I strongly doubt any real deejays use vinyl anymore, they have not for 30 years. rap “dj”s only use one record on each turntable, which is just for time code to drive serato to play out digital rap files. @sleepwalker65 Real DJs play vinyl (always). What you call "rap dj" is actually a hip-hop djing. Rapper is the one with a microphone, not with a turntable. The music is actually hip-hop. Rap is just a heavy rhymes over a hip-hop beat. Not all the DJs are bad, there are some incredible djs with amazing record collections and immaculate musical taste (jazz, soul, funk, soundtracks of the 60s and 70s on rare original vinyl is a part of the dj culture too). Actually the history of DJing is quite interesting, but people don’t know much about it. This is the best book about history of djing which cover everything from early radio disc-jockeys to a modern day. Personally i don’t like electronic music, but the DJing began way before electronic music was born. So if you will read about Jazz and R’n’B of the 50s, Soul Music of the 60s, Disco of the 70s you will realize what is DJing is all about. Digital cr*p and electornic music (or heavy rap which you don’t like i believe) is just one side of the DJing in this crazy world nowadays, but as many aspects of the modern life and "show business" this is not the best side of the phenomenon called djing. For example David Mancuso, the owner of The Loft in NYC, back in the 70s was an audiophile and record collector who became a deejay. This guy played records with Koetsu cartridges on M.Cotter turntables with Klipsch speakers at his private parties at The Loft. Here is a book about it. When we look at the dj booth of the Studio 54 in the 70s we will see Thorens turntables. Guys at Paradase Garage in the late 70s were pretty serious about sound system, i can see Thorens turntables with the Black Widow tonearms and Stanton cartridges on the pictures from that club. It’s a part of the history of djing. BUT You can see what’s going on in The Spiritland in London today, i think you will be surprised about sound system made for djs/collectors at this venue. You can also check Potato Head in Hong Kong to see how good could be the place where djs/collectors playin their music. I think it’s pretty impressive. You see, not all the djs/collectors are "rap djs and clowns" as you call them. Same about audiophiles, some of them listening to absolutely horrible pop music on the most expensive systems. Some of them even prefer a CDs or digital copy to an original vinyl. |
@skipskip
Vinyl destroys itself every time you play it. It sounds like SONY CD advertisement from the 80s. Actually CD destroys itself much faster, one single scratch and it's not repairable and the whole CD or a part of it is unplayable. The worst media format ever. Anyone can look where is vinyl now and where is the CD. |
The only definitive thing was that bass was deeper on CD on modern recordings (eg Random Access Memories by Daft Punk). £20k of CD player to listen to the rubbish like the Daft Punk ? Do you realize that they are recorded digitally in the studio, so what is the point to compare vinyl recorded from the digital master to a CD from a digital master ? The goal of analog is ANALOG, not a digital converted to analog. Get youself some proper original records from the 70’s to make sure you’re listening to the state of the art analog, not a digitally remastered reissue or new music recorded digitally. Original pressing from analog master tape is where the vinyl is better than CD of the same music recorded later from digital source. Also the phono cartridge is the key to analog. |
that's the right thread, lol |
@ct0517
The key is attained knowledge, that allows for the proper set up of all 6 areas to work together, based on each areas different design, and execution. There is a lot to get wrong. Right, but the cartridge is first and only component that physically riding your records, so in my opinion cartridge is the key. |
@ct0517
A lot of riding going on. But only cartridge and its diamond rides in the groove where the music is, so only diamond touch the groove walls. If you have some problem right there you can not fix it anywhere else, no matter how well treated your room or how good is your tonearm and phonostage, turntable, cables and speakers. Your cartridge is the first and most important component in agalog chain. |
@duckworp
Daft Punk’s "Random Access Memories" was recorded to tape using almost entirely 70s studio gear. That was why the album cost the million dollars it did as these guys were buying up and rebuilding 70s gear to allow them to make an analogue recording. There is very little EQ used in the mix, no plug-ins...it is a wonderful recording. Check this article out to read the great lengths they went to to create an authentic 70s sounding recording: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/recording-random-access-memories-daft-punk...and it is a fabulous album. Check out the last track ’Contact’ for an epic 21st century prog sounding finale. Or ’Touch’ for a masterpiece of light and shade: a choral wonder. Or ’Georgio by Moroder’ for some of the best drumming you will ever hear as it reaches its climax. Well, they're definitely show up some progress if it was recorded in analog (you're right), but i remember the band from their 1st album and never liked it. I still don't like their music, but respect the old musicians they are invited. Anyway it's about personal taste, sorry. The original records from the 70s are much more interesting, i don't listen to pop music. |
Everything DIGITAL gets outdated pretty fast, the software, the gear, the source ... everything. Just like the computers, smart phones. You can throw them away in a few years.
