CD Sales Continue To Plummet, Vinyl Records Soar 431
Lucas123 writes "Over the past four years, vinyl record sales have been soaring, jumping almost 300% from 858,000 in 2006 to 2.5 million in 2009, and sales this year are on track to reach new peaks, according to Nielsen Entertainment. Meanwhile, as digital music sales are also continuing a steady rise, CD sales have been on a fast downward slope over the same period of time. In the first half of this year alone, CD album sales were down about 18% over the same period last year. David Bakula, senior vice president of analytics at Nielsen Entertainment, said it's not just audiophiles expanding their collections that is driving vinyl record sales but a whole new generation of young music aficionados who are digging the album art, liner notes and other features that records bring to the table. 'The trend sure does seem sustainable. And the record industry is really doing a lot of cool things to not only make the format come alive but to make it more exciting for consumers,' Bakula said."
I bet "The Industry" loves it.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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huh? Vinyl records are lossless...
Re:I bet "The Industry" loves it.... (Score:5, Informative)
Ever hear a needle scratching a blank track on a record? All that racket you're hearing is noise, i.e., signal you don't want. That noise level is present on every track on the record as well. The music covers it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_recording_vs._digital_recording
Note that the theoretical quality max based on quantization noise achievable by a standard CD is almost 30db better than a vinyl record. Full quality is not, of course, necessarily achieved in practice, but anyone telling you a record stores a perfect signal--or even a better signal than a CD--is way off.
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The real world always has noise too.
The digitizing process is lossy by the limited bit resolution per sample (even if we agree the sample rate is sufficient).
As to sample rate, most real instruments make ultrasonics and infrasonics, those are left behind by a CD, and might be important even if not registered consciously.
Probably not (Score:5, Interesting)
Infrasonics a digital format can handle much better. Digital can go straight down to DC if you want it to. Most of the time you high pass the signal for various reasons (so you don't record things like A/C vibrations and such) but digital can handle it. Movies sometimes have infrasonics, bass down to the 10Hz region. I can generate sinewaves that are 0.01Hz for a CD if you like. Records can't handle that. Lows are a big weak point because of how they work. You aren't going to get a solid 20Hz signal like you do out of CD or DVD.
Ultrasonics, well, not so much. First off, instruments really don't produce much up there. I've looked at spectra plots of high frequency recordings, there is just not much up there other than noise. You can see a chart that gives you a good idea of the range of instruments (http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm).
Then you have to prove that we can perceive it. I've never seen any valid study that shows it.
Re:I bet "The Industry" loves it.... (Score:4, Informative)
And the vinyl is limited by the fact that a record player is made with real physical bits that can only vibrate so fast and such.
Yes, and a $80 to $200 stylus [needledoctor.com] can be had that is capable of exceeding 22kHz You can easily hit 25kHz in that price range. At around $250 you can get a stylus that will go up to 50kHz. [needledoctor.com] Here's a Grado [needledoctor.com]that has a frequency response of 10 Hz to 60 kHz.
I'm not saying that Vinyl is better in all aspects compared to a CD, because it's not. But there are cases where vinyl does sound better.
Re:I bet "The Industry" loves it.... (Score:5, Informative)
At around $250 you can get a stylus that will go up to 50kHz.
Which is completely useless, as there isn't the slightest bit of evidence humans can hear ultrasonics. Even if they could, most speakers can't reproduce them (and certainly not with any accuracy), assuming they weren't deliberately filtered out somewhere during the recording and mastering process, as they almost certainly would have been. Any ultrasonic signal loud enough to even potentially be audible could cause all sorts of problems with a host of electronic circuits, tape decks and other devices in the recording / mixing / mastering loop.
Not to mention the fact most of the ultrasonics picked up by any stylus are probably harmonics and noise - all of it pure distortion - much of it caused by the needle ringing like a little bell as it's struck by the walls of the groove. Or they're harmonics and distortion and noise coming from the microphones, preamps, mixing decks, tape decks, equalizers, compressors or the mastering equipment itself. In other words, a bunch of power-robbing crap that only serves to distort the signal below 20kHz that actually is audible to humans.
There are no cases where vinyl "sounds better" due to any properties of the format. The vinyl master may have been better equalized or better compressed, but the format itself is pure unadulterated junk, and has been for 50 years. Vinyl was obsolete by the 1960's, and should have and probably would have been replaced by something better if the American electronics firms of the time weren't being run by halfwits and incompetents. I've always been surprised RCA didn't attempt to roll out their capacitance disk as an audio format first before trying to deploy it as a video format, but it was stuck in development hell for well over a decade and I suppose it's a miracle it ever made it to market at all with that bunch of clowns running the place.
