logs. Personally, if I got nailed for downloading, I'd haul all my records and cassetttes to the courtroom and show them that with the exception of a few files, I was in possession of the stuff on my computer.

I'm not trying to say that fighting this would be practical, but if the EFF or another organization with deep enough pockets could drag this out in court, then I think it would be a very hard case for the RIAA to win.

From what I've read and what I've seen the RIAA is strictly looking to duplicate revenue from past sales. If they had their way, we'd already be "renting" any and all music each time we listened to it. Nothing would be "owned" anymore, much like software already is. Imagine having your credit card debitted everytime you cued up your favorite LedZep album. Or what if you were charged extra for just looking at the album cover on your player?

A record collection could well become and insurance policy against whatever they try to pry from the consumers in the future. While this may not be most people's motivation to keep their record collections, there is something to be said for "holding the disk in one's hands." I already felt a sense of withdrawal when this disk shrunk to just 5" as CD's became the standard - the artwork shrunk to postcard proportions and the lyrics to unreadable size, all this while the cost went up! Now with downloadable music, what is left to hold in one's hands? I'd be willing to bet that for kids as well as those of us re-discovering vinyl, there's a newfound feeling of ownership that will play an increasingly important role in the future. And yes, they will try to take it awy from us so that they can sell it to us again at a higher price. It seems to be the only way they know hoe to make money anymore.

[Woochifer]

Therein lies the legal language, however. Downloading is not the same as distributing or sharing. While I know that many downloading programs ecouraged the sharing of files, this was not absolutely necessary and could be turned off. If the RIAA were to try and demonstrate this with audit logs, for example, I'd ask them with what authority they gathered those logs. Personally, if I got nailed for downloading, I'd haul all my records and cassetttes to the courtroom and show them that with the exception of a few files, I was in possession of the stuff on my computer.

That's why Napster was so easy to take down once the RIAA won their court case -- because all of the downloading activity was coordinated through a centralized server and all that the RIAA had to demonstrate was that Napster's business model was built around copyright infringement. The decentralized peer-to-peer programs like Kazaa were able to partly stand up to legal scrutiny because there was no single entity that directed traffic to all of the download sites.

This led to the RIAA going after the end users, since they could not go after a single entity that was enabling the downloading activity. It doesn't really matter if all of the files on your computer were ripped from CDs that you own, the RIAA has been busting the end users for sharing the files, and the fines imposed were based on the number of files that they were sharing online. I'm sure they would love to bust the downloaders as well, but it's simply easier identify people who share their music directories online.

Similar to Napster, BitTorrent sites can get shut down quickly because BT requires a hosted tracker file and the RIAA and MPAA simply target the website operators that host those files. The recent crackdowns on BitTorrent users have focused on people sharing large numbers of files online, and since it assembles files together by communicating "one-to-many" you can't turn the file sharing function off with BitTorrent.


I'm not trying to say that fighting this would be practical, but if the EFF or another organization with deep enough pockets could drag this out in court, then I think it would be a very hard case for the RIAA to win.

Doubt that the EFF can have a total victory in this case because of laws that were passed after the Betamax case, such as the DMCA. These laws have placed new restrictions on fair use, particularly as it pertains to digital formats. Doubtful that the current Supreme Court would be motiviated to overturn those laws.


From what I've read and what I've seen the RIAA is strictly looking to duplicate revenue from past sales. If they had their way, we'd already be "renting" any and all music each time we listened to it. Nothing would be "owned" anymore, much like software already is. Imagine having your credit card debitted everytime you cued up your favorite LedZep album. Or what if you were charged extra for just looking at the album cover on your player?

That's how they wanted it (and still want it), but the courts would not force the restrictions on playback devices that the industry wanted since fair use does guarantee the consumer certain use rights to the discs and tapes that they purchase.

