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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

#321

Post by acd »

Recently re-experienced vinyl player with a music library in a hotel. The experience of vinyl is great you can touch and hold the music you like and love. The search depth of the music catalog is good its a stack of vinyls vs all music that was ever created. Carbon foot print from vinyl is lower than online streamed music due to the co2 foot print of all the servers serving online music. I think vinyl is a fun form to share and consume music.

Study of co2 emissions from streaming vs analogue music "The research shows GHGs of 140 million kilograms in 1977, 136 million kilograms in 1988, and 157 million in 2000. But by 2016 the generation of GHGs by storing and transmitting digital files for those listening to music online is estimated to be between 200 million kilograms and over 350 million kilograms in the US alone." source: https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_643297_en.html

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

#322

Post by LegitShady »

paublyrne wrote: post #318
optimiz3 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of - sometimes there's sub-channel data that is very hard to properly replicate; only certain drives even expose that data to correctly extract. Making perfect audio CD image archives is surprisingly hard. E: Specifically I'm talking about the P & Q channels, but this can also include R through W which while technically unused, still contain data in some form.

What do you mean by "sub-channel"?

https://superuser.com/questions/1189222/cd-rom-subchannel-is...

more information here

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

#323

Post by tyrust »

acd wrote: post #321

Recently re-experienced vinyl player with a music library in a hotel. The experience of vinyl is great you can touch and hold the music you like and love. The search depth of the music catalog is good its a stack of vinyls vs all music that was ever created. Carbon foot print from vinyl is lower than online streamed music due to the co2 foot print of all the servers serving online music. I think vinyl is a fun form t…

>Carbon foot print from vinyl is lower than online streamed music due to the co2 foot print of all the servers serving online music.

The quote and article you linked doesn't say or support that. It is more likely that there are just far more people listening to music now than there were before. I don't think that switching from streaming to records would result in fewer GHGs. The article you linked doesn't specify.

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

#324

Post by rhcom2 »

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…

> Also the experience of going to second hand stores to chat with fellow music lovers and discover new artists feels very human to me.

It's really fun to buy .50 cent records because you like the cover. I've discovered some good music that way.

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

#325

Post by archontes »

electrograv wrote: post #272
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!

I agree that if we’re pursuing sheer audio fidelity, CD quality is objectively superior to vinyl in every way. However (as others mention), many vinyl listeners are not after objective sound fidelity perfection: For them, the flaws are part of their “retro” charm. However, one note about CD quality — it may not be as perfect as you think! A peer-reviewed meta-analysis has shown that humans can hear the difference bet…

In addition to this, audio engineers mastering albums often have different masters for vinyl vs. CD resulting in different dynamic ranges.

It's not just a matter of reproduction. Humans make the products different.

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

#326

Post by tzs »

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.

> You can carry backups of every CD ever made on a flashdrive that fits in your jeans pocket

Gracenote had 3 598 785 CDs in their database in 2005 [1], so I'll take that as a lower bound on the number of CDs ever made.

I don't know what the largest flash drive that will fit in a jeans pocket is, but the largest I was able to find is 2 TB, but SanDisk showed a 4 TB prototype at CES 2019, so I'll go with that.

Assuming lossless compression that averages reducing the size of a song by 75%, a 4 TB flash drive could hold 1 662 149.1 minutes of music.

Unless the average CD is under 27.7 seconds long, that's not even enough to hold all the CDs known to Gracenote in 2005.

Anyone want to do the math if we allow lossy compression to squeeze more in (although I wouldn't consider it a backup of the CDs if lossy)?

[1] http://alchemi.co.uk/archives/mus/how_many_cds_ar.html

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

#327

Post by Marsymars »

rwmj wrote: post #74
INTPenis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A CD would be more practical Actually most practical would be a streaming service where you can enjoy the entire work of art without interruptions. Tongue in cheek so don't get riled up.

Sure :-) I guess by "CD" I should have said "digital format" or "digital stream". Having said that is there even a streaming service which would play an entire set of piano concertos? This thing must be 8 or more hours long. I've been listening to it in fits and starts over several weekends. Also for the doubters, here's a photo: http://oirase.annexia.org/tmp/20190908_183833.jpg As you can see I have CDs and a Squeez…

> Having said that is there even a streaming service which would play an entire set of piano concertos?

Classical Archives or Idiago are probably your best options for streaming classical music.

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

#328

Post by Marsymars »

reaperducer wrote: post #50
big_chungus wrote: post #2

Would some one please enlighten me as to what on God's green earth is going on with vinyl? It's less dense, lower-quality, degrades with use, and is more expensive. It's probably less environmentally-friendly, too (though I'm not sure what it's target demographic is, so I don't know if that means much). Why is vinyl popular, all of a sudden? I had to rip all my grandmother's vinyl records, once, and it was a pain in…

I listen to vinyl because a lot of the music I like never made it to digital. I have at least 30 albums that simply do not exist as downloads, streaming, or any other digital medium. And there are people today who are still putting out new music in analog formats that will never get a digital release. And I'm not even much of a music buff. If I have 30 "lost" albums, there must be tens of thousands more out there tha…

> I really don't understand why some people choose to limit themselves to digital.

I can't afford the physical space for physical goods and the expense involved with moving them.

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

#329

Post by microcolonel »

ddeck wrote: post #314
microcolonel wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know where to find the actual meta analysis that article is talking about? They mention the journal, but not the title. I'm not really sure what their criteria were. To me, it would seem that in order to compare the two, you would basically need to resample the 24/192 recording, with dither, and then resample it back to 24/192; and you would need to choose a high quality resampling filter. Anything other than…

The study is here: (pdf) https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/134...

Thank you! It really is interesting, it seems like there's an opening for a better-designed experiment. Wonder if there's anyone at the local universities interested in that sort of thing.

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

#330

Post by optimiz3 »

paublyrne wrote: post #318
optimiz3 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of - sometimes there's sub-channel data that is very hard to properly replicate; only certain drives even expose that data to correctly extract. Making perfect audio CD image archives is surprisingly hard. E: Specifically I'm talking about the P & Q channels, but this can also include R through W which while technically unused, still contain data in some form.

What do you mean by "sub-channel"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_subcode

Most audio CD extractors do not provide all of this channel data, as only the digital audio is extracted. When a CD is re-burned, the subchannel data is regenerated, but not a bit-for-bit copy of the original. Sounds the same (usually), but sometimes there is metadata, easter-eggs, and what-not that is omitted. Additionally, some copy protection relied on adding corrupted subchannel data which low end CD players would skip, but high end extractors would not. Having the original subchannel data can be key and necessary to determine whether a sector was infact incorrectly extracted or not.

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