pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Gonna start a dog v. cat poll after lunch

honestly waterface otm - no one ever argued that cds didn't have higher potential frequency range or better signal to noise, the problem he doesn't address is that outside of stuff that performs really insanely poorly on those scales (like idk wax cylinders and shit), nobody uses that as a measure of actual listenability.

sorry, that article has been bugging me ever since people started reposting it

But ok I guess I didn't read the article closely enough sorry brothers and sisters--

WF

he being dude that wrote the article obv

Aw thanks Triple J

so you would have preferred a paragraph like "well, hi-fi magazines were able to graph out exactly why CDs sounded better, but some people just thought they didn't sound right". essentially the argument is "mastering engineers didn't know how to adjust the levels properly for compact disc" which I think is pretty common knowledge. hell I think that Mark has said this numerous times himself.

essentially what you c/p'd up there reads like those articles that champions FLAC over MP3 even though almost nobody can spot the difference between a properly encoded MP3 and a FLAC in a double blind test. I mean yeah, some people disagree, but it goes against the point of the article and it doesn't have the science to back it up, so why mention it? he says straight up that different people look for different things in sound. what's your point?

The tangle of variables behind a vintage stereo system has largely been boiled down to: What kind of headphones am I using?

LOL

Yeah that's even dumber than the shit I posted

i get that some people prefer vinyl - similar to how some people love Beats Audio because it distorts and cranks the bass so much - but yer kinda barking at a cloud here

i fucking hate speakers, man

honestly waterface otm - no one ever argued that cds didn't have higher potential frequency range or better signal to noise, the problem he doesn't address is that outside of stuff that performs really insanely poorly on those scales (like idk wax cylinders and shit), nobody uses that as a measure of actual listenability.

but again isn't this the whole point of the article? that although cds are technically better, lots of people prefer vinyl

I honestly can't figure out the point of the article, it's too fuckin dumb or maybe I'm too fuckin dumb

anyone who questions pitchfork is racist

the problem with the article is that it tries to cut both ways, mixing some sort of hey people like the sound of different things *shrugs* conclusion with statements like "One thing that was not in question, especially in the early days, is that CDs sounded better than LPs." thats some pretty wonky logic there!

iirc the point is basically just "everyone thought cds would be the ultimate playback model because they have the best fidelity technically, but lots of people are going back to vinyl because technical fidelity is not always most important to the listener." which isn't a mind-blowing point or anything, but it's not a pro-CD article.

but see fidelity isn't what he is claiming it is! accurate reproduction (leaving out the inaccuracy argument abt sampling vs analog curve, which is also valid) is not the measure of fidelity.

well fidelity is my phrasing, i don't remember if that's the word he used

I stand by my point it's a dumb article

Gonna start a dog v. cat poll after lunch

― waterface

let's just move on to this part of the day

I don't really even get people who try to argue that vinyl "sounds better" than CDs or vice versa as a blanket statement. It's so hard to compare the two across the board, especially when you're dealing with so many variables -- are we talking about a 70s record vs. the digitally remastered version on CD? Maybe the remastering job is the problem. Are we talking about analog RECORDINGS on vinyl versus digital RECORDINGS on CD? Does the same digitally recorded new album sound better on new vinyl than on a CD through the same stereo setup? Do you perhaps like the distortion and "crackliness" of old vinyl?

i'm not a huge metal listener at all and i don't really know grayson currin's writing, but dude is reviewing like 10 metal albums a week there -- is p4k's demographic that interested in metal?

― marcos, Thursday, August 1, 2013 8:44 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

notice all the other metal content on the site, show no mercy, etc. i know they've been covering metal for a while now, 7-8 years, but it seems like a good %30 of the coverage on the site is metal-related?

