Why Vinyl Can't Survive

I have a several friends (music collectors, and general vinyl fetishists) who are saying that quite often.

(x-post)

so no one here even said "vinyl is best" for you to respond to with that?

The people who claim to be above "format bullshit" are the same people that bring up vinyl dislike in first place, then claim its other people that bring it up and go on about it

You can stop saying that same thing now, if you want.

np!

C'mon, vinyl vs CD vs digital is like debating your favorite beer - there's no wrong answer unless you're stating sweeping generalities like "vinyl is superior to CD". A mate of mine has an expensive system and has fallen in love with Blue Note jazz vinyl reissues - and they sound bloody MARVELOUS on his system. But I'm not going to invest in that sort of gear and I've ALWAYS preferred the convenience of CDs to what I perceive as interruptions, surface noise, unportabilty and hassle of vinyl. So y'all keep selling your CDs, I'll buy them and happily clog up my shelves with their liner notes and make my own rips. Everybody wins.

So y'all keep selling your CDs, I'll buy them and happily clog up my shelves with their liner notes and make my own rips. Everybody wins.

yeah. it has to be said in recent months my middle of nowhere charity shops have had some rather fine selections (far more than normally).
people are clearly ripping and clearing out shelf space.

"Cassettes are worse than CDs and vinyl in pretty much every aspect I can think of (dynamic range, sound deterioration, longevity, sleeve notes and art)"

ahh but sometimes these are good things, all about context! i mean cassettes sell pretty well in the diy/noise/punk scenes, do you really think all these people are frontin'? just being nostalgic? i don't. i think some music benefits greatly from limiting the amount of information that reaches your ears.

Very true.

C'mon, vinyl vs CD vs digital is like debating your favorite beer - there's no wrong answer unless you're stating sweeping generalities like "vinyl is superior to CD".

This is otm. The problem I have with the debate is when people claim one format is more faithful to the original recording than the other. Unless you were in the studio or mastering room when the final master was being played back, you don't know what the original recording sounded like (in terms of sound quality, I mean).

And the irony with vinyl fetishization vis-a-vis present-day reissues is that the overwhelming majority of them are digitally mastered (and nearly as many are mastered from digital sources). The Beatles box is, for all intents and purposes, the 2009 CDs remastered for vinyl. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, unless claims are made that it's "analog" and therefore "superior."

And the cassette revival is baffling to me, too. As Dave Marsh said, "rewinding is the longest distance between any two points."

If all my music I heard/acquired was straight digital from this point in I really wouldn't complain. And I'll indulge as/when I choose (thus buying the DVD-A files of the new MBV, which I don't think is even being released physically in that format...)

Just want to say that with a good cartridge needle and good record player, surface noise is not a huge issue if simply take reasonable care of your records

The whole ”records get destroyed everytime you play them” is hogwash, I have records from the 40s that sound fine.

lots of cds sound great, but hearing the original presses of records on vinyl can be just revelatory

I've a/b'd stuff like PIL Metal Box and it's not a small difference, if you haven't heard that on vinyl you haven't heard it

All this said I'm buying alot of cds lately, so cheap and lots of recent jazz reissues sounds great...we were finally getting cds and cd players pretty good when we abandoned them, I have a marantz cd player, might upgrade to an oppo, but it's made a large difference

i just really want people to stop calling records vinyls. that's my only complaint. nobody ever said this until the internet.

haven't had time to read all this cos of work, but the idea that enjoying vinyl automatically = rose-tinted rockism is a load of old guff really.

God yeah I hate the pluralisation of vinyl to vinyls.

But CDs are records too, in that they're recordings...

I've been ripping a lot of my CDs lately for convenience, one thing I have noticed while doing this is that this whole "CD rot only from a few p-pressing plants in the late 80s" is bullshit, I've got several CDs from the late 90s with it.

not sure where that stutter came from

i just really want people to stop calling records vinyls. that's my only complaint. nobody ever said this until the internet

this is a European thing, you hear it a lot from the mouths of non-native English speakers.

xps

But CDs are records too, in that they're recordings...

