Why vinyl?

Ihcho,

Just too assure, if vinyl was to regain popularity as it did in the 60's-70's the price of new vinyl would drop closer to the $15.00 range based on volume sale alone. This would put it inline with CD sales and priced competitively among other recorded media products. But I think most vinyl lovers will keep buying vinyl even if used bins dried up (not likely to happen) but of course the pace would slow down.

Part of the fun is getting used vinyl cheap but I think for most of us it's still about how the LP's sound.

People who buy, listen too and cherish good vinyl in the end could not care any less about the ones who must stand on some soapbox to cry "Vinyl is Dead!" I mean why bother? You want your lossy MP3, iPod cr*p? Good, go listen to it. Lossy digital formats are perfectly acceptable for casual listening and for personal listening through ear-buds. On this, the ear-bud thing it's funny at how much some will spend on the ear-buds to listen to generally poor quality lossy music. But I digress, I listen to MP3 on my personal player, it's fine, ok and I don't expect much from it. But I'd never use an iPod or other MP3 player on my home system. Sorry but I want to enjoy the performance even my well designed but modest home system can give. I did not plow hard earned money into said system to plug it with audio output from cr*ppy lossy music sound. Even the CD is borderline HiFi to me, acceptable, enjoyable but not the be all and end all of recorded sound, just a good alternative to my LP's.

Back to vinyl. It is not only the fact that it is generally a better sounding format, more human, more emotional and more real so to speak than all but maybe the best mastered music played on highest quality digital disc players but it's also about the the journey... From finding LP's you like, to staring at the big beautiful covers, looking at liner notes and then the cool black disc. Those are sound waves you see cut into vinyl and nothing else gives you that. Clean it up and put it on a nice turntable and system and you will have 40+ minutes of simple relaxing pleasure. Unlike digital media CD, HD and flash based. you want to listen to each song on vinyl as its too much a hassle to skip tracks. You soon get into the groove so to speak and maybe learn to appreciate other songs on the album that do not get much or any airplay. With CD's and other digital media it's too easy to just skip forward. Look at many young kids using MP3 etc. and watch them often skip through track after track not even listening to the whole song at times. I mean what gives?

So vinyl especially the LP gives you glorious cover art, nice liners, nice and cool looking discs. You can get a plug and play turntable or you can others to tweak till your heart's content. You can shop for new and used vinyl to build up huge physical (ie: unlike non-physical digital flash or HD libraries) libraries quite cheaply. You do not have to worry about future format incompatibility as hard drives may. You don't have to worry about the loss of all your hard drive or flash media music files being corrupted or lost. You do not have to open your computer to scroll through endless menus to find music. With vinyl and even the CD it's just look through your physical collection.

I am a vinyl fan but I too still enjoy having my CD player and CD's. I am also looking at getting back into audio cassettes, not just for the fun of recording and more so preserving my favourite vinyl onto analogue cassettes. I can and do do this with my stand alone CD recorder but this is a digital copy. I am toying with bringing back a cassette deck into my system for the fun of analog preservation. But also to allow me to exploit another used audio market, 2nd hand audio cassettes.

So in conclusion it's comical at how the digital geeks want to denigrate vinyl they even want to denigrate the digital CD but they are yelling into the wind because in reality those who like and want vinyl aren't listening nor do they really care. The lossy music recording freaks who care not to learn how to enjoy the simple pleasure and quality of sound a well recorded and produced music has but only want some priding ability to say "I have 500Gigs of music on a hard drive." "Yeah 25,000 songs, blah, blah, blah." as if it is some special thing. They miss out the art of of learning to develop skills of serious music listening and the associated pleasure of it. To simply sit down, relax and TO LISTEN! This is these geeks loss. So be it then.

Tomcy6,

Vinyl lovers do not really disparage people who listen to CD's, many vinyl lovers also invest quite a bit in to CD's. But it has been vinyl being bashed since 1982 by hearing "PERFECT SOUND FORVEVER!" as buzz words. Many of us fell into the trap of CD sound and many of us came to realise that it was more hype than fact. I dropped out of vinyl in late 1986, not to return til 2003. I like a fish took the bait about what is not heard on CD's such as pops and crackles etc. We were told to listen to not what is their and many of us fell for it not realising that something else was not their or there but in a disturbing way, lack of soul and a steely edge to many CD's and cd players sound.

So yes some of us push back against the CD because we kept getting hammered by its hype.

