I'm pretty biased in my thoughts on this. I used to DJ EDM back in my early 20s and still have thousands of dollars worth of equipment and vinyl records accumulating dust. Every once in a while I'll whip out a record and listen to it on my Technics. I never find myself playing CDs on my CD decks. There is something about vinyl that feels like a collectible that you want to take out of a sleeve and put a needle on. CDs just don't have that and feel like disposable junk. I'm surprised that vinyl is outselling CDs, but I am not surprised that it's still relevant.
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
#122As 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.
How long until future "hipsters" start seeing CDs as nostalgic? Although I kind of doubt we'll see a CD revival in 2035 or 2040.
I just got back into CDs :)
My daughter got a turntable and when I took her to the record store (Waterloo Records in Austin) to buy some records I felt like I had stepped out of a time machine. The experience was exactly as I remembered it when I was a kid. It's awesome.
I ended up buying some CDs then realizing I didn't have a CD player. So I bought one, hooked it up to the home theater receiver and was blown away by how good it sounded.
I ended up buying a desktop stereo system for my office and I listen to CDs as I work. The playing time is just about perfect as a reminder to get up, stretch, take a short walk, make a coffee or get some water, put on a new disc, and get back to work.
So now I'm buying CDs again and couldn't be happier. They are very inexpensive these days.
Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986
#123As 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 advise against selling your collection. I sold almost all of my vinyl in the late 80s and really regret it. Also, one of my favorite vinyl albums ever was a cutout Flying Lizards record that I got for a dollar at some very un-hip store. Provenance has nothing to do with it, it's the album itself.
Records from the mid-70s through the 80's were pretty terrible quality.
Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
We kinda did keep going, except we put the grooves onto foil as little dots, and read them with a laser. Also, the whole thing is encased in polycarbonate.
You need a computer of some sort to decode that, whereas vinyl _is_ engraved vibrations.
Engraved vibrations that have been transformed with the RIAA curve so that they will fit. It can be played raw, but most of the bass is missing. This is what pre-amps are for.
Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986
#125Audio quality on CDs is better than Vinyl (especially over time), but it’s not great . If you care about quality you’re downloading music anyway. But if you’re going to get something physical, you want it to look cool, and Vinyl beats CDs by a mile.
Pah, tapes are cooler than vinyl. My Dad has vinyl, plus only popular bands can justify a vinyl print run. You can release a tape album even if you can only count your fans on one hand, including the band members.
Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986
#126The biggest relevation for me about vinyl was when I realized that it's CAV (constant angular velocity) and not CLV (constant linear velocity). It means that audio quality gets progressively worse as you move from outer tracks to inner tracks!
Not necessarily worse, though. There could be undesirable mechanical side-effects from the track moving too fast against the needle as well. (I am sure there is a huge body of engineering science about this.)
Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986
#127Would 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…
People like it.
This is also true for books. Although books are actually more fidelic to the author's work unlike vinyl and actually do have a higher quality, comparing text resolutions
Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986
#128Earlier 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…
I just looked and Daniel Barenboim's Beethoven Piano Sonatas is on Google Play Music and Spotify, so yeah unless something is pretty new/indie/remixy one of the two is going to likely have it
Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
We kinda did keep going, except we put the grooves onto foil as little dots, and read them with a laser. Also, the whole thing is encased in polycarbonate.
You need a computer of some sort to decode that, whereas vinyl _is_ engraved vibrations.
It's possible that you could get sound out of a CD with just a shift register and maybe a PLL circut to sync up the boundries of the PCM codes, and a way to skip over the error correction data (which would be harder to make dedicated hardware for but probably not impossible.) The audio data on CDs is still just uncompressed PCM which really doesn't need a computer.
Re: Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
At a minimum they're different experiences. Sitting down and listening to an album is different to playing your mp3 collection on random. You're listening to a collection of songs, as intended. You're listening to songs that perhaps aren't your first choice and in other circumstances would just skip over, but those songs often turn out to be the 'best' songs. I think there's also something to be said for having the p…
Nothing is stopping anyone from listening to whole albums with streaming. I do. It's cultural, not media carrier dependent.
Agreed. I think you're understating the importance of culture though.