The Analog is the opposite story. 40-50 years old records are still icredible, vintage cartridges still amazing, old turntables still superior, reel to reel still rocks. Analog studios for musicians still the best.
Who cares about digital if we have all these analog gear and music collection in analog format? This is a true heritage!
For a person who’s got a decent collection of vinyl and nice high-end equipment your digital fairy tales is nothing. And we don’t have to be open minded to realize this or that fact about digital bitrate, it’s obvious that many people don’t need it at all.
Serious music collection is not a collection of files, exactly like the art collection (it’s all about original, not a digital copy). People looking for something "real" and authentic in this digital world, because your digital is nothing, it’s on the cloud streaming, it’s free, it can be copied, it has no value, your entire "collection" of digital music can be on your iphone or on one flash card. It has no background history like any phisical media formats, especially vintage records.
Digital is good for education, for the quick access to the information, but please stop comparing a music collection in digital formats to an analog music collection. A good record collection is a pure gold, digital collection is nothing but a free bonus that everyone can copy pretty quick.
I’m getting sick of all that digital, i would rather go and buy more vintage records
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If the usability is the main reason people use CDs then digital files is far more superior, because you can listen forever and make playlist with the tracks you want to hear ignoring all the "bad" songs on the album you prefer to skip.
For the same reason lazy people just listening to the streming radio stations. For most of those people music is just a background in the headphones while in the subway or in the bus etc.
Passionate collectors would love to put the record on the turntable and put the needle on the record for serious listening session. Vinyl is a whole different experience, different habit, different world.
CD is retired format of digital media, let’s face it |
@sleepwalker65
The real deejays are people who play music from media at radio stations and live events without scratching and mixing. No necessary, the skills is another subject, someone can use a microphone between the tracks like the oldschool deejays, someone can make a perfect transition from one record to another, someone can scratch over a certain genre of music (hip-hop for example). This is all depends on the artist aka deejay. There is a big difference between a radio deejays and club deejays. Club deejay should move the crowd and unless the cowd like what he's doing and dance to it everything is ok, this is why the clubs book a deejays and pay them for what they are doing. Everyone can find the right club with the right music/sound and good deejays. Most of the commertial clubs are awful, but there are clubs for music lovers opened by music lovers (most of them are pretty small). This is how it works. They aren’t really interested in sound quality as much as getting the music out to the listeners, so in that they are similar. They are all different, but i'm sure everyone would love to play on perfect sound system, the problem is that the responsibility of the sound system belongs to the club/venue. I have linked some amazing venues with Audiophile Grade sound system in my previous post addressed to you. In the venues like that everything is just like at Audiohile's home, but this is a puplic venues for people who appreciate good mucis and top quality sound. Part of the sub-culture of rap-“dj”s is about modifying the original sound, and while they use SL-1200mk2 turntables most often, they aren’t being used to transcribe anything but time code discs to drive serato-based systems to play out highly compressed semi-original content. This is interesting, because the Digital vs. Analog debate is hot not only on audiophiles forum, but also in deejay community. In my opinion digital is a degradation of the art of deejaying. The main part of the DJ culture is crate digging. Deejays discover music, they are looking for vintage records, unknown tracks, they select music by mood, they are actually spend $$$$ on record every month! If they are good in what they are doing, but their fee per hour is high. This is a hard job. Then we have digital devices like Serato. In my opinion a deejay should play real vinyl only. But i know serious vinyl collectors (djs) who can't travel abroad with 200-300 LPs, especially if you're on tour for a long time in different countries you can't bring all your records with you in a luggage (you can even lost your luggage after all), so they use their own digital copies from the original vinyl. I can understand that, but this is just usability. For a normal dj gig in their own town everyone can bring a box of vinyl, no problem. The whole degradation of DJing began when amateurs became DJs (digital only) in