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Sony plans to make vinyl records again

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Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#171

Post by gmarx »

jballanc wrote: post #112
eterm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure if this is still the case, but 10-15 years ago most vinyl albums were mastered separately from CDs. CDs were subject to the horrors of the loudness wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war . So, in many cases, the vinyl actually does sound better, but not (directly) because of any difference in technology, just a difference in how the medium was processed.

yes and I also recall 10 years ago that many reissues that came out on vinyl and cd simultaneously the vinyl version sounded bad

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#172

Post by mohaine »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #64
mohaine wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I don't think most people are actually listening to these. I'm guessing most people don't even own a player (or even a home audio system to hook it to). Has there been large increase in player sales as well? I'm sure there has been an increase but I doubt it had any way to go but up. If it comes with a free download then vinyl is pretty much the perfect box to sell downloads at a brick and mortor. Thin but w…

>> I don't think most people are actually listening to these. Given the high price of most brand new vinyl I'd be highly surprised if this was true. I do think you're on to something though. I will listen to the digital/streaming version of a record I have much, much more often than the vinyl copy. Usually if it's a new release I'll buy the vinyl, sit down and enjoy it start to finish, and then the only time I'll pla…

I will admit to not actually looking at the prices of vinyl but is it much higher then just a download or much higher then cd/tapes were historically?

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#173

Post by gmarx »

cranjice wrote: post #81

I collect my favorite artist albums on vinyl for a few reasons: * Big artwork and liner notes. I have shelves on my wall to display my current favorite albums and change them out over time. * Conversation piece. Friends can actually browse a collection and talk about common interests. It's fun to hang out and listen to records with people. * Vinyl requires some heavier duty stereo equipment. Regardless of how you thi…

I love that you call it a "hi-fi" which is what it would have been called the generation before mine. We always called it a "stereo". I've always been amazed by how rare it is for a person to be interested in a system that makes the music sound better. The difference between an iPhone with the default earbuds and a $5000 stereo rig with speakers is astounding but only a tiny fraction of the listening public cares

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#174

Post by Z1515M8147 »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #144

As someone who started collecting vinyl about 3 years ago, it's about the difference between passive and active involvement in music. So much of our music consumption these days is a largely passive activity. We have music in our headphones while we work. We have music on in our cars while we drive. We have music on in the background of social events. While modern digital formats have given us true ubiquity of music…

Your comment and the other replies to this comment reminded me of this interesting article (2015) by philosopher Roger Scruton:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34801885

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#175

Post by runeb »

cr1895 wrote: post #62
Myrmornis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't find it inconvenient to have to turn the LP over during cooking?

If I'm at home, more than likely there's a record spinning. I don't mind flipping. If I'm busy momentarily, it'll just spin with the needle in the deadwax...not a big deal.

I see you don't play Sgt. Pepper often. That endless loop…

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#176

Post by balladeer »

nindalf wrote: post #15
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…

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

The problem with these online streaming services I face is that I try to use them mostly for one crucial purpose and that is recommendation - and they always fail to recommend anything that appeals to me. I want to find new songs, new artists that I would like. But these services never helped me with that.

I don't like rap, hip-hop, or metal. I mostly like rock, some pop etc but that too not too loud. I don't really know how much "not loud"; that's where I thought these recommendation engines would kick in. I have found couple of artists/songs that I just love on Bandcamp (awesome place). But Spotify, Apple Music (this one has been an utter disappointment for me), and many other streaming services that I've tried in my country just didn't cut it.

What have helped me over the years are films, blogs, tweets etc. Something random playing on a bus, or a film soundtrack, a TV show theme song. Like that song A Chi that I heard while watching The Best of Youth. It was in Italian and I didn't understand a word but I just instantly connected to it. I loved it. That German song from The Night Porter - from there I discovered Marlene Dietrich's Lili Marleen. Or Many a tears from October Sky, or that song from Twelve Monkeys. And there are some like Amélie (well, every tune is fabulous in this one) where I disconvered Guilty by Al Bowlly. A friend once, out of the blue, told me to check out Imagine Dragons and later I listenred to Demons like crazy; on repeat. Or a chance hearing of a tune in an Iranian film that was composed by an Iranian artist. It's the best song of melancholy I have ever heard and it doesn't have any lyrics.