Yeah, in Camden Record & Tape Exchange someone would always point out that tapes were records too...

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_250/MI0001/815/MI0001815647.jpg?partner=allrovi.com

Was the Record & Tape Exchange ever actually called that? When I lived in London (early 90s) it was only ever the Music & Video Exchange.

It was def called the Record and Tape Exchange before it became M&V, yes.

Lots of x-posts

I love vinyl and have been buying it over half my life (I'm 32), and it's been my go-to format for a long time. It used to be far, far cheaper to buy old records on vinyl, and I'd say 75% of my collection was purchased for $5 or less. I like the way it looks and sounds. People fetishize pops and crackles, but really, those shouldn't necessarily be there. If you buy vinyl that's been taken care of, and you yourself take care of it, it's a pretty damn clean presentation. Also, you guys are talking about the degradation of vinyl like it's rubbing metal on a wax candle or something. It takes a fuckload of plays to make an even barely noticeable dulling of the sound of an LP--unless, that is, your setup is poor (with a poorly balanced tonearm, bad needle, bad tracking weight, etc.). Which brings me to another point: vinyl requires a bit of care, knowledge, and patience in its setup and playback. So what? Learn how to balance your tonearm; learn how to align your cartridge. It's not hard, and it feels good to know about. Also, Sick, you talk about how vinyl is unwieldy and gets so easily scratched and smudged. Just don't put your fingers all over the grooves and don't drop your records! Don't leave them sitting around naked! The notion that "oh it's such a PAIN to have to get up and walk five steps to flip a record every 20 minutes!" is funny to me, too. Although there have been plenty of nights where I've fallen asleep on the couch and woken up a few hours later to an LP spinning it its runout groove, so that's not entirely a bad point. But really?

Yeah, before Videos became a sell-through item (around 1987).

Ah, Camden MVE RIP.

Anyway, don't have a problem with enjoyment of vinyl records, just the placing of vinyl records on a moral and/or spiritual level above any other form of sound reproduction because a lot of middle-aged white men are worried about death.

"records are bizarre. limited bandwidth, will sound drastically different depending on your equipment. they age badly, get dirty, they're bloody massive, heavy, get fucked up easily but they make me smile."

http://cl.jroo.me/z3/R/x/i/e/a.baa-cute-dirty-child.jpg

Haha, agreed, But taking a moral/spiritual stance *against* vinyl just because the thought of middle-aged white men confronting mortality crinks you up is just as bizarre to me.

(That was to Marcello...)

"People fetishize pops and crackles, but really, those shouldn't necessarily be there. If you buy vinyl that's been taken care of, and you yourself take care of it, it's a pretty damn clean presentation. Also, you guys are talking about the degradation of vinyl like it's rubbing metal on a wax candle or something. It takes a fuckload of plays to make an even barely noticeable dulling of the sound of an LP"

huh, interesting. you almost sound like an...adult!

99% of middle-age white men haven't listened to vinyl in decades. just throwing that out there.

It's the 1% who hog the media that I'm concerned about.

It's a cold world, man. Let sad old dudes be sentimental about *something*.

99% of middle-age white men haven't listened to vinyl in decades. just throwing that out there.

― scott seward, Thursday, February 7, 2013 10:30 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is blindingly true.

I own lots of both, but as an object, records are hands down more attractive. There is something pathetic about an old CD with its scuffed, cracked case and yellowed inserts. (CD box sets, however, were in general very nicely done in their hey-day and are attractive objects).

What I personally fail to understand is why people want to buy LPs of recordings made digitally in modern studios. I get the object factor, but it to me it seems kind of silly to take a digital recording and then put it on an analog format.

What I personally fail to understand is why people want to buy LPs of recordings made digitally in modern studios. I get the object factor, but it to me it seems kind of silly to take a digital recording and then put it on an analog format.

― Johnny Hotcox, Thursday, February 7, 2013 10:42 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm inclined to agree, but man, a good vinyl mastering of a digital recording can be a beautiful thing. I mean, listen to a lot of the stuff guys like Rashad Becker from Dubplates & Mastering are doing; flat-out gorgeous and RICH sounding.

i love a good cd, man. my kompakt CDs are some of my most treasured possessions. when CDs are done well - especially with electronic or electro-acoustic or well-made/produced classical - they are awesome things to hear.

