But a typical vinyl album is never the highest possible sound quality either. Read some of the highly informative contributions earlier. It is not simply a matter of recording the final work and dumping it onto LP for mastering. You have to cut out large chunks of the sound so that a playable LP can be cut, and so that the stylus will actually stay in the groove. You also have to use different levels of equalization depending on whether you're at a part of the music which is near to the centre of the vinyl or near to the outside edge as the angle that the stylus hits the groove is different. And the more music you include on the vinyl, the more sound has to get cut out.
I have nothing against people who have a preference for the "vinyl sound", as long as they are aware that what they are getting is a dim shadow of the final recorded work, which sounds far removed from what was actually recorded on the final master tape in the studio. The intermediate master used to create the LPs is considerably compromised (indeed it was these compromised LPs that were used to press the first CDs - that is why so many of them had to be "remastered" to eliminate the compromise stage). Ask any LP cutting engineer about what he/she has to do to the master tape before it can be used to press an LP. *sigh* I guess there'll always be the rustic-fashionable people out there who will try to claim that dragging a carefully calibrated polished needle endlessly through molded vinyl is "better" than an optical micrometer-precision laser pickup system.
BTW it's very silly to complain about the copy protection on CDs in this context. If you're happy enough to copy vinyl, you can similarly dub CDs simply by hooking your recording device to the analogue output of the CD player.
The funny thing is, the BBC have basically admitted the piracy in this news article - if they've been able to make a judgement on the quality of the downloaded material then they must have at least watched (part of) it, to say nothing of actually having downloaded it themselves. Life would get *very* interesting if the BBC got sued by FACT (our nearest thing to the MPAA/RIAA).
Blair and his government have a long history of appeasing terrorists,
What does "appeasing terrorists" mean ?
permitting them to retain their arsenals,
Blair doesn't have any say in whether the paramilitaries possess arsenals or not. Besides, it's moot; it's easy enough to obtain more guns.
letting convicted terrorists out of prison,
That wasn't Blair - that was the Good Friday Agreement, which was negotiated by local politicians and supported by over 70% of the people of Northern Ireland.
even paying compensation to terrorists for the actions of the security forces.
For the illegal actions of security forces when they break the law. Those provisions are British law.
Oh, wait, those were white, nominally Christian terrorists, the IRA
There are at least ten paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland, and you've only mentioned one. Why ?
You are, of course, completely wrong. That's because you clearly know nothing about how a vinyl LP gets encoded. Talk to an LP mastering engineer some day about exactly has to be done to a studio master tape before it can be cut onto a vinyl master disc. You practically have to extract all of the bass from the signal and cut everything above about 15khz (if that's not compression, I don't know what is). Then you have to put it through the RIAA encoder.
A properly mastered CD - done by someone who knows what they are doing - will be close to indistinguishable from the original master tape. A vinyl LP - with all it's scratches, imperfections and the rest, to say nothing of the large chunks of sound removed from it - will be very easy indeed to distinguish from the original LP.
Slashdot Mirror
But a typical vinyl album is never the highest possible sound quality either. Read some of the highly informative contributions earlier. It is not simply a matter of recording the final work and dumping it onto LP for mastering. You have to cut out large chunks of the sound so that a playable LP can be cut, and so that the stylus will actually stay in the groove. You also have to use different levels of equalization depending on whether you're at a part of the music which is near to the centre of the vinyl or near to the outside edge as the angle that the stylus hits the groove is different. And the more music you include on the vinyl, the more sound has to get cut out.
I have nothing against people who have a preference for the "vinyl sound", as long as they are aware that what they are getting is a dim shadow of the final recorded work, which sounds far removed from what was actually recorded on the final master tape in the studio. The intermediate master used to create the LPs is considerably compromised (indeed it was these compromised LPs that were used to press the first CDs - that is why so many of them had to be "remastered" to eliminate the compromise stage). Ask any LP cutting engineer about what he/she has to do to the master tape before it can be used to press an LP. *sigh* I guess there'll always be the rustic-fashionable people out there who will try to claim that dragging a carefully calibrated polished needle endlessly through molded vinyl is "better" than an optical micrometer-precision laser pickup system.
BTW it's very silly to complain about the copy protection on CDs in this context. If you're happy enough to copy vinyl, you can similarly dub CDs simply by hooking your recording device to the analogue output of the CD player.
Hmm, all of a sudden the AOL/Netscape settlement takes on a new level of relevance.
The funny thing is, the BBC have basically admitted the piracy in this news article - if they've been able to make a judgement on the quality of the downloaded material then they must have at least watched (part of) it, to say nothing of actually having downloaded it themselves. Life would get *very* interesting if the BBC got sued by FACT (our nearest thing to the MPAA/RIAA).
What does "appeasing terrorists" mean ?
permitting them to retain their arsenals,
Blair doesn't have any say in whether the paramilitaries possess arsenals or not. Besides, it's moot; it's easy enough to obtain more guns.
letting convicted terrorists out of prison,
That wasn't Blair - that was the Good Friday Agreement, which was negotiated by local politicians and supported by over 70% of the people of Northern Ireland.
even paying compensation to terrorists for the actions of the security forces.
For the illegal actions of security forces when they break the law. Those provisions are British law.
Oh, wait, those were white, nominally Christian terrorists, the IRA
There are at least ten paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland, and you've only mentioned one. Why ?
A properly mastered CD - done by someone who knows what they are doing - will be close to indistinguishable from the original master tape. A vinyl LP - with all it's scratches, imperfections and the rest, to say nothing of the large chunks of sound removed from it - will be very easy indeed to distinguish from the original LP.