I think that to a large degree, music is already shifting in that "rental" direction with services like Napster 2.0 and Rhapsody that charge a monthly fee for unlimited music downloading (that stops working when you cancel your service). I doubt that the debit pay-per-play model that you described will ever come to pass for music -- I mean, how much can the record labels charge for each play when iTunes charges a buck per download or Rhapsody goes for $15 a month for unlimited play and the files can be transferred to a subscription-enabled MP3 player?

So long as the industry can still make money from selling CDs, they'll keep doing it (despite the growth of iTunes downloads and subscription services, the record companies can still make more money selling entire CDs rather than downloads of individual songs). But, with all of these new digital rights management formats on the horizon, I think that downloading will become much more prominent as a revenue source for the industry. From what I've been reading, the goal is to make downloads secure and transferrable from one device to another, but still copy protected so that people can't share completely open digital files on peer-to-peer networks. I haven't read anything about going pay-per-play.


A record collection could well become and insurance policy against whatever they try to pry from the consumers in the future. While this may not be most people's motivation to keep their record collections, there is something to be said for "holding the disk in one's hands." I already felt a sense of withdrawal when this disk shrunk to just 5" as CD's became the standard - the artwork shrunk to postcard proportions and the lyrics to unreadable size, all this while the cost went up! Now with downloadable music, what is left to hold in one's hands? I'd be willing to bet that for kids as well as those of us re-discovering vinyl, there's a newfound feeling of ownership that will play an increasingly important role in the future. And yes, they will try to take it awy from us so that they can sell it to us again at a higher price. It seems to be the only way they know hoe to make money anymore.

While you and I are coming at this from a collector's mindset, I'm not so sure how applicable this would be for much of the rest of the population. Like I said earlier, the music industry is shifting towards mobility in a big way. Apple's revenue from the iPod alone was more than twice as much as the entire home audio component industry. That's just too big a dynamic to ignore, and the record companies are trying to figure out which distribution model will maximize their revenue. Based on what I've seen, teens are much more about carrying their music collection with them than about pride of ownership with a disc library at home.

Also, I don't think that the repurchasing angle is all that big a deal. The majority of music sales in any given year will come from new releases, so it's not like people will have previously owned these albums in LP or cassette format. Thinking back to the 80s, when people were dumping their LP and cassette collections in droves in favor of CDs, it's not like they were forced to do so -- they were repopulating their collections with CDs for the purported benefits that the CD format offered. The music industry is no longer in that transitional phase, and that's a big reason for their current financial problems (the introduction of the CD format was a financial boon to the recording industry because of people repurchasing their collections; but the industry should have been aware that the CD cash cow was only a short-term infusion that would end once the CD took over as the standard format).

And for all the talk of these peer-to-peer networks introducing people to new and diverse music, data from either Napster or Kazaa a few years ago found that the search patterns very closely tracked with whatever was current on the charts. A lot more people downloading those "free" Britney Spears songs than digital copies of Led Zeppelin material that might already be sitting in their LP collections.

[emack27]

OK. I think it's unanamous. Vinyl is preferred more by geeks with tons of free time on their hands and nothing more to do but to chat on "AudioReview.Com." lol.
No. Just kidding.
I don't know what it is but I prefer Vinyl too.

[dwass5656]

music just sounds better on vinyl to me, maybe I am naive....but it just sounds better, especially older music (Zeppelin, Moody Blues, Floyd, Jethro Tull) all sound better more than the new music, which sounds almost the same on all formats

just me though.






Listen to Meet Me Halfway by The Moody Blues : http://www.napster.com/player/tracks/12718229

[basite]

music sounds warmer on vinyl, i like vinyl records more than cd's and alot more than some crappy 128mbps mp3's (they generally suck). but the normal group of teens like cd's more than vinyl records i guess (half my class was laughing at me cuz i prefer lp's) once, when they understand that it's the only medium that lasted from the beginning to the end of music, then, i think they start listen to vinyl records. cassette tapes, then cd's now dvd's, blu-ray,hd-dvd kinda all failed because they won't be there anymore any time soon and they just keep on making music on vinyl.

