If vinyl is the "ultimate" way of listening to an album, did the powers at be ever match the quality?

I love vinyl, but I love the the CD because there are no pops and clicks. I'm confused.

You hear about albums being pressed on 180 Gram virgin vinyl, re-masterd at half speed, etc, yeah it must sound better, but doesn't vinyl wear overtime?? I think you'll get about 10 good listens before you put that needle down and hear...dust,pops and scratches.

*Way* more than ten listens, at least if you are using half-decent equipment.

G3000 said:

If vinyl is the "ultimate" way of listening to an album, did the powers at be ever match the quality?

I love vinyl, but I love the the CD because there are no pops and clicks. I'm confused.

You hear about albums being pressed on 180 Gram virgin vinyl, re-masterd at half speed, etc, yeah it must sound better, but doesn't vinyl wear overtime?? I think you'll get about 10 good listens before you put that needle down and hear...dust,pops and scratches.

There's something about vinyl that gives music a certain amount of "depth". I don't know how else to describe it.

Now...someone correct me if I'm mistaken...but when transferring music onto discs...don't they lop off the highest "peaks" and lowest "valleys" of the soundwaves? I read somewhere that the difference between a .WMV(?) and an .mp3 file is that the mp3 files are "shortened" in order to make the files smaller and thus fit more music onto a CD. Otherwise you'd still only be able to put 7 or 8 songs on a disc, as opposed to the 12 or 14 that we've grown accustomed to (most CDs would've been double-vinyl albums back-in-the-day).

G3000 said:

If vinyl is the "ultimate" way of listening to an album, did the powers at be ever match the quality?

I love vinyl, but I love the the CD because there are no pops and clicks. I'm confused.

Don't stress yourself, vinyl sounds good (for the most part), but if cd's are yer bang then so be it.

Personally I like both.

[Edited 3/8/12 14:43pm]

PurpleJedi said:

There's something about vinyl that gives music a certain amount of "depth". I don't know how else to describe it.

Now...someone correct me if I'm mistaken...but when transferring music onto discs...don't they lop off the highest "peaks" and lowest "valleys" of the soundwaves? I read somewhere that the difference between a .WMV(?) and an .mp3 file is that the mp3 files are "shortened" in order to make the files smaller and thus fit more music onto a CD. Otherwise you'd still only be able to put 7 or 8 songs on a disc, as opposed to the 12 or 14 that we've grown accustomed to (most CDs would've been double-vinyl albums back-in-the-day).

The sound on a vinyl album isn't compressed the way a CD is. You actually will hear more overtones and a greater range of dynamics on vinyl than you will on a CD (old albums anyway, I'm sure they compress newer albums when they press them to vinyl but I'm just assuming.)

Think of it this way: A record is like seeing an event take place. A CD is like seeing a really sharp picture of that same event. And an MP3 is like a blurry picture of the sharp picture, bitrate considering of course.

Uh, vinyl can last for decades through endless play if you treat it right! I used to listen to ancient records from the 40s at my Grandparents' house and also 45 records my Mom had as a teenager when I was a teenager and the sound was great. Not many pops and scratches from my memory. I also used to hunt down 45s in stores that were decades old and they sounded wonderful when I touched needle to vinyl. I think CDs might have a shorter life than vinyl records in the long run.

purplethunder3121 said:

Uh, vinyl can last for decades through endless play if you treat it right! I used to listen to ancient records from the 40s at my Grandparents' house and also 45 records my Mom had as a teenager when I was a teenager and the sound was great. Not many pops and scratches from my memory. I also used to hunt down 45s in stores that were decades old and they sounded wonderful when I touched needle to vinyl. I think CDs might have a shorter life than vinyl records in the long run.

I agree.

CDs were originally touted as being the longest-lasting format (vinyl scratched/warped and cassettes jammed/snapped).

But I have CD's that suddenly go "digital" (strange noises & skipping) even though they're in fairly good shape.

with vinyl, you can hear exactly how it was recorded in the studio and you can hear all of the voices & instruments in the songs. I dont need any more vinyl because I have enough and some that I hardly listen to....

