I have given up on waiting for CD remasters and am trying to reacquire my Prince collection on vinyl. For those of you who already have Prince vinyl collections, do you think that the albums after 1990 (not counting the Black Album) sound significantly better on vinyl than they do on CD? It's not that hard to find mint condition copies of Prince's albums from Purple Rain through Graffiti Bridge, and it seems pretty clear that his work during that period sounds better on vinyl than it does on CD. There are 180-gram vinyl reissues of Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 on the way, as other threads have noted, so I'm not worried about those. The post-1990 albums, however, are expensive to buy on vinyl, and I have no reason to think they will ever be reissued. Is it worth paying the $$$ to get a good quality vinyl pressing of the albums from Diamonds and Pearls onward? I assume the reason WB stopped releasing Prince's albums on vinyl in the US after 1990 is that CDs had taken over the US market. Does that mean that Prince's albums after 1990 were being mastered specifically with CDs in mind? If so, maybe it's not worth trying to find those on vinyl for listening purposes (although they would be cool to collect).

Note that I'm not looking to start a discussion on whether Prince's post-1990 output is worth listening to in any format. I know there are a wide variety of opinions on that.

Thanks!

I have a ton of vinyl

Some more background: I first started buying Prince's music on cassettes. I did buy some vinyl back in those days, but mostly so that I could get the lyrics to the songs, which weren't in the cassettes IIRC. I don't know where those old vinyl records are now (probably warping in my mom's storage shed). I think Graffiti Bridge may have been the first new Prince album that I bought on CD rather than cassette (though it could have been Batman). From that point on, all I bought was CDs. At some point, Prince and his people obviously decided that CDs were what counted. The question is, exactly when did that happen?

Interesting question. I'd love to know the answer myself. Did they do separate mastering for CD and vinyl back in those 'crossover years' (when both formats were selling), or did they just master it for CD and then use that version for the vinyl (hence effectively eliminating the higher frequency range that can be achieved with vinyl)?

luv4u said:

Very very good question. I do have the vinyl for 1800 New Funk, Cream and some other singles....to be honest....I can't tell too much ..overall..the feel of the vinyl sound is alot warmer and comforting to the ear as to the high controlled frequency of the CD...as I do have the cd and vinyl version of say like..Cream Remix..the bass sounds deeper and more in front than the cd version.

I say, buy it and try it. U can't go wrong. I have been buying new vinyl from new albums lately and have been liking the overall feel in the sound better.

Thanks. It sounds like I should hunt down a vinyl of Diamonds & Pearls and see if it sounds better than the CD to me, since this is a subjective thing. If they were still in print I would probably buy all of them on vinyl, but some of the later WB issues (especially TGE) are fetching ridiculous prices these days.

electricberet said:

Thanks. It sounds like I should hunt down a vinyl of Diamonds & Pearls and see if it sounds better than the CD to me, since this is a subjective thing. If they were still in print I would probably buy all of them on vinyl, but some of the later WB issues (especially TGE) are fetching ridiculous prices these days.

And none of this money is going to Prince.

electricberet said:

And none of this money is going to Prince.

Vinyl will always be alot more expensive to produce than cd. The difference in the production costs is alot bigger than the price difference we see on store.

njin said:

Vinyl will always be alot more expensive to produce than cd. The difference in the production costs is alot bigger than the price difference we see on store.

I assume that your point is that it might not be profitable to keep Prince's entire vinyl catalog in print, since there wouldn't be many buyers for the 1990s albums. That may be true. But if there were decently remastered CDs available, I would be buying those instead of the vinyl. Right now a lot of random used record dealers are getting money from me that could be going to Prince and/or WB.

electricberet said:

I have given up on waiting for CD remasters and am trying to reacquire my Prince collection on vinyl. For those of you who already have Prince vinyl collections, do you think that the albums after 1990 (not counting the Black Album) sound significantly better on vinyl than they do on CD? It's not that hard to find mint condition copies of Prince's albums from Purple Rain through Graffiti Bridge, and it seems pretty clear that his work during that period sounds better on vinyl than it does on CD. There are 180-gram vinyl reissues of Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 on the way, as other threads have noted, so I'm not worried about those. The post-1990 albums, however, are expensive to buy on vinyl, and I have no reason to think they will ever be reissued. Is it worth paying the $$$ to get a good quality vinyl pressing of the albums from Diamonds and Pearls onward? I assume the reason WB stopped releasing Prince's albums on vinyl in the US after 1990 is that CDs had taken over the US market. Does that mean that Prince's albums after 1990 were being mastered specifically with CDs in mind? If so, maybe it's not worth trying to find those on vinyl for listening purposes (although they would be cool to collect).