The Dutch and Japanese finally got around to doing something about it by the late 1970's. Well, somebody had to. Vinyl sucks.
"Sounds Better" (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you lose.
Technically, digital is better. In terms of "sounds better", that's arguable, and completely dependent on the tastes of the listener.
There is often a nice distortion that happens on vinyl, and people crave it. Sounds better to them, and where music is concerned, perception is reality.
Re:I bet "The Industry" loves it.... (Score:5, Informative)
> Well, until the stylus starts wearing down and the grooves start smoothing out...
Uh, there ARE laser turn tables ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_turntable [wikipedia.org]
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...which start at about 15 grand. At that point, buy the DVD-A.
No, they start at $12K: http://www.elpj.com/purchase/index.html [elpj.com]
Or you can pick one up on ebay for $10K: http://cgi.ebay.com/ELP-Laser-Turntable-Play-records-w-laser-Last-one-left-/170538526748?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b4e3681c [ebay.com]
Re:I bet "The Industry" loves it.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, until the stylus starts wearing down and the grooves start smoothing out...
An extreme example of that was the all-mechanical antique Victrola that my parents had when I was a kid (along with a big stack of 78-rpm shellac records). All the sound energy was created by the action of the grooves on the needle.
The tone arm was a hollow horn with a big diaphragm on it, and it probably put more than 100 grams of force on the record. The steel needles it used only lasted for about a dozen plays before they became visibly worn and had to be tossed. The mechanical force from playing a record often caused a bunch of white residue to slough off the surface of the disk, which couldn't have been very good for the longevity of the recording. Needless to say, we didn't operate that thing very often.
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"until the stylus starts wearing down and the grooves start smoothing out"
Not a problem if you'd keep Moh's hardness scale in mind.
Got old 60s vinyls that still sound great because I use a softer-than-vinyl stylus. Yea it does futz with the sound just a bit but I prefer my happy vinyls.
Re:I bet "The Industry" loves it.... (Score:5, Informative)
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Did you mean cognitive dissonance?
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http://www.discogs.com/Boyzone-All-That-I-Need-Remix/release/1323688 [discogs.com]
I can see why this is popular (Score:5, Insightful)
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Its a good point but there is also the issue or touch and the physical presence that vinyl and its packaging brings. Its possible to put a decent sized poster in vinyl, to use it as wall art - to actually have a presence in a room via your collection....CD still seems like "just a bunch or plastic".
Personally though I still morn videodisc as a format, much for the same reasons but there I hold out little hope QQ
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I think the fragility of vinyl lends some perceived value to it as well. I can toss a CD on the desk without much thought, but I would never do that with vinyl because of the risk of damaging it even with a tiny scratch.
Re:I can see why this is popular (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice observation. This is the kind of stuff that the dry analytics and reductionism of geeks/businessmen/economists sometimes miss. There are psychological aspects of value that can be very hard to quantify and run contrary to practical utility.
In fact, I think one of the things that have lead to the decline in value of music overall is its ready availability and the immense practicality of the players. You don't have to take time out of your day to listen. You don't have to spend time thinking about music, choosing what to listen to. You aren't bound to stay in one place while you listen. You can stick your headphones in and hit "shuffle", and you're done.
People don't value things that come easily.
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I have to disagree completely with your thesis: there are many FM radio stations whose loss I mourn greatly.
No need to decide what to listen to; easily transported; convenient; available; don't need to take time out of your day to "listen."
Apparently then, radio was the downfall of music... interesting.
Rip it first? (Score:3, Interesting)
I rip my CDs (to FLAC) as soon as I get them, so they aren't worn out by use before they get put on the computer. And with the convenient stockpile of music on the computer, I don't play the physical discs often, keeping them safer that way.
big freakin cds... (Score:4, Funny)
A 12" CD could hold about a dozen regular ones. Not only could you have big album art, but the spinning patterns would complement the bong quite nicely.
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The later ones had digital sound, stereo, 16bit, 44.1kHz. NTSC LDs could have both analog and digital audio tracks at the same time, while PAL LDs could have analog or digital sound, but not both at the same time. A few even later LDs had Dolby AC3 sound instead of one analog track or DTS instead of both digital tracks.