[shokhead]

Snap,crackle and pop,gota love it.

[nightflier]

Just for the record, I have been trying for some time to match my digital sources to the sound of my vinyl. As a matter of fact, my friends & I have a running bet on whether any digital source will ever sound as good. For some reason the TT still seems to have higher resolution than any 2-channel digital source we've tried. True, there are pops & crackles, but aside from that, it still sounds crisper, airyer, and more dynamic, no matter what components they bring over (DACs, preamps, fancy cables, etc.). Of course most of the cd players are in the under $2K range, so a higher-priced player may do it, but considering that the TT was $899, that's still impressive.

[basite]

you can't make something sound more analogue than a vinyl record, (with analogue i mean unlimited, warmer) you simply can't since the recording of a digital medium (cd, dvd,...) is limited by the quality of the medium: cd= 16bit 44.100khz, dvd= 24bit 96khz,... and with a vinyl record u are only limited by how good you record it, which is uncompressed and so on and so forth,... and by that way, always better than a compressed sound on a digital medium.

[Geoffcin]

you can't make something sound more analogue than a vinyl record, (with analogue i mean unlimited, warmer) you simply can't since the recording of a digital medium (cd, dvd,...) is limited by the quality of the medium: cd= 16bit 44.100khz, dvd= 24bit 96khz,... and with a vinyl record u are only limited by how good you record it, which is uncompressed and so on and so forth,... and by that way, always better than a compressed sound on a digital medium.

Vinyl has some very serious limitations, and not just the fact that it's recorded on a varible quality medium. The most obvious limitation S/N will never approach that of digital sources. Even with the best TT rigs this will never get below 70dB, while many good digital players will bang, or surpass the 100dB mark, especially with the higher sampling rates of HDCD, DVD-Audio, and SACD.

[Woochifer]

you can't make something sound more analogue than a vinyl record, (with analogue i mean unlimited, warmer) you simply can't since the recording of a digital medium (cd, dvd,...) is limited by the quality of the medium: cd= 16bit 44.100khz, dvd= 24bit 96khz,... and with a vinyl record u are only limited by how good you record it, which is uncompressed and so on and so forth,... and by that way, always better than a compressed sound on a digital medium.

As Geoffcin pointed out, vinyl has limitations with the dynamic range. While it might be theoretically possible to bump the S/N ratio above 80 db, mastering engineers are not going to cut that much information into a vinyl record simply because it would mistrack the majority of the turntables out there. All vinyl records are EQ'd and most of them have some form of compression applied. Vinyl can subjectively sound very good and better than a lot of digital transfers. But, I've never heard anybody claim that it can be completely transparent to the master source, whereas high res digital can be a bit-for-bit transcription of a digital master.

And I don't about "always better than a compressed sound on a digital medium" since vinyl can wear down, have huge variations in audio quality from copy to copy, and suffer from bad mastering jobs. Personally, I'd rather listen to a 128k MP3 than an LP with inner groove distortion.

[Florian]

And thats what completes the picture of you, at least for me. You are standard in everyway. Standard off the shelf equipment, off the shelf speakers, off the shelf setup. Absolutly nothing shows your dedication to music. Only some little talk about formats and silly surround things. I will find the article from clearaudio that measures and calculates the higher resolution and bandwith from vinyl. You just want it all on the easy path. Pop in the dic, press a button and then 10 little silicon processors do the rest and you can sit back and have 6 ordenary boxes make some noise for you. You never enjoy the quality reproduction on serious music devices. Just Standard. No love for music and no honoring of the devices and electronics which play back music the best way sonically.

-Flo

PS: And down with copying and ripping CD'S! Down with MP3 and lossless formats. Go out and buy the Record in a store and not iTunes. Get involved with music and stop all this silly downloading, ripping, converting and stealing of music.

