Slashdot Mirror
Vinyl Record Production Gets a Much-Needed Tech Upgrade (engadget.com)
Ever wondered why you sometimes have to wait months after an album's launch to get the music on vinyl? It's not necessarily because the label hates vinyl -- in many cases, it's because the decades-old manufacturing process can't keep up with the format's resurgence. From a report on Engadget: Relief may be in sight for turntable fans, though. Viryl Technologies is producing a pressing machine system, WarmTone, that should drag vinyl production into the modern era. Much of WarmTone's improvement rests in its use of modern engineering. It's more reliable when producing the "pucks" that become records, makes it easier to switch out stampers (the negatives that press records) and sports a trimming/stacking system that can better handle large-scale production. Also, there's a raft of sensors -- the machine checks everything from pressure to temperature to timing, so companies will immediately know if something goes wrong.
What you're saying pretty much proves my point, especially when you talk about vinyl as a "piece of art". specifically, as a piece of visual art. I'm talking about the music and sound quality. Yes, nice bit cover art is cool, but I'll take higher audio quality over that any time. The same way that I want a poster to look nice rather than sound nice when I unfurl it or feel good when I touch it.
And saying vinyl produces a more accurate sound is, if you will forgive me, the exact opposite of true. The medium is by it's nature distorted. No digital sampling? Perhaps. But you have inaccurate analog modeling that gets degraded every single time you play it. Digital sampling is 100% accurate 100% of the time.
And what do you say about albums that were produced using digital equipment to begin with? I've had people argue that Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits sounds better on vinyl because "That's how it was meant to be heard". That album was produced specifically to take advantage of the newly-available CD's capabilities. And that is not a recent album.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Can they solve the problem of the record skipping in my car?
I know you're joking, but for those who don't know, they actually did try record players in cars many years ago. They were very expensive and had lots of drawbacks.
http://gajitz.com/road-tunes-w...