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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

#121

Post by [deleted] »

dungle6 wrote: post #120
danielbln wrote: post #95

What I love about Vinyl, compared to everything else, is that it's amazingly low-tech. You can build a playback device out of a sheet of paper and a needle. It won't sound great, but it will work. On the flip side, in order to build a play back device for MP3 or CD from scratch you'll need electricity, massive amounts of highly specialised knowledge and realistically a chip fab. This has no real practical relevance i…

> out of a sheet of paper and a needle Don't do this with any vinyl you care about. It will destroy it pretty good. Microgroove records since the 50s were made for a fine tipped stylus, not a needle.

[deleted]

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#122

Post by k-mcgrady »

danmaz74 wrote: post #115
k-mcgrady wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems I have with CD's that I don't with Vinyl: - CD's scratch and then skip easily - CD's come in horrible plastic covers that break if you look at them wrong. - Skipping to a certain part of a song is much more difficult with CD's. - The benefits vinyl provides (large artwork and liner notes/ lyrics, posters etc.) don't all apply to CD's and at that point there's not much/any benefit CD's have over digital.

> - Skipping to a certain part of a song is much more difficult with CD's. Are you serious?

Completely. Well, ok, not really :) I debated including it because it's not something I do very often. I do think it's true though. On a CD you hold the skip button and have to guess where you are (pretty sure none of my CD players showed a timecode when skipping but it's been a while). With vinyl you can see a physical representation of the length of the track and estimate much better (i.e. the solo is half way through so I put the needle in between these two lines and I should be close).

NB: I'm thinking about actual CD players here, not your CD through iTunes or something where you can click to skip on a progress bar.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#123

Post by nerdponx »

api wrote: post #42
nerdponx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this mentality. It's not all about hipsterism. If anything, it's unfair to assume that a guy into vinyl is a hipster just because hipsters and posers are also into vinyl.

I like the idea of selling music on vinyl with a little token that lets you download mp4's of it from the band's web site if you have the vinyl. I've seen a few bands and electronic musicians do this. The vinyl is like an original numbered print, while the download is like a glossy poster print.

Big fan of this too. You can also link to Bandcamp, which offers a range of formats including VBR MP3 and Ogg.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#124

Post by to3m »

danmaz74 wrote: post #115
k-mcgrady wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems I have with CD's that I don't with Vinyl: - CD's scratch and then skip easily - CD's come in horrible plastic covers that break if you look at them wrong. - Skipping to a certain part of a song is much more difficult with CD's. - The benefits vinyl provides (large artwork and liner notes/ lyrics, posters etc.) don't all apply to CD's and at that point there's not much/any benefit CD's have over digital.

> - Skipping to a certain part of a song is much more difficult with CD's. Are you serious?

> CD's scratch and then skip easily

I imagine they are not!

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#126

Post by dungle6 »

wowtip wrote: post #17

Why not instead focusing on reinventing the LP? One side disc, large format, laser pickup, analog recording. Bring together the good parts from both LP and CD / DVD.

Lol.. other than the one side part (turtle anyone?) what you're proposing is a laserdisc. Ie an actual thing. They're not coming back either because they died. Vinyl never died it just declined. Simplicity of playback equipment is a big reason why. Also nothing stops anyone from putting a CD in a 12 inch jewel case or sleeve of some sort.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#127

Post by mitchellshow »

gjem97 wrote: post #41

It always makes me cringe when people say that records "sound better". Here's my unsolicited theory on why vinyl was preferred (by some) to CDs in the 90s and 00s. It wasn't the form factor, it was the dynamic range of the masters. I don't know if it was caused by the advent of digital recording, but the loudness war [1] certainly got going around the time that CDs were becoming popular. So comparing a classic vinyl…

Also, since most everything is recorded digitally these days, there are almost no "true analog" mixdowns, which means you're pressing a stair-stepped digital frequency onto vinyl.

With the exception of wealthy purists (read: just Radiohead), that vinyl you're listening to is actually the digital recording pressed onto vinyl, not an analog recording pressed to vinyl.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#128

Post by lastflowers »

Cerium wrote: post #91
cr1895 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm at home, more than likely there's a record spinning. I don't mind flipping. If I'm busy momentarily, it'll just spin with the needle in the deadwax...not a big deal.

All the players I've used have auto return, is that less common these days?

Some of those hurt the records, so some of the more expensive turntables seem to forgo them recently.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#130

Post by soundwave106 »

manarth wrote: post #40
hashkb wrote: post #14

As long as nobody is claiming they sound better, and it's just for fun and nostalgia, I'm all for it. It really bugs me when vinyl buffs try to argue their rig sounds better or warmer or whatever than the same rig with a digital (or non-vinyl analog) source.

The physical limitations of vinyl had a direct effect on the sound. Although the Loudness War [1] started on vinyl, the move to CDs let it step up to a whole new level [2]. Without getting into the merits or detriments of loudness and DRC, the physical medium of vinyl enforced a constraint on the sound. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war [2] https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/compression-is-killing-your-mus...

"Better" is also a very subjective terms. From an engineering standpoint these days, digital indeed these days will be a more accurate representation of the sound (discounting artificial post-processing like the loudness wars that primarily affected pop and rock music).

But it's possible to like vinyl's imperfections and coloring of the sound purely for personal preference reasons. Nothing wrong with that.

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