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Analog Revival Means Vinyl Will Outlive CD
An anonymous reader writes "In the age of the iPod, an unlikely revival is taking place — kids are turning to 7" vinyl to get their kicks. Sales of 7" singles are apparently through the roof. Bands like the White Stripes are releasing thousands of new singles on the format, and record purchases have risen by over a million units in the last year — back to 1998 levels. NME told CNET: "it's very possible that the CD might become obsolete in an age of download music but the vinyl record will survive,". The article explains how indie kids are drawn to vinyl because "the tactile joy of owning a physical object that represents your attachment to a band is infinitely more enjoyable than entering a credit card number into iTunes.""
there is an inexplicable feeling that comes from the ownership of a vinyl record, rather than a cd.
It's the smell.
(sniffs record) Sweet, sweet acetate...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Vinyl is still huge in DJ/hip hop culture. Especially Jungle / DnB genres of electronic music. In the U.S. however, prices for vinyl imported from UK/EU have skyrocketed due to many reasons, primarily the Dollar's strength compared to the Pound or Euro which then push consumers to more wallet friendly downloads. At my vinyl buying peak, I would spend $60-100 per week for 5-9 tracks. Now I spend $25/week for 12-15 tracks at full .wav (~1411kbps) quality.
But vinyl won't die and with the latest download sites, independant labels have found a happy medium of producing less vinyl and offering their tracks online. Many labels are vinyl purists and haven't yet entered the digital realm. Some label owners whom I've talked with have had increased profits but most said it stays about the same margin-wise without as much overhead.
Otter, actually you *can* just walk into a best buy and buy a somewhat decent record player. i did just that very thing last year.
i have a cherished record collection of older mid to late 80's hardcore and punk that is in the process of being ripped... and well, since the darn things wouldn't fit into the CD player... i went out to my local best buy... and 10 minutes later (after aggressively rejecting the extended warranty) had a sony turntable.
sad robot making broken music
- Vinyl has a higher noise floor than CD. even on the best players.
- Modern day vinyl quality is *abysmal*. thin and cheap.
- Trying to fit a modern-day album onto vinyl drastically compresses the grooves. Albums aren't 35 minutes anymore, they're commonly 40-50 minutes.
- Vinyl can't replicate certain sounds. Try an out-of-phase bass signal across both channels, the needle would pop out of the groove.
- Think vinyl has a more "natural" sound? Then you're wilfully ignorant of the drastic equalisation mashing that is necessary to embed music on a record - the bottom end has to be all but removed, which the player then puts back in. Think any player gets it right? Or indeed the same as any other player?
There are many reasons to like vinyl, sound quality is not one of them.
Oh please spare us the elitist "higher range" of sound nonsense. On a vinyl album, you hear artifacts and noise introduced in the recording and by the player. If you're really fond of noise overlayed over your music you should be able to find some suitable sound mixing software to add it in with your digital audio. Alternatively, you can capture directly from Vinyl at maximum bitrate without any noise filtering and all your "higher range" enhancements will automagically appear in your digital music (assuming you have a decent setup to record from analog). If artifacts enhance your listening experience, more power to you, but "beyond the range of human hearing" means "beyond the range of human hearing". The sample rate of a high bitrate encoding is not flattening any sounds that a vinyl album is carrying to your ear. Now, if you are comparing vinyl to MP3's that you are downloading, then you're comparing musty old apples to scratch and sniff oranges.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
That, and you actually can buy a turntable at Best Buy.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
This post is but one of dozens here in support of the "superior" sound quality of vinyl that are complete hogwash and reveal through their descriptions of digital recording that they have no technical knowledge.
... none. The sampling process simply requires that there be no content in the signal prior to sampling that is above 22KHz. There are precious few that can hear a signal this high in frequency and no studies that have demonstrated any perceived difference between music with or without frequencies above 20KHz filtered out ... as long as this filtering doesn't disturb the frequencies below 20KHz that one wants to keep. The best way to do this is to oversample the music by at least 2x, moving this filtering requirement to 44.1KHz, which is easily done in the analog domain without disturbing below-20KHz information. The rest of the filtering to remove the above-22KHz data and resample down to 44.1Ksamples/sec can be done in the digital domain. The result is flat frequency response and a noise floor of -96dB ... completely inaudible in most music (unless you turn the volume way up) and far better than with any vinyl.
... through a variety of intentional distortions required to suit the capabilities of a mechanical recording medium.
First of all, it's time to stop confusing a CD recording with a compressed, encoded recording. Compressing to too low a bit rate and/or with a poor algorithm will of course degrade sound quality. However, let's stick with the CD, since, like a vinyl album, it's also a physical object that one can own if one wants to.
