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Music

Massive Building Fire Threatens Worldwide Vinyl Record Production (loudwire.com) 144

Posted by BeauHD from the sad-day-for-hipsters dept.
Apollo Masters, one of two plants in the world that manufacture lacquers that are imperative to the process of making vinyl records, sustained a major fire yesterday and burned down. Loudwire reports: The Desert Sun confirmed that the fire began in the 15,000-square-foot building at 8am Feb. 6. There were multiple explosions reported, and 82 firefighters responded to the scene. The company posted a statement on their website addressing the event, as well as the uncertainty of its future: "To all our wonderful customers. It is with great sadness we report the Apollo Masters manufacturing and storage facility had a devastating fire and was completely destroyed. The best news is all of our employees are safe. We are uncertain of our future at this point and are evaluating options as we try to work through this difficult time. Thank you for all of the support over the years and the notes of encouragement and support we have received from you all."

The only other plant, MDC, is located in Japan. While there has not been an immediate impact, an eventual shortage of lacquers can lead to disruptions in the vinyl production process for companies all over.
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Massive Building Fire Threatens Worldwide Vinyl Record Production More

Massive Building Fire Threatens Worldwide Vinyl Record Production

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  • Warmth (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 07, 2020 @07:55PM (#59703438)
    Everybody knows vinyl sounds warmer. This just proves it.

    • Re:Warmth and RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)

      by doginthewoods ( 668559 ) on Saturday February 08, 2020 @02:29PM (#59705526)
      It does. Why? Because of tape saturation. Back in the day, most recordings one multi track machines were overbiased at +4, then the rock crowd went as far as +10 to get a hotter track. This is were the "warmth" comes in, but what it really is is a sort of compression and the magnetic particles becomes over saturated and can't handle any more signal. Hence, that tape sound. You don't get this with digital but there are plug ins that emulate tape saturation, not too well, in my experience. There is a faction of engineers who record to tape, then sent the post FX tracks to digital for final mixdown. I have tried it with an Ampex 2" 16 track (flat top) and it is definitely warmer. The 16 tracks onto 2" give a wider span per track to record onto, vs 24 tracks to 2". As far as vinyl one of the things that affect the sound is the use of the RIAA curve. The needle can only track so much, so, when the master is cut, the highs and lows are pulled back, so the needle has less to deal with - less skipping and bounce. The highs and lows are restored (RIAA curve) in the phono in preamp stage.

  • Time to let go of the past (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @07:56PM (#59703440) Journal

    Analogue recording is done, digital recording exceeded the bandwidth of analogue tape back when sampling rates were 96kHz and bit depths of 24. Now we go much further than that. I get the nostalgia and the familiarity with the analogue process however the digital recording process has so much more to offer.

    Don;t get me wrong, I think analogue electronics and the analogue recording process is beautiful. However digital recording is so much more powerful and worth the investment in time learning to do properly.

    • Re:Time to let go of the past (Score:5, Informative)

      by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @09:00PM (#59703596)

      Analogue recording is done, digital recording exceeded the bandwidth of analogue tape back when sampling rates were 96kHz and bit depths of 24.

      Digital recording exceeded cassette tapes with CD. If cassette tapes had a bit depth, it would be somewhere between 5 and 6, and sampling would be somewhere between 30Khz and 36Khz. Going above what CD quality does is pretty pointless unless you're creating synthetic audio and want to avoid pops at cut points without softening the waveform. Even then, the benefit is pretty marginal. The Nyquist theorem pretty well stipulates that, as it pertains solely to listening purposes, there's no real benefit above 40Khz sampling.

      Hipsters never really cared for science though, they swear that wooden knobs sound better.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by antdude ( 79039 )

        Analog is better for lots of things like hearing aids.

      • Re:Time to let go of the past (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @10:36PM (#59703846) Journal

        Analogue recording is done, digital recording exceeded the bandwidth of analogue tape back when sampling rates were 96kHz and bit depths of 24.

        Digital recording exceeded cassette tapes with CD.

        I was talking about the recording side. Analogue tape recording musicians on a reel to reel tape where the recording quality is improved by speeding up the tape, which introduces issues of its own. Digital has no such issue. Digital distortion in the low end *used* to be an issue but easily overcome. Plus learning how to make high quality digital recordings is a challenging skill we are at the dawning of. The possibilities are phenomenal.

        Going above what CD quality does is pretty pointless unless you're creating synthetic audio and want to avoid pops at cut points without softening the waveform. Even then, the benefit is pretty marginal.

        My band has recorded at 44kHz, the end result is acceptable, but dull. To make quality recordings 96kHz is a standard for digital recording that, to me, offers everything that recording to analogue tape does, but with a whole lot more flexibility. IIRC 96kHz is equivalent to 30ips (inches per second) or tape passing the record head. You get a great sounding vinyl record from the production process. I doubt whether the vinyl we are hearing now is recorded on tape and even if it is it would be loaded into a digital realm. Recorded in software, produced in software and then a master is cut from the digital production to produce the vinyl.

        The Nyquist theorem pretty well stipulates that, as it pertains solely to listening purposes, there's no real benefit above 40Khz sampling.

        I'm talking about the recording realm where we deal with much greater dynamic and frequency range that is produced by the instrument being played and the harmonics it generates. It's these recording that are tamed and produced into the finished product you're talking about.

