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Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

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Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#241

Post by fzeroracer »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #165
Aaronmacaron wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your conception of vinyl buyers is very negative. I think there's another category of people that buy vinyl. If you really love an album and want to support the artist you can purchase the vinyl version of the album. Apart from supporting the artist you often get additional treats like a nice booklet with the lyrics or additional art/imagery. I really think there's extra value in buying vinyl apart from it being hip.

If you want to buy a physical medium then CDs are the obvious option because objectively they are superior to vinyls in every aspects and they can also come with nice booklets. I think that the hip-value of vinyls is extremely important. I write that as someone who had no choice but use vinyls and tapes until I got a CD player...

CDs are far from objectively superior, considering that there are many CDs which are completely sealed but suffering from disk rot due to poor quality control rendering them completely useless. A lot of older CD-based game systems are going through this problem where they're becoming unplayable despite no wear or tear.

The best of both worlds in my opinion is a vinyl + code for a digital copy, which seems to be the direction most have gone for.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#242

Post by peteforde »

taylodl wrote: post #144
cortesoft wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't trying to be mocking, just more incredulous. I grew up with albums as our primary source of music, but it was always just put the record on and listen. It was purely functional, being the best way we had to listen to music. When CDs came out, it was so nice because it was easier to handle and care for. I guess it is just the strange feeling of someone describing something that was just the functional way of…

Exactly. Those of us who grew up with albums aren’t buying them now. We’re intimately familiar with the limitations of that medium. I have zero interest in going back. And this from someone who still buys a lot of music.

Speak for yourself.

This reminds me of the moment where there's always one person in a group who realizes that they are the only one in the group who wipes their ass standing up.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#243

Post by cc439 »

jamesbowman wrote: post #198
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vinyl groove is about 25-100 micrometer, and feature sizes on it go down to about 22.5 micrometer [1]. Lasers are extremely cheap today compared to what they were back in the day, and doing laser interferometry to detect features this small is not that difficult. I imagine a hobbyist with the right skill set could hack together a reader for a few hundred bucks at most. [1] http://www.gzvinyl.com/About-vinyl.aspx

As I read that summary, feature sizes start at 22.5 µm and go down to 75 nm. As they say, "significantly lower than the wavelength of visible light".

And how much of that 75nm feature is getting picked up by a diamond stylus? The stylii used in metrology grade surface roughness and contour analyzers can't pick up features even remotely close to that size and those are far finer and more sensitive that a turntables stylus.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#244

Post by stordoff »

fragsworth wrote: post #190
mruts wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is using a laser not real analog audio?

Since "real" was in quotes, I assume they're talking about the change to sound quality that is caused by the physical touching of the devices. It's not necessarily more clear or better, it's just different, and that's the point of doing something so retro. But if you aren't actually doing that thing, it loses a lot of the psychological value. It's similar in some sense to the reasons why people go to see live concert…

> The sound quality isn't better

For some bands, I'd actually disagree with that. Both what they are playing is better, and their released material is compressed to hell and back[1], which seems to be less prevalent live (though far from gone).

No doubt they _could_ do that recorded (anything you can do live you can match in a studio), but they _aren't_ doing.

There's also the non-musical elements - there's a difference between just playing some music and putting on a show.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#245

Post by stordoff »

monocasa wrote: post #155
stjohnswarts wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but it's got a bit better over the past decade as more people realized why that certain something was missing

Has it though? The wiki article (and my experience) implies that it's been getting worse, not better.

Last line of 2010s:

> Analysis suggests that the loudness trend may have peaked around 2005 and subsequently reduced, with a pronounced increase in overall and minimum album DR for albums since 2005.

It also hints how we may continue to move away from it:

> With music sales moving towards file-based playback and streaming and away from CDs, there is a possibility that the loudness war will be blunted by normalization technology such as ReplayGain and Apple's Sound Check. Most cloud-based music services perform loudness normalization by default and may reduce the market pressure to overcompress material.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#246

Post by jedimastert »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #151

CDs are dying, but they are mostly being killed by streaming services, not by vinyl. Digital music formats are still the king by far. The vast majority of people don't even care that their streamed music is lossy and they lose out on high frequencies that their ears can't hear and their headphones can't reproduce. Vinyl appeals to hipsters and dumb audiophiles (there are smart audiophiles, but they aren't buying viny…

> Vinyl appeals to hipsters and dumb audiophiles (there are smart audiophiles, but they aren't buying vinyl), both communities that are prone to buying into hype.

I think enough people have commented about how obnoxious this statement is, but I'll go ahead and throw another couple of cents into the conversation

I think there is genuine value to artifacts. When you buy a record, you get:

* The record itself

* An 12" x 12" piece of art accosiated with the album

* A booklet of bonus content and anything else the artist wanted to include.

Not only is there added extra value in that (larger than a CD), but it can feel like an occasion to get.

But beyond that, there can be an interesting satisfaction in holding the literal physical interpretation of the sound you enjoy. There's a connection there for some people, and it shouldn't be discounted.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#247

Post by jedimastert »

echelon wrote: post #49

As much as it pains me to say this, I think I'm a hipster. I put a lot of attention and care into my audio and vinyl setup, but now that you can find albums at Walmart, the hip factor has been sucked out of it like a vacuum. I've recently been downsizing, and this might be something that doesn't stay with me. I'll keep my signed albums, but maybe not the rest.

> I put a lot of attention and care into my audio and vinyl setup, but now that you can find albums at Walmart, the hip factor has been sucked out of it like a vacuum.

I don't think the hunt can be discounted. Part of the collector mentality is that the journey is as enjoyable (if not more so) than the destination.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#248

Post by Izkata »

cortesoft wrote: post #120
tomc1985 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite so literally, but yes. Placing the record on the player, admiring/flipping through the album art, passing it around amongst friends, actually caring/worrying about the state of the record player, all sorts of things. Why the mocking tone?

I wasn't trying to be mocking, just more incredulous. I grew up with albums as our primary source of music, but it was always just put the record on and listen. It was purely functional, being the best way we had to listen to music. When CDs came out, it was so nice because it was easier to handle and care for. I guess it is just the strange feeling of someone describing something that was just the functional way of…

It's a tactile feedback thing, very similar to how physical keyboards are completely different in experience than touchscreens with a keyboard.

Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

#250

Post by Const-me »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #138
tzs wrote: post #71

Is anyone working on a reasonably priced turntable to play vinyl discs without degrading them? In the mid '80s, Finial Technology announced such a turntable, and had a working unit at CES in 1986. It had a stylus that contained laser interferometers that could very accurately and precisely measure the distance from the stylus to the grove walls. It kept the stylus near, but not touching, the groove, getting the audio…

The vinyl groove is about 25-100 micrometer, and feature sizes on it go down to about 22.5 micrometer [1]. Lasers are extremely cheap today compared to what they were back in the day, and doing laser interferometry to detect features this small is not that difficult. I imagine a hobbyist with the right skill set could hack together a reader for a few hundred bucks at most. [1] http://www.gzvinyl.com/About-vinyl.aspx

Not sure about hobbyists, and the price point.

Lasers are cheap, tracking for them is less so. To accurately read these grooves with sufficient resolution, you need 2 lasers (LPs are stereo), both looking at 45 degree inclination from different angles, and focused at the same point. That kind of accurate spatial + temporal sync ain’t trivial to accomplish. CDs/DVDs are much easier to implement. They don’t need similar resolution because digital, and they light their laser along the normal, only need to track 2 axes.

Even if you’ll manage to accurately focus both lasers, another problem is interference between left and right channel lasers.

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