Note that I'm not looking to start a discussion on whether Prince's post-1990 output is worth listening to in any format. I know there are a wide variety of opinions on that.

Thanks!

From a sound quality perspective post-1990 albums don't sound "better" on vinyl. In my opinion the last album that actually sounded better on vinyl was Graffitti Bridge. Remember most of the works on that album where recorded "before" Paisley Park, in various locations. Paisley Park was supposed to be state-of-the-art aka digital, so the sonic characteristics of analog recording kinda went out the window. I can clearly hear the "digitalness" of Diamonds and Pearls and subsequent recordings. Not that I don't like digital music, most of mine is. But I've always felt that analog recordings sound "best" on analog media and digital on digital. Its just that simple.

paisleypark4 said:

.as I do have the cd and vinyl version of say like..Cream Remix..the bass sounds deeper and more in front than the cd version.

I say, buy it and try it. U can't go wrong. I have been buying new vinyl from new albums lately and have been liking the overall feel in the sound better.

Equipment comes into play too. I listened to my Cream maxi-single CD and vinyl and I honestly don't hear any playback differences when I take into account certain equipment characteristics that I know my stuff has.

I too have been buying new vinyl (since I download all my digital stuff) and for the most part it sucks to me! Most these new releases are simply being put out to capture this vinyl resurrection. They use the same master for all 3 formats:CD, vinyl and digital download and that just doesn't work. 9 times out of ten the vinyl will sound like crap UNLESS someone is actually doing seperate masters for each format....and most record companies aren't gonna do that.

Well, based on the earlier comments I already ordered used vinyl copies of Diamonds and Pearls and the Symbol Album. Assuming they aren't too scratchy, I'll be able to do a test as to whether I notice any significant differences. Both are coming in from other countries, though, so it may take a while.

Apart from the sound quality issue, I wonder if Prince was still keeping vinyl in mind when he sequenced his albums in the 1990s. Both the albums I ordered are double albums on vinyl but were just single CDs. Did he put as much thought into which songs would be on sides A, B, C, and D for those albums as he did for 1999 and SOTT?

As for the quality of vinyl reissues, I know there is a lot of variation. For example, the reissue of Joni Mitchell's Blue was done by Steve Hoffman and is supposed to be better than any other version, though I haven't yet listened to it myself. But I don't see the point of buying a vinyl reissue that comes from the same digital source as the CD, unless you just want a larger version of the cover art. It seems like nostalgia is playing a significant role in that.

Vinyl is def superior. Didn't know the you could purchase "Symbol" on vinyl. Do you have Lovesexy?

I have either purchased or ordered all of Prince's LPs from Purple Rain through the Symbol Album, plus a 1994 US Black Album promo. I have also pre-ordered the three albums that are set to be reissued on 180 gram vinyl in May (Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999). I am still looking for Prince's first two albums at a good price. I also ordered a sealed copy of the debut album by The Time, for which I paid about ten times what it would have cost me when it came out. Except for Purple Rain, all of the Prince records I've bought are out of print.

My new turntable (which I bought specifically to hear Prince and Prince-related records) is supposed to be installed on Monday, so I haven't actually listened to the records I've ordered so far. I have no doubt that vinyl is superior in sound quality to the existing CDs of the albums through Graffiti Bridge. I am, however, concerned about the condition of some of the records I've bought. I tried to buy ones that were still sealed, but I've found that records kept in shrink-wrap for more than 20 years may not necessarily be in perfect condition. In at least one case the inner sleeve got stuck to the vinyl. If it doesn't play correctly, I'm not sure if I can return it, since I reduced its value significantly by removing the shrink-wrap. This is the problem with trying to buy records that have been out of print for years if not decades.

I believe Graffiti Bridge was the last Prince album officially released on vinyl in the US by Warner Brothers. Diamonds and Pearls was released as a double album on vinyl in Europe and other places, but not in the US. I'm not sure which countries saw a vinyl release of the Symbol Album; the copy I ordered is from Brazil. The only official release of the Black Album on vinyl was in Germany, but various promo copies were issued in the US in 1994. My own shopping revealed that some of the promos (not the ones on colored vinyl) are available at cheaper prices than the official German release. I haven't seen any of the recalled 1987 vinyl issues for sale anywhere; I'm sure they would be way too expensive if your goal is just to hear the music.