G3000 said:

If vinyl is the "ultimate" way of listening to an album, did the powers at be ever match the quality?

I love vinyl, but I love the the CD because there are no pops and clicks. I'm confused.

You hear about albums being pressed on 180 Gram virgin vinyl, re-masterd at half speed, etc, yeah it must sound better, but doesn't vinyl wear overtime?? I think you'll get about 10 good listens before you put that needle down and hear...dust,pops and scratches.

I grew up on vinyl and and I don't miss it at all. I have a bunch of it that I'm going to drop off at a local used record store in a couple of weeks. I love my CDs!

PurpleJedi said:

There's something about vinyl that gives music a certain amount of "depth". I don't know how else to describe it.

Now...someone correct me if I'm mistaken...but when transferring music onto discs...don't they lop off the highest "peaks" and lowest "valleys" of the soundwaves? I read somewhere that the difference between a .WMV(?) and an .mp3 file is that the mp3 files are "shortened" in order to make the files smaller and thus fit more music onto a CD. Otherwise you'd still only be able to put 7 or 8 songs on a disc, as opposed to the 12 or 14 that we've grown accustomed to (most CDs would've been double-vinyl albums back-in-the-day).

You're confusing "lossless" WAV files (what is found on a store-bought CD) with "lossy" MP3s. The CDs you buy in stores do not contain MP3s, they contain WAVs. The reason why old CDs had 7 or 8 songs on them is because that's what the album LPs (records) had. CDs held more information, so they eventually put more songs on them.

A well-engineered album on CD does not lop off the highs and lows, but there is a trend out there right now called "The Loudness Wars" (a real trend, look it up) that pushes every sound to the max. What that does is throws away and highs and lows for the sake of volume and the result is muffled garbage that is loud.

A few years ago, I bought the recent Genesis remastered CDs. They sound gorgeous! Normal CDs - called Redbook CDs - have plenty of life left in them and the music they carry "can" surpass what humans can hear.

I'm concerned that we're becoming a download-nation listening to music on our iPhones. That's why most people say vinyl sounds better, it's because they've been hearing garbage for at least 10 years.

jojackson said:

If u look at an analog sound waveform and that same sound in digital form the analog waveform is smooth, intact and continuous. The digital waveform of that same sound is jagged, diced and cubed and incomplete. I have Around The World In A Day on my iPod and just recently got it on vinyl and when I heard it on record, I swore I was listening to a completely different album. I heard things I never heard before. There's a drastic difference between vinyl and digital, I prefer vinyl and I'm 16 by the way.

You're exactly right about the analog vs. digital, but to get the full effect of vinyl, the original studio recordings must be analog. So much music nowadays is recorded digitally (albeit in higher-resolution than what's on a final CD) and mixed/mastered on the computer.

What you said about ATWIAD is what I wrote on an earlier post. You went to vinyl directly from listening on an iPod - lossy MP3s or AACs that were already stripped of their highs and lows. Of course it sounds better!

Having said that, it's not a fair comparison using most of Prince's 80's music, because his CDs were mastered HORRIBLY whereas his vinyl sounds great.

^^^^^^

These are great responses, theory's and facts. In the late 80's and 90's, music was only released on CD, the music biz took vinyl completely out of the mix. That said, I have 100's of CD's I wish I had a vinyl copy, because they don't sound good.

ATWIAD is a great example and also SOTT. Someone gave me a digital version of those albums, using only vinyl. They pulled all the LP's, 12" singles, 7" singles and put togther the albums in their entirety. And you're right, I heard things i never heard before, including a few pops and clicks here and there, but overall, this is the only way I'll play these albums. I have retired my original CD pressings.

So my point is, 30 years later, why are we still having this debate? You would think "they" would have gotten it right, being able to duplicate the warm analog sound of vinyl in a digital form, and now we live in a world where mp3 is the norm.

G3000 said:

^^^^^^

These are great responses, theory's and facts. In the late 80's and 90's, music was only released on CD, the music biz took vinyl completely out of the mix. That said, I have 100's of CD's I wish I had a vinyl copy, because they don't sound good.