[Woochifer]

And thats what completes the picture of you, at least for me. You are standard in everyway. Standard off the shelf equipment, off the shelf speakers, off the shelf setup. Absolutly nothing shows your dedication to music. Only some little talk about formats and silly surround things. I will find the article from clearaudio that measures and calculates the higher resolution and bandwith from vinyl. You just want it all on the easy path. Pop in the dic, press a button and then 10 little silicon processors do the rest and you can sit back and have 6 ordenary boxes make some noise for you. You never enjoy the quality reproduction on serious music devices. Just Standard. No love for music and no honoring of the devices and electronics which play back music the best way sonically.

-Flo

PS: And down with copying and ripping CD'S! Down with MP3 and lossless formats. Go out and buy the Record in a store and not iTunes. Get involved with music and stop all this silly downloading, ripping, converting and stealing of music.

I presume that you're addressing Geoffcin, since you claim to never read my posts?

http://forums.audioreview.com/showthread.php?t=18126&page=4

Otherwise this latest rant is so laughably off-base, fraught with false statements and presumptions, and just childish/moronic in general, I don't even know where to begin! :lol:

[Florian]

I presume that you're addressing Geoffcin, since you claim to never read my posts?

http://forums.audioreview.com/showthread.php?t=18126&page=4

Otherwise this latest rant is so laughably off-base, fraught with false statements and presumptions, and just childish/moronic in general, I don't even know where to begin! :lol:

I bet your someone who laughes at his own jokes.

[Geoffcin]

All vinyl records are EQ'd and most of them have some form of compression applied. Vinyl can subjectively sound very good and better than a lot of digital transfers. But, I've never heard anybody claim that it can be completely transparent to the master source, whereas high res digital can be a bit-for-bit transcription of a digital master.

And I don't about "always better than a compressed sound on a digital medium" since vinyl can wear down, have huge variations in audio quality from copy to copy, and suffer from bad mastering jobs. Personally, I'd rather listen to a 128k MP3 than an LP with inner groove distortion.

Without the RIAA compression vinyl records would be incapable of producing a full range sound.

I really don't know what's got Florian in such a huff, nobody has said that vinyl can't sound good, only that it has some serious limitation.

[Florian]

As Geoffcin pointed out, vinyl has limitations with the dynamic range.

I can take this comment from you (Geof) since you have a system that can show the difference. But i cant take this from Wooch. This is another thing i just dont like, same as his storys about Planars or Stereo etc... I simply cannot read his posts without getting upset. Because, this statement pretty much claims that the CD mendium is way above the Vinyl which it is absolutly not acoustically. Maybe Technological, but most CD's suck compared to Vinyl. But most (like Wooch) will never know that because they dont have the equipment good enough to judge and entire format.

-Flo

[Geoffcin]

Maybe Technological, but most CD's suck compared to Vinyl.
-Flo

It's because of the choices made by the record companies when they produce them. In a recent thread there was some telling evidence givin that CD's, for the most part, have been mastered compressed and driven to the recording limits SPECFICALLY to produce the loudest volume. Also, the Eq curves used on most cd's are a blend of car/boombox. This is only changing now as more and more people rip to portable, so we can expect the Eq's to be moved toward pod phones, but NOT toward home stereo.

Vinyl has, and ALWAYS was mastered for use on a home stereo. Hence, it makes sense that it sounds GOOD on a home stereo. Small companies like Telarc, Mapleshade, and Chesky make some OUTSTANDING CD's that have been mastered & produced specifically for sound quality. When played through ANY decent home stereo they sound supurb.

[Florian]

It's because of the choices made by the record companies when they produce them. In a recent thread there was some telling evidence givin that CD's, for the most part, have been mastered compressed and driven to the recording limits SPECFICALLY to produce the loudest volume. Also, the Eq curves used on most cd's are a blend of car/boombox. This is only changing now as more and more people rip to portable, so we can expect the Eq's to be moved toward pod phones, but NOT toward home stereo.

