Why do they still make vinyl records?

Yeah, that's for sure, there are some collectibles out there,...

and as this post stated, there's a few small label concerns actually still releasing vinyl records. Hey, more power to 'em. I still listen to vinyl records, when the mood hits me, and very few select albums I have only on vinyl,... like the one sitting on the TT now,... "Gary Myrick & the Figures" -debut album, [think: "She Talks in Stereo"]. It's a way-cool album, and I've never seen it on CD.
 
I have around 800 records. I don't buy them much anymore just because I keep myself out of record shops. They're somehow addictive.
 
LocusLarsen said:
Hey Bob,

Whats this SACD stuff?
Click to expand...
SACD (Super Audio Compact Disc) is a new two layer disc they have out. The top layer is standard 16bit/44.1 digital but if you have a SACD player, it reads the second layer which is a whole different way of recording. I don't totally understand it but I do know that the sampling rate is an astounding 2,822,400 times a secong where a normal CD is only 44,100 times a secong. Also instead of PCM (pulse code modulation? ) recording it uses a 1-bit Direct Stream Digital or DSD.
Since it has such a fast sampling rate, it has a potential freq response out to 100,000hz while normal CD stops at 20,000. Plus it has a much higher dynamic range than even vinyl. I checked and a CD has 96db of range.....vinyl can get up close to 108db but SACD gets a full 120db of dynamic range across the whole audio spectrum.
I haven't heard it yet but it's supposed to sound really excellent.
 
One of the reasons they still do LPs if DJs. My buddy is a DJ and he gets NEW releases sent to him on LP every month. DJs don't seem to take to CD to well. Vinyl (which hasn't been used since the 70s really, but I don't remember what they use now), until recent, had a much, much warmer sound. (like anolog does). But digital recording has come a long way in the last couple years. Also, the industry went to CD and pushed it because it makes them more money. Was really a scam to rip off the consumer and convince us that we need a product we don't. Would take forever to explain it all. Remember when CDs first went into use? It was suppose to make an album cheaper, but it has made it more expensive, even though it is cheaper to produce. Tech should be expensive when it first hits the market, but it should make things cheaper in the long run. i.e. DVD players where $400 just a couple years ago. It is one of the reasons the industry has to give back $3 to everyone that has bought a CD in the last 10 years or so. Guess the record industy didn't plan on Napster? It is also why Pearl Jam (whom I don't like at all, but love thier stand on this) is so against the industry, and why they still put every new album on vinyl.

P.S. Not to let the artist off the hook for ripping off the consumer...at $100 a concert ticket, $40 a program, $45 for a concert t-shirt, and $12 for a coke and a pretzel.....
...downloading a song for free off the internet is NOT stealing!
just my opinion. Just my humble opinion....sorry, didn't mean to get off subject.

P.S.S. I just threw away over 400 LPs, because my of lack of room to store them. The one thing I noticed as I was tossing them was the artwork. That is the one thing that has really been lost.
 
triva question....
How many grooves does a standard LP have on 1 side?
Be shocked to know how many people don't get this.
 
Nobody really EXPLAINED it, so here goes:

Compare the following two procedures:
  1. Putting a CD in a tray
  2. Pushing the eject button to insert the CD.
  3. Pushing the correct number button to go to the start of the right song.
  4. Fast forwarding a bit to get a bit into the song

and

  1. Putting an vinyl album on the turn table
  2. Putting the needle where you want it to be

You now understand why DJ's prefer vinyl. ;)

The 'better sound' argument really is only valid for some audiophiliac releases of acoustic music recorded with special magick-enhanced tube mics and home made super-magick recording equipment recorded to 1/2" 2-track in stereo and then super-mastered with special buzzword enhancement. The people who get a hard-on by audiophile buzzwords are the only ones who buy that stuff.

The people who aren't DJ's and aren't audiophiles and still buy vinyl often do it because they are hard-core collectors of a certain artist, and hence buy everything, including the Vinyl stuff. I have tendencies to do that, although I try to supress them. :)
 
"The 'better sound' argument really is only valid for some audiophiliac releases of acoustic music recorded with special magick-enhanced tube mics and home made super-magick recording equipment recorded to 1/2" 2-track in stereo and then super-mastered with special buzzword enhancement..."