This is the third time I've bought these albums--first on cassette, then on CD, now on vinyl. Actually in some cases it's the fourth time, I think, because I actually had some of them on vinyl to begin with. I wish Prince knew how much money I'm spending to hear listenable versions of his music. I could probably pay one of his legal bills for him.

on a bit of a related topic. I have been reading that there is a new digital format on the horizon. Maybe a full blow format war. They say people are not happy with MP3s and with faster connections and bigger storage devices and better players people will soon expect better sound.

So the idea that it is too late for a remaster as everything is going MP3 and thus doesn't matter (which is a lie as i have mp3 ripped at the same rate from some led zeppelin cds over the course of the original cd release, the first remasters *93* and the new remasters *07* and I can notice a difference. (some of which is the squeak in bonzo's drum peddle is even more noticeable than ever in some songs--much to the chagrin of the surviving band members)) may well not be true as if there is a new lossless format they will need to be remastered anyway.

This seems possible to me. A lot of people who bought CDs in the 80s and 90s are now replacing them with remastered but compressed files downloaded from the internet. At some point they will figure out that lossless files sound better. I don't see why Prince couldn't sell a bunch of remastered mp3 versions of his work now and then sell the same stuff again when the next craze comes along.
The older generations of Prince fans (I include myself in that category, though I wasn't there from the very beginning) are reaching the point in our lives where we can afford to spend money to hear music in a high quality format, and, like the baby boomers, we'll probably do it over and over. Think how many times the average Led Zeppelin fan has bought the same albums over the years.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

on a bit of a related topic. I have been reading that there is a new digital format on the horizon. Maybe a full blow format war. They say people are not happy with MP3s and with faster connections and bigger storage devices and better players people will soon expect better sound.

So the idea that it is too late for a remaster as everything is going MP3 and thus doesn't matter (which is a lie as i have mp3 ripped at the same rate from some led zeppelin cds over the course of the original cd release, the first remasters *93* and the new remasters *07* and I can notice a difference. (some of which is the squeak in bonzo's drum peddle is even more noticeable than ever in some songs--much to the chagrin of the surviving band members)) may well not be true as if there is a new lossless format they will need to be remastered anyway.

Its not too late for a remaster, and there's a reason why your mps3's sound different.....because the sources are different! It doesn't matter that its an mp3......there have been many blind tests done that basically prove that hardly ANYONE, even so-called audiophiles, can tell the difference between a high bitrate mp3 (256 kbps or above) and the original CD. Notice I said CD and not the vinyl because there are sonic differences between even the original CD and the vinyl (from the same source).

Those that want better digital sound right now can do several things. They can either do 24-bit 96k (or 192) "needledrops" of their vinyl albums, which basically just gives you all of the vinyl "sound" through a digital format (and eats up your hard drive space ), they can buy DVD-Audio, SACD and even Bluray versions of some albums that are based on the original masters and NOT the dumbed down CD versions (because YES, CD's by design are basically compressed versions of the original masters. They are not truly lossless.) , or they can download some albums in 24-bit high resolution files from speciality sites. The problem is that most home audio equipment can't play these files. Of course computers can. But those who really care about "sound quality" already know how to play these files so it's not a big deal.

There's no need for a "new" lossless format because there are already too many lossless formats. Flac, Apple Lossless, Wavpack, Ogg Vorbis, etc are already out there.

electricberet said:

This seems possible to me. A lot of people who bought CDs in the 80s and 90s are now replacing them with remastered but compressed files downloaded from the internet. At some point they will figure out that lossless files sound better. I don't see why Prince couldn't sell a bunch of remastered mp3 versions of his work now and then sell the same stuff again when the next craze comes along.
The older generations of Prince fans (I include myself in that category, though I wasn't there from the very beginning) are reaching the point in our lives where we can afford to spend money to hear music in a high quality format, and, like the baby boomers, we'll probably do it over and over. Think how many times the average Led Zeppelin fan has bought the same albums over the years.

