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Sony plans to make vinyl records again

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#271

Post by hotgoldminer »

nocman wrote: post #250
delinka wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...using one medium over another somehow makes you more "serious" about the music" I believe you missed the point. He says the ritual makes the listener more involved with the music. He doesn't say different media make one more or less serious about music. It's similar with food: you can be serious about your food whether cooking it yourself or ordering it at a restaurant (or eating at a buffet.) But you're more inv…

No, I don't think I missed the point. My point was that he was unnecessarily tying the listener's activeness/seriousness/whatever with/about the music to the medium it was on. I totally get the point about there being different levels of interaction with music. I just don't think that listening to music on vinyl equates to you being a more active listener. For some it might help, I suppose, but I think it is far from…

Depending on what you're listening to (and more to the point - how what you were listening to was recorded/mastered), an analog medium sounds better. Same can be said for a digital medium, of course. It is a tool box. I put the tools I need in the box.

In that light, medium does somewhat equate to being an active listener - you evidence that you care about how the music was made in the first place.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#272

Post by skciva »

ksk wrote: post #253
skciva wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't understand why people like something and dismiss it as silly hipster bias? Does everything have to be about efficiency and logical superiority? People enjoy the experience more and are spending money on it. How horrible.

>So you don't understand why people like something and dismiss it as silly hipster bias? Yeah, it can seem annoying when someone does that to what you like, but all humans do this at some level. Its same thing as when someone insists that a $7,000 bottle of wine makes you sit down and have a personal experience with the wine, makes you appreciate the weight of the wine, its powerful robust swirling texture, and its a…

I see your point and won't pretend there isn't an air of pretentiousness surrounding some who purchase records.

I think any hobby will have its fair share of smugness at the top.

Also comparing listening to records as consulting tarot cards is a bit extreme don't you think?

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#273

Post by zeep »

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…

Why can't you plug your iphone in your home stereo and "listen"?

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#275

Post by kazinator »

cthalupa wrote: post #228
kazinator wrote: post #192

Frank Zappa on vinyl, BAM (Bay Area Music magazine) [1987]: http://www.afka.net/Articles/1987-01_BAM.htm BAM: Working with a computerized synthesizer, do you find that vinyl is no longer the most desirable way to present your music? Will you be releasing CD-only recordings? FZ: Well, vinyl never really was all that terrific a medium anyway. Some people cling to the belief that vinyl sounds better. I don't know. Not t…

Frank Zappa also was releasing recordings in the age prior to the Loudness War. Digital is a superior format. But I still buy vinyl because a good half of vinyl recordings out there aren't completely fucked by applying a compressor that destroys the dynamic range.

Vinyl recordings are absolutely degraded by a compressor; it's necessary to reduce the dynamics so that the record can be cut, and so the needle doesn't skip out on playback. Something has to make the material fit into the limited dynamic range.

There is also pre and post equalization applied:

Wikipedia info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization

The bass has the shit rolled down out of it, and is boosted back on playback.

If you image search for "RIAA circuit", you get lots of hits for phonograph cartridge pre-amp circuits that implement the playback EQ.

By the way, another Zappa article, on this topic, about record cutting!

http://www.afka.net/Articles/1980-01_Musicians_Only.htm

> The album was cut at half speed, a lengthier process, obviously, but resulting in far better definition and dynamics. At normal speed, deep flanging like that used on JOE'S GARAGE can play havoc with the record cutting head. When the two sides of the stereo are out of phase, the groove almost vanishes and your stylus will leap clear and scythe a path across the rest of the vinyl. One of the advances he's looking forward to is the improvement in cutting techniques so the head's relationship to the disc can be updated many more times during a cut, boosting the fidelity.

Good grief ... the vinyl issues! Flanging was used and the head skips due to the channels being out of phase, gotta cut at half speed.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#276

Post by kazinator »

some-guy wrote: post #263
cthalupa wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frank Zappa also was releasing recordings in the age prior to the Loudness War. Digital is a superior format. But I still buy vinyl because a good half of vinyl recordings out there aren't completely fucked by applying a compressor that destroys the dynamic range.