Vinyl has, and ALWAYS was mastered for use on a home stereo. Hence, it makes sense that it sounds GOOD on a home stereo. Small companies like Telarc, Mapleshade, and Chesky make some OUTSTANDING CD's that have been mastered & produced specifically for sound quality. When played through ANY decent home stereo they sound supurb.

Yes, i collect wonderfull CD's too. MA Recordings makes incredible ones, same as Deutsche Grammophon and others. My old LZ records rock much better then the EMI release on CD! :-)

[Woochifer]

I bet your someone who laughes at his own jokes.

And you seem to enjoy talking to yourself, since you can't possibly be responding to me if you actually ignore my posts like you say you do! :D

And if your original rant was actually meant for me and not Geoffcin, then how would you know anything about me and the music I listen to, if you don't ever read any of my posts?

The funny part is that you never even addressed any of the points that Geoffcin and I brought up. Just another laughably idiotic rant that's long on personal attacks, smears, and distortions, and woefully short on substance and factual truth.

Are you saying that LPs are not EQ'd? Are you saying that the LPs are mastered without dynamic range compression? Are you saying that LPs sound the same from copy to copy? Are you saying that you like the sound of inner groove distortion, which back in my vinyl buying days affected about one out of every 20 LPs that I purchased?

Answer me please! I could use another good laugh! :ciappa:

[nightflier]

Vinyl has some very serious limitations, and not just the fact that it's recorded on a varible quality medium. The most obvious limitation S/N will never approach that of digital sources. Even with the best TT rigs this will never get below 70dB, while many good digital players will bang, or surpass the 100dB mark, especially with the higher sampling rates of HDCD, DVD-Audio, and SACD.

I agree that the numbers don't bear it out. CD's, and especially stereo DVD-A/SACDs should sound better, but they don't on all the gear that we have tried so far. The only conclusion I've come up with is that my ears are not able to discern the higher s/n and frequency specs that digital formats are capable of. Maybe what I'm hearing is strictly within the middle/average range. But I can say that in that range, an LP sounds better. It has better seperation between the instruments, clearer soundstage, more depth, tighter bass, and for lack of a better term, more air.

I'm not saying that CD players don't sound great. I have a current setup that I am very pleased with, but if I compare the exact same recording on vinyl, it just sounds better to my ears. Last weekend I played a selection of rock, classical, and jazz that I have on both formats and the difference is easy to make out. Over the past few months I've asked my friends to bring over their players and any other components they wanted to try. While some of the combinations sounded better than my CD setup, they still were edged out by the turntable. Now, of course there are still the issues of tedious needle setup, record cleaning, vibrations, and the snaps & pops, but the sound is still better on vinyl, if you ignore those issues. I can't explain it any better than that.

[JoeE SP9]

Nightflier, I agree with you completely. From the very first CD player I bought to the worked Marantz and separate DAC I use now, vinyl simply sounds better. The better your gear the easier it is to hear the differences. I too have A B'd the same selections on vinyl and CD. The vinyl always sounds better. 12" singles really blow CD's out of the water. I have put on vinyl after playing CD's and my guests have asked if I was now playing a CD because it sounded better. All women visitors who have shown any interest in recorded sound prefer vinyl over CD including SACD and DVD-A. According to them SACD and DVD-A are better than CD but vinyl is better still.:cool:

[Woochifer]

Without the RIAA compression vinyl records would be incapable of producing a full range sound.

I thought that some records were made without having to compress the master feed, but the RIAA equalization curve is definitely applied to all vinyl pressings. For all the claims of vinyl being pure and unprocessed, the equalization that's applied at the mastering stage and during playback seems to be a point that often gets lost. And while more dynamic range CAN get cut into a typical vinyl record, the reality is that mastering engineers have to make sure that their records are capable of tracking without a high compliance setup.