Yes, one can buy some nice CD players nowadays and even some in the past. But the quality of CD or digital production today is on a declining slope and it's just sad that the industry is messing up what can be good in CD's to push the nonsense they do now in terms of production.

So same goes with lossy digital formats which truly are not hifi. I get sick of the nonsense too of satellite radio advertising it as CD quality sound. NO IT'S NOT! Good FM still sounds better than the over compressed garbage of sat radio.

Many of us who enjoy vinyl also DEMAND good sound and will accept good sound of CD's if engineered well and played on a good CD player. But it should not have to be so hard to get it. I know I will not be able to get all my music wants on vinyl, FINE! I am more than happy using CD's as a quality alternative. But I am tired of the hype of CD's for 25+ years and the industry pushes similar hype on lossy formats, GIVE ME A BREAK!

Those who want their music solely on MP3 or other lossy formats can have it. I force nobody to play LP's, CD's cassette tapes or whatever. If they want 500 Gigs on a hard drive of compressed MP3 junk it's their business just don't tell me it sounds good and tell me vinyl is not better sounding than most if not all other formats. SACD/DVD-A gives vinyl a good run for the money but is not as better, even if it was both formats are DEAD or close to it. Vinyl has a physical library through history going in to the millions of titles. CD's maybe a few hundred thousand.
I live happily with both formats in my system though I prefer vinyl first. I am also as noted in my previous post looking at getting back into audio cassette as another choice and fun aspect of recording and playback.

So in conclusion, I don't hear most vinyl lovers bash CD listeners, we just pick apart the flaws in the format and like to trounce the nonsensical hype of it over the last 25 years and we will do the same with lossy formats for as long as the industry markets said as a quality audio format.

Greggdeering,

Using the Bank of Canada inflation calculator $9.00 in 1985 is equal to about $16.50 today.

New vinyl toady an be pricey because its still cottage industry and lower volume than in the 70's-80's. In terms of dollar for dollar, new vinyl will likely always be more pricey factoring inflation than it was in the 70's and 80's. Just not as much is sold even though vinyl is enjoying a resurgence.

Sjungdahl & Xiekitchen,

First yes I think too many young kids, teens and adults have sadly missed or are missing the boat about what entertainment a good and it does not have to be too pricey sound system can be like. It's disappointing because hype and marketing mostly nonsense and drivel abounds and it can drive anyone crazy if they can't learn to shut it all out at times. Youth get badly caught up in the "I want it now." and "I deserve it now." mentality, look at all too many of their lousy role models. They hurry up and stop, hurry up and stop never realising what is passing them by. This point reminds me of a verse in Pieces of Eight from STYX

It's six oclock
Good morning sounds are everywhere
The warmth of spring, a gentle breeze blows through my hair

I hurry through my life never stopping to see
How beautiful it was meant to be

Im just a prisoner in a kings disguise
Broken dreams as we shuffle by

I think if youth can be exposed to good quality music early enough and to the pure, simple pleasure of it to listen, enjoy and relax to they then have a chance to carry on with many of the joys of it we all had as we grew up and still have today.

I got into hifi about the age of 12 but music was played in my family's home even younger. But about age 12 I read through my first audio magazine and buddies of mine and I all got into it about the same time and way, Christmas and birthday gifts of good basic stereo systems from Japan Inc. From there it was spend part of our allowances on vinyl albums until we began working and then part of our pay cheques were spent on vinyl and gear. Sometimes I bought the wrong stuff for me but I learned and it became a hobby and an outlet to slip away from the hype and stress of daily life for a few hours hear and there.

There was nothing like going to the record shop buying some LP's and rushing home to throw them on my turntable. I wanted always to have better and better sound and gear. Today I stil do but am not as anal about it given as an adult you understand or should about money and learning to shop better and appreciate it more. Appreciation was instilled into me and my sibling at young ages. It became a part of the experience and a desire to take care of things we had especially more pricey or expensive stuff. For me it all added up to the joy of good hifi and recorded music.

I think my advice to parents with young kids, play music and try to teach them to sit down and just listen maybe as schools kids do it with their homework, Lord knows that's how I did it a lot of it and from there they will more likely understand why not just good vinyl is great but good CD's too.

Mrmitch,

You mirror much of how I feel on the topic.