A properly recorded CD can accurately reproduce the entire audible frequency range, from 20Hz to 20KHz with a completely flat response and with distortion that is far below detectability. No frequencies in this range are lost
On the other hand, the analog signal for a vinyl record goes through an intentional frequency and dynamic range distortion (i.e. intention dynamic range flattening to fit the capabilities of the medium, followed by an "undoing" of this process upon playback). The actual vinyl stampings are made from an original master, introducing further distortion. The stampings have an inherently higher noise floor compared with 16-bit/44.1KHz digital recordings and, in addition, are subject to artifacts from any dust or defects that might be present in the grooves. The grooves degrade further with each playing, too. Plus, there's the issue of wow and flutter from difficulty in controlling the rotation of the platter accurately.
Any preference for vinyl stems strictly from either comparing a poor CD recording to a great vinyl one, to preconceived notions that influence opinion, to nostalgia or to an actual preference for the types of distortion that vinyl produces. In the latter case, the vinyl sound can be completely simulated by intentionally applying the same distortions to CD output. As one poster mentioned, you could play back the signal from a vinyl album being played on a quality, high-end turntable and record it digitally onto a CD. The result would replicate all the effects that the vinyl lover formerly attributed to some superiority in the medium.
Here's an excerpt from the recording submission instructions of a commercial vinyl album-cutting facility that can be found online:
"As such, cutting a loud dynamic record presents many challenges not typical to the conventional recording and mixing process. Trutone's mastering engineers enjoy decades of experience specific to the analog format. This expertise facilitated by their use of our classic, vintage analog tube compressors, limiters and equalizers, afford our engineers the ability to provide all final EQ and level adjustments as your music is being transferred to the analog master. The result? A rich warm sound that transcends the digital phenomena, indicative of why vinyl remains the medium of choice for promoting and marketing music."
It's amazing that they make this last statement given that they practically tell you why and how they get this sound
David
That is not necessarily true. There are some turntables that use lasers as the stylus rather than a very fine diamond (or worse depending on the quality of player such as a Fisher-Price record player). The ones that use lasers do not damage the media.
Well you see, the album cover is of sufficient size to facilitate breaking up the weed, as well as the picking out of any stems or seeds (unless you've got the real sticky icky). The GP's point, i believe, is that a cd cover is much too small, and your kind bud would constantly fall off the edge as you picked through it. However, the cardboard of the album cover is considered too porous to cut a good line of coke on, whereas the plastic cd case is perfect for such.
ps: yes, i am blazed right now, thanks for asking
A couple of points both for and against each format:
- CDs have a much, much higher dynamic range than vinyl. Compare CD's 90db or so to vinyl's 45db on a good turntable.
- CDs lack an infinitely variable volume level. At 16 bits of resolution, there are 65,536 possible volume levels (including silence), in distinct steps. Normally one would never notice, but the limitations of digital DO have a profound effect while processing. This is one of many reasons a studio will work with 24, 32, 48, or even more bits of resolution, even if eventually it will be downsampled to 16 bit audio. All of the processing/mixing will normally be done at a higher resolution. Incidentally, this is why many bands still record using analog equipment, and some even do all of their mixes on analog. AAD or ADD is almost invariably going to be better than DDD if you listen to music with a lot of texture and dynamic range.
- CDs have a hard limit for frequency response, with an immediate cutoff at 22050hz, whereas vinyl's frequency response extends past 25000hz with a very gradual rolloff. This should be taken into account by the recording or mastering engineer with the top end attenuated on a gradual slope. This problem used to be evident with very early CD pressings where the CD would sound "harsh" or "overly bright" compared to cassette or vinyl pressings, until the recording or mastering engineer rolled off the highs with a gradual curve. Of course, if you blasted your eardrums with headphones at 120db, you won't hear the difference anyhow because you probably can't hear much beyond 12000hz, plus it wouldn't be evident with most pop anyhow, mainly with classical, jazz, and progressive rock.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Something to consider: Vinyl can be read by archeologists; by looking at the groove under a microscope, they can infer that it's sound. CDs use a complex error correction algorithm that will take years to reverse engineer, and decoding an MP3 off of a hard drive will be even more difficult.
For more information, I've written an extensive study of the merits and drawbacks of vinyl: http://www.andrewrondeau.com/Writings/My%20Love-Ha te%20Relationship%20With%20Vinyl%20-%20Or%20-%20Wh y%20We%20Should%20Keep%20Making%20Vinyl.html
From my article about its limits:
No, I will not work for your startup