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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.
I used to think like that, but it occurred to me to just look at it differently.
Steampunk aesthetic is producing modern outcomes with archaic (generally 19th century) means and/or styling. Generally it involves overly complicated mechanisms (as complex as needed to achieve the outcome mechanically, only 'overly complicated' when compared to a solution using electronics.)
Using rotating turntables, vinyl and needles to reproduce sound fits this description neatly. So all those people who like vinyl are just a variety of steampunks (whether or not they realize it.) And I'm cool with steampunks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Its a fad to be sure, and its kind of BS at best.. but basically the vinyl lovers (I hate to call them audiophiles..) are mostly looking for the non-musical effects. Things like the attenuation caused by the disk being slightly warped, the needle not being perfect, etc. Essentially, the music changes slightly and unpredictably as you play the record more often which I guess some people like.
Meaning this "HD" vinyl, if it lives up to its claims, is pretty much the worst of both worlds -- all the inconvenience of an LP but without all of the "interesting" quirks that vinyl gave you. If those people wanted digital music, they'd go to iTunes like everybody else. But they specifically don't want that.
I mean I'm sure some people will buy it thinking it will be like an LP but with better sound quality, and some who don't know wtf they're talking about and just want to be "cool" with their record player will probably enjoy it.. but for most vinyl lovers, they'll likely be disappointed and these new disks won't last long.
So what you're saying is you prefer the way the vinyl was mastered.
Take the output of your record player, pump it into a moderately okay sound card, write the files to a standard CD and then tell us if you can still tell the sound apart. I bet you can't.
By the way this has also fuelled an online piracy campaign that records vinyl in HighDef and then gets shared via FLAC. The medium itself had nothing to do with it.
Similar SACD. The SACD versions of old classics owe their sound to the remastering and sound identical whether you play the DSD bitstream perfectly though a quality DAC or you downsample to 44.1khz