Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply • Hacker News Board

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#141

Post by ianleeclark » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

ydb wrote: post #78

Vinyl records are perhaps one of the best examples of commodity fetishism; in fact, they perfectly illustrate Mark Fisher's notion of "lost futures" (by way of Derrida's hauntology). Even the discussion and detailed analysis of vinyl (so as to justify its supposed acoustic superiority) is to miss the forest for the trees. Of course the rabid capitalists on this forum would fall over themselves to exploit this for fin…

> Vinyl records are perhaps one of the best examples of commodity fetishism

Could you spell this one out because a vinyl record, in and of itself, wouldn't be an example of commodity fetishism because the fetishism depends upon social relations.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#142

Post by cumunism » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

ydb wrote: post #78

Vinyl records are perhaps one of the best examples of commodity fetishism; in fact, they perfectly illustrate Mark Fisher's notion of "lost futures" (by way of Derrida's hauntology). Even the discussion and detailed analysis of vinyl (so as to justify its supposed acoustic superiority) is to miss the forest for the trees. Of course the rabid capitalists on this forum would fall over themselves to exploit this for fin…

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Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#143

Post by nine_k » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #2

I haven't found an objective explanation for why some populations prefer vinyl analog over any digital renditions of a sound. Can anyone share some insight? (I've listened to both, and the description of vinyl or even analog sound as being generally "warmer" never resonated with me.)

Vinyl records have a mechanical limitation: you cannot put everything as loud as possible on them, else the needle will jump off track.

So mastering for vinyl, even when done digitally, preserves more dynmaic range and finer detail. Ironically, vinyl has a narrower dynamic range than a digital recording, but the "loudness wars" made it use relatively less of that range.

Some people prefer this kind of sound mastering. (Also, the whole ritual and concentration aspect.)

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#144

Post by 52-6F-62 » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

bonestamp2 wrote: post #40

eganist wrote: post #2

I haven't found an objective explanation for why some populations prefer vinyl analog over any digital renditions of a sound. Can anyone share some insight? (I've listened to both, and the description of vinyl or even analog sound as being generally "warmer" never resonated with me.)

I do both. Digital music is way more convenient to initiate, continue, store and take with you -- so I use that the most. But, it's almost too convenient in some cases to the point where I often don't appreciate what is really happening and the music just becomes background noise. Although it's obviously possible, I rarely use digital music to sit and listen to an entire album anymore. On the other hand, when I liste…

I think you’re referring to the commoditization of musical works with their treatment.

I listen to both, and still have a CD collection that gets less use.

I decided a long time ago I didn’t mind not keeping up with every new arts trend and just slowly wade through works I like, finding others along the way. I could talk at length about some of my favourites but I also don’t encounter those situations anymore with people. I do with my partner, though. I’m lucky she’s interested—though she’s also more current usually.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#145

Post by 52-6F-62 » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:07 PM UTC

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #125

blacklion wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never used "AI Curated playlists", and I'm listening to music only by full albums (no shuffles, no random, nothing), because one unit of my favorite music is album, not track (still). But I don't understand vynil records at all. It is worse than even CD, not to mention high-res downloadable albums. Dynamic range is worse, noise floor is worse, stereo separation is worse. I'm old enough to listen A LOT of LP re…

For me at least, the main appeal of vinyl records is that they are physical artifacts, tactile and cozy/nostalgic. I enjoy the physicality, the large cover art and the little rituals. It also forces me to listen to entire albums in order, instead of just shuffling random tracks. The sound quality is somewhere between "good enough" and "genuinely good", no match for good digital formats, but certainly good enough to g…

I second this.

It’s a visceral thing.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#146

Post by criddell » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC

prox wrote: post #70

jakobegger wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate everything about CDs. The flimsy jewel cases that break all the time, the tiny artwork, how easily CDs scratch, how choosing a song requires clicking stupid buttons, the delay after inserting CDs, the high pitched whine of the motor, the sound of the stepper motor as it moves the laser... When I listen to music, I want to slow down and relax, and taking a record out of the sleeve is just so much nicer than fid…

Not an audiophile, so reading this through the lens of ux, what you describe is a form of pliancy: taking the record out etc. Something that isn’t reproduced properly in digital is feeling and operation (as in actual touch and manipulation) I presume there is something in our brains that responds to that (beyond simple nostalgia)

There's also the collecting aspect. A lot of people love collecting and building collections.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#147

Post by criddell » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

ScottBurson wrote: post #61

eganist wrote: post #2

I haven't found an objective explanation for why some populations prefer vinyl analog over any digital renditions of a sound. Can anyone share some insight? (I've listened to both, and the description of vinyl or even analog sound as being generally "warmer" never resonated with me.)

