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50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

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Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#331

Post by no-name-here »

coldtea wrote: post #322
AlecSchueler wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compared to the plastic waste produced daily it's a drop in the ocean. And at least this is kept and collected. Basically anything taken individually is a drop in the ocean. Problem is all those drops add up and that's what creates the ocean.

The ocean of plastic waste isn't just lots of drops aggregted. There are massive "water bodies" that make 10% and 20% and 30% of the ocean of plastic use. Packaging is about 30-40%, for starters. Clothes (synthetic crap clothes) and shoes are about 15%.

1. At least packaging and clothes have more clearly defined utility. 2. There are notable movements to reduce wasteful clothes/packaging. I’ve previously heard people point to the amount of plastic used for commercial shipping, although personally it seems likely that companies use such packaging to avoid even costlier possible product damage? I’m all for reducing waste in each possible area. I guess it’s a similar discussion to the banning of plastic bags/utensils – does that cause people to think more about plastic use in other areas, or does it cause more people to be wasteful in other areas now that they don’t have their plastic forks, etc.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#332

Post by masklinn »

Uvix wrote: post #327
masklinn wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but on the whole I’d take getting FLAC directly over CDs. Not that I don’t have CDs, even deluxe editions with picture books and stuff, but I pretty much never get them out. I can understand people preferring vinyls as physical artefacts, the full frame jackets of my father’s albums are gorgeous in a way that’s distinct from and superior to CD album art, even if the music bit is markedly inferior technically (a…

I'd take getting FLAC files directly, but they're not available most of the time.

Yeah. But my point is mostly that the CD remains nothing but a transmission vessel for the audio, I don't know anyone and have seldom heard of people who value CDs for their physicality as a CD. Unlike vinyls which they very much do.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#333

Post by catgirlinspace »

drzaiusx11 wrote: post #328
bayindirh wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love both for different reasons. CDs sound better, they can be ripped and archived and can be carried around without any loss in their digital form. On the other hand, vinyl is great for intentional listening. Putting that hour aside to brew a nice cup of coffee and listen to something while exploring the feelings the album evoke, then get a break to flip/change the record and continue. It's a kind of personal care…

I love the associated rituals and the physicality of vinyl records. The large format album art, liner notes & inserts are great as well. As for sound quality I'm no audiophile so I won't pretend to make any claims of vinyl being better or worse than any other music medium, but I will say I don't get the same intentionality of listening with the streaming services I've tried: Google music, Amazon music, Spotify, etc w…

I’ve never had Apple Music add random songs to my library and the closest thing to an AI DJ is AutoMix which is easily disabled and I’ve never had it re-enable itself. Can also add your own music to iCloud Music Library with the Apple Music app on Mac and (I think) Windows. Think this requires iCloud+ though but I’m not 100% certain. Annoyingly can’t do it on the web app or an iPhone :/

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#334

Post by mrob »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #325
mrob wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody can distinguish 60fps from higher frame rate just by looking at steady motion. The famous Blur Busters Test UFO makes it easy: https://testufo.com/ But in the case of analog recording, nobody can distinguish a pure analog recording from the same thing but with a good ADC/DAC pair in the signal path in a blind test. It's theoretically possible to hear undithered 16 bit quantization noise if you turn the volume…

Isn't this true? - 44.1ksamples/sec can only represent arbitrary waveforms at some point lower than 44.1kHz/2. - Example: The only 22.05kHz waveform you can encode at 44.1ksamples/sec is a square wave (for 16 bit samples: -32767, 32768, -32767, 32768, etc.) Going down to 44,099 samples/sec you could only do an extremely crude "steppy" approximation of a sine wave, sort of like the NES's triangle channel.

No, because a reconstruction filter is used to remove the stairsteps. This does not lose any information. I recommend watching the xiph.org videos explaining it:

https://wiki.xiph.org/Videos

EDIT: Also, consider that true square/triangle/sawtooth waves are mathematical abstractions that can't exist in reality. If you try to move a real loudspeaker cone in a square wave, you have to reverse direction in exactly zero time. This requires infinite acceleration and therefore infinite force. If you take the Fourier transform of these waveforms you get an infinite series of harmonics.