I even found some nice ones on WCD before it was burnt down. I got there late; or rather started exploring late. Its recommendations were a lot better than the streaming serives, at least for me.

What I find surprising is that I benefit from recommendation services for books, films a lot, but for music I've never been able to find recommendation service that tries to find that nerve or even something close to it that is a person's musical taste and then recommends tunes around that. Maybe unlike books just the lyrics of a song aren't enough and it's very difficult to discern how a tune would sound good or boring to a listener. I've tried a lot and after some time I gave up. Maybe I was doing soemething wrong or I should try services that just to music recommendation, and not streaming maybe.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#177

Post by flavio81 »

teilo wrote: post #140
mitchellshow wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is theoric considerations, not practical.

For frequencies from about 2Khz to the limit, the dynamic range of the LP is over 100dB. The quoted 60-66dB dynamic range is only because takes into account low frequency rumble.

CDs are mastered with 44KHz sampling rate which is now generally accepted as too low for high quality audio. Yes according to Nyquist, you could capture up to 22KHz with no problem with such sampling rate, but in real life you run into all sorts of problems related to filtering on both the ADC and the DAC. It is too low for implementing a good DAC and ADC.

As for the LP record, they can extend beyond 20KHz easily, in fact i have records with info up to 50KHz which can be then played back correctly -- CD4 quadraphonic records.

CD- quality audio, in real life use, introduces non linear, non-musical distortions that detract from the sound, while vinyl records mostly have the typical 2nd harmonic distortion and in controlled levels.

Furthermore, LP record distortion diminishes with program level (softer sounds are less distorted), while PCM DACs, by nature, do the opposite. This isn't nice to the ear.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#178

Post by Symbiote »

amelius wrote: post #114
OberstKrueger wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres a middle-ground though that doesn't require you to go back to analogue listening from decades past. Use something like iTunes or whatever other equivalent application with your own music. If you're not comfortable with possible tracking from digital downloads, you can still rip CDs to it. Seems more convenient than going back to LPs and all of the physical management that that entails.

And you think that Apple can't detect which CDs you ripped?

Then use an open source media player. There are plenty, personally I use Amarok.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#179

Post by klodolph »

api wrote: post #36
klodolph wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I definitely prefer the opposite. I cook my food with a WiFi enabled microwave and route all my phone calls through a cast-iron IBM 1401. (What does "enlightenment stage" mean?)

I meant a stage at which shiny and new doesn't mean anything. A truly post-technological civilization would just have tools and would pick the right tool for whatever it wanted to achieve. Sometimes that's something exotic and new and sometimes it's a candle.

Supposing I want to show off my wealth and status, isn't a brand new gold iPhone a relatively effective way of doing that? Does that make me post-technological?

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#180

Post by gmarx »

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #58
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…

They actually did sound better during the very early days of CDs. Consumer DACs were terrible in the 80s. But these days that isn't a problem. CDs can sound great, but they will also happily carry all kinds of non-harmonic distortion which many people find disagreeable. The loudness war is an issue, but it isn't widely understood.

I agree. Until about 2005 listening to a CD on my audiophile rig was often painful. Most discs just had an irritating noise that made me want to stop listening. I couldn't tell you what it was but the word people used "fatiguing" was correct. I don't know if I finally lost hearing in the frequency range that contained the fatigue or if they fixed it but for the past 5-10 I find digital music to be pretty enjoyable. Also, many of the super old records that collectors claim were the ultimate (like Mercury Living Presence or RCA Living Stereo) aren't really that great. Records from the late 70s and early 80s were probably the peak. There is a lot of placebo effect in what people like
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