Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sony plans to make vinyl records again

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 347 posts

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#131

Post by mikestew »

afandian wrote: post #106
mikestew wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Apple Music do the same? If they do, I'm having a hard time figuring out where I'd see it. There are no ads on Apple Music, at all, AFAICT. So to answer your question directly, I'm going with "no".

Not saying that they do, but who says that the ads need to be presented on the platform tracking the user?

And I'm not saying they don't, but I'm trying to picture Apple bundling up those data, selling them off in secret so that it appears that Apple's hands are clean. Then someone eventually figures it out, and Apple the Company That Cares About Your Privacy is fucking done. I'm sure there's someone within that company willing to take that chance if they might get a bigger bonus, but I like to believe there are enough opposing views around them that it doesn't happen.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#132

Post by vmarsy »

eterm wrote: post #33
kristiandupont wrote: post #11

I confess, I am part of this trend. And I just got into it, so I get no "before it was cool"-claim to fame. Not sure where that leaves me on the hipster-scale. Buying CD's used to be a weekly ritual for me and I missed it for years. Putting on a new album on a Saturday afternoon with a beer or glass of wine while I start cooking is a very enjoyable moment for me. Now, obviously this was for the most part because I wo…

But why buy vinyl instead of buying CDs? I understand your point about listening to a whole album being preferable to singles, I feel the same way but I'd still much rather listen to a CD than an LP.

There is a quality aspect regarding the "loudness war" : http://www.soundmattersblog.com/vinyl-vs-cd-in-the-loudness-...

Making Vinyl sometimes better than CDs

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#133

Post by [deleted] »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #122
danmaz74 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Skipping to a certain part of a song is much more difficult with CD's. Are you serious?

Completely. Well, ok, not really :) I debated including it because it's not something I do very often. I do think it's true though. On a CD you hold the skip button and have to guess where you are (pretty sure none of my CD players showed a timecode when skipping but it's been a while). With vinyl you can see a physical representation of the length of the track and estimate much better (i.e. the solo is half way thro…

[deleted]

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#134

Post by ian_d »

amelius wrote: post #117

There's a lot of music that isn't even available anymore in any formats other than digital. It would be cool if there was a service where one can "burn" (or press) a vinyl record from a bunch of mp3/wav files, and print a nice sleeve.

Pressing a one-off record isn't worth the cost because of the requirement of creating a pressing mother. (Mastering, creating a lacquer, a mother, a stamper, then finally pressing.) However, for one-offs your options are basically an acetate (which'll wear quickly with play) or a lathe-cut dubplate (which can be a bit lo-fi depending on process).

There's a bunch of lathe services available: http://carverycuts.com/home/dubplates-order.html http://www.audiogeography.com/records/ http://vinylcarvers.com/ https://www.cutadub.com/

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#135

Post by bhj »

nikanj wrote: post #109
nindalf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if this would work for you, but I like Spotify's Discover Weekly. Every Monday you get a playlist of 30 songs that you've never heard before. I listen to it from beginning to end without skipping and I often find songs that I end up liking a lot

Discover weekly is Spotify's key to that sweet payola, and it really shows. You can't remove songs from the weekly recommendation, and somehow it repeatedly gives you well-marketed artists completely outside your listening preferences.

Another anecdotal data point: This has not been my experience at all. Its recommendations have gotten more obscure as I've liked/plussed those kind of things. It's more likely that you're encountering the limits of Spotify's library and/or algorithms rather than some nefarious payola plot. (I agree that being able to remove songs - or at least thumbs up/down similar to artist/album radio modes - would be nice)

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#136

Post by jccc »

mitchellshow wrote: post #127
gjem97 wrote: post #41

It always makes me cringe when people say that records "sound better". Here's my unsolicited theory on why vinyl was preferred (by some) to CDs in the 90s and 00s. It wasn't the form factor, it was the dynamic range of the masters. I don't know if it was caused by the advent of digital recording, but the loudness war [1] certainly got going around the time that CDs were becoming popular. So comparing a classic vinyl…

Also, since most everything is recorded digitally these days, there are almost no "true analog" mixdowns, which means you're pressing a stair-stepped digital frequency onto vinyl. With the exception of wealthy purists (read: just Radiohead), that vinyl you're listening to is actually the digital recording pressed onto vinyl, not an analog recording pressed to vinyl.