ATWIAD is a great example and also SOTT. Someone gave me a digital version of those albums, using only vinyl. They pulled all the LP's, 12" singles, 7" singles and put togther the albums in their entirety. And you're right, I heard things i never heard before, including a few pops and clicks here and there, but overall, this is the only way I'll play these albums. I have retired my original CD pressings.

So my point is, 30 years later, why are we still having this debate? You would think "they" would have gotten it right, being able to duplicate the warm analog sound of vinyl in a digital form, and now we live in a world where mp3 is the norm.

jojackson said:

If u look at an analog sound waveform and that same sound in digital form the analog waveform is smooth, intact and continuous. The digital waveform of that same sound is jagged, diced and cubed and incomplete.

The digital waveform of a compact disc has 44,100 samples every second, (which is twice the range of human hearing) and it's physically impossible to perceive it as a jagged or incomplete sound. Of course you can prefer the sound of vinyl regardless of that.

PurpleJedi said:

There's something about vinyl that gives music a certain amount of "depth". I don't know how else to describe it.

Now...someone correct me if I'm mistaken...but when transferring music onto discs...don't they lop off the highest "peaks" and lowest "valleys" of the soundwaves? I read somewhere that the difference between a .WMV(?) and an .mp3 file is that the mp3 files are "shortened" in order to make the files smaller and thus fit more music onto a CD. Otherwise you'd still only be able to put 7 or 8 songs on a disc, as opposed to the 12 or 14 that we've grown accustomed to (most CDs would've been double-vinyl albums back-in-the-day).

Actually, what you're describing is the vinyl record.

Vinyl albums started out at 15 minutes/side, and have been produced at up to 35 minutes per side. Laws of physics state that the less music you have on a vinyl record, the greater the depth of grooves (and therefore the quality of the sound) can be.

CD on the other hand has the same quality of sound no matter how long the album is: you always have 44,000 samples of 16-bit depth every second.

G3000 said:

^^^^^^

These are great responses, theory's and facts. In the late 80's and 90's, music was only released on CD, the music biz took vinyl completely out of the mix. That said, I have 100's of CD's I wish I had a vinyl copy, because they don't sound good.

ATWIAD is a great example and also SOTT. Someone gave me a digital version of those albums, using only vinyl. They pulled all the LP's, 12" singles, 7" singles and put togther the albums in their entirety. And you're right, I heard things i never heard before, including a few pops and clicks here and there, but overall, this is the only way I'll play these albums. I have retired my original CD pressings.

So my point is, 30 years later, why are we still having this debate? You would think "they" would have gotten it right, being able to duplicate the warm analog sound of vinyl in a digital form, and now we live in a world where mp3 is the norm.

I'm glad that vinyl is making a comeback, I hope it gets past this "novelty" phase (like kids wearing 80s clothes again) and has staying power.

I love that most bands are embracing vinyl again, and also realizing that we need digital files too.

A simple download code inside the LP jacket allows us to have the best of both worlds, and doesn't try to rip us off by forcing us to pay for downloads. NIN includes an immediate download of their album when you buy the CD or LP.

The greatest hits of Duran Duran & Expose sounds better on vinyl AND cassette than on CD.

That is all.

Vinyl just seems to have stronger bass and an overall better sound when it comes to the various instruments in the songs.

As for the pops and skips, that all depends on how well you take care of the vinyl. I have kept all my albums and 12 Inches not only in their covers, but also in their inner sleeves and the majority of the ones that I bought myself back in the day when they were brand new, have very few pops in them after all these years. The few that I have that have a lot of pops, are ones that I have bought in recent years from used record stores and when you buy something used, you never know how the previously owner cared for it. Some of the used records don't have the inner sleeve because a lot of people back in the day used to take the inner sleeve and hang it on their bedroom walls as posters if it contained a picture on it. I never did that.

As for my 45s, back in the day, I used to have several of those wire 45 holders where you take the 45s out of the paper sleeves and place them in the slots in the wire holder. I don't have the wire holders any more because I have more 45s than I had holders so I have them just in stacks without their paper sleeves. They seem to have a lot more pops in them than my albums and 12 Inches which have never been stored without their covers and inner sleeves. It looks to me that the paper inner sleeve is the key to protecting the life of the vinyl from my experience.