Disco record sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continues... Aaay!
Re:Disco record sales (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but all those records were scratched up by hip-hop DJs in the mid 80's.
That's why we need to start making records again.
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Now were disco to be up by that margin in the mid 90s, that would be analogous.
Mark Twain on extrapolation (Score:3, Interesting)
I get the Disco Stu quote, but here's what a classic American humorist (Mark Twain) had to say about absurd extrapolation:
“In the space of one hundred and seventy six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over a mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oölitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi was upwards of one
multi-track please (Score:3, Interesting)
What I'd personally love to see (or hear) is: multi-track audio... so that songs can be remixed more easily... I mean wouldn't it be cool if it were possible to mute a say trumpet track, and replace it by something else (human voice for example), or the other way around?
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I mean wouldn't it be cool if it were possible to mute a say trumpet track, and replace it by something else (human voice for example), or the other way around?
No. Mixing a song is a professional art, and wanting to take out of part of it is like taking out one parts of speech from a novel, or removing one color from a painting.
In the instance that someone wants to setup a "mix playground", the end-user medium is NOT the right format. A multilayer data DVD would be a far better choice, although it would be best if targeted to a specific software mixer's format.
Re:multi-track please (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what They said about writing operating systems, and yet here I am happily compiling kernel modules for an OS developed largely by enthusiastic amateurs who learned by doing. Take my point?
Re:multi-track please (Score:4, Insightful)
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There was a fellow on Usenet who posted using the nym "Mirror Spock". He took several recordings of Simon and Garfunkel's 'Sounds of Silence', including both separate tape tracks and premixed versions, and remixed from them all somehow or other. it seems that one version, Art Garfunkel was recovering from a cold and they shifted the harmony down a fifth or something like that so he could hit the notes, but like the basic release it had all of Bob Dylan's band including Glen Campbell as the studio musicians.
Re:multi-track please (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm sure Moby got straight A's at Juilliard.
You there, creating art without a license, halt, I say!
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The trumpet was better than the guy trying to sound like a trumpet.
OTOH some tunes are clearly written for the kazoo.
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OTOH some tunes are clearly written for the kazoo.
Indeed [youtube.com].
Few problem (Score:4, Interesting)
The minor technical, but a real consideration, is space. Say you have a pretty simple recording, just a jazz quartet. That is a minimum of 5 tracks, one for each instrument2 for the drums (stereo track). In reality if you wanted full control like at the studio, the drums would probably be anywhere between 6 and 15 tracks. This of course only increases with larger ensembles, and with the more fine grained control you want. You could easily have a song that is 32 mono and 32 stereo tracks. That would take 450MB per minute of audio. Storing all the data in a cheap format could be a real issue.
A more major technical problem is all the processing needed. Mixes aren't just a bunch of tracks summed together. They have extensive processing done. While some of it is things done per track, and thus things that could be committed to the tracks on the medium, some of it is things done to the whole song. All of that would have to be done by the playback device. So in addition to heavy mixing hardware, it'd have to have a wide battery of effects that could be called on. OF course various musicians/producers wouldn't like it, because it would limit options. You'd have only the included effects as options and it wouldn't be upgraded.
However the most major is that the industry doesn't want it. They don't want you able to easily remix their music. Such a thing would make it so much easier for someone to use parts of existing material for new uses, and they wouldn't want that, at least not without you contacting them for permission.
Neat idea but never happen.
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Sometimes that's cool, but it really takes a lot of trust to do it. Not just that it won't be exploited, but that people won't be
Missing from the summary... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Missing from the summary... (Score:5, Funny)
Will we see any new record presses made? (Score:3, Interesting)
I read an article in the past year or two saying the last one was manufactured in Russia around 1984.
Not exactly smashing numbers... (Score:2)
That still isn't really a ton of albums. I don't really know 110 people personally, so it is not statistically likely that I know someone in this country who bought a new album on vinyl this year.
It's the Chinese (Score:2)
# Must check drywall.
Just further proves it's piracy (Score:5, Funny)
Cassette vs. CD (Score:4, Insightful)
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Maybe beaming music directly into your tin foil hat?
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How did the industery react when cassette sales started to slip and CDs soared?
You really want to know? They jacked up the price of CDs, opened up their vault, republished every old artist, and told everyone to buy them on the new format! And we did, because the sound quality really was better, especially if you listen to classical music. Classical musicians really got excited about digital music.
