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'High Definition Vinyl' Is Coming As Early As Next Year (pitchfork.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Pitchfork: In 2016, a European patent filing described a way of manufacturing records that the inventors claimed would have higher audio fidelity, louder volume, and longer playing times than conventional LPs. Now, the Austrian-based startup Rebeat Innovation has received $4.8 million in funding for the initiative, founder and CEO Gunter Loibl told Pitchfork. Thanks to the investment, the first "HD vinyl" albums could hit stores as early as 2019, Loibl said. The HD vinyl process involves converting audio digitally to a 3D topographic map. Lasers are then used to inscribe the map onto the "stamper," the part that stamps the grooves into the vinyl. According to Loibl, these methods allow for records to be made more precisely and with less loss of audio information. The results, he said, are vinyl LPs that can have up to 30 percent more playing time, 30 percent more amplitude, and overall more faithful sound reproduction. The technique would also avoid the chemicals that play a role in traditional vinyl manufacturing. Plus, the new-school HD vinyl LPs would still play on ordinary record players.
Larger dynamic range, I'm sure. Stupid dumbed down writing.
Or.. now hear me out on this one... or ... we could just, you know, send the digitally converted audio, you know, without converting it back into a bumpy piece of plastic.
I know this might sound radical, but it seems to me that converting analog sound to digital format then to a digital 3d map then to a laser-cut stamper then to a piece of bumpy vinyl then to a vibrating stylus and into a varying electrical current to drive an amplification system to run the speakers that you listen to might just be a little more complicated than just taking the digital format for storage and transport and converting that back into analog sound at playback.
'cause they're cheaper?...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If only record companies would put a fraction as much effort and resources into mastering their CDs properly and making them sound good, all this would be unnecessary.
When I listen carefully, I find there are things I like about each format better than the other, and that anyone who says that either is superior are more focused on the things that format does better and ignores the things it doesn't do as well.
The advantages of digital are obvious. Much lower noise floor, greater dynamic range, and a complete lack of ticks, pops, etc. It's also much easier to use, can be used in a nice variety of circumstances - home audio, automobile audio, portable audio. Vinyl obviously can only be used in stationary systems.
I find that on voices and acoustic instruments have a more life-like quality on vinyl than on Redbook (44.1 khz, 16 bit) digital. It takes some very careful listening, but it does appear to be there.
But this is really just a curiosity to me because I really don't care. I've been buying vinyl since Nixon was president and have many things which will never be available in digital form. And I have enough stuff in digital form that were I to play it all, end-to-end, it would make a few months to go. All those people who rant about this medium is better than the other really need to get a life. There's too much good music to listen to.
More than one visitor has complimented my system as being of reference quality and my loudspeaker cables are 14 gauge zip cord.
No, still not true.
CD, as a medium, has every audio advantage over vinyl other than myth.
What is different — and does matter — is the recording technique. Vinyl with good recording technique can sound better than a CD with poor recording technique.
Part of what takes people legitimately back to vinyl is that many older recordings sound better, primarily because the dynamic range wasn't horribly crushed, as is often the approach taken today with CD recordings.
But best recording technique on vinyl, against best recording technique on CD... CD wins on every possible audible metric. Signal to noise, dynamic range, accuracy of reproduction, consistent audible frequency response, ancillary distortion, immunity to surface defects that damage the recording, repeatability, THD, etc.
Vinyl offers some non-audio features, such as large jackets, with larger artwork. Those same large jackets can, and often do, carry great liner notes you won't get with a CD due to the packaging area; such as interesting colors and artwork on the center of the platter. And of course, for those of us who are older, just plain old nostalgia.
Personally, speaking as an older fellow, I don't find the trade of the art and liner notes worth the candle when I can have better audio from a CD. I buy from high-end CD makers such as Telarc, and those productions are well worth the money spent. But when I can't find a good modern recording of something I treasure, then sometimes, it's vinyl FTW.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Meh, the only reason "voices" may sound better on vinyl has nothing to do with the Vinyl and rather has more to do with the analog recording side.
Most things recorded after "auto-tune" came out, is auto-tuned. Auto-tune makes everyone have perfect pitch and sound like they've swallowed a speak-and-spell. (By which I mean you can hear an actual "stair-step" effect as the pitch moves)
Older music that was recorded before the 80's does not have auto-tune voices, and unless it's been remastered from the separate music and voice tracks from the original analog equipment (not "new" equipment) it will not sound like the original vinyl recordings either.
This is why some people think Vinyl sounds better under some conditions, it's because the original recordings were TLC'd to sound right on Vinyl. You take those same recordings and normalize the audio digitally, and it's quality is no longer as good as the original Vinyl.
And that's the point. The original mastering process has to be used to make digital recordings. No fucking with the dynamic range, no normalization, no auto-tune. But that's just not what happens.
And anyone born after 1982 likely has not heard a LP in their entire lifetime unless their parents were record collectors (mine were, but how frequently did they get played ? RARELY, and once CD's came out, NEVER again.)
To be perfectly blunt, the only people who "miss Vinyl" are those who grew up with it, and for many of us born between 1970 and 1982, listening to a "good enough" CD quality song on a mp3 file is more convenient than doing anything with that piece of Vinyl.