As for the pops, they really don't bother me though because they add to the feel of the music feeling authentic. When I hear them, I know I'm hearing them in their original format the way they were originally recorded and the way I originally heard them. I don't feel like an outsider looking in years later with CDs. It's part of my life that's still here and hasn't gone away and never will.

.

.

.

[Edited 3/10/12 14:21pm]

G3000 said:

^^^^^^

These are great responses, theory's and facts. In the late 80's and 90's, music was only released on CD, the music biz took vinyl completely out of the mix. That said, I have 100's of CD's I wish I had a vinyl copy, because they don't sound good.

ATWIAD is a great example and also SOTT. Someone gave me a digital version of those albums, using only vinyl. They pulled all the LP's, 12" singles, 7" singles and put togther the albums in their entirety. And you're right, I heard things i never heard before, including a few pops and clicks here and there, but overall, this is the only way I'll play these albums. I have retired my original CD pressings.

So my point is, 30 years later, why are we still having this debate? You would think "they" would have gotten it right, being able to duplicate the warm analog sound of vinyl in a digital form, and now we live in a world where mp3 is the norm.

I have all my music in my computer now and have the computer plugged into the stereo so it will play through the speakers. I love to listen to the Windows Media Player on shuffle because I never know what song will play next and it makes me feel like I'm listening to a radio station that plays nothing but good stuff and never any bullshit.

Anyway, every time a Prince song would play, the volume was lower than the previous songs by other artists and the sound was muffled. The songs had been ripped in the computer from the CDs. Those Prince CDs sound absolutely horrible. They sound like they were recorded from cassette tapes and cassette tapes never had the power and bass that vinyl did. The only time I ever bought cassette tapes was during the transition era to CDs where new vinyl was becoming extinct and CD players were still too expensive for a lot of people to buy. Before then, if I wanted a cassette tape of something, I'd buy a blank one and record the vinyl onto it because I found it rediculous to buy something that not only sounded weaker, but you could also record it yourself and could have both the vinyl and a cassette version.

In recent months, I recorded all those old Prince vinyl albums onto CDs and they sounded absolutely wonderful with all the power and bass that I remember the songs having back in the day. I ripped them in the computer and now I have a new problem when I listen to songs on shuffle. Now when a Prince song comes on, it's louder and more powerful than the previous ones by other artists which were ripped from their original CDs. Dammitt, it's gonna make me want to re-record my entire collection.

G3000 said:

^^^^^^

These are great responses, theory's and facts. In the late 80's and 90's, music was only released on CD, the music biz took vinyl completely out of the mix. That said, I have 100's of CD's I wish I had a vinyl copy, because they don't sound good.

ATWIAD is a great example and also SOTT. Someone gave me a digital version of those albums, using only vinyl. They pulled all the LP's, 12" singles, 7" singles and put togther the albums in their entirety. And you're right, I heard things i never heard before, including a few pops and clicks here and there, but overall, this is the only way I'll play these albums. I have retired my original CD pressings.

So my point is, 30 years later, why are we still having this debate? You would think "they" would have gotten it right, being able to duplicate the warm analog sound of vinyl in a digital form, and now we live in a world where mp3 is the norm.

Unfortunately it's a case of lowest common denominator. We are living in a laptop, tv and iphone world.

All three of those devices use tiny, cheap speakers incapable of reproducing music in high quality.

The music these days is being mastered with those devices in consideration. When it comes down to it, heavily limited/compressed, mid range sharp, sounding music, comes out better on those shitty playback speaker systems than dynamic, dramatic, smooth balanced music.

For those who aren't familiar with the terms limiting/compressing, basically it is an extremely fast acting brick wall, which squashes the music into a smaller dynamic range. When I say fast, I mean milliseconds. Let's say you have a song comprised of drums, bass and guitar. The drums will have the highest transients, which are sharp, fast peaks of sound volume. That's the nature of drums, they have fast peaks that rapidly die out. In between those drum transients, the bass and the guitar will have much lower transients, because they're not as percussive or transient as the drums.