― marcos, Thursday, August 1, 2013 8:45 AM (3 hours ago)

a surprisingly high, and sustained by now, percentage, yeah. i would be very curious to find out what's driving it - availability of writing, judgments about their readers, the simple fact that metal is having a moment, its hipsterfiability, or whatever.

i think the curious thing is that they run so many reviews without really settling on a stance toward 'the metal identity'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4qdefD2To

instead of talking about a blog post, let's all listen to the goo goo dolls together

i doooon't want the world to see me
because i don't think they'd understaaaaa
when everything's made to be broken
i just waaaaannt you to know who i aaaaam

da-da-da-da
da-da-da-da
DUM DUM dummmmmmm
da-da-da-da
da-da-da-da
DUM DUM dummmmmmm

well i said i was walking down the highway baby
i'm just a rebel with a nothing to lose
i said you know i hate to lonely, lady
but the hard life is callin' and i just can't refu-use!

i doooon't want the world to see me
because i don't think they'd understaaaaa
when everything's made to be broken
i just waaaaannt you to know who i aaaaam

goo goo! ga ga!

ooh la la

DOGS V CATS

a surprisingly high, and sustained by now, percentage, yeah. i would be very curious to find out what's driving it - availability of writing, judgments about their readers, the simple fact that metal is having a moment, its hipsterfiability, or whatever.

i think the curious thing is that they run so many reviews without really settling on a stance toward 'the metal identity'.

― j., Thursday, August 1, 2013 5:17 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea, exactly. especially that last part -- the reviews and the coverage run constantly but it's all just kind of "there." all this kind of started with the "hipster metal phenomenon" around 2004-2006 but their coverage has just continued.

and despite the high coverage w/ reviews and columns, has metal been incorporated into the more influential "tastemaking" features of the site? (e.g. best new music, the year-end lists, etc.)

I don't really even get people who try to argue that vinyl "sounds better" than CDs or vice versa as a blanket statement. It's so hard to compare the two across the board, especially when you're dealing with so many variables

It's not really that hard to compare. Digitize a record though a good AD converter and then compare the original record playing to the digital copy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5fTtGylEO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jix7XcbVA4w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgtsai2aKY

Wait, are we still doing baby talk?

It's not really that hard to compare. Digitize a record though a good AD converter and then compare the original record playing to the digital copy.

― wk, Thursday, August 1, 2013 11:21 AM (1 minute ago)

or, if you care about sound quality, just cut a 12" from a cd run through a good DA converter

lmao mid 80s DACs were horseshit

or, if you care about sound quality, just cut a 12" from a cd run through a good DA converter

what would that test?

accurate reproduction is not the measure of fidelity.
― O_o-O_O-o_O (jjjusten), Thursday, August 1, 2013 4:10 PM

Huh? That's precisely the measure of fidelity.

yeah, I was wondering about that one too

what would that test?

waxmanship

highly illogical

yeah that was sloppy on my part - definitionally thats exactly what fidelity is, but thats not how audio nerds use it casually.

the whole argument is also amusing to me because anybody in the know will tell you that the number one weak link in your audio chain is always going to be your speakers anyway

what i should have said is that accuracy in reproduction/fidelity isn't actually of much use when talking about quality of sound (again, removing bottom-feeder stuff like substandard encoding etc.) so i just see his statement abt all that tech spec totally pointless, but he's using it as a lynchpin for an argument that doesnt actually need it. and i dont find the "hey different people like different things that sound different" argument article worthy.

Black people listen to music like this, but white people listen to music like this.

No Josh

yea, exactly. especially that last part -- the reviews and the coverage run constantly but it's all just kind of "there." all this kind of started with the "hipster metal phenomenon" around 2004-2006 but their coverage has just continued.

― marcos, Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:15 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and despite the high coverage w/ reviews and columns, has metal been incorporated into the more influential "tastemaking" features of the site? (e.g. best new music, the year-end lists, etc.)

― marcos, Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

doesn't that just make metal like several other genres that are frequently reviewed on the site, but don't have enough fandom within the overall staff to consistently have a major presence on the year-end lists? isn't that a good thing (assuming the reviews aren't clueless/bad)?

lol waterface is a ghost in the machine reference

i'm still blown away some people are accepting that early era CDs with the horrible digital mastering and CD players with DACs that are a joke by today's standards were better than a good record player and good records in the early 80s.

i sort of question whether some ppl on this thread have heard a clean record on a good player before.

but man the industry saw gold in them hills and wanted to sell you all the warhorses over again and boy did that early anti-record propaganda stick around in the ether