It gave them a nice boost in profits, because everyone was re-buying songs they already had. Then around 1998, when the profits from that boost started dropping, they blamed the drop on pir
weird part is my Records seem to last longer (Score:5, Interesting)
I have CD's that i picked up less than 15 years ago that are unplayable, I had heard of laserdisc rot but didnt know it would happen to prerecorded cd's. On the other hand, I have vinyl that belonged to my father that still sounds great. I baby my collection but in a noticeable portion of my collection it seems that simply handling with care didnt matter.
Re:weird part is my Records seem to last longer (Score:4, Informative)
That's very odd. I have CDs from the "early adopter" era (25ish years ago) that still play perfectly, and I have hardly been gentle with them, and some of them spent a lot of time in hot black cars in the warm California sun.
Records, on the other hand, go noticeably over the hill after about 10 plays, and after about 2 plays if you don't wait 30 mins-hour between plays. I have seen data (actual real waveform and waterfall plots) showing that the high frequencies can disappear after the first play. And they have to be treated with extreme care or they can easily be ruined by someone just touching them wrong.
Brett
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I have CD's that i picked up less than 15 years ago that are unplayable,
This is not common. I have CDs that are about 24 years old that still play fine. Anyway, not sure what your CDs are, but it might be worth pointing out that there was a known problem on some pressings from 1988 to 1993 made by the PDO plant in the UK. This mostly effected classical CDs.
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Most LPs spin at 33 1/3 RPM, so "a few dozen" isn't too far off. However, a CD spins at most 500 RPM [wikipedia.org], well shy of "a few thousand".
The reason is? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The reason is? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a response from Virgil Dickerson of Suburban Home Records and the Vinyl Collective to a Wired article written a few years ago about the "recent rise in vinyl sales." I think it covers fairly well why records are making a resurgence, while downplaying the hype surrounding it (it seems "vinyl comeback!" is a great rainy day article).
Have fun reading.
Wired recently published a piece called, “Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD’s Coffin”. It is an interesting look at Vinyl’s recent rise in popularity which has become a hot topic amongst various publications. Since this piece ran on Monday, I have had at least a dozen links to the story forwarded to me. I would like to offer my own thoughts on the post.
I run a vinyl-only online store and vinyl imprint called Vinyl Collective. I started this in August of 2006 when I had a strong feeling that a focused vinyl site and community might receive a favorable response. I had been releasing vinyl through my label, Suburban Home, since the very beginning and as a music fan, I have long loved the format. I have released vinyl for bands like Every Time I Die, Minus the Bear, Fear Before the March of Flames, Portugal the Man, Drag the River, Tim Barry, and I have upcoming records coming out from Sparta, the Playing Favorites, Minus the Bear, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Poison the Well, Portugal the Man, and more.
As I type this on the final day of October, I can attest to the fact that Vinyl’s momentum is on the rise. Our sales for the month doubled what we did in September and September was previously our best month. We have been so busy that we have decided to hire a part-timer to help out with orders, a decision we were very careful in making as we recently downsized our operations in May of this year due to our declining revenue from CD sales.
As much as I can back up Wired’s claim in a rise in vinyl sales, it is in no way the final nail in CD’s coffin. I offer the following data with a release we licensed for vinyl, Minus the Bear’s “Planet of Ice”. As of last week, the album has soundscanned 31,000 copies (digital and CD sales combined); we have sold nearly 3,000 copies of the double LP version of the album. I expect this album to soundscan around 100,000 copies by this time next year and IF we continue to repress the album on vinyl, it might be possible that we could do 10,000 copies on wax. I might also add that when speaking of Soundscan (they were quoted in the Wired piece as saying, “Our numbers, at least, don’t really point to a resurgence,”), they have no idea what they are talking about. I mentioned selling nearly 3,000 copies of “Planet of Ice” and you know how many were registered through Soundscan? Zero! I made the decision not to put a barcode on the record and have made no attempts to sell it to chain stores. Chain stores don’t know what to do with vinyl and I would rather indie stores make money off of my products. Nearly all of the records have been sold through the Vinyl Collective website or through mom and pop retailers, many of which don’t even report to Soundscan. Soundscan is an antiquated gauge of sales and only scratches the surface with regards to vinyl sales. Labels like No Idea, Fat Wreck, Death Wish, Bridge 9, Asbestos, and so many more sell a bulk of their vinyl pressings directly to customers and not one of them report those sales to soundscan.