So what happens when you put the limiting/compression on those drums, bass and guitar?

The highest transients will be squashed (ie mainly the drum hits) and flattened. The guitar and bass will appear louder in between every drum hit because the limiting/compressing is very quickly releasing it's grip after every prominent drum hit.

That is a VERY simplified explanation.

You'll find that older music, especially CD's that were mastered in the 80's and early 90's can sound a bit lacklustre on your laptop speakers when compared to music mastered in the 2000's. That is mainly because of the much more subtle use of limiting/compression.

But once you are playing back on a decent full range speaker system, it's a whole nother ball game.

Music with lots of dynamics sounds great and full of depth and life. The more you turn it up, the better it sounds!

Not the case with heavily limited/compressed music. Generally the more you turn it up, the more it starts hurting your ears and annoying you!

Back to the vinyl thing, I think that the limitations of the vinyl format work to it's advantage. Alot of care is put into the mastering of vinyl because it actually needs that care in order to not physically make the needle jump out the groove.

Usually the mastering for vinyl is done by a specialist who works just on vinyl and vice versa.

vainandy said:

Vinyl just seems to have stronger bass and an overall better sound when it comes to the various instruments in the songs.

As for the pops and skips, that all depends on how well you take care of the vinyl. I have kept all my albums and 12 Inches not only in their covers, but also in their inner sleeves and the majority of the ones that I bought myself back in the day when they were brand new, have very few pops in them after all these years. The few that I have that have a lot of pops, are ones that I have bought in recent years from used record stores and when you buy something used, you never know how the previously owner cared for it. Some of the used records don't have the inner sleeve because a lot of people back in the day used to take the inner sleeve and hang it on their bedroom walls as posters if it contained a picture on it. I never did that.

As for my 45s, back in the day, I used to have several of those wire 45 holders where you take the 45s out of the paper sleeves and place them in the slots in the wire holder. I don't have the wire holders any more because I have more 45s than I had holders so I have them just in stacks without their paper sleeves. They seem to have a lot more pops in them than my albums and 12 Inches which have never been stored without their covers and inner sleeves. It looks to me that the paper inner sleeve is the key to protecting the life of the vinyl from my experience.

As for the pops, they really don't bother me though because they add to the feel of the music feeling authentic. When I hear them, I know I'm hearing them in their original format the way they were originally recorded and the way I originally heard them. I don't feel like an outsider looking in years later with CDs. It's part of my life that's still here and hasn't gone away and never will.

[Edited 3/10/12 14:21pm]

Yep I'd agree with that, and those are typically the things that lose clarity and presence when over compressed/limited like the way alot of music is mastered in the age of the shitty iphone/laptop speakers.

Bring this shit back!!! When music equipment was considered furniture and amps weighed 90 pounds!!

nd33 said:

G3000 said:

^^^^^^

These are great responses, theory's and facts. In the late 80's and 90's, music was only released on CD, the music biz took vinyl completely out of the mix. That said, I have 100's of CD's I wish I had a vinyl copy, because they don't sound good.

ATWIAD is a great example and also SOTT. Someone gave me a digital version of those albums, using only vinyl. They pulled all the LP's, 12" singles, 7" singles and put togther the albums in their entirety. And you're right, I heard things i never heard before, including a few pops and clicks here and there, but overall, this is the only way I'll play these albums. I have retired my original CD pressings.

So my point is, 30 years later, why are we still having this debate? You would think "they" would have gotten it right, being able to duplicate the warm analog sound of vinyl in a digital form, and now we live in a world where mp3 is the norm.

Unfortunately it's a case of lowest common denominator. We are living in a laptop, tv and iphone world.

All three of those devices use tiny, cheap speakers incapable of reproducing music in high quality.

The music these days is being mastered with those devices in consideration. When it comes down to it, heavily limited/compressed, mid range sharp, sounding music, comes out better on those shitty playback speaker systems than dynamic, dramatic, smooth balanced music.

