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Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

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Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#151

Post by AdmiralGinge »

driverdan wrote: post #121
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…

It's 2020. Why would you still use CDs for digital music?

Because unless you're paying for an expensive service, it's uncompressed vs whatever bitrate your streaming service decides to use. It's usually cheaper just to buy the CD (and rip it if you want) if you're after quality.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#152

Post by AdmiralGinge »

coffeefirst wrote: post #92
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'll try. I'm a recent convert. 1. I spend so much time with computers and virtual things, that there's something about the physicality of the thing that's incredibly refreshing. This is the same reason people like fountain pens and watches. Do you need a watch when you always have your phone on you? Not really, but watches are cool. 2. Sound, which is tricky because it doesn't sound better. Vinyl has different stren…

>I spend so much time with computers and virtual things, that there's something about the physicality of the thing that's incredibly refreshing.

I can relate to this, I've been restoring a sound system from the early 1970s that'd spent decades in a damp garage and it's immensely satisfying to see and hear it working again. There's not a single circuit board in there, it's all just old fashioned point-to-point wiring. The turntable is a gorgeous Lenco one that's so solidly built, compared to a lot of flimsy stuff today it's a huge contrast. I just replaced the motor which has run for nearly half a century and still did, I only swapped it because the motor's power supply had a noisy transformer and it was easier to just swap out the whole unit. It'll probably keep working just fine long after I'm dead.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#153

Post by Animats »

Figs wrote: post #54
Animats wrote: post #48

Somebody should come out with 12 inch analog optical disks. Big, thick, solid things.

They did that in the late 70s. They were called LaserDiscs and held about 60 minutes of video per side in the most common encoding format.

Yes, I know. That's why I wrote that. It would be perfectly feasible to record analog audio on a LaserDisk. You could even record it as FM, since you have lots of extra bandwidth, to get more dynamic range and less noise.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#154

Post by KozmoNau7 »

toast0 wrote: post #148
numpad0 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Standardizing everything to 48kHz and then scale down in clean multiples of 8 would be the logical way to do it.

Offering more than 2 channels in a pure audio format has been tried countless times and failed every time. It doesn't do anything for headphones, and surround-mixed music has always been a gimmick at best.

1-channel can already be done on existing CDs, the left and right channels are fully discrete and can each contain a separate mono track. This trick was used on VCDs, to have two different languages on the same disc. The player can be set to only play one channel.

Here's a Techmoan video about using two mono tracks to squeeze twice the amount of music onto a CD: https://youtu.be/5fG1crhGqI0

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#155

Post by KozmoNau7 »

dukoid wrote: post #77
blattimwind wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vinyl is better than CDs?

It has to be for some people in some aspect, otherwise there wouldn't be any demand?

Nostalgia and the visceral tactile experience of the playback ritual.

Anyone who claims it's about sound quality is deluding themselves.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#156

Post by KozmoNau7 »

AdmiralGinge wrote: post #151
driverdan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 2020. Why would you still use CDs for digital music?

Because unless you're paying for an expensive service, it's uncompressed vs whatever bitrate your streaming service decides to use. It's usually cheaper just to buy the CD (and rip it if you want) if you're after quality.

Sites like Bandcamp offer downloads in any format you want, including lossless CD quality.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#157

Post by KozmoNau7 »

Hamuko wrote: post #24
lrem wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manual transmission has clear advantage in responsiveness. Being used to manual, I've just driven an automatic for three days. Despite having 50% more power than my old car, it felt terribly slow because of the gear shift delays.

No, manual transmissions are a clear loser when it comes to responsiveness. You have to manually disengage the clutch, manually change the gear and manually engage the clutch. For comparison, the dual clutch transmission in the Nissan GT-R can shift in 0.15 seconds and that's a 10+ year old car. The ZF 8HP, which is a conventional torque converter transmission used for example in the new BMW M5, is apparently able to…

It's not about outright speed of shifting, it's about the feel. While a DCT or automatic may boast better performance numbers, they are not nearly as satisfying as a well-balanced clutch and nice mechanical shifter. It just feels better to wring out the engine and nail the shifts than it does to pull on paddles.

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#158

Post by [deleted] »

wheels wrote: post #99
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 buy both. For the most part, it's nostalgia, not sound quality. In fact, if sound quality is the goal, CDs or losslessly compressed audio files are preferable. Virtually everything is mixed and mastered in digital now, so any notion of the "warmth of analog" is mostly horseshit. But some of us have a soft spot for physical collections of things. I have around 500 CDs and 200 records (and 1000-ish books). Vinyl is p…

[deleted]

Re: Manufacturing plant fire threatens worldwide vinyl record supply

#159

Post by OzzyB »

twmiller wrote: post #129
OzzyB wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to watch a live event on a streaming service like YouTube, and found yourself a few milliseconds behind the action? Have you ever tried watching digital TV have frames dropped completely because the signal got weak? If you were going analog, you would be watching real live action, and if the signal got weak you'd still be watching but there might be some "screen fizz". Vinyl is like that :D what y…

If you’re interested in ‘what you see is what you get’, CD is MUCH closer to the reality of what was heard in the studio than vinyl is. Vinyl is capped on the high end to prevent distortion, and cut on the low end to prevent volume drops. The frequency range of compact discs, by design, go from the upper range of human hearing to the lowest range of human hearing. To the extent that vinyl sounds warm, it’s a product…

You're right of course, and I was being facetious -- yes it's true that CDs were supposed to be better (true copy of the Master, larger dynamic range etc.), but alas, no good deed goes unpunished since it didn't take long for Engineers to abuse that extended dynamic range and push louder/compressed mixes to the public resulting in what we refer to as the "Loudness Wars".

Add to that the advent of streaming services and compression (MP3 etc) and we now find ourselves with those "clipped to death" digital masters compressed to an inch of their lives so I can listen to Spotify on the bus.

So is it any wonder people are going full circle and returning to Vinyl?

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