Back in the early 80's I was getting into the hobby and of course the LP record reigned supreme for the consumer. I began to read up on digital though and the CD and was pulled into it by its hype and marketing. Yes it sounded different, it had a cleanliness to it and combined with the hype of telling us what we cannot hear (clicks and pops) we were told that it was Perfect Sound Forever. I have said here in earlier posts that I was hooked into digital not realising what I was losing in terms of vinyl. By the fall of '86 I had switched to CD's 100%. My old turntable and a few dozen LP's were boxed away and some even sold off.

It remained for me until just after Christmas 2002. I began to read online about vinyl and record players being made. I found my old JVC LA-11, vulcanised platter mat, bent Shure cartridge stylus, a slipping belt, and my remaining LP's. Hooked it up and cued up some Alan Parsons Projects. Um it was like being hit in the head with a book. I realised even with this wonky old setup was playing something I had not heard in 16 years.

Soon I had bought a new turntable in my case to wet my appetite it was a Music Hall mmf2.1 and began shopping thrift stores for used vinyl. Reading up online trying tweaks etc. and a rebirth to vinyl for me.

It was so revealing for me I had to then get a better CD player. Soon I had a new Cambridge Audio D-300se and even though it still lacked something compared to my vinyl rig it was close enough for me to still enjoy throwing in a CD when I wanted to.

You are correct some LP's are not available on CD and many CD's will never be made on vinyl. I was originally turned off my CD's once I got my mmf2.1 but the D-300se helped get me to accept CD's. Time and other tweaks along with just not getting to anal about it all has helped me see that hey a well made CD (sadly most made in the last 10 years suck in how they are recorded) can sound very good using decent gear. Some CD's are not much off an LP version and lets face facts not all of the millions of LP's pressed were well made. I have a few DOGS!

5 years down my rebirth into vinyl I kick myself for losing 16 years of its fun, feeling and sonic pleasure. But I can't change that now. I have really reshaped my mind into thinking more about that it is about the music and a good CD on a nice player can sound great. Yes, I prefer vinyl most of all, from the sound to the hunt of shopping thrift store and the ritual of playing vinyl. It is one of the best parts of this hobby BUT! I am more than happy to have and use CD's too. Recently after doing reading online I took an old PlayStation unit and did some tweaks to it and discovered that it can be tweaked into a decent ol' CD player. In fact I was happy and thrilled enough after I tweaked it out a bit to sell my D-300se to put that money into other electronic toys for my system. Honestly to me the PlayStation unit tweaked sounds almost analogue-like. The D-300se had a better overall sound but the PlayStation has a more precise sound and I like it. BTW tweaks include a full tear down and cleaning making sure all parts are cleaned, shielding is in place and a full flat black painting to help keep out stray light. I used differing materials to pad and dampen parts that can rub and resonate. I drilled out more holes for added cooling and for making home made spiked feet. I built a sprung iso platform to seat the unit and its spike feet onto and the spikes sit into brass plates. It truly sounds pleasant and it cost me next to nothing to tweak.

Anyways back to your point. I can enjoy good CD sound and good vinyl sound. As I said, I prefer vinyl first but am not averse to using my CD player. I to have taken it to bring back by buying a nice 3 head cassette deck into my system for the fun of cassette recordings. I have a stand alone Pioneer CD recorder and it is used to make digital copies of my fav LPs etc. but I wanted to return back to using a good cassette deck to make good analogue copies of some of my fav. vinyl. Along with having another source to playback the multitude of use cassettes at trifts too.

Now I can shop for vinyl first and foremost, CD's as a second choice and analogue cassettes as a third.

As time progresses for me it is about having pleasant sounding gear and maybe playing the upgrade game over time for each.

It is hard to compare LPs from analogue to digital masters as the masters are one or the other. So engineering during process will be different. In other words take say Steely Dan, Gaucho, it is an analogue mastered disc, there is no digital recorded version made at the same time so to notice any difference is impossible. I will say that IMO a high quality analogue master will produce a better LP copy than a digital master will BUT! some LP's made from digital master such as Donald Fagen's, Night fly and Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms both sound great as LP's. Other LP's made via digital masters sound thin and lifeless for the most part, maybe not as bad as their CD counterparts but not as good as if they were to have been mastered from analogue. It all comes down to the technicians, the gear and the resulting production chain.

I think LP's still sound better than the CD counterparts from digital master only because again the stylus tracks a groove even if that grove was cut from an original digital master. The additional harmonics the stylus may give can lead to a warming up of the sound.

Conversely same goes if you record an LP onto a CD and play it vs. a commercially made version the Home made one seems to hold onto the added dimensions and harmonics the commercially made one often lacks.