Although many will say otherwise, don't fall into that "lossless sounds better" trap. Lossless CAN sound better.....if that lossless file is from a different source than the CD. BUT if your ears tell you otherwise then I say follow your ears (even if it is probably psychosymatic).

I have the Hoffman Blue album. It is fucking great! Amazing quality. I don't think any of the upcoming Prince reissues have been remastered in any way, which is fine for me because I kinda like them the way that they are. Remastering can be a BAAAADDDDDD thing sometimes.

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

electricberet said:

This seems possible to me. A lot of people who bought CDs in the 80s and 90s are now replacing them with remastered but compressed files downloaded from the internet. At some point they will figure out that lossless files sound better. I don't see why Prince couldn't sell a bunch of remastered mp3 versions of his work now and then sell the same stuff again when the next craze comes along.
The older generations of Prince fans (I include myself in that category, though I wasn't there from the very beginning) are reaching the point in our lives where we can afford to spend money to hear music in a high quality format, and, like the baby boomers, we'll probably do it over and over. Think how many times the average Led Zeppelin fan has bought the same albums over the years.

Although many will say otherwise, don't fall into that "lossless sounds better" trap. Lossless CAN sound better.....if that lossless file is from a different source than the CD. BUT if your ears tell you otherwise then I say follow your ears (even if it is probably psychosymatic).

I have the Hoffman Blue album. It is fucking great! Amazing quality. I don't think any of the upcoming Prince reissues have been remastered in any way, which is fine for me because I kinda like them the way that they are. Remastering can be a BAAAADDDDDD thing sometimes.

Just like those Tabu Remasters. Which I DO appreciate..however upon turning these albums into Wav files, I found that they are still only half of the volume of an average cd rip to wav file. Still I had to turn up the volume (like any other Prince cd from the 80's) and do some tweaking. STILL finding that the vinyl versions of these songs were the most genuine. After that ..I wasnt too sure on trusting "remasters" again.

My double-LP set of Diamonds and Pearls on vinyl arrived today. I did a comparison test of the first three songs (which make up side A of the first LP) to see if I could tell a difference between the vinyl and CD on my equipment. I have to say that I can't tell much difference. They both sound good, but I don't know if I could tell them apart if I didn't see the turntable spinning when the LP is playing. Then again, my hearing has probably deteriorated over time, so maybe I just can't pick up on the nuances that others have heard. It is cool to have the European version of the album artwork. The hologram on my CD seems to have faded over time.

I haven't gotten my vinyl Symbol Album yet, so I can't talk about that.

Update: Gett Off sounds just as funky on CD to me as it does on LP. Since that's my favorite song on this album I think I'm going to call off the taste test.

*slightly off topic*

does SOTT sound better on vinyl you you guys?

it does to me definitely different from the CD quality

"Play In The Sunshine" & "Housequake" for example

they sound a il richer to me, for some reason

DirtyChris said:

*slightly off topic*

does SOTT sound better on vinyl you you guys?

it does to me definitely different from the CD quality

"Play In The Sunshine" & "Housequake" for example

they sound a il richer to me, for some reason

Yes, SOTT does. It's a victim of the "use the masters we already have for the CD pressing" thing I was refering to before. Pretty much all albums, not just Prince's, from before CD technology sound better on vinyl.....unless they have received a GOOD remastering.

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

DirtyChris said:

*slightly off topic*

does SOTT sound better on vinyl you you guys?

it does to me definitely different from the CD quality

"Play In The Sunshine" & "Housequake" for example

they sound a il richer to me, for some reason

Yes, SOTT does. It's a victim of the "use the masters we already have for the CD pressing" thing I was refering to before. Pretty much all albums, not just Prince's, from before CD technology sound better on vinyl.....unless they have received a GOOD remastering.

What about Lovesexy and Batman? Lovesexy sounds better on vinyl to me than it does on CD; however, the difference is not as stark as on SOTT. I haven't tried to compare the vinyl and CD Batman.

electricberet said:

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

Yes, SOTT does. It's a victim of the "use the masters we already have for the CD pressing" thing I was refering to before. Pretty much all albums, not just Prince's, from before CD technology sound better on vinyl.....unless they have received a GOOD remastering.

What about Lovesexy and Batman? Lovesexy sounds better on vinyl to me than it does on CD; however, the difference is not as stark as on SOTT. I haven't tried to compare the vinyl and CD Batman.

Lovesexy sounds better on vinyl as well