For those who aren't familiar with the terms limiting/compressing, basically it is an extremely fast acting brick wall, which squashes the music into a smaller dynamic range. When I say fast, I mean milliseconds. Let's say you have a song comprised of drums, bass and guitar. The drums will have the highest transients, which are sharp, fast peaks of sound volume. That's the nature of drums, they have fast peaks that rapidly die out. In between those drum transients, the bass and the guitar will have much lower transients, because they're not as percussive or transient as the drums.

So what happens when you put the limiting/compression on those drums, bass and guitar?

The highest transients will be squashed (ie mainly the drum hits) and flattened. The guitar and bass will appear louder in between every drum hit because the limiting/compressing is very quickly releasing it's grip after every prominent drum hit.

That is a VERY simplified explanation.

You'll find that older music, especially CD's that were mastered in the 80's and early 90's can sound a bit lacklustre on your laptop speakers when compared to music mastered in the 2000's. That is mainly because of the much more subtle use of limiting/compression.

But once you are playing back on a decent full range speaker system, it's a whole nother ball game.

Music with lots of dynamics sounds great and full of depth and life. The more you turn it up, the better it sounds!

Not the case with heavily limited/compressed music. Generally the more you turn it up, the more it starts hurting your ears and annoying you!

Back to the vinyl thing, I think that the limitations of the vinyl format work to it's advantage. Alot of care is put into the mastering of vinyl because it actually needs that care in order to not physically make the needle jump out the groove.

Usually the mastering for vinyl is done by a specialist who works just on vinyl and vice versa.

For me, a well cut, properly mastered, pristine, heavy piece of vinyl, played through a decent set up, is the finest listening experience there can be. Go and listen to last year's reissues of 1999, Dirty Mind and Controversy to hear waht I mean. It's like Prince and the band are performing right there in the room with you.

There's no doubt that Vinyl is much more tempramental than Compact Disc. We all know about how prone they are to deterioration, if played on unsound equipment. So buying second hand can be a gamble.

Like Andy says, the key is giving your wax TLC. Yeah, you don't have to worry about cleaning an MP3, or putting it back into its sleeve. But will an MP3 ever give you the same, immersive listening experience?

BUT....

Since becoming a vinyl listener about a year ago, I've discovered a few other things that that Vinylphiles keep quiet about:

- Inner Grrove Distortion - Where the final sections of each side plays back all distorted, as the grooves become more 'congested'. Seems to afflict a lot of vinyl, even some new 'audiophile pressings'. Can either be the result of a poorly aligned cartridge, a damaged disc, or shoddy mastering. A real pain in the arse.

- Lack of customer support. If you're going to take the plunge into the sea of wax, be ready to spend hours fiddling with your turntable, and maybe a load more cash, to get rid of this pest (and the good old days when you could take it into a 'hi-fi' dealer to set up are over. Most Hi-Fi dealers are all but gone, and those that remain are more likely to try and sell you an iPad or some other monstrosity of the digital age Bah, where's me pipe and slippers?

Even worse, major electronics comapnies won;t give you much, if any, tech support for turntables that they sell currently. One such company (which rhymes with Phony) basically told me to get lost when I approached them for advice on one of their systems which I had just purchased.

- Dynamic Range - A properly mastered vinyl will perform at high and low frequencies alomost as well as a typical CD. But yer bog standard disc will probably have the tops and bottoms 'rolled' off slightly to fit it all in the grooves. This was a common complaint from sound engineerswho worked when Vinyl was king.

Unfortunately it's a case of lowest common denominator. We are living in a laptop, tv and iphone world.

Very true, nd33. The limited dynamic range of todays music is down to musical fashion, more than the format. It's a funny thing, as technology progresses we seem cn=ontent paying almost as much for a much crappier experience - not unlike the so-called 'budget' airflight revolution.

Mind you, I see a lot of people using pretty swanky looking cans with their phoes, laptops etc. Let's hope that consumers will start demanding better formats and soind files to justify thier expensive hardware.

ReddishBrownOne said:

For me, a well cut, properly mastered, pristine, heavy piece of vinyl, played through a decent set up, is the finest listening experience there can be. Go and listen to last year's reissues of 1999, Dirty Mind and Controversy to hear waht I mean. It's like Prince and the band are performing right there in the room with you.