I really don't know what's got Florian in such a huff, nobody has said that vinyl can't sound good, only that it has some serious limitation.

Glad to see that somebody is actually reading a post and addressing it substantively, rather than fishing for selective misinterpretations and reacting accordingly. I love my vinyl, but that doesn't mean that all of my LPs sound better than their digital equivalents. For every LP in my collection that trounces the CD version, I can just as easily find an LP that sounds worse than the CD.

[Woochifer]

I can take this comment from you (Geof) since you have a system that can show the difference. But i cant take this from Wooch. This is another thing i just dont like, same as his storys about Planars or Stereo etc... I simply cannot read his posts without getting upset. Because, this statement pretty much claims that the CD mendium is way above the Vinyl which it is absolutly not acoustically. Maybe Technological, but most CD's suck compared to Vinyl. But most (like Wooch) will never know that because they dont have the equipment good enough to judge and entire format.

-Flo

But, why would you get upset when you don't even read my posts? :lol:

Of course, you're lying about that, and whatever claim I presumably make that "the CD mendium is way above the Vinyl" Where do I say that? Yet another time to put up or shut up. Then again, lies coming from you are about as predictable as the sunrise and sunset.

[Geoffcin]

Glad to see that somebody is actually reading a post and addressing it substantively, rather than fishing for selective misinterpretations and reacting accordingly. I love my vinyl, but that doesn't mean that all of my LPs sound better than their digital equivalents. For every LP in my collection that trounces the CD version, I can just as easily find an LP that sounds worse than the CD.

It's of no use to argue personal preferences. Everyone is going to have an opinion.

[Woochifer]

Nightflier, I agree with you completely. From the very first CD player I bought to the worked Marantz and separate DAC I use now, vinyl simply sounds better. The better your gear the easier it is to hear the differences. I too have A B'd the same selections on vinyl and CD. The vinyl always sounds better. 12" singles really blow CD's out of the water. I have put on vinyl after playing CD's and my guests have asked if I was now playing a CD because it sounded better. All women visitors who have shown any interest in recorded sound prefer vinyl over CD including SACD and DVD-A. According to them SACD and DVD-A are better than CD but vinyl is better still.:cool:

You're making a rather sweeping generalization here because there's so much more variability in how the vinyl will sound from title to title, and copy to copy. This is espcially true with 12" singles where a lot of dance remixes are deliberately done differently from the CD transfers. A lot of 12" singles that I've heard are mixed to sound "dry" on the assumption that they will get played in a reverberant dance club environment, whereas the CD will be mixed with a more spacious sound for home audio play. While those 12" singles sounded fine in a club setting, they actually sounded horrible at home.

I will agree though that direct-to-disc and some of the newer 45 RPM sets are hard to beat for their simple musicality. I don't agree at all that the vinyl will always sound better, because frankly there's a lot of bad vinyl out there. And a lot of engineers have finally figured out how to work around the CD medium in the much the same way that certain vinyl mastering engineers knew how to work around the vinyl medium better than others (ever heard of Bob Ludwig or Doug Sax or Bernie Grundman?).

[shokhead]

I bet your someone who laughes at his own jokes.

I'm thinking at you to and some of your remarks bit i'm just guessing.:)

[Woochifer]

I'm thinking at you to and some of your remarks bit i'm just guessing.:)


And you would be correct! :D

[shokhead]

Sounding better and sounding different could be getting things mixed up. Also i think as it seems to on everything the mixing could play a big role on how a lp sounds vs a cd but what do i know,i ditched my 45's a loooooooooooong time ago. I'm happy with the smaller discs.

[Woochifer]

Sounding better and sounding different could be getting things mixed up. Also i think as it seems to on everything the mixing could play a big role on how a lp sounds vs a cd but what do i know,i ditched my 45's a loooooooooooong time ago. I'm happy with the smaller discs.