the bars, they do not buy music, they do not have records, some of them are popular for another reason (designers, bloggers whatever). They do not ask for a high fee (and the bar owners are happy about it), some of them have very bad taste in music and their "performance" is just a bunch of random tunes in different genres played from mp3 or whatever they can download for free. They don't care about quality at all, all they need is some attention, free drinks and fun. Some of them can play with Serato, Pioneer CDJ players with flash card (with automatic mix option), but most of them playin with iPhone. P.S. Everyone who's buying records is much more accurate in choice of music, because nice records are not cheap, you can not buy everything, no time and money for bad music. But digital crap can be downloaded for FREE in whatever format in gigabytes of files, or can be streamed for free anytime. As i said before Digital has no value. Vinyl is a culture, Digital is just everyday life. |
@lalitk Digital files (low resolution) that are available for free are indeed crap. As you pointed out that people who buys vinyl are more selective in their choices because records are not cheap. To exploit full potential of digital streaming, one must invest in decent streamer/DAC components along with Hi-Fi subscription from Tidal. Digital available for free not only in mp3 format, but also in loseless format and even in WAV and AIFF if you know where to search for them. This is the reason artists so concern about copyrights, everyone can copy an original CD or whatever digital with a loss of paper cover and plastic holder, but the quality is 1:1 (you do not lose anything). I bet you anything, most folks who are quick to diss digital over Vinyl have not heard a good digital setup nor have any inclination to explore the potential. For them, the clicks and pops are the only way to enjoy the music 😉
I have DAC connected to my computer and to the headphones, but not to the main system. The reason i am not using digital in the main system is because i have thousands of records to listen to, and digital format is not interesting for me at all. I am only using digital to play files from the internet to buy later on vinyl (if i like the tune). While audiophiles are talking about quality i can say that no matter how good is your digital file it can not replace a habbit to buy original vinyl, digital is for normal people, vinyl is for collectors (we’re passionate about vinyl media). I’ve checked extremely expensive digital set up at my friends house, he played some ’50s R’n’B with female vocals, i have many original records from the 50s. The digital is sterile, remastered, too clean and unnatural to my ears compared to the original ’50s analog recordings. Some audiophiles always blame vinyl for background noise and some clicks, i just don’t understand it - this is the nature of vinyl media. I don’t like digitally remastered music from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s... i prefer the original pressing (always) which is sound natural to my ears in my High-End analog set-up, this sound was approved by musicians in the studio when it was recorded and pressed on vinyl back in the day. Remastered music approved by someone who did the job, but not by the artists, most of them are too old today or dead. Digital is for new music recorded digitally, but i don’t listen to the new music. I love rare records from the ’70s recorded in analog. Vintage vinyl is the key to pure analog sound (and the mastertapes). |
@inna chakster, you are talking to the wrong crowd, they don’t listen to Vysotsky ... Haha, i don’t listen to Visotsky, definitely not my type of music. ... and so cannot possibly even comprehend what you are saying. Interesting, i guess anyone watched movies? This is a prime example of killer 70’s Jazz-Funk for "Serpico" movie with young Al Pacino. And another amazing recording from the 70’s is "3 Days Of the Condor" soundtrack, the original pressing on Capitol is spectacular in terms of fidelity. Make sure to skip youtube ad :) I like this type of music on LPs for home listening. Nor do they theoretically understand that for as long as humans are humans and not enhanced humanoids digital will never sound as good as analogue because there is a conversion and certain things are lost and distorted. Totally agree |
@inna
chakster, I didn't like your jazz funk. then you have no taste, haha Vysotsky is so much better, it's not quite music, though, it's poetry accompanied by intentionally out of tune guitar. I am surprised, don't tell me you have russian roots too. His poetry was pretty tought for its time and still today, my grand father wrote a book about him about 30 years ago. Anyway i hope you're kidding. |
@tomcy6
Keep patting yourselves on the back, guys. You are mistaking smugness for smarts. Are you offended? Try to tell any serious record collector that he's better off with CDs and it will be the greatest joke. |
What is funny in these debates is that CD is actual for retired people only.