There's no doubt that Vinyl is much more tempramental than Compact Disc. We all know about how prone they are to deterioration, if played on unsound equipment. So buying second hand can be a gamble.

Like Andy says, the key is giving your wax TLC. Yeah, you don't have to worry about cleaning an MP3, or putting it back into its sleeve. But will an MP3 ever give you the same, immersive listening experience?

BUT....

Since becoming a vinyl listener about a year ago, I've discovered a few other things that that Vinylphiles keep quiet about:

- Inner Grrove Distortion - Where the final sections of each side plays back all distorted, as the grooves become more 'congested'. Seems to afflict a lot of vinyl, even some new 'audiophile pressings'. Can either be the result of a poorly aligned cartridge, a damaged disc, or shoddy mastering. A real pain in the arse.

- Lack of customer support. If you're going to take the plunge into the sea of wax, be ready to spend hours fiddling with your turntable, and maybe a load more cash, to get rid of this pest (and the good old days when you could take it into a 'hi-fi' dealer to set up are over. Most Hi-Fi dealers are all but gone, and those that remain are more likely to try and sell you an iPad or some other monstrosity of the digital age Bah, where's me pipe and slippers?

Even worse, major electronics comapnies won;t give you much, if any, tech support for turntables that they sell currently. One such company (which rhymes with Phony) basically told me to get lost when I approached them for advice on one of their systems which I had just purchased.

- Dynamic Range - A properly mastered vinyl will perform at high and low frequencies alomost as well as a typical CD. But yer bog standard disc will probably have the tops and bottoms 'rolled' off slightly to fit it all in the grooves. This was a common complaint from sound engineerswho worked when Vinyl was king.

Unfortunately it's a case of lowest common denominator. We are living in a laptop, tv and iphone world.

Very true, nd33. The limited dynamic range of todays music is down to musical fashion, more than the format. It's a funny thing, as technology progresses we seem cn=ontent paying almost as much for a much crappier experience - not unlike the so-called 'budget' airflight revolution.

Mind you, I see a lot of people using pretty swanky looking cans with their phoes, laptops etc. Let's hope that consumers will start demanding better formats and soind files to justify thier expensive hardware.

That's true, but I believe alot of these people have either forgotten or never even experienced what a brilliantly engineered album played back on a sweet sound system sounds like.

The lack of mental reference to that kind of music playback experience means that their fancy headphones are quite possibly being vastly underutilised, by combination of:

* Music being stored as inferior mp3's

* Analogue to digital conversion of cheap headphone output ports on digital devices (some laptops audio outputs are absolutely terrible I might add!)

* Only listening to music that's been mastered in the iPod age - which far more often than not is over compressed/limited IMO and I think that results in lack of depth, edginess and irritation too!

nd33 said:

ReddishBrownOne said:

For me, a well cut, properly mastered, pristine, heavy piece of vinyl, played through a decent set up, is the finest listening experience there can be. Go and listen to last year's reissues of 1999, Dirty Mind and Controversy to hear waht I mean. It's like Prince and the band are performing right there in the room with you.

There's no doubt that Vinyl is much more tempramental than Compact Disc. We all know about how prone they are to deterioration, if played on unsound equipment. So buying second hand can be a gamble.

Like Andy says, the key is giving your wax TLC. Yeah, you don't have to worry about cleaning an MP3, or putting it back into its sleeve. But will an MP3 ever give you the same, immersive listening experience?

BUT....

Since becoming a vinyl listener about a year ago, I've discovered a few other things that that Vinylphiles keep quiet about:

- Inner Grrove Distortion - Where the final sections of each side plays back all distorted, as the grooves become more 'congested'. Seems to afflict a lot of vinyl, even some new 'audiophile pressings'. Can either be the result of a poorly aligned cartridge, a damaged disc, or shoddy mastering. A real pain in the arse.

