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

Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

nme.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 410 posts

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

#301

Post by jonhohle »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #293
cosmotic wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there were a durable music format that had absolute perfect quality, didn't need special handling, no DRM, no compression artifacts, was stereo, and handled frequencies all the way down and all the way up to where humans can hear. Oh, the CD!

> durable ... Oh, the CD! In my experience CD’s are anything but durable.

I have CDs from the early 90s that still play fine. I have vinyl from the 70s that plays fine as well. I can resurface the CDs, not so much the vinyl.

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

#302

Post by Godel_unicode »

jarjoura wrote: post #295

I think there’s some confusion in here that everyone buying vinyl is repeating the habits of our parents and grandparents. I think there’s this misconception we’re buying records of whatever the latest hit band is with only 3 good songs and mostly filler. Vinyl today is very much about the collecting of good music and taking part in the physical ness of that collection. The b-side is just as good as the A-side, even…

Vinyl is one of the best examples I have found of "worse is better".

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

#303

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

jonhohle wrote: post #301
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> durable ... Oh, the CD! In my experience CD’s are anything but durable.

I have CDs from the early 90s that still play fine. I have vinyl from the 70s that plays fine as well. I can resurface the CDs, not so much the vinyl.

If we’ve got data, let’s go with the data.

If all we’ve got is opinions, let’s go with mine:

None of the CDs I’ve ever bought still works. I’m probably not as careful with my things as you are, so there’s that.

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

#304

Post by Godel_unicode »

jonhohle wrote: post #301
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> durable ... Oh, the CD! In my experience CD’s are anything but durable.

I have CDs from the early 90s that still play fine. I have vinyl from the 70s that plays fine as well. I can resurface the CDs, not so much the vinyl.

You can also make an infinite number of perfect replicas of your CDs. You can carry backups of every CD ever made on a flashdrive that fits in your jeans pocket, then recreate any of them at any time with no degradation in quality.

There are some quasi-plausible arguments for vinyl, but arguing that durability is one of them is hilariously myopic.

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

#305

Post by wallflower »

OJFord wrote: post #224
avip wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, excuse the ambiguity. To me a philharmonic concert sounds... very different than recorded audio. I'm confident I can double-blindly 100% tell the difference. And so can everyone else. This is one experiment I'd be happy to participate in.

I don't even really listen to music and I could do that. And the obvious difference: live 'rock' etc. is still coming through speakers.

Steinway Lyngdorf

> To demonstrate the veracity of Lyngdorf's "Is it real, or is it Memorex" claim, Birkelund invited the trio to begin performing. After playing for what felt like, at most, 30 seconds, the musicians began to fade out as the volume of a pre-recorded track of the same music was turned up. Although the much too short demo left many in the room a gasp at how remarkably close the live trio and tuned-to-the-room system sounded, Birkelund failed to mention that the Model D system was never silent.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/steinway-lyngdorfs-elega...

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

#306

Post by lightedman »

jonhohle wrote: post #301
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> durable ... Oh, the CD! In my experience CD’s are anything but durable.

I have CDs from the early 90s that still play fine. I have vinyl from the 70s that plays fine as well. I can resurface the CDs, not so much the vinyl.

I have CDs from the 80s and 90s that are eaten by metal-eating bacteria. Good luck resurfacing that layer.

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

#307

Post by jonhohle »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #303
jonhohle wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have CDs from the early 90s that still play fine. I have vinyl from the 70s that plays fine as well. I can resurface the CDs, not so much the vinyl.

If we’ve got data, let’s go with the data. If all we’ve got is opinions, let’s go with mine: None of the CDs I’ve ever bought still works. I’m probably not as careful with my things as you are, so there’s that.

Your original comment was of your experience, so I shared mine.

Unfortunately, due to manufacturing defects there are discs that will or have oxidized, so the durability of CDs (or other optical media) is not always as reliable as advertised. But as the sibling post to yours points out, CDs provide error correction and along with oversampling provides means of creating effectively bit perfect copies that can be as durable as the current state of the art (redundant, solid state, geographically diverse, etc.)

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

#308

Post by stephencoyner »

Vinyl is one of the best ways to feel like you actually "own" music in today's streaming first world.

It's also a way to support underground artists who make art you appreciate - from the music itself to the cover art and the arrangement of the tracklist.

In hip-hop there's been a few small vinyl producers making super high quality vinyls for underground artists. They've gained a cult like following and can continuously sell out of 1500-2000 records at $60 per within an hour of release.

Those interested should check out...

Daupe https://daupe.bandcamp.com/music

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.factmag.com/2018/02/08/daup...

De Rap Winkel https://derapwinkelrecords.bandcamp.com/music

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

#309

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

KiSM wrote: post #219
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 ELP Japan has some pretty back drawbacks other than price... It doesn't work with coloured vinyl and it's worse than regular turntables when it comes to dust since it just reads it instead of potentially moving it away There are some videos about it on YouTube and it looks like you have to meticulously clean your vinyl before playing it.

Could they mount an air-jet directly ahead or around their “needle” to solve that problem?

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

#310

Post by [deleted] »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #304
jonhohle wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have CDs from the early 90s that still play fine. I have vinyl from the 70s that plays fine as well. I can resurface the CDs, not so much the vinyl.

You can also make an infinite number of perfect replicas of your CDs. You can carry backups of every CD ever made on a flashdrive that fits in your jeans pocket, then recreate any of them at any time with no degradation in quality. There are some quasi-plausible arguments for vinyl, but arguing that durability is one of them is hilariously myopic.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN