Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[Newman]

That's how I approach it too, but clearly there have been numerous posts pushing the idea that those very things, that drove us nuts, don't stop vinyl from being top-tier audio today.

Whenever I correctly describe it as second-tier, I get a lot of pushback.

 

[Sal1950]

Personally, there's a difference between then, when there was no real alternative to vinyl and now when there is. At the time, vinyl noise and distortion drove me nuts, and I did whatever I could to reduce them. Buying a record that didn't already have popcorn noises was very rare indeed.

Now, if I want audio quality, there are plenty of alternatives, vinyl playing is just a bit of fun, and I accept the relatively poor quality.

Like driving a vintage car, not a daily drive, a bit of fun at weekends.

S

Fully understood! It's just that like Newman, I so often have to either chuckle or scratch my head and wonder
where some people here were in vinyls prime days. All thru the 50s 60s, 70s, 80s audiophiles screamed and hollered about the dismal quality of our pressings.
We searched everywhere for some possibly better alternatives, (expensive imports, special MoFi like releases, even pressings of music we didn't like on direct to disc and such) anything that would give us some really excellent sounding sources to play on our expensive HiFi. And then we were still mostly disappointed.
Then the CD came and to quote J. Gordon Holt, all else is gaslight. LOL
Not all "perfect sound forever" true, but what a awesome improvement.

 

[JP]

I don't think it's much of a stretch to realize that perspectives are going to be markedly different when people have choices; that today we can cherry-pick whatever format/release floats our boat the most, for whatever reason.

 

[deweydm]

RIAA mid year report. Less digital download, CD, and LP units sold.

 

[Sal1950]

Sadly for all us music collectors, the new generations are mainly interested in Streaming.
Many now have developed ways to save/copy the streams but you never really know what your
gonna get from them. I believe one day hard media all be gone, but so will I by then.
I'm sure that would please many here. LOL

 

[deweydm]

Sadly for all us music collectors, the new generations are mainly interested in Streaming.

But streaming is pretty amazing.

 

[pablolie]

Sadly for all us music collectors, the new generations are mainly interested in Streaming.
...

I do consume my purchased albums the exact same way I do with streaming - same setup, same user interface. The difference is that with the albums I purchase I do scan the album notes and review them regularly. Streaming has yet to provide that: Spotify now has a little window with a link to the artist bio etc, but that's a far cry from reading album notes and learning far more about collaborators, composers, etc.

I often also recreate the playlists I have long had for many of my favorites on my streaming platform of choice (Spotify), because it basically gives me universal reachability and convenience. My local library has a lot of FLAC files, Spotify is 320k... but the SQ difference is truly minimal with well recorded music, and utterly insignificant with most of recorded music.

Vinyl definitely had much better covers and notes, but sorry, that's not enough to ever lure me back... I do however refuse to buy online music that doesn't provide that, I'd rather buy the CD and spend some minutes scanning the artwork.

 

[Sal1950]

I do consume my purchased albums the exact same way I do with streaming - same setup, same user interface. The difference is that with the albums I purchase I do scan the album notes and review them regularly.

Yea, I got nothing against streaming, I use it, but it's just a bit too restrictive to me to have it only.

Besides the album notes and artwork there is the issue of various releases, remasters, multich and all that.
I just got in the new The Who - Who's Next BLU-RAY AUDIO: with

Steven Wilson Atmos Mix (48kHz 24-bit)** Steven Wilson 5.1 Mix (48kHz 24-bit)** Steven Wilson Stereo Mix (96kHz 24-bit)* Original 1971 Stereo Mix (96kHz 24-bit)
1. Baba O’Riley 2. Bargain 3. Love Ain’t For Keeping 4. My Wife 5. The Song Is Over 6. Getting In Tune 7. Going Mobile 8. Behind Blue Eyes 9. Won’t Get Fooled Again
Bonus Tracks
Bonus Tracks: Steven Wilson Atmos Mix (48kHz 24-bit) Steven Wilson 5.1 Mix (48kHz 24-bit) 1. The Seeker (Unedited Version)** 2. Here For More* 3. Now I'm A Farmer** 4. I Don't Know Myself (Eel Pie Sound Version)** 5. Water (IBC Version)** 6. Naked Eye (Olympic Sound Version)** 7. Pure And Easy** 8. Too Much of Anything** 9. Let's See Action** 10. When I Was a Boy** 11. Join Together (Unedited Version)** 12. Put The Money Down** 13. Relay (Unedited Version)** 14. Long Live Rock**
Much more

I doubt I'll ever have all this available from steaming at a click of my finger.
And Apple 4k Music is really doing one hell of a job to give credit where due.

Vinyl definitely had much better covers and notes, but sorry, that's not enough to ever lure me back... I do however refuse to buy online music that doesn't provide that, I'd rather buy the CD and spend some minutes scanning the artwork.

Agreed I bitch about that to the download sites all the time.
How much extra effort would it be for them to scan notes, artwork, etc into a pdf for download with the music?
I've done hundreds and hundreds of them to save on my drive with the album. You think vinyl artwork/notes are nice,
you should see them on the 32" PC monitor or my 85" TV, I can read the notes from across the room. LOL

 

[pablolie]

Yea, I got nothing against streaming, I use it, but it's just a bit too restrictive to me to have it only.

...

All that, plus even Spotify doesn't have all the albums from my favorite artists. Despite their huge library, there are gaps. And stuff in playlists disappears regularly for whatever reason. You never *own* anything reliably with streaming.

 

[Sal1950]

And stuff in playlists disappears regularly for whatever reason. You never *own* anything reliably with streaming.

Yea, that's the part that bothers me the most, you just can't depend on them
But then in the big picture, millions and millions of albums available.
So much music, and so little time. LOL

 

[Victor Martell]

You make a lot of ASS-UMPTIONS: THE Island has this law, no city water allowed so cannot have developers (Thank God that the people had the foresight to prevent them) so not suburban.
Vehicles: 2000 Nissan Frontier 4 cylinder Automatic
2024 Subaru Forester 4 cylinder automatic.
I also own 2 condo's in cities approximately 8000 & 9000 miles away.
And I play all formats (except 8 track & streaming), which (streaming, not 8 track) is something that I may play toward the end of next year.
& me personally, I used to live in one or another of my condos in cities. But I grew up on the land.
Cities? Suburbs? Never again.

I should have starting by saying that I was not attacking the use of SUVs or your vehicle choices - I was tired and probably could have worded better.
All I was trying to say is that I (and I repeat *I*) consider the use of SUVs in an urban setting not a great idea and why it is that way for me.

It wasn't clear to me your living setting, so in trying to address all possibilities in your post, think I clouded the issue. It was not about your choice of vehicle. It is about how in certain settings SUVs can be impractical and hard to justify. Just LIKE VINYL! but if you like them, you like them. Just like vinyl. In repeating myself to make my point again went on a tangent re: your vehicles.

All in all car analogies are bad idea... I will let the ASS-thing go - you obviously felt attacked. I have nothing to apologize for so I won't, but I can say that I wasn't trying to attack you.

Will probably stick to audio WITHOUT analogies

 

[Hugo9000]

Fully understood! It's just that like Newman, I so often have to either chuckle or scratch my head and wonder
where some people here were in vinyls prime days. All thru the 50s 60s, 70s, 80s audiophiles screamed and hollered about the dismal quality of our pressings.
We searched everywhere for some possibly better alternatives, (expensive imports, special MoFi like releases, even pressings of music we didn't like on direct to disc and such) anything that would give us some really excellent sounding sources to play on our expensive HiFi. And then we were still mostly disappointed.
Then the CD came and to quote J. Gordon Holt, all else is gaslight. LOL
Not all "perfect sound forever" true, but what a awesome improvement.

Agreed. (Although I wasn't around to scream about the quality of LPs until my childhood years in the '70s haha!)

But one minor correction: It was the conductor Herbert von Karajan who famously proclaimed "All else is gaslight" at a press conference for the compact disc. JGH likely quoted Karajan at some point.

 

[mhardy6647]

Two hundred and forty six pages.
I am just sayin'.

 

[antcollinet]

where some people here were in vinyls prime days. All thru the 50s 60s, 70s, 80s audiophiles screamed and hollered about the dismal quality of our pressings.

Well I lived thought it (not so much the 60's, I was only 8 when they went by.) Perhaps I was not an audiophile, but even when we (family) got a decent system, the only thing that really bothered me was actual scratches that caused a click on every revolution.

For me - not having any alternative - the rest was just "it is what it is". I don't think I even thought about it.

 

[pkane]

Two hundred and forty six pages.
I am just sayin'.

View attachment 313833

Too few or too many, or just enough?

 

[AdrianusG]

Yea, I got nothing against streaming, I use it, but it's just a bit too restrictive to me to have it only.

Besides the album notes and artwork there is the issue of various releases, remasters, multich and all that.
I just got in the new The Who - Who's Next BLU-RAY AUDIO: with

Steven Wilson Atmos Mix (48kHz 24-bit)** Steven Wilson 5.1 Mix (48kHz 24-bit)** Steven Wilson Stereo Mix (96kHz 24-bit)* Original 1971 Stereo Mix (96kHz 24-bit)
1. Baba O’Riley 2. Bargain 3. Love Ain’t For Keeping 4. My Wife 5. The Song Is Over 6. Getting In Tune 7. Going Mobile 8. Behind Blue Eyes 9. Won’t Get Fooled Again
Bonus Tracks
Bonus Tracks: Steven Wilson Atmos Mix (48kHz 24-bit) Steven Wilson 5.1 Mix (48kHz 24-bit) 1. The Seeker (Unedited Version)** 2. Here For More* 3. Now I'm A Farmer** 4. I Don't Know Myself (Eel Pie Sound Version)** 5. Water (IBC Version)** 6. Naked Eye (Olympic Sound Version)** 7. Pure And Easy** 8. Too Much of Anything** 9. Let's See Action** 10. When I Was a Boy** 11. Join Together (Unedited Version)** 12. Put The Money Down** 13. Relay (Unedited Version)** 14. Long Live Rock**
Much more

I doubt I'll ever have all this available from steaming at a click of my finger.
And Apple 4k Music is really doing one hell of a job to give credit where due.


Agreed I bitch about that to the download sites all the time.
How much extra effort would it be for them to scan notes, artwork, etc into a pdf for download with the music?
I've done hundreds and hundreds of them to save on my drive with the album. You think vinyl artwork/notes are nice,
you should see them on the 32" PC monitor or my 85" TV, I can read the notes from across the room. LOL

Hi,

Is there a way to ripp the tracks from a blu-ray audio disk similar as you do with a CD?, what sort of equipment/ program is needed for that?, i have a Blu-ray player, a normal one for movies, or do you need a Blu-ray player-burner which connects via usb to a PC?

 

[levimax]

Hi,

Is there a way to ripp the tracks from a blu-ray audio disk similar as you do with a CD?, what sort of equipment/ program is needed for that?, i have a Blu-ray player, a normal one for movies, or do you need a Blu-ray player-burner which connects via usb to a PC?

You need a blu-ray drive for your PC (USB blu-ray drives are easiest if you don't have one). Then use MakeMKV to "export audio".

MakeMKV - Make MKV from Blu-ray and DVD

MakeMKV - software to convert blu-ray and dvd to mkv

www.makemkv.com

 

[DSJR]

Lets see, we take a pristine master, analog or digital then,

Some wanker engineer compresses it DR by 3 or 4 points before transfer to Redbook.
But other than the DR reduction, it will sound identical to the master

Then you take that same master and,

1. A great rule of thumb is to put your loudest, heaviest tracks at the beginning of each side, and put your less dynamic and less high-frequency driven tracks at the end of each side (so, unlike with CDs, the order of your songs on the record is very important). (Changes in stylis grove speed reduces the inner groves ability to contain wide DR, also inner grove distortion
2. Keep your bass centered (Kick, Bass) if you have toms, be extremely careful of hard panning (can cause skipping/skating issues). (Mono Bass)
3. Keep your cymbals under control don’t mix them too loud or too bright. Causes Tracking issues
4. Make sure all of your vocals are De-essed properly Causes More Tracking issues.

Add in the speed irregularities that vinyl suffers from (wow & flutter) contributed to by both the cutting lathe and TT)

There's more but way more than enough already listed to be proof of the matter.
The vinyl pressing hasn't a snow balls chance in hell of sounding close to the master.

This idiot here (me!) typing this, had a blazing online row with someone over this recently, causing me to basically abandon the little forum I posted in. He maintained it's basically what he likes the sound of and he insisted that 'closeness to the original master file or recording' is totally irrelevant to him (I didn't dare inflame it more by asking why he had a 'Hifi' system, even an old one). our ears are all that matters and bah humbug that my own ears are effed for life now, needing me to be even more critical of the measured performance of any gear I obtain in the future...

I also got upset recently in a private conversation and had to remind a dear old pal of mine that I can simply no longer 'just trust my ears' as subjectivists claim to do, but despite being in his 70's, his hearing is ok for his age and he's adapted to it, so I can't demonstrate easily what I live with 24/7 now apart from shoving large value resistors on the tweeters of a suitable bi-wired speaker. The roots of ASR are having a hopefully beneficial impact, but there are still sadly many arrogant subjectivists who'll try to take the p**s in their golden-eared ignorance. Mind you, the act of buying, playing with, selling, buying afresh different boxes of suspect provenance is where much of their hobby lies I reckon.

 

[antcollinet]

This idiot here typing this,

Which idiot? Typing what?

Sorry - it is not clear from your post.

 

[DSJR]

Which idiot? Typing what?

Sorry - it is not clear from your post.

I've edited it. ME of course and certainly not Sal1950, for whom I have the highest regard...