

How I learned to stop worrying and love vinyl - coldtea
http://news.qthemusic.com/2012/07/column_-_how_i_learned_to_stop.html

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IanDrake
Vinyl sounds great for increasing one's hipster cred, but last time I heard a
vinyl album it sounded like, well, crap.

The author seems to be comparing the sound of the record shop's nicest player
to an MP3, of god knows what bit-rate, played through ear buds.

Maybe what he's really discovered is that a nice hi-fi system goes a long way
and he should get more disk space for his audio files and go lossless.

~~~
dmix
A ton of audiophiles with $5000 stereo systems still prefer the analog vinyl
sound over digital if you read the magazines/forums.

It's not quite adventurous or hipster to make that statement.

~~~
bartl
And some audiophiles would pay up to $500 for a wooden volume knob:
<http://boingboing.net/2005/11/07/astronomically-overp.html>. I don't quite
trust those people's judgement.

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dmix
I love vinyl too but I don't like spending $20 on a record any more.

It's entirely possible to build a decent collection from "crate digging" and
bargian hunting. But most good albums have increased in price.

You can find 192kHz/24-bit rips of vinyl records on torrent sites or convert
them using a USB record player.

Then use a proper audio DAC and it's a perfect audio replication without the
additional drag of having to switch records every 15 minutes, lug around heavy
vinyl or deal with temperamental needles on record players.

~~~
rdtsc
> 192kHz@24bits

I know disk space is cheap, but why 192kHz? Why not encode at 48kHz and use
the rest of it for more music, or heck, cat videos.

~~~
EliRivers
I'm no kind of music fan, and even I can hear how crappy 48kHz sounds next to
192kHz; you can hear it even over a bad pair of earbuds.

~~~
__david__
> even I can hear how crappy 48kHz sounds next to 192kHz

:-) No you can't. All raising the sampling rate does is raise the Nyquist
frequency and unless you have super human ears that can hear up to 96KHz (
_you don't_ ), then all you're doing is wasting disk space.

~~~
EliRivers
I thought IvyM said he talking about bitrate; not sampling rate?

~~~
__david__
Yeah, he probably is. His units threw me off.

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jff
> _However the static is soon forgotten as Whole Lotta Love rumbles out of the
> speakers and fills the room. Clear and all encompassing, it's as if the
> audio spectrum has opened up to me and now I'm swimming in the sound, rather
> than just watching the waves from the beach. Not that I'm trying to sound
> like I found God or anything, but this has to be the musical version of that
> revelation. "In MP3s it's all wedged up into one space, everything is
> compromised," explains my sonic Sherpa, Phil. "Whereas on a record like this
> on a decent system, you can isolate everything. Just listen to the voice,
> and now to the drums. Normally, you miss things, like bass players!" The
> music is like a big, warm melodic bear hug._

Ok, thanks, sonic douchebag Phil. The important part is "on a decent system".
It's almost as though having this big set of expensive speakers all around you
might make a song sound more "all encompassing" than listening through a pair
of $10 earbuds.

I have some vinyl because I like old things, and I agree that it's an
experience worth trying, but have you ever listened to an album like The Wall
or The Dark Side of the Moon on vinyl? It's great as a chance to listen the
way people did when it first came out, but on the other hand, these albums are
meant to be listened straight through, with the "songs" flowing one into
another, and it really messes up that flow when you have to flip and re-start
4 different times to finish The Wall.

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GaryGapinski
Vinyl is inferior to good (not lossy) digital.

Using vinyl as a medium is daft.

I do miss album covers. I don't miss the noise, defects, expense, and
fragility.

Good speakers are worth the money. Vinyl is not in any way worth any money nor
is worth obsessing about (unless obsession is the goal).

I do have an un-played Mosaic MQ10-177 available for anyone daft enough to be
interested in vinyl. I thought it a worthy specimen of obsolete technology.

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rdtsc
> Determined to see if vinyl truly is the superior format

I just stopped there. This is like the people who try to find out if a model T
car is a better car than Civic. "Let's conduct a test and spend time and money
setting it up". Well, ok, I don't have to conduct a test, I can tell you a
Civic is better.

But, if you happen to own lots of records or own a shop in a hip part of town
that sells records, by no means, load up on monster cables and vinyl records.
For some reasons when it comes to audio, there is never a shortage of people
willing to part with their money over dubious claims. I would want to be on
the side selling them stuff.

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DanBC
Modern mixing tends to over use dynamic range compression to make everything
loud, rather than allowing a full dynamic range.

Thus, when comparing vinyl to MP3 you might not be comparing like with like.

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markfig
There are plenty of reasons to listen to vinyl and it's fine if you are doing
it to be hip. I do it because of the sound quality. CDs were invented in the
1980s. The digital resolution is simply not very high. Remember what the first
digital cameras looked like next to film? That's the CD next to vinyl. And
MP3s and AACs are so much worse.

It's like comparing a compressed JPG to an Ansel Adams print on a gallery
wall.

In theory newer digital audio formats should be able to get a lot closer to
the sound quality of analog soundwaves perfectly preserved in wax and traced
by a diamond needle. But I've not heard a digital format yet that quite
captures it. Hopefully one day there will be. But we're not there yet, not to
my ears.

Listening to digital formats is wonderfully convenient but you are simply
hearing a pixelated approximation of your music. You're trading audible detail
and richness for convenience. That's no crime.

But if you love music, I mean LOVE it, you owe it to yourself to give vinyl a
try.