I would like to offer my opinion on why I think vinyl sales are on the rise. In this absolutely fucked up, fast paced world we live in, there is something therapeutic about physically picking up a needle, placing it on Side A of a record, and sitting back enjoying the music that comes out of your speakers. CDs and digital has made music disposable and of little to no value and in most cases, it has become background noise for our crazy lives. With vinyl, you have something real, something tangible, something with beautiful artwork, something that soun
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Sorry:
Links:
http://www.vinylcollective.com/2007/10/31/response-to-wireds-vinyl-maybe-be-final-nail-in-cds-coffin/#more-345 [vinylcollective.com]
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/commentary/listeningpost/2007/10/listeningpost_1029 [wired.com]
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Vinyl just plain sounds better most of the time. Save your technical BS for those that have not listened to the same track on both using good equipment.
Nobody can argue whether vinyl sounds better, that's a purely subjective judgment. Objectively, CDs are more accurate. It is fortunate for the vinyl fans that the distortions introduced by the format are pleasing to the ear.
BTW, did you ABX when you tested vinyl vs CD? A test without a blind is useless.
Re:If I were to guess (Score:4, Informative)
Best of both worlds (Score:5, Interesting)
I buy the vast majority of my albums on vinyl, even at a 5 or 10 dollar premium mainly because I love having a permanent physical copy, but the switch to almost a vinyl-only collection was when the record companies got wise to offering a digital download with the record. With the alternative usually being to just pirate it online and get the CD later and transcode, selling a vinyl with a digital download solves all my problems and the band usually gets a great deal more with record sales than CD sales. So it's a no brainer really, along with the other swag that goes along with it.
Re:Best of both worlds (Score:4, Insightful)
I buy the vast majority of my albums on vinyl, even at a 5 or 10 dollar premium mainly because I love having a permanent physical copy,
I punch out my code on cards with an old IBM 026 keypunch because I love having a permanent physical copy...
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Woah. What's the mix like on these digital downloads? Is it the blown-out compressed-to-fuck 3dB range CD mix, or is it the still-lower-than-a-CD's-dynamic-range vinyl mix? I assume they don't offer a lossless format, but if it's a high enough bitrate MP3 and decent mixes, I might just start buying digital music that comes with free frisbees.
Don't compare sound quality of... (Score:5, Informative)
...vinyl records to CDs - compare vinyl vs. digital downloads thru i.e. iTunes. I recently mail-ordered Wilderness Heart by Black mountain (as an aside, GREAT record), which came with an immediate digital download of the record. I couldn't wait for the vinyl to arrive because I expected it to sound superior to the high-bitrate mp3s. It does. It's noticeable even to my far-from-audiophile wife.
I'm admittedly a fetishist for packaging - double LPs with great gatefold art, colored / clear / marbled vinyl, large-format insert books, all the way to crazy triple and quadruple LPs with all of the above (i.e. Altar, by Boris and Sunn O))) ).
If I can help it I buy nothing but vinyl now. And yes, I do have a USB turntable so (admittedly quite a bit more labor than with a CD) I can make properly tagged copies for listening to on my iPhone.
Re:Don't compare sound quality of... (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to remember that digital downloads from iTunes and the Amazon MP3 Download service are using 256 kilobits per second minimum variable bit rate compression, and as such they're still inferior to the Compact Disc original for overall sound quality.
A better comparison between an LP and digital format would be comparing an LP to audio encoded in Apple Lossless or Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) formats. Since Apple Lossless and FLAC are non-lossy compression formats, the audio quality should be excellent, and unlike LP's (which are subject to all kinds of mechanical issues like physical wear, wow and flutter, turntable rumble and needle mistracking) the sound quality will not degrade over time.,
Argh (Score:5, Funny)
God damned hipsters.
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And wanna-be audiophiles. Oooh, look at my fancy vinyl collection of all new music! Wow! OOoh, it's so much better than the CD version, with its digitally mastered, compressed audio! Sure, the music on the vinyl was digitally mastered, exactly like on the CD, but once it gets pressed to vinyl it magically transforms into an analog recording! Taking no chances, the line out from the record player and between all components is highest quality oxygen-free copper with solid gold plated connectors (truly a barga
You can't do *this* with a CD!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone plays some rap record with a dixie cup and a thumbtack.
bah (Score:3, Insightful)
Far more value out of vinyl! (Score:3, Interesting)
CD: Cold Play - Viva la Vida $29AU Includes a booklet with micro sized font that makes lyrics very hard to read.
