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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.""
You release albums as individual cartridges for portable players... it gives you a tactile "thing" with a label, contains mp3's in a generic format, is in a durable case .. can even contain games and whatnot. The ultimate packaging. I still have sega carts I can look at and remember the hours of fun playing Sonic, or Toe-Jam and Earl (panic on funkatron)...
Even better, you release "blanks" EPROMs that can be burned once (or maybe twice - in case of an error) to integrate with all the online purchasing. (print the label too)
meh
I've always found Pearl Jam to do a good job with their CD albums' art. In several of them they even include a collection of pictures that accomodate the music of the album.
Unfortunately I think their music has been on a steady decline for some time now.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
The band His Name Is Alive, around the time of their 1995 album Stars on E.S.P , actually did produce a number of wax cylinders due to frontman Warren Defever's interest in retro recording technology. Too bad the average joe doesn't have a player for them.
As someone who has about 600 7"s, I can completely understand the reasoning behind this (although it's a bit hard to explain). For one thing, a 7" can typically only hold 2-4 songs, which means that the band putting it out usually needs to ensure that the songs that are committed to vinyl are their better ones (this usually excludes major acts releasing 7" singles for the "cred" that comes with it). Also, they usually only cost about 3 or 4 bucks (it's gone up in recent years though), which means that it's a very small investment to make to find out about new bands. Finally, as others have mentioned, there's the tactile aspect to the whole thing. A 7" has a decent sized sleeve that can contain a fair bit of information. It can easily be a 7"x14" folded double-sided cardstock with tons of notes, scribbles, drawings, etc, and it can easily include any number of inserts. I really don't think the 7" is going anywhere among certain types of fans.
This guy's the limit!
The statement "Vinyl has better audio quality" has to be qualified. Heavily. In most cases it is effectively not true, either because the audio equipment is too crap for you to tell the difference - or the record is worn and has lost fidelity. (If you own a record player (and Microphone/neeedle) that costs under $250: it's not High Fidelity.)
If you have audio equipment that cost more than $3000 (purchased in the last 5 years), AND you know how to balance your mm/mc arm, and you go to classical (perhaps Jazz) concerts so you know what the music sounds like, you can ignore this post.
Boring details below.
It is true that as a medium, a LP record (or even a 45) inherently has truer fidelity than a CD. However this means that the records have a truer version of the music than the CD. (Some qualifications, assumes that the origional recording is done in analogue, or at a higher sampling bitrate than a CD. Decent transfer process, etc...)
To go from "Records are better recordings of music than CDs" to "Vinyl has better audio Quality" in the sense of the statement made: (e.g. it sounds better) is a bit of a leap. This leap requires High Fidelity equipment.
High Fidelity Equipment means 1) Good Audio Equipment (Speakers & Amplifier), 1a) Including good isolation for the record player (vibration: Bad), 2) A Good record Player, 2b)A good Mic and (unworn) needle, 2c) Correct wieghting for the playback arm for the needle; 3) An unworn / undamaged record. Some people have this equipment (not many), and the ability to set it up (pay to have it setup) correctly. Most people do not have this equipment.
For example: You will *may* hear better sound from a $250+ Amp with $400+ Speakers and a $250 Turntable/mic. (I'm assuming that amps have gotten much better than they used to be. In any case, you will need a minimum of $1000 in sterio equipment to hear an difference from Vinyl to CD. (True, and fake, audiophiles will say I'm wrong: it costs more.)
The USB Record Player I have seen was about $90. This means you can play records, not in High Fidelity. You need to have High Fidelity to hear the difference between a CD and a Record. Using your computer to play music pretty much rules you out. And what the hell, Ipods have a tactile feel too.
So effectively, the origional post is wrong. Records have the same crap sound as CDs, in most cases. If you can hear the difference between a Record and a CD, probabily your record is damaged or your needle is. Either that or you have a ground loop on your mm/mc that you think sounds nice.
Bite me: I'm Jealous because I used to have a music system where I could hear the difference between a good LP and a good CD (Say DSOTM), now I don't
The problem with blind tests is that they are done with music people aren't familar with. Take a group of audiophiles and their favorite track and then perform the test, and they'll get it every time.
So does vinyl sound better? Well, better, worse, whatever, are opinions. But here is a fact: A well mastered vinyl pressing will ALWAYS have MORE of the original audio signal than any CD will. A CD samples the original analog signal, where as a record will contain nearly all of it (actually more, with artifacts and what not, but I'd rather have more than less, even if they are "flaws".)
When a track is mastered to a CD, it is sampled. This sampling process uses an algorithm to decide what frequencies are being played simotaenously and then decides which one the human ear has a harder time hearing. The frequency with the least chance of being heard (such as a high hat played over a strong bass line) will be squared out. In cases of extreme compression (low quality mp3), it's all but removed and all you get to hear is that annoying tinny sound you may be familar with when listening to 64k mp3s.
Yes, it's true that the human ear can not hear all frequencies at once well. But these sounds are put together not because we can hear them perfectly, but because they shape and compliment eachother. A mathmatical computer algorithm does not know or care about this and just removes what has a statistical probability to not be noticed. Well it is noticable.
Are you missing out on much by listening to a cd instead of vinyl? No, not really, it's not a huge loss and CDs sound pretty damn good to this audiophile. But vinyl will always have more of the original analog signal. So whether or not they sound better to X person, they still contain more "information than" CDs, Super Audio CDs, or any format on the horizon.
Can everyone tell the difference? No. Does everyone who can tell the difference care? No. Is vinyl convienent? Not compared to CDs or digital audio. Does convience have anything to do with sound quality? No, they are seperate attributes and should be argued seperately.
Additionally, over the last 15 years, longer albums will be released as double LPs, rather than trying to stretch longer albums into an LP format.
Bad bass? I'm not a huge vinyl fan, but sometimes it's cheaper than the CDs, so when I used to buy albums (instead of just downloading the bittorrents) I would opt for the LP instead. I thought the bass was fine. I'd compare it against the CDs, it sounded approximately the same. I hear what you're saying with bass making the needle jump, but that problem was pretty much fixed around 1965. I can't help but suspect you have no idea what you're talking about.
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