~~~
taylodl
I grew up in the analog age. Trust me, there was much rejoicing when CDs came
out. Your lament about the digital resolution of CDs is baseless: the
resolution is far beyond what the human ear can discern. We've already been
through all this in the 80's. It's comical to watch you hipsters stir up this
old dust that had settled long ago.

Oh, and it's well-known that some people prefer the sound of vinyl. It's a
particular distortion accentuating the midrange. This distortion provides a
"warmer" sound. But let's not kid ourselves - it's a distortion.

But if you prefer the warmer sound of vinyl then I suggest you try 7,5 IPS
reel-to-reel. It'll knock your socks off!

~~~
markfig
Sorry I missed this when first posted. But it needs a response. You say "the
resolution is far beyond what the human ear can discern" as though that were
undisputed science, which I should simply have looked up. But that is not the
case.

You listen to two recordings of a high-hat. One CD, and one high quality
analog such as pristine vinyl. And then you tell me you cannot discern the
compression on a cd in comparison to vinyl. It's in the highest frequencies
that the redbook cd format creates the most audible distortion. (Vinyl has
issues too, obviously - but different ones.) But nobody could reasonably claim
that redbook CDs are undistorted while vinyl is distorted. Both formats
distort sound.

If you can't hear the difference, that's fine, but let's not pretend it is a
scientific fact that CDs are somehow "accurate."

Edit: to be clear, I am not talking about frequency (highs and lows), I am
talking about frame-rate. And I'm not talking about what is theoretically
possible in "digital sound reproduction" I am talking about what is
implemented in the standard format for audio CDs sold today.

Regarding reel-to-reel, I bet you're right! But it's not for me.

If you grew up in the era of records, I dare you to go find a record of one of
your favorite recordings that you currently listen to on cd.... go find the
record and listen to it. I dare you.

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ladzoppelin
Vinyl sounds better however I will admit that digital converters have become
really good in the past 5-7 years. If I had the money and the space I would
start buying vinyl again just because I find it more fun to mix then mp3's.

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dmethvin
The thing I miss most about vinyl is the creative canvas that was the album
cover. There's no way to hear _Dark Side of the Moon_ or _Sticky Fingers_
without also seeing the album in your mind.

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baconhigh
this is a fucking nothing article.

Goes to record store.

Listens to vinyl.

Likes.

End.