Beats me. I still have a collection of LPs I bought in the 1970s and early 80s, and while many of them are pretty good pressings and I don't mind listening to them, some are pretty bad. I have a lot more CDs, and they almost all sound very good to excellent (any defects being in the master, not the medium, of course). What I do get nostalgic for is music without compression. So many recent recordings I find unlistena…

There were a lot of very low quality records made during the late 70's and 80's. Poor quality vinyl and increased track density were the main culprits.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#148

Post by toast0 » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #79

dukoid wrote: post #68

I never understood the hype for vinyl records -- they aren't that much better than CDs when compared to shellac...

CD is way overrated. Terrible, even. Like, if you compare film to digital photography, but film was represented by ISO160 monochromatic Kodak, and all the digital photographic technology was represented by a 640x480 prototype camera from 2001, instead of a RED or even a yesteryear phone, then it’ll be immediately obvious that analog far outperforms digital full stop. That’s how vinyl remains “superior”. CD is terribl…

If you were to redo CD today, really the biggest change would probably be upping to 48kHz, not that it makes a noticable difference, but to better align with DVD (also 48k) and digital telephone (8k) to avoid sampling jitter when playing across other formats. Possibly actually supporting 4-channel audio (it's in redbook, but afaik, unused) and adding 1-channel audio so you could have longer audiobooks.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#149

Post by jdsully » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #124

cormacrelf wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CD may be 40 years old, but human ears didn't change at all in that time. If you can tell CD from other recordings, it is almost certainly because the mastering (which is not something intrinsic to the standard) was deliberately changed for CD because it could reproduce sound better, so no format-specific mastering hacks were needed to make it sound good. Face it, you don't have golden ears. For example, if a studio…

Did you know: Nyquist sampling theorem assumes, and only applies to, pure sine waves. Apparently this is a novice level knowledge in DSP community at StackExchange: https://dsp.stackexchange.com/questions/45032/suitable-sampl...

Records don't have infinite bandwidth either. I'd actually love to see a comparison of vinyl vs digital reproducing a triangle wave, it would be a lot more illuminating than blindly quoting Shannon Nyquist.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#150

Post by AdmiralGinge » Sun, Feb 09, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

eganist wrote: post #2

I haven't found an objective explanation for why some populations prefer vinyl analog over any digital renditions of a sound. Can anyone share some insight? (I've listened to both, and the description of vinyl or even analog sound as being generally "warmer" never resonated with me.)

It's not uncommon for the engineers put more effort into the vinyl mix because it's a much harder medium to get right. It's actually vinyl's flaws as a medium that make it sound better in a lot of cases as you can't get away with sloppy mixing as much. Things like the "loudness war" (where the industry demanded engineers increase the overall level at the expense of dynamic range - it's why a lot of recordings from the '90s until about 2005 sound absolutely rubbish) just can't happen to the same extent with vinyl, if they tried that nonsense the needle would literally jump out of the groove. It's also associated with audiophiles these days which is another reason modern vinyl mixes often sound better, the market they're targeting values high quality audio more than the average consumer. If you don't believe me, compare the original CD pressing of Led Zeppelin's Presence with the vinyl. It's honestly night and day.

Obviously this doesn't matter if you're comparing a naff Crosley record player from the supermarket with a naff bluetooth speaker playing 128kbps MP3s. These kind of distinctions don't really matter if your setup isn't great to begin with but it really does make a difference with decent kit. A sound system is only as good as the weakest link in the chain and there's a certain point at which that becomes the storage medium. Overall, a well-mixed lossless file or something like reel-to-reel tape is going to beat vinyl every time in theory but in practice the vinyl mix is often the best.