A real-world "square" wave only contains the lower harmonics within some frequency band. When you limit it to audio frequencies, all square waves above 6.67kHz are identical to sine waves because the only harmonic within that frequency band is the fundamental.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#336

Post by detourdog »

mrob wrote: post #324
detourdog wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mastering problems the early CDs suffered from was the move to analog to digital.

Classical labels were recording digitally even before CD players existed, to avoid the generation loss of recording to tape before transferring to vinyl. These recordings were later released on CD and mostly sound great. Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms (1985 release, first CD to sell over a million copies) also sounds great, and IMO better than most modern releases. Some early CDs were recorded using pre-emphasis, si…

I was thinking about back catalogs, not necessarily new recordings. Things recorded pre-1980.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#337

Post by thaumasiotes »

taejavu wrote: post #209
thaumasiotes wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and there's nothing as crushing as realizing the album you just bought based on one song only has that one good song on it (any album by The Police, I'm looking at you) Why call out The Police? This is the norm for all studio albums. That's why the popular albums are greatest hits collections instead.

By any measure, both of your statements are patently false. You’re almost making a valid point somewhere in there but the hyperbole buries it.

What hyperbole?

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#338

Post by retrodaredevil »

RAdrien wrote: post #317
bartread wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m increasingly conscious of being an outlier here. I prefer physical, for a variety of reasons (ownership being one of them), but also prefer CD to vinyl. Nobody loves CDs any more and I don’t get it. I own vinyl, I like vinyl, but CDs are objectively better and somewhat easier to store.

CDs are annoyingly delicate to handle. Vinyl does not care about your finger tips. Vinyl sleeves are also more attractive than CD cases and easier to store on a shelf or bucket.

That's simply not true. If you scratch a vinyl record, you've introduced a defect to it. If you scratch a CD, it's probably fine. Some CD players don't like scratched CDs, but for the most part CDs are very durable.

Plus if you damage a CD, simply rip it and burn it to a CDr. (did I mention that ripping a damaged CD usually works?)

You are right about vinyl sleeves being more attractive, though. I think that's its main selling point.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#339

Post by MonkeyClub »

quietsegfault wrote: post #259
silverlake wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This resonates with me. I have a hobby where I transform classic books into hand-written papyrus as the author intended. There is something almost meditative in unspooling a 10kg scroll where the sometimes illegible ink allows me to wonder what that sentence even was.

So glad to see my people. I have a hobby where instead of a modern synthetic ball, I play soccer with a severed goat head. There is something positively transcendent about the resonating thunk of a kick that you just don’t get with a standard ball.

In my community, we use the head of the defeated chieftain of the nearby tribe instead, and keep goatheads for soup. The lack of horns makes for a better roll.

Funny how there are minor variations the world around.

Re: 50% of U.S. vinyl buyers don't own a record player

#340

Post by autoexec »

bartread wrote: post #309
autoexec wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody loves CDs any more and I don’t get it. I loved CDs, but I was forced to stop buying new CDs decades ago because I can't stomach supporting the RIAA. That said, it is still my preferred physical media for music (followed by minidisc) even though ultimately my CD collection was digitized and stored.

> RIAA I get you but there’s also an element of pick your poison. Not all the online options are great either, particularly not on the streaming front (cough, Spotify, cough[0]) in terms of their treatment - and payment - of artists. I think Bandcamp might be decent, and is generally the place I go for FLAC. I buy a lot of pre-owned CDs as well: upside, less hard/impossible to recycle waste (discs), and less plastic…

Yeah, I'll sometimes pick up used CDs. When it comes to supporting artists though it's hard. Occasionally you can support them directly online, but it's best to email to make sure that some percentage of that doesn't go to the label. Handing cash to artists in person at shows hasn't always worked either, and I get how that might make them uncomfortable. Merch sales (outside of albums) at concerts can work if you check with them first about where the proceeds go.
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