But what would be needed is a good engineering crew running a high quality analogue master setup and a similar digital setup to record and produce the masters of the artists at the same time and after such each master needs to be equally and carefully mixed down and made into production master for LP's to be made from. That is not likely to happen as there is no financial need to nor wanted to devote to such in a commercial way.

Inpepinnovations,

I think it is both.

On an anlogue mastered tape the sounds, frequencies and harmonics are left 100% in analogue form from the moment the tape recorded them to the cutting of the master disc and the pressing of vinyl. Every step of the chain can add or detract to the sound and colour. Poor master disc cutting will affect the sound but good master disc cutting will eventually give you a superior mold to press vinyl from. Poor vinyl material will affect the sound good vinyl material will preserve sound better. A better turntable, tonearm, cartridge all set up and in proper working order will retrieve sound from the groove better.

I think a cut master from a high quality say 24/96 digital master will produce a good vinyl LP. The cartridge will track it well if the cartridge is well made and in good order. The cartridge will possibly add to the harmonics of the sound and that will affect sound.

Digital will not be perfect either. Mix downs to errors in transfers and all generations of digital transfers and production have bit code errors. Quality of components and ultimately quality of the discs and CD players will all affect sound quality of the music. The saying that all CD players sound the same is untrue. Not all CD discs themselves are same quality. So no matter what you used analogue or digital by the time the consumer gets the product it has been affected by the chain of production. Some cases worse others not be they both CD or vinyl including a cd from analogue or digital masters or be it a vinyl LP from a digital master or an analogue one.

In the end I think an LP from analogue masters will sound truer to what the music should sound like than one from a digital source or from a CD made from the analogue masters will likely sound better than digital masters. It is all degree of compromise to the consumer. This is why some listeners are fine with $29 CD players and with MP3 sound when others spend thousands on a CD player. This is why some consumers are fine wit $79 cheapy turntables but others will spend thousands.

I think the best source for quality recorded sound is better to best analogue reel to reel machines. But are not as practical for most consumers. Vinyl will be less accurate but will vary from deck to deck because of how it all works. Digital is chock full of possible compromises and other errors. In the end an LP is likely more accurate overall and more natural to our ears than a CD. A digital LP will likely be more pleasing than the CD version because the few inaccuracies it may add will more likely be heard as more pleasing to the listener where as the inevitable inaccuracies in CD playback are nothing but negatives to the listener. I hope this all makes sense.

.

I don't believe digital is inherently more accurate. It has its strengths but is has its flaws. It takes an analogue signal and chops it up into little digital packets where to play back a microprocessor tries to reassemble the packets to recreate an analogue wave form.

I've been trying to think of a visual analogy so if I may.

16 bit digital is like looking through a screen door. You see the outside world image but the screen effectively blocks the image into little packets invariably obscuring the cleanliness of what the real world image should look like. Higher rez digital just has a less apparent screen door effect. Your mind sees the outside world image and can understand it but the mesh is acting like an A to D converter effectively breaks the image into its little block pattern. I hope this makes sense. Analogue recording is like looking out a window without screen but through a pane of glass that may not be perfectly crystal clear and may even have a film of dust and dirt on it. You see the outside world image. Your brain can understand it but its imperfections in the window glass and maybe the film of dust obscures it from perfection. Both formats suffer inaccuracies but maybe different ones. IMO we humans are more willing and accept and maybe even enjoy the inaccuracies of the typical analogue playback over inaccuracies over the digital ones.

Where digital can be quieter and can have expansive dynamic range etc it also in the A to D and D to A process suffers and loses things humans not only can hear but can sense.

Fact is whether one records on analogue or digital from the master on down to the final consumer product we must accept errors and inaccuracies in the final sound.

There are certain luxuries for a engineer to record in digital but so to there are luxuries to record in analogue. Its about what compromises you are willing to accept.

Just one point to compare in this simple regard:

Push a signal above digital 0db and you run out of bits and instant massive clipped distortion. Go too far into the red on an analogue recording and you get a general but progressively higher distortion.

Pick your poison I guess.

130db dynamic range is unusable in any home listening or likely any other venue environment. The typical home will have a general background noise floor of 20-40db. If you go with 130db the max. dynamic range to be above the background noise floor will have to be a volume of 150-170db. Totally unrealistic even at rock concert levels.

I'm not against a good digital masters for vinyl but the fact is probably 99.9 % of all vinyl has been made with analogue masters.