[absolutely sincere question]

If you did two simultaneous recordings of a performance -- one a modern digital and the other a modern analog -- what would be the appreciable difference between the two once pressed to vinyl?

I just reflexively assume that there wouldn't be much difference at that point. Unless you're thinking of the loudness-war compression that's done to digital, but that doesn't happen to the recording until you're making the CD or something else for digital distribution.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#137

Post by Piccollo »

afandian wrote: post #38

If you think this direction is bizarre, consider the 'cutting edge'. In the 21st century my 'CD player' (Spotify) is tracking everything I listen to so they can sell the data to a company who will build a comprehensive psychological profile about me and try to influence where I spend my money (or worse, which way I vote). This tweet specifically was bare-faced about it and appeared to be saying "our users are fine wi…

I personally voluntarily allow tracking through Last.fm scrobbling, which lets you see aggregated data about what you listen to.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#138

Post by oflannabhra »

I started collecting vinyl back in 2006, when my uncle passed and left me a turntable and a small collection. I grew up with Napster, CD-Rs, iTunes, and iPods.

I've always seen my generations attraction to vinyl as a response to the ephemeral nature of digital music. Vinyl is orders of magnitude less convenient, but it is concrete. When I spend my $5-30 dollars, I own a physical good that I can manipulate. I think this also answers the question "Why vinyl?" - it is the most physical of all music mediums.

I think that is a strong psychological component for humans. This has only grown with subscription services, where I spend $10 every month, and don't even have a library to browse.

I've never really cared about vinyl's sound, and actually listen mostly to digital records. But as far as giving a sense of ownership and intimacy, vinyl wins.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#139

Post by protonfish »

mitchellshow wrote: post #127
gjem97 wrote: post #41

It always makes me cringe when people say that records "sound better". Here's my unsolicited theory on why vinyl was preferred (by some) to CDs in the 90s and 00s. It wasn't the form factor, it was the dynamic range of the masters. I don't know if it was caused by the advent of digital recording, but the loudness war [1] certainly got going around the time that CDs were becoming popular. So comparing a classic vinyl…

Also, since most everything is recorded digitally these days, there are almost no "true analog" mixdowns, which means you're pressing a stair-stepped digital frequency onto vinyl. With the exception of wealthy purists (read: just Radiohead), that vinyl you're listening to is actually the digital recording pressed onto vinyl, not an analog recording pressed to vinyl.

Digital waveforms are not stair-steps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#140

Post by teilo »

mitchellshow wrote: post #127
gjem97 wrote: post #41

It always makes me cringe when people say that records "sound better". Here's my unsolicited theory on why vinyl was preferred (by some) to CDs in the 90s and 00s. It wasn't the form factor, it was the dynamic range of the masters. I don't know if it was caused by the advent of digital recording, but the loudness war [1] certainly got going around the time that CDs were becoming popular. So comparing a classic vinyl…

Also, since most everything is recorded digitally these days, there are almost no "true analog" mixdowns, which means you're pressing a stair-stepped digital frequency onto vinyl. With the exception of wealthy purists (read: just Radiohead), that vinyl you're listening to is actually the digital recording pressed onto vinyl, not an analog recording pressed to vinyl.

There is no "stair-stepping" in digital recordings.

The sample-rate of a CD exceeds the effective resolution of even the best vinyl pressing. Furthermore, the Nyquist limit guarantees that it is impossible to perceive the sample rate of a CD, and even with a bit-depth of 16, you have 50% more dynamic range than vinyl is capable of.

Add to that the fact that a master is generally 96Khz, 24-bit.

Post reply on HN