Well, that's just how these format debates are. Your point about the role of the mixing and mastering points out exactly why these format arguments are absurd. (Almost as absurd as Flo's delusional claim that I was asserting the superiority of the CD format) Moreover, different LP copies of the SAME album can sound very different from one another. One might have been pressed by a fresh stamper and another one might sound distorted because it was pressed from a worn stamper. Same album, same mix, same master source, but very different sound quality. CD are consistent from copy to copy (either they'll play or they won't), but CDs get remastered all the time so even they will sound different from one another.

Unless people have access to the original master source, and can compare the playback, they lack the information needed to draw any conclusions one way or another. It all becomes nothing more than subjective preference. In the meantime, I'll worry more about what I'm listening to, rather than how I'm playing it.

[shokhead]

Well i just load 5 discs that i havent listened to in a long time just to be different.
Guess Who's G Hits
Best of Van Morrison
Sheryl Crow Tue Night
R Stones Sticky Fingers
E Winter They only Come Out at Night
Now there's a mix of music. Sorry Flo,all CD's LOL
But i am playing them all in 2ch because some of you have talked enough about it that i'm trying to go back to it and give it a retry. So far,somewhat nice.

[JoeE SP9]

You're making a rather sweeping generalization here because there's so much more variability in how the vinyl will sound from title to title, and copy to copy. This is espcially true with 12" singles where a lot of dance remixes are deliberately done differently from the CD transfers. A lot of 12" singles that I've heard are mixed to sound "dry" on the assumption that they will get played in a reverberant dance club environment, whereas the CD will be mixed with a more spacious sound for home audio play. While those 12" singles sounded fine in a club setting, they actually sounded horrible at home.

I will agree though that direct-to-disc and some of the newer 45 RPM sets are hard to beat for their simple musicality. I don't agree at all that the vinyl will always sound better, because frankly there's a lot of bad vinyl out there. And a lot of engineers have finally figured out how to work around the CD medium in the much the same way that certain vinyl mastering engineers knew how to work around the vinyl medium better than others (ever heard of Bob Ludwig or Doug Sax or Bernie Grundman?).

I guess I've been lucky in my purchases. As I said, at my house on my system vinyl always sounds better. Of the 20 or so selections that I have duplicated on CD and vinyl the vinyl always sounds better. Even bad mixes sound more musical on vinyl.
Several years ago in my capacity as a network engineer and programmer I did some work for a gay couple (female) that required my spending a lot of time at their business and home. We became friends and they found out that I was an audiophile. Subsequently one of the first subjects they brought up was their perception that vinyl sounded better than CD's. They had very decent gear at their bar and at home and played vinyl much more than CD. They both said that vinyl was more musical. They introduced me to a lot of their friends who were interested in good sound. Without exception these women prefer vinyl over CD. In every instance they say vinyl is simply more musical. Since it's a medical fact that women have more sensitive hearing than men I'm inclined to listen to their opinions about sound. Those few women who are interested in good sound all prefer vinyl in my experience.
The questions here are a lot like the wire debate. I know as a BSEE that any properly constructed wire should sound the same as any other. My ears tell me different. It is the same with CD's vs. vinyl. CD's especially SACD's and DVD-A's should sound better because of the specs. What I hear daily says this isn't so. This might be all in my mind but it manifests itself in what I hear and perceive and "the ears decide".

[Woochifer]

The questions here are a lot like the wire debate. I know as a BSEE that any properly constructed wire should sound the same as any other. My ears tell me different. It is the same with CD's vs. vinyl. CD's especially SACD's and DVD-A's should sound better because of the specs. What I hear daily says this isn't so. This might be all in my mind but it manifests itself in what I hear and perceive and "the ears decide".