I confess: I used to get Vinyl rips of old albums for this reason on what.cd It wasn't that Vinyl is better, but the MIXES were better. They didn't compress the crap out of everything.

If a modern, loudness-compressed digital mix is rendered into vinyl, it will have the same property.

I think that before digital, recording engineers treated the headroom as that: headroom: it was there to "have" not to abuse all the time. With analog, you don't exactly know where the red line is, either. Plus there is the effect of a gradual onset of distortion which is interpreted by the ear as loudness.

With digital, you can level the loudness with an algorithm to use the full headroom. It can be done with analog tools, too, but digital ones are just more "surgically precise"; the algorithm can look at the track globally, not just with an infinite impulse response circuit that whose output is only based on its prior input, and which cannot anticipate transients.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#277

Post by skciva »

Frondo wrote: post #235
skciva wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't understand why people like something and dismiss it as silly hipster bias? Does everything have to be about efficiency and logical superiority? People enjoy the experience more and are spending money on it. How horrible.

Agreed. Let people like what they like. My deal is, that goes both ways. I've owned record players in the past, I've grown a sizeable vinyl collection, and I ended up selling it off because I'm living a much more mobile lifestyle now. If the OP gets a more "active" experience (whatever that means to them) out of listening to a record instead of putting a CD in a cd player, great, but what bugs me is there's always an…

Yeah I think the "it sounds better" argument is silly.

Personally I prefer records for these reasons:

- If I want to share a record with a friend, theres a greater chance they'll just let it play as opposed to a bluetooth connected speaker, where everyone decides they want to be the DJ.

- Having records often starts conversations. Its much more likely someone will see my records or ask to flip through them than say "Hey, can I peruse your Spotify library?"

I like music and it's nice to connect about it without having to force a conversation with everyone I meet.

That being said, I've often thought of living a "mobile" lifestyle like you mention, and if I do records would not be on my list of necessities.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#278

Post by hotgoldminer »

eanzenberg wrote: post #245
cheeseprocedure wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to physical limitations of the medium, mastering the vinyl release of an album is often (usually?) a separate process than mastering the digital version. One of the consequences is less compression/clipping, better dynamic range, etc. for the vinyl version. This can have a huge positive impact on sound quality. You don't have to be a nutbar audiophile to appreciate it, either - you can even hear the difference be…

I think you'll get way more traction spending $ on better headphones/speakers/audio playing equipment and listening to digital than moving over to a turntable and vinyl collection.

Depends on whether the music was recorded/mastered using digital or analog equipment.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#279

Post by DiNovi »

eanzenberg wrote: post #191
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…

I dunno.. digital music just sounds better, is more consistent, portable, and all around easier to play than vinyl. Why stop there? Do you also churn your own butter, milk your own cows, shave with a straight razor? Personally, I think it's just silly hipster bias.

uncompressed digital definitely does; but since most services dont offer that, its not what most people compare against

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#280

Post by consto »

cheeseprocedure wrote: post #212
eanzenberg wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno.. digital music just sounds better, is more consistent, portable, and all around easier to play than vinyl. Why stop there? Do you also churn your own butter, milk your own cows, shave with a straight razor? Personally, I think it's just silly hipster bias.

Due to physical limitations of the medium, mastering the vinyl release of an album is often (usually?) a separate process than mastering the digital version. One of the consequences is less compression/clipping, better dynamic range, etc. for the vinyl version. This can have a huge positive impact on sound quality. You don't have to be a nutbar audiophile to appreciate it, either - you can even hear the difference be…

Maybe decades ago, but I find it hard to imagine any recording studio still having an analogue recording process. Sure the different mediums may call for different mastering, but the loudness war wasn't a result of limitations of tapes/CDs.
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