- Lack of customer support. If you're going to take the plunge into the sea of wax, be ready to spend hours fiddling with your turntable, and maybe a load more cash, to get rid of this pest (and the good old days when you could take it into a 'hi-fi' dealer to set up are over. Most Hi-Fi dealers are all but gone, and those that remain are more likely to try and sell you an iPad or some other monstrosity of the digital age Bah, where's me pipe and slippers?

Even worse, major electronics comapnies won;t give you much, if any, tech support for turntables that they sell currently. One such company (which rhymes with Phony) basically told me to get lost when I approached them for advice on one of their systems which I had just purchased.

- Dynamic Range - A properly mastered vinyl will perform at high and low frequencies alomost as well as a typical CD. But yer bog standard disc will probably have the tops and bottoms 'rolled' off slightly to fit it all in the grooves. This was a common complaint from sound engineerswho worked when Vinyl was king.

Very true, nd33. The limited dynamic range of todays music is down to musical fashion, more than the format. It's a funny thing, as technology progresses we seem cn=ontent paying almost as much for a much crappier experience - not unlike the so-called 'budget' airflight revolution.

Mind you, I see a lot of people using pretty swanky looking cans with their phoes, laptops etc. Let's hope that consumers will start demanding better formats and soind files to justify thier expensive hardware.

That's true, but I believe alot of these people have either forgotten or never even experienced what a brilliantly engineered album played back on a sweet sound system sounds like.

The lack of mental reference to that kind of music playback experience means that their fancy headphones are quite possibly being vastly underutilised, by combination of:

* Music being stored as inferior mp3's

* Analogue to digital conversion of cheap headphone output ports on digital devices (some laptops audio outputs are absolutely terrible I might add!)

* Only listening to music that's been mastered in the iPod age - which far more often than not is over compressed/limited IMO and I think that results in lack of depth, edginess and irritation too!

All good points. Another trend that might work stop the audiophile rennaissance that I fantasize about is that most people use music as a background while they are doing something else, rather than sitting down and listening to it properly. So regardless of how their nice £300 headphones show up the limitations of thir Mp3s, they will probably too busy working out, driving or witing shit on the internet to care.

Mind you, as I write this shit on the internet, I'm listening to the last RHCP album, which was 'mastered specially for itunes' , on a pair of fairly crappy headphones, which I mainly use while excercising. I guess that makes me part of the problem, so I should shut up now.

vainandy said:

Vinyl just seems to have stronger bass and an overall better sound when it comes to the various instruments in the songs.

As for the pops and skips, that all depends on how well you take care of the vinyl. I have kept all my albums and 12 Inches not only in their covers, but also in their inner sleeves and the majority of the ones that I bought myself back in the day when they were brand new, have very few pops in them after all these years. The few that I have that have a lot of pops, are ones that I have bought in recent years from used record stores and when you buy something used, you never know how the previously owner cared for it. Some of the used records don't have the inner sleeve because a lot of people back in the day used to take the inner sleeve and hang it on their bedroom walls as posters if it contained a picture on it. I never did that.

As for my 45s, back in the day, I used to have several of those wire 45 holders where you take the 45s out of the paper sleeves and place them in the slots in the wire holder. I don't have the wire holders any more because I have more 45s than I had holders so I have them just in stacks without their paper sleeves. They seem to have a lot more pops in them than my albums and 12 Inches which have never been stored without their covers and inner sleeves. It looks to me that the paper inner sleeve is the key to protecting the life of the vinyl from my experience.

As for the pops, they really don't bother me though because they add to the feel of the music feeling authentic. When I hear them, I know I'm hearing them in their original format the way they were originally recorded and the way I originally heard them. I don't feel like an outsider looking in years later with CDs. It's part of my life that's still here and hasn't gone away and never will.

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[Edited 3/10/12 14:21pm]

There is a joke about Andy and twelve inches that is on the tip of my tongue but for the sake of the children I shall abstain.

I believe vinyl naturally tends toward bass, so when the first albums were remastered for cd they sounded thin compared to the vinyl.

Most new music is made specifically for the digital format, so it sounds just fine that way IMO. Of course everyone has different opinions.

G3000 said:

Bring this shit back!!! When music equipment was considered furniture and amps weighed 90 pounds!!