Vinyl: Cold Play - Viva la Vida $35AU Includes a large easily readable booklet, centrefold art, a separate book of artwork, AND THE FRIGGING CD!
I know people who don't have a turntable who still bought this one on vinyl.
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Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Informative)
The majority of USB turntables come with a lousy needle that produces a signal that negates all the benefits of vinyl and can even damage your record. Also, cheaply built turntables as most USB turntables are can produce vibrations in the turntable surface that disturbs playback, preventing a clean rip even with a good needle and again, possibly damaging the record. If you really want to rip vinyl properly, you probably want a belt-driven turntable made of as little plastic as possible, about as expensive a needle/cartridge as you can find, a decent phono preamp, and a good analog capture device (a M-Audio Audiophile 192 is excellent; an ASUS Xonar DX2 would be fine; a Creative X-Fi would be minimum).
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with USB turntables are the crap preamps. My own transfer setup is an old Technics SL-1300 direct drive with a high end "linear contact" Audio Technica AT331LP stylus (sadly since discontinued). Recording was done with a Soundblaster AWE64 Gold and later a Soundblaster Live! The quality was pretty good for a soundcard (noise was basically undetectable). The best digitizing solution is likely something USB as its away from the RF interference typical in computer cases.
Post processing (de-noise and de-click) is done with software called Diamond Cut ( http://www.diamondcut.com/ [diamondcut.com] ). Its propose built audio restoration software, not a bunch of plug-ins for some random sound editing program. Highly recommended and comes with an excellent user's manual (covers all kinds of audio restoration techniques).
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Re:All well and good, until... (Score:4, Insightful)
or just buy the mp3 and ignore the foolish idea that you get better quality from a non digital format. Notice that sound quality was NOT one of the drivers noted in the article
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Informative)
Even if the turntable were fitted with a decent cartridge, needle and tone arm, there's no way that USB can be made into a good connection
Uh, what? USB means that the ADC is outside the computer, which means that you get less possibility of EM noise from the electronics in the case interfering with the analogue signal. Once it's digital, USB 1 gives 11Mb/s for transferring it to the computer, which is just under ten times the data rate of an audio CD. A USB connection has more enough bandwidth to transfer audio from vinyl.
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Some record companies have already responded to the evil threat of USB turntables by introducing technology that effectively eliminates ripping of their vinyl albums!:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2007/05/digiwax [wired.com]
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I can't imagine a $99 plastic turntable will do them any justice.
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why the ":(" ? It's a damn good thing.
Of course, a properly mastered CD will be helluva better than any vinyl, but thanks to douches involved in the loudness war [wikipedia.org], all currently sold CDs are of dog shit quality that makes it even worse than pops of vinyl.
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Not "all currently sold CD's". Recordings of classical music and related genres seem just fine.
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Thanks for this post. I was looking for information on this topic about a week ago, but couldn't remember the term.
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vinyl is a more solid investment. CD's don't last as long, will deteriorate after 10 years or so (the "forever" hype was BS... maybe it's cosmic rays, maybe it's microwaves, idk, the inner foil falls apart often in less than 10 years). Vinyl, of course, will deteriorate due to friction and heat, but as it turns out, this can take 30-50 years or longer... but each time the record is played, technically, it changes slightly. But the resale value of vinyl is much higher, if you store them correctly, keep them
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In cases of new albums, data on audio CDs is usually heavily compressed to conscript the albums into the loudness war [wikipedia.org]; due to technical limitations in vinyl, this isn't really possible on that medium...
If only that were true! I recently got a copy of Quest for Fire's Lights From Paradise on LP, and it came with a MP3 download coupon. The MP3s were brick-walled with compression and clipping. So then I put the LP on the turntable and. . . Waaah! It sounds even worse! Not only is it compressed to Hell, but the recording level is low -- it isn't even loud. It's weak and muffled and pretty much unlistenable.
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=35530 [hydrogenaudio.org]
Second, and this is by all means a serious question, are current vinyl releases any better than current CD releases? Or are they also compressed to avoid complaints about sounding quieter than the CD version?