Pro tip: most of the snap/crackle/pop you hear on used records is dirt & grime. Unless you're buying cheap scratched vinyls from the charity shoppe, a little cleaning solution and a soft cloth will make a noticeable improvement.

I've always been a 'native format' guy and prefer to listen to music on the media it was originally released on (pre-'87 vinyl, 80s rap/metal on tape, 90s CD, 00s on mp3), but, as a nostalgic middle-aged white guy, it thrills me to no end to see bins of new, shrink-wrapped LPs in the record store again.

Thread title is Thomas Friedman editorial in Tape Op

"I've a/b'd stuff like PIL Metal Box and it's not a small difference, if you haven't heard that on vinyl you haven't heard it"

over the last couple of years i have had the pleasure of hearing some of the best music from 70's jamaica on 12 inch and 7 inch and if someone has only heard cd reissues or trojan cd boxes or whatever, wow, they have no idea what they are missing. but they really have no idea, so they aren't missing anything. but, man, they will make you weep. a good Rockers 12 inch or an Orchid 7-inch oh god for real they are so huge and deep. and CDs just don't get that. for whatever reasons.

i just can't afford new vinyl. wish i could. tons of reissues i would buy. i'm a volume guy though. would rather buy 10 or 15 old records for the price of 2 new vinyl releases.

Thought Jamaica had notoriously bad pressings

The comment about PIL recordings on vinyl is completely true. When my mate was demo-ing phono pre-amps we went to a high-end store. On a $3k turntable with a $2k pre-amp feeding into $30k speakers in an acoustically treated room at ungodly volume, PIL's "Flowers Of Romance" on vinyl sounded completely new to me, despite having owned it on CD for years. I really GOT what Lydon was after with the recording.

But, really, I'll never hear it like that again. So I'm content with my CD. I kinda know what I'm missing and I just don't care.

The CD reissue era's worst offense was the occasional re-mixing and the even more drastic re-recording of original material (one of the most flagrant examples was ZZ Top). That problem alone should make you want to search out the original issue when cost and availability are not huge factors (alas, they often are).

i just really want people to stop calling records vinyls. that's my only complaint. nobody ever said this until the internet.

false. in Germany record collectors always called them "vinyls" and the "v" is pronounced more like a "w." And they would ask you at the merch table: "Do you have any vinyls?" and you'd say "no this is CD only" and then if you were lucky you'd get a "you must force the label to release it on vinyl!"

jamaica had AMAZING pressings. i'm astounded on a weekly basis. its a common misperception.

tons of americans say vinyls now. it's a thing.

in Germany record collectors always called them "vinyls" and the "v" is pronounced more like a "w." And they would ask you at the merch table: "Do you have any vinyls?" and you'd say "no this is CD only" and then if you were lucky you'd get a "you must force the label to release it on vinyl!"

^^^ read this in the voice of Grandpa Simpson, it's hilarious

Also scott's right, baby boom dudes love cds! They are always surprised when I say I have records still, they upgraded in the 80s and never looked back

after years of reflecting and bullshit posturing I've decided that I just like formats including digital ones. I like to think about format when I'm engaging with music; physical formats lend themselves to a more concrete experience of this. I'm in a tape phase right now because there's some really good metal bands that prefer tapes and also there is a toddler in this house who thinks cassettes are just the coolest things to pick up and carry around. (I like to hand him stuff that will literally no longer exist in any form if he breaks it because then I am delegate a sort of supreme power to a guy who hasn't got language yet.) Doubtless there's a sense-memory nostalgia to it, too. If I were an audiophile I suspect I'd be an analog believer but let's be honest I've been listening to loud music for years, my ears aren't exactly Robert Parker's nose

^^^ read this in the voice of Grandpa Simpson, it's hilarious

a sad otm btw, curse you Phil D., I'll steal the onion from your belt

The recording did such a good job of running down vinyl to get everyone to buy cds a lot of myths still persist