CD media format does not exist even for my generation anymore, and definitely not for younger generation. It reminds me those 14 y.o. kids filmed by their parents on video with Cassette Tape and Walkman player in 21st century, kids have no clue how to insert a tape. I believe young people have no clue what to do with your CDs, because they don’t have CD players and their computer does not have a CDR anymore, despite the fact that music can be streamed online even in loseless format.
When i see someone advocating for CD i wish to know the age of a person. Because i think a person is living in his own reality (in the past).
Vinyl is much older media than CD, but young generation will rather buy vinyl than CD, because they already have digital streaming of everything (music, movies etc).
Vinyl is simply the best media format by all means, still affordable top quality physical media, survided in the digital era and still rise up in price.
High Resolution digital is not a physical media, it’s just a data that can be cloned without loss in quality.
You can’t clone a vinyl, this is why it’s highly collectible.
I’m not sure how many analog vinyl records in this word available in digital, maybe 10% ? There are record that nodoby heard before, each record collector has records that you can’t even find online (never), not even a word about those records.
Yes you can buy new music in digital, you can buy some old music in digital, but you can’t buy or find obscure rare records in digital in high resolution files (only after a record collector will upload his selection somewhere in the cloud in mp3 to educate people). Another reason why vinyl is much more valuable and much more interesting for music lovers and collectors worldwide.
It's crazy that i have to write it up in analog forum where some people still fight for digital.
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@inna
Vysotsky's ballads are timeless and are going to be sung and listened to in 500 years and later. Ok, so you're not kidding. I can understand it as cultural phenomenon from the past, but not as the music. I can't even stand his voice. Happily my musical background is way different. The only thing i like from the Soviet past is some Soviet Jazz which was like a wind of freedom in the '60s. In my opinion the music should make us happy at least when we're listening to it, it's about the harmony, i want to forget all the troubles in the world when i am listening to music. I want to hear well trained musicians and singers, syncopated rhythms and harmony. It is impossible to find anything from my records on tape, so i don't even talk about tapes here. I've heard a potentian of tapes in professional studios played on huge Studer multitrack. Vinyl is the best for me, tapes are impossible to find, cd sucks, streaming is for education only (i do not collect files, i collect rvinyl ecords). |
Some of you guys are more like a cult where you cut yourself off from people who are not part of the cult. Vinyl is not a cult, it was the main media format for ages, people who own many thousands record simply don’t need a CDs (especially in 2019), maybe it’s hard to understand for you, but i think it would be perversion to swap vinyl with CDs if you’re not living in the ’90s to believe the CDs are better media format (what a BS). Some people still use a CDs and it’s fine until they are trying to tell us (on analog forum) that CD is better than Vinyl, just because they are too lazy to flip a record, or because they are hearing some noise with a record. I’ve had some good experience with CDs in the early ’90s when it was cool and new here (before i've bought a nice turntable etc). I quickly realized that vinyl is so much better investment, better media for my needs and my music and i was right because thousand of my records has increased in price at least 10 times minimum. While the CD is a bad idea even for a gift, nobody needs them, really. I’ve had worse experiences purchasing "mint" condition LPs on ebay which are trashed by ignorant and/or cheating sellers. Do you think it’s because you’re buyin vinyl ? Actually everyone is fully protected on ebay and full refund (including shipping) is guaranteed by paypal buyer’s protection if you’re not happy with the quality, no loss for you i believe. |
@fleschler The seller would refund me if I paid the freight back (which would cost me for two shipments You don’t know how to use paypal buyer’s protection, no matter what the seller would like you to do, paypal always on the buyer’s side and they will cover return shipping too. I did that not only with records, but with cartridges sold as new, but being used or even defective. The difference in case with a record is that i got refund without even shipped back the record in 80% of thr cases. If the condition is not as described paypal buyers protection guaranteed full refund even for return shipping if needed. Just open claim on paypal, not on ebay, next time. You have to know that it is IMPOSSIBLE for the ebay seller to leave negative feedback for the buyer since the order is paid! Ebay changed that many years ago. I hope this info will help you next time. |
@fleschler
I haven't changed my components from 10 to 30 years (SME IV and VPI 19-4/Ultracraft are the longest in my system).
What's your phono cartridge? |