..wait..
...isn't every recording mastered that way???
 
Actually.....many of the recordings from the 50's and 60's have excellent sonics. Part of the reason is that they used minimalist micing techniques because they didn't have so much gear available.

I'll grant you that the differences are subtle but I've had too many people react strongly to the difference for me to think it's just me and a few other audiophiles. Some of that stuff like 'magic marker pens' is crap but there is some validity to the idea that vinyl can have flat-out excellent sound. Just as there is some validity to the idea that different cables can sound different in different amplifiers. You just have to dig thru the exaggerations and bullshit.
 
Toker41 said:
"then super-mastered with special buzzword enhancement..."

..wait..
...isn't every recording mastered that way???
Click to expand...

There are degrees even in hell. :)

I mean super-mastered with special buzzword enhancement when compared to the average mega-buzzword enhanced mastering. :D
 
Lt. Bob said:
but there is some validity to the idea that vinyl can have flat-out excellent sound.
Click to expand...

Of course it is. I'm just saying that very few people by vinyl because of that reason. And they are often the same people who buy green marker pens. ;)
 
. . .

Surprised noone mentioned even-order harmonic distortion that is generally perceived as "pleasing," at least inasmuch as a few generations, including the cusp of mine (b. 1980) were raised on the vinyl sound. Also, records actually have bass response. . one needs only to look at the woofers moving in and out, pumping the air, vs. a CD. . . this on my mid-fi Polk Audios, with a Pioneer SX-680 receiver and PL-512? turntable. . mmm mmm good.
 
Maybe that's just your CD-player?
I know my Woofers pump just as much with my CD's as with my vinyl players, that's for sure.
 
The woofer's pumping in & out with vinyl is because of the warps of the record and the needle moving up & down because of that warp more than it's because of deep bass response.

And also.......even ordered harmonics is something that's associated with tube amps; not vinyl. Now, if all of the cutting equipment is tubed, then there would be some even order stuff going on but even order harmonic distortion is not a vinyl characteristic. For example.....there are plenty of vinyl albums that were recorded during the early days of what was horrible digital recordings that have all of the odd-ordered harmonics that made this early digital stuff almost unlistenable.
 
I've heard SACD, it is amazing. It depends on the original source of course but as a delivery medium it's excellent.
I have 2000 LP's and 500 CD's. The LP's make music more exciting to listen to but CD's are convenient.
How much do we value music?
 
I think Vinyl is more exceiting too. But why? Do they really sound better?

Personally, I think that is complete bullcrap. They don't sound better, or more exciting. It's just something about sliding that heavy 12" disc out of its sleeve, and putting the needle on that feels good in a way a CD never does.

So I like vinyl better. But I don't claim it sounds better. I think it has a theoretical potential to sound better if you have a vinyl player that costs $5000 and the vinyl is pressed from directly engraved mothers, and that kinds of stuff. But with any normal system using normal $500 players for both vinyl and CD, and playing standard vinyls, it's not gonna sound better. It just aint.
 
I don't know...

... I'm not using any super hi-fi gear myself, & don't have tuned & calibrated ears like the rest of you, but I DO like the sound of the albums better. There's just something real pleasing about the whole album experience that gets me off, sonically that is. Don't get me wrong, I love CD's too, but I think it's the convenience of them, portability, etc., that makes CD's so enjoyable. Plus, I just now thought of it in this fashion: CD's allow you to take your music anywhere, anytime, & listen alone, in a group, or whatever... With albums, it's a little more intimate, since if you do invite friends over to a party, you really aren't going to have more than, say, 10-15 people, as opposed to the SRO environment of a bunch of strangers in a club, most of whom you don't know, & with close friends chilling, with a bone, a bong, a beerball, or whatever, & the 12" vinyl kicking the grooves, there's just something, I don't know, more FUN about the whole thing. You'll have to get up at some poing to turn the LP over, whereas, with the CD, you just "set & forget". Convenient, yeah, but I guess the album is little more pleasant with the whole "hands-on" thing. I don't know, I JUST LIKE THE RECORDS BETTER! Pass the j...
 
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