Generally the vinyl is not over-compressed. But there are notable exceptions like the recent Metallica album - in that case the vinyl was exactly the same as CD because they were both mixed under the auspices of the same producer - I forget his name, but he's become ever more popular in the business and he brings the loudness war with him to every new project he takes on and this was his first metallica album. What's really interesting about the metallica case is that the guitar hero version was (apparently) mixed by the guitar hero sound engineers and they were not under the control of any of the loudness warriors. The result was that the people who really wanted the best sound quality from that album bootlegged the ripped guitar hero version.
Here's a video comparing CD mix to guitar hero mix - you don't even need headphones to tell the difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyIACDCc1I [youtube.com]
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally the vinyl is not over-compressed.
It certainly was back in the record era, at least for pop or rock records from the 60's-70's on, with rare exceptions. It almost had to be to sound recognizable on AM radio or in cars (since the radio stations all played the records). Only in the mid-late 70s were there many pop or rock records that were mixed for FM or home listening on quality equipment. Early 70's pop records were horrifically compressed, easily as bad as your average Britney Spears crap. Even back as far as the "Wall of Sound" where the dynamics were intentionally compressed "up front" is an example.
I would also note that most full-dynamic-range records *can't be played* on anything less that pretty expensive cartridges on perfectly-adjusted equipment. I have one Sheffield direct-to-disk "Harry James" records that I could only reliably track after extensive adjustments to the tracking force and cartridge moment of inertia and tonearm mass. Almost anything I tried, and any conventional inexpensive cart ($50) is sends the tonearm off the record 1/8". If for nothing else, it would play much better in the majority of cases if there *was* some compression applied. It HAS to be.
I have been a high-fidelity guy (not an audiophool "cable consumer") for the past 40 years. CDs and digital music has been such a tremendous advance. Compression is hardly a new idea and absurdly compressed range was common for as long as records have existed. Vinyl is no solution, it's the engineering, no matter what the delivery medium.
Brett
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Yes, music has to be compressed to go on vinyl. . . Playing time is also a big factor. Highest sound quality can be achieved from a 12-inch 45 RPM single, such as some promo discs that were sent to radio stations. At the opposite extreme, some hyper-compressed, sonically crushed CDs published today are also being fed right into the record cutter for the LP release, with results that are practically unlistenable.
Vinyl is no solution, but it does provide a benchmark of sorts. When today's CDs are so soni
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, records were not mastered as hard in the 60's and 70's and 80's.
They did not have the kind of signal processing we have now. There were no fast look ahead multiband peak limiters like TC finaliser, Waves L3 etc. These are the things that give the hyper loud square waved sound that is so offensive on some CDs. Use of multiband compression was also rare, starting only really in the 80's. They would have mostly used full band compressors/limiters, and the kind of peak limiting you get by driving the master tape a little, but that is a world away from a modern CD master.
It is also physically impossible to cut records with the squared off peaks you get from abusing the digital process. What you hear when you play those CDs back is the sound of the reconstruction filter trying to turn 'impossible' waveforms into a voltage. If you try this with vinyl then the coils in the cutting head melt as they try to slam from one side to another in zero amount of time. If I have to cut a record from a slammed digital master than I have to *reduce* the level to allow for overshoot, and filter the high end to remove the out of band stuff caused by the clipping causing aliasing in the D/As, and you end up with a *quieter* record than a gentler mastering process would have resulted in. This results in a shitty sounding record.
But really, it's only from 1998ish onwards that anyone has tried to cut records with the same kind of mastering you would do on a 'loud' CD. Even now, it's generally only done when people were mixing with the look ahead peak limiter on their master bus, so it's the only final version, and it is not possible, or there is no budget to get a proper master done.
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"People start making rips from the records :("
"Start"?
Back in The Day, a reel-to-reel tape deck was a "server", and ripping to that and to cassette was the way to exchange music. Sneakernet works fine.
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Funny)
We called it "Dubbing" instead of "making rips|ripping". We wore an onion on our belts while we did this, which was the style at the time.
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And we didn't go to jail or risk losing our livelyhoods because of it, either.
the law and grandad (Score:5, Informative)
"The law" couldnt even get involved then! Apparently you weren't around back in the late 70's and early 80's when radio stations across the country were thumbing their noses at the RIAA by hosting "album parties." Always late in the evening, they would proudly boast they were playing so-and-so album "in its entirety" and would even tell listeners to "get your tape decks ready." We'd get side one without interruption, a brief interlude for the dj to switch sides (and for us to do the same) then we'd get side two.
One-to-many. This is exactly what the radio stations were doing. And guess what? The law could not stop them.
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Wow, you just totally made up a buncha stuff then set fire to it...