Yep, that's exactly how it is, it ultimately comes down to preference. The point that I make with vinyl is that it can subjectively sound very good and can sound better than a digital transfer. But, there's also no mistaking that the vinyl medium itself will add a layer of coloration to the master source -- the compression and EQ'ing that are part of that process ensure this. Recording engineers who have to A/B the board feed with a disc cutter will tell you this, and I've heard this in my own listenings comparing original demo tapes with the vinyl pressings -- the vinyl sounds different. Nothing wrong with preferences and nothing wrong with opining that the vinyl playback is more subjectively "musical" sounding, but IMO vinyl is an imperfect medium that has way too much inherent variability to always sound better than a digital transfer. For me, it's always a case-by-case assessment because of this variability. I mean, if I can shop for used LPs and identify audible differences based on the stamper numbers used for different copies of an album, then that say something.

[JoeE SP9]

If I have a female guest and play music from vinyl I'm more likely to wake up the next morning with her still here. I don't know what it is, but after an evening of playing vinyl they are more apt to stay until the next day. I just happened to noticed this and I have been taking advantage of it. Note to all batchelors. Give this a try. I would like to know if it works for others.:ihih:

[Woochifer]

If I have a female guest and play music from vinyl I'm more likely to wake up the next morning with her still here. I don't know what it is, but after an evening of playing vinyl they are more apt to stay until the next day. I just happened to noticed this and I have been taking advantage of it. Note to all batchelors. Give this a try. I would like to know if it works for others.:ihih:

LOL

Back in my bachelor days, live music and swing or salsa dancing worked for me. By the time we got back, cueing up the turntable wasn't the first thing on our minds! :D

[shokhead]

If I have a female guest and play music from vinyl I'm more likely to wake up the next morning with her still here. I don't know what it is, but after an evening of playing vinyl they are more apt to stay until the next day. I just happened to noticed this and I have been taking advantage of it. Note to all batchelors. Give this a try. I would like to know if it works for others.:ihih:

Maybe when you tell her you got a 12" she's thinking something else.:confused5:

[JoeE SP9]

Maybe when you tell her you got a 12" she's thinking something else.:confused5: What makes you think she's ever disappointed?:ciappa:

[JoeE SP9]

LOL

Back in my bachelor days, live music and swing or salsa dancing worked for me. By the time we got back, cueing up the turntable wasn't the first thing on our minds! :D
I entertain frequently at home, and noticed that when there was a woman there in the morning I always had a stack of vinyl to put away. I started thinking about the way things were happening. After keeping a check on things for several months it turned out that playing vinyl seemed to make my sex life more successful. It's not a sure thing. I just have more "luck" when I play a lot of vinyl. I'm just wondering if anyone else has noticed the same thing or anything like it? Am I imagining this like I "imagine" differences in wires and cables?:ihih:

[nightflier]

...it turned out that playing vinyl seemed to make my sex life more successful. It's not a sure thing. I just have more "luck" when I play a lot of vinyl...

Now we finally know why teenagers like vinyl more than CD's....

[JoeE SP9]

Now we finally know why teenagers like vinyl more than CD's....

I'm just a kid at heart!:ihih:

[jrhymeammo]

bump..

[Dusty Chalk]

Listen, Thread-Necromancer...

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Since it's a medical fact that women have more sensitive hearing than men I'm inclined to listen to their opinions about sound.
You may want to check your facts. Only black women under the age of 30 have measurably better hearing than any other ethnic/gender group.

[basite]

Holy thread revival,

and I still think that vinyl beats cd...

[nightflier]

You may want to check your facts. Only black women under the age of 30 have measurably better hearing than any other ethnic/gender group.

This is certainly news to me. Where did you get this?

[Smokey]

You may want to check your facts. Only black women under the age of 30 have measurably better hearing than any other ethnic/gender group.

Not true.

Young children have the best hearing capability regardless of gender or age :)

[jrhymeammo]

bump..

So bumping a thread makes me lose my rep?

Fire away folks.

JRA

[AmpItUP]

I like both, but I still prefer my iPod over vinyl records.



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