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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

#291

Post by cosmotic »

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…

Agreed; The default signal processing and lack of transparency on the sample rate and depth conversions through the whole system are a pretty frustrating aspect.

The dust/scratch factor of vinyl has a much bigger impact than 16 vs 24bit or much of the signal processing issues.

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

#292

Post by SomeOldThrow »

chucksmash wrote: post #230
SomeOldThrow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vinyl is way more popular than old cars.

It's pretty clear if you think it through a bit. You can buy Pet Sounds, a classic album recorded in 1966, on vinyl: - Distribution: you can buy it from Amazon, the same distribution channel as more modern media - Price: for $18 (very small premium over digital media in absolute terms) - Condition: in perfect, newly manufactured condition - Substitutability: a functionally perfect substitute good for the artifact man…

Well sure, if you’re just getting vinyl as conspicuous consumption, it’s a bad investment. I recommend against that. There are perfectly rational material reasons to prefer vinyl that don’t involve a midlife crisis or greenhouse gases. Anyone who spends $55k on a car clearly has very different values than most people.

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

#293

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

cosmotic wrote: post #265
tzs wrote: post #71

Is anyone working on a reasonably priced turntable to play vinyl discs without degrading them? In the mid '80s, Finial Technology announced such a turntable, and had a working unit at CES in 1986. It had a stylus that contained laser interferometers that could very accurately and precisely measure the distance from the stylus to the grove walls. It kept the stylus near, but not touching, the groove, getting the audio…

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!

> durable ... Oh, the CD!

In my experience CD’s are anything but durable.

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

#294

Post by microcolonel »

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…

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 that I wouldn't really consider a comparison.

Furthermore, given that the measured sensitivity is more likely on the frequency front than on the dynamic range front, did they establish a distinction between 44.1kHz and 48kHz?

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

#295

Post by jarjoura »

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 if the sound quality isn’t as perfect as the original studio recording. It doesn’t need to be, and it has its own unique sound.

What I most love about the experience of owning vinyl is that it’s annoying to pick one song. So you almost have to expect to put it on the first track and listen to the entire set. It’s listening in the moment, since you can’t skip and you have to be ready to flip the album over. I love it.

Also the experience of going to second hand stores to chat with fellow music lovers and discover new artists feels very human to me. Even if Spotify can recommend with precision, it mostly acts as background music since I don’t have to pay attention.

Not saying this is everyone’s cup of tea, but as a music nerd, I’m happy with my hobby.

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

#297

Post by rsl7 »

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…

Indeed. So many people seem not to realize that there will not be one final best source of music.

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

#298

Post by ScottBurson »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #282
tuscen wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the problem of a medium (be it a vinyl or a CD). You can put the same crappy mastering to a vinyl.

I thought vinyls needed to be specially mastered to prevent the needle from basically being pushed to the adjacent grove by an amplitude that's too high on the track.

Yes, but that's no barrier to compression, which reduces the dynamic range. Compressed material is all at about the same level. The reason people speak of the "loudness wars" is that after compression, even the parts of the music that would have been quieter are now almost as loud as the peaks.

It's actually quite ironic, I think, that compression has become such a fad only now that we have digital media with their much lower noise floor. We have more dynamic range available, but we're using less of it.

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

#299

Post by ScottBurson »

kibibu wrote: post #258
stordoff wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sound quality isn't better For some bands, I'd actually disagree with that. Both what they are playing is better, and their released material is compressed to hell and back[1], which seems to be less prevalent live (though far from gone). No doubt they _could_ do that recorded (anything you can do live you can match in a studio), but they _aren't_ doing. There's also the non-musical elements - there's a differe…

In a very concrete way, the inability to apply hard-clipped brick-wall limiting and extreme compression is why vinyl often does sound better than CD - the physics of the needle-in-groove mean that there are limits to the amplitudes you can try to encode without bouncing the damn thing out. So vinyl masters often (but not always) avoid the loudness war and have a wider dynamic range.

Hmm, this seems to be a common idea, but I don't think it's true. As I said above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914699

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

#300

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

crispyambulance wrote: post #257
thinkmassive wrote: post #15

By revenue, not by units sold. Still interesting, and not really surprising based on my anecdotal experience of artists I follow. Streaming audio is good enough for most sound systems commonly in use. Vinyl serves as a better collectible from a favorite artist for a few reasons. - more room for cover art - physical analog medium (superficial, but has value to some) - requires more care than CDs (proves the owner’s de…

Yeah, vinyl has a lot of love behind it because it has "object appeal" for the reasons you cite. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a niche thing. As are cassettes (which ALSO are making a comeback of sorts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EbJ4ZX4RIw ) None of these physical media are remotely comparable in terms of market-share to streaming, I expect. It's just a thing, It won't last forever. Good turntables…

I don't see it going away to be honest.

There will always be fluctuating amounts of people coming and going through enjoying records and record players. It's a hobby, and not even a particularly niche one. Plenty of inner city yuppies enjoy it.

They aren't exclusively buying records, they're collecting their most cherished works on LP and specially listening to them. It's not an all or nothing thing, which makes the pain in the ass aspect an important part of the hobby.

You want to listen to a specific song? Cast to your Chromecast with spotify.

You want to do a focused album listen? Chuck on a particularly cherished album? Show off to a friend? Then you switch to the Vinyl and do it.

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