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Not All iPods — Vinyl and Turntables Gain Sales
Says the New York Times: "With the curious resurgence of vinyl, a parallel revival has emerged: The turntable, once thought to have taken up obsolescence with eight-track tape players, has been reborn."
back when I was young (early 2k's) I used to listen to a lot of dance music and go to the occasional rave. When I first started going to these gigs, I asked one of my friends why the DJ's used vinyl instead of CD's.
Many years ago I worked at a radio station with mostly records and "carts" (like 8-track tapes); digital music was just becoming available. One thing I noticed was that it was much easier to mix songs and get the beats to mix using the record players. Being able to touch the media as it turned and subtly slow or speed up the records made it really easy to sync the beats. It was really fun to watch the DJs who were particularly good at it.
I've always thought that people buy vinyl because it's just a bit more romantic. Or they're fucking idiots.
DJs buy vinyl because it's a better user interface for mixing. "Scratching" on a CD player is just not the same. Also, many rare tracks come out on vinyl that don't come out on CD (well, this used to be the case).
... and then they built the supercollider.
The compression on CDs is not manditory, and indeed you find some CDs without it. However if high quality sound is your goal, well then DVD-A and SACD are the places to look. Like records, they are not produced for everything, but they tend to be extremely well mastered for what they are done with. Nice wide dynamic range. They also have the advantage of being all digital, and extremely high resolution: 96-192kHz 24-bit for DVD-A, 2.8MHz 1-bit for SACD (equivalent to about 20-bit 100kHz). You are also usually going to spend less on hardware (a cheap SACD/DVD-A player can be had for less than $200) and your recordings don't degrade every time they are played.
That's the problem I have with the audiophile record crowd: There ARE digital technologies better than CD, much better, and measurably so. Thus, if your goal is highest fidelity sound, then that is probalby what you should be getting. Goes double since most recordings these days are produced digitally, so you are getting "digital sound" like it or not.
I'm fine with people who like records for nostalgic reasons, but I don't get the "Oh records sound so much better crowd." No, not so much really. Sure, compare a $5000 turntable to a $10 CD player where the CD is limited all to hell, the record player sounds better (unless the record is scratched). However compares that same record player to a $200 DVD-A player and the DVD-A will be better.
Final Scratch is still missing something. When DJing with Vinyl records, you can get an instant impression of where the breakdowns and build-ups are on the track, just by looking at the density of the grooves. It's possible to do that on a computer screen, but it's _much_ quicker generally to just look at the track, and quicker to pull the needle on and off the record and listen through the headphones to find the right spot. Scratch DJs even put stickers on the record surface to indicate where interesting sounds are.