I didnt live in NY or LA at the time, but I can assure you the Detroit market was not like you describe. WRIF and WABX both played first run albums. Mike Halleren, while at WDET, often played albums just released that week on his weekly late night alternative show. So now I guess you get to say "those didnt matter either because they weren't mainstream artists" but who is getting sued today? It aint just Madonna and Britney fans getting pros
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point of buying it on vinyl for great quality and ripping it to digital? You'll certainly get better quality by directly downloading FLACs from the internet. It's astonishing how clueless record companies are. Release lossless audio on data DVDs, or for digital download if you want quality.
I think the impetus behind vinyl sales is that they're a collector's item. They come in a big envelope with big art instead of a tacky plastic jewel case, and they usually come with inserts or collectibles. Everyone has albums on CD but it commands a lot more cred to say "I have that on vinyl." Some people collect records of great music they already own, and store them (playing vinyl reduces its quality and value).
Record of Loudness War (Score:4, Informative)
What's the point of buying it on vinyl for great quality and ripping it to digital? You'll certainly get better quality by directly downloading FLACs from the internet.
Vinyl is less likely to have its levels compressed to the clipping point [tvtropes.org] than digital.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:4, Informative)
You can record overcompressed sound to vinyl too. Vinyl, like magnetic tape or CD, has a maximum level that can be recorded (for tape it's saturation level, for CD it's 0dBFS and for vinyl it's when the playing needle jumps out of the groove), but it does not require the recorded signal to have some minimum dynamic range. I could record a pure 1kHz sine wave and it would be played back correctly. Nothing prevents record companies from recording vinyl from the butchered CD master (and a few records were made that way).
However, the people that buy records usually care about sound quality and dynamic range. If the record is badly mastered they won't buy it. Also, these people usually use high quality equipment (amplifiers, speakers, record player) that can correctly reproduce the dynamic range (ever tried listening to a recording with wide dynamic range on laptop speakers?). This is the main reason why record companies make better masters for records. The CD crowd does not care about sound quality enough to not buy the CD if it sounds bad.
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How are you supposed to know if a record is well mastered or not without buying it? Record companies don't seem to give a hoot about quality.
eg. My bought-in-the-1980s CD of Equinoxe got scratched and I bought another copy. It was clipped all to hell, unlistenable. I spent big $$$ on a rare MFSL super-remastered gold-anniversary-edition from eBay, it had been low pass filtered and all the treble was gone. Not just a little bit ... completely missing (see here [artlum.com]).
A load of money later I downloaded a flac from
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Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Insightful)
The loudness war didn't start cranking up until about 1990, so most CDs pressed before then don't suffer from it. (This is why so many "digital remaster" CD releases sound crummy compared with the earlier CD release!) Those early CDs often sound better than the LP version.
The CD format is really fantastic when it's used properly and not abused. It was billed as a technological wonder when it was introduced, and it mostly lived up to the billing. The only things I would change are the fragile little jewel boxes and setting some kind of mastering standard to reverse sonic havoc wreaked by the Loudness War.
Re:All well and good, until... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the impetus behind vinyl sales is that they're a collector's item.
There's your key bit of information right there. They are collectors items often produced by enthusiasts. Record companies these days don't view vinyl as a killer medium to out-do the competition, so they don't push stupid unrealistic expectations on the people who master the stuff, which may I add also usually needs to be mastered separately. You often end up with a case where the digital releases are dynamically compressed to all buggery. I mean what's the point of having 96dB of dynamic range if you only ever use the top 5 and then horrendously clip the peaks in an attempt to make the records sound loud?
Take for instance this quote from wikipedia's entry of Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers: "A problem often pointed out by audiophiles is Vlado Meller's mastering for the CD release. It can be regarded as a product of the loudness war, with heavy use of dynamic range compression, and suffering of frequent clipping.[14] In contrast, Steve Hoffman's mastering for the vinyl release was praised for its quality."
The quality inherent in vinyl is about attitude of the producers.
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For me it's about a ready supply for music which is dirt fucking cheap. I can buy entire boxes of vinyl for .25 at most flea markets and garage sales which generally include some pretty decent stuff. The rest I can sell back to used stores for store credit which nets me a few more records.
No, I don't have a record player anymore but have thought about buying one.
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At this point, the "Nostalgia" may almost be for CD's. THe last one I bought was in line to get it signed by the band, everything else is (legal purchased) mp3.