Usable digital mastering today has been corrupted by lousy techniques aka: the LOUDNESS controversy and in reality the 16 bit digital format including the CD has more than enough dynamic range, too much really for anything but the most dynamic classical recordings. Rock, Pop, Country, Jazz etc. all have much lower levels of dynamic range, enough for vinyl to cover fair enough and the CD too as well. It's about resolution and the 16bit digital was borderline. 24/96 will give you a much better resolution capacity but reel to reel analogue covered all the resolution needed for decades now and the LP did so as well. All formats I list here had enough dynamic range for as a source for home listening. Commercial digital mastering of most music today has been destroyed by the compression to get max loudness. Too bad the industry squandered the one true superior trait 16 bit digital had over any analogue, dynamic range.

vinyl had at min 60db on lesser quality discs and 75+ db on the best discs made

R to R with Dolby NR had a similar dynamic range between 65-75 db using DBX it was over 80db

analogue cassettes were 55db with cheap tapes and no Dolby B to 75db witch Dolby C or Dolby S, again over 80db with DBX.

16 bit digital of course maxed mathematical a 96db.

But it is resolution that hurts ordinary 16bit digital and is mostly (arguably) overcome by 24bit digital. Resolution and harmonics were never an issue with good quality analogue gear. Only distortion and bottom line signal to noise ratio was. With the proper use of Dolby or DBX that was mostly gone and with better grade tapes even distortion was not a factor anymore.

I'm glad that 25+ years after digital mastering and the CD that digital has a venue for better sound now especially to make new vinyl with but the general consumer is happy as pigs n' s**t with MP3 or iPod garbage. Go figure by the time digital began to get it truly right nobody really cares except us here who want and enjoy good quality music sound be it quality analogue or digital on CD, downloaded or to make great new vinyl with.

But how can you use 130db dynamic range though? Any home listener to take advantage of this about a minimum 20db household background noise would endure 150db volume peaks. Nobody can stand that level for any length of time. You as a recording engineer may like the idea of 130db dynamic range available to you but me as listener cannot ever use it. If you use it in your recordings any low level sounds will be lost to me in order to not blow me out of my house or car along with suffering hearing damage and blown electronics. Or you will force me to ride to gain control talking way the relaxation and enjoyment of it all.

As I said if digital recording is employed properly and of a high resolution format I'd suspect LP's made from such will be very good. But good analogue gave and can still give us very good quality to master by too.

BTW just to make things clear, I'm not arguing or trying to be a jerk, just enjoying a good clean discussion and debate which all just gives us all good things to exercise our brains over.:-)

Dave,

Yes I have heard DVD-A and it is generally quite nice. I find it still has an edge to it that sounds not quite right but if I never was into good quality vinyl playback and was willing to re-buy my digital CD library in DVD-A it would be a good choice. I'll say the same with SACD but both formats are all but dead.

The DSD you talk about is obviously not a format for consumers (yet if ever at all). But if it is as good as you say it will be very nice with only one caveat. It again requires the listener to re-buy their libraries in this format. Add to that untold millions of records that where produced on vinyl and even cassette tape will likely never see this format. It will probably be pricey if/when it becomes a consumer format and will suffer the potential of it falling on its face as SACD and DVD-A has.

Sadly all too many consumers have been brainwashed and PURE LIED TO that lossy MP3 and iPod type sound is as good as even CD sound. So they accept it given no real test of reference to even a good CD sound let alone quality vinyl DVD-A, SACD. So the industry has cut its nose to spite itself (nothing new with the recording industry) and it will likely do the same if this DSD type format becomes a consumer format. It will cut its nose off again because it will price it too high for the general consumer to want to buy into.

The magic of vinyl regardless of it being a digital or an anlogue master is the used library world wide is MASSIVE! New vinyl is being made as a niche (GREAT!) and it has a sensation to it in ways digital media seems to lack.

As I said if a master is made of a great high-rez digital format and then cut a vinyl disc from it I'm 100% fine with it. If they make an affordable optical discs from it that can be easily played (not likely going to happen) then great too. But short of what will be a niche market even high-rez digital is in trouble today.

I appreciate you educating me some basics of DSD stuff you note and if it can capture and recreate the nuance of audio/sounds as a mastering format so that it is as good or better than the best analogue masters and can then be used to cut new vinyl from personally I WILL LOVE IT!!! because it requires me not to have to buy a new playback unit or whatever to hear it.