        Many musician record at much higher sampling rates than that, which is why the typical recording rate is 48kHz for quick projects. Additionally there is more energy in low frequency sounds than high frequency sounds. Sound behaves counter-intuitively in the production side and having the best sounding stems to produce and master are the first step in any great recording. No one is going to waste their time getting great musicians to play and then scrimp on something as mundane as sampling rate.

        Personally I think we are in a lull between technologies where people are still learning what they can do with digital recording technology. This is a massive and fascinating subject and there is always something new to learn.

        Hipsters never really cared for science though, they swear that wooden knobs sound better.

        Which is why hipsters don't produce music. They have no idea how to apply constants like phi, Euler, Avogadro to music production. They just sit there listening to the end result going this is amazing maaaaaan

        • Which is why hipsters don't produce music. They have no idea how to apply constants like phi, Euler, Avogadro to music production.

          On the other hand, those hipsters just won't shut up about how amazing avogadro is in salads.

      • Going above what CD quality does is pretty pointless unless you're creating synthetic audio and want to avoid pops at cut points without softening the waveform. Even then, the benefit is pretty marginal. The Nyquist theorem pretty well stipulates that, as it pertains solely to listening purposes, there's no real benefit above 40Khz sampling.

        Hipsters never really cared for science though, they swear that wooden knobs sound better.

        I'm a physicist, not an audio engineer, but I'll hazard a guess that oversampling to 96 kHz or higher is a Good Thing if you need to combine various signals (i.e., tracks) from different sources and then down-sample them to CD's 44.1 kHz sampling frequency. Otherwise, you could introduce aliasing effects in the downsampled output.

        Can any audio engineers in the crowd comment on this?

        • You're probably correct about that, as a similar thing applies when you record video at twice the resolution that it's distributed in. Wouldn't be surprised if it works in the audio realm. I'm only used to working on the digital side of things, and how a DAC creates a waveform. It mostly comes from experience working with VoIP, where I learned a fair bit about Nyquist.

          That and I'm somewhat used to dealing with creative sound card fanboys who swear that a 192/32 DAC actually makes a difference, especially wh

        • Re:Time to let go of the past (Score:5, Informative)

          by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday February 08, 2020 @12:32AM (#59704110)

          I'm a physicist, not an audio engineer, but I'll hazard a guess that oversampling to 96 kHz or higher is a Good Thing if you need to combine various signals (i.e., tracks) from different sources and then down-sample them to CD's 44.1 kHz sampling frequency. Otherwise, you could introduce aliasing effects in the downsampled output.

          It's not the higher sampling rate which makes the difference. You can get the exact same audio quality (that humans can hear) recording at 48 kHz, upsampling them to 96 kHz, doing your editing and digital manipulation at 96 kHz, then downsampling to 48 kHz (or 44.1 kHz) for final distribution, as you could recording the original audio at 96 kHz. In fact it's arguably better to start with 48 kHz samples since that automatically zeroes out any frequencies above 24 kHz, which I suppose with certain type of editing could become audible. Like maybe someone decides to slow down the audio to match slow motion video, and suddenly an annoying coil whine at 30 kHz which wasn't audible at normal playback speed, suddenly becomes audible with slowed down 96 kHz samples.

          There's nothing gained (for people) by recording at 96 kHz instead of 48 kHz. The only difference between those two sampling rates is that 96 kHz captures sounds in the 24-48 kHz range, which we can't hear anyway. The audio captured in the 0-24 kHz range by both 96 kHz and 48 kHz is identical. The thing lay persons don't seem to get about the Nyquist theorem (and Fourier transforms) is that if you sample at just 2x the highest frequency, you capture the analog waveform exactly. People look at a sine wave and ask "how can you recreate that exact shape using only two points on it?" What they don't realize (and I completely understand because it's not at all intuitive) is that the way the math works out, there is one and only one analog waveform which travels through those two points without containing frequencies above the Nyquist frequency. So those two points describe the analog waveform perfectly.

          Monty Montgomery made a video [youtube.com] demonstrating this using an analog waveform generator, pumped through a A/D converter, then back through a D/A converter, to an analog oscilliscope. The digital waveform looks terrible, but it perfectly reproduces the original analog waveform. It's long, but he breaks it down in an easily understandable way, with an analogy to digital photos.

          • Recording with a higher sample rate means your anti-aliasing filter does not need to be as steep. While 44.1kHz can reproduce frequencies up to 22.05kHz, you need a filter that ideally is 0dB at 20kHz and -96dB at 22.05kHz. With 96kHz sample rate, you filter has to be 0dB at 20kHz and -96dB at 48kHz - much easier.
            Also, disk space is so cheap now that recording at 96kHz/24bit (~4.6mbps) does not really cost that much.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MrKaos ( 858439 )

              Recording with a higher sample rate means your anti-aliasing filter does not need to be as steep.

              Nice explanation! One other aspect is that anyone recording at these lower sample rates are archiving original performance art in a cheap container. Much like taking a photo of a fine work of art in a low resolution format and an 8 bit color map. Sure it will capture the image, but it will look like crap.

              No one wants it to *sound* like crap.

          • Re:Time to let go of the past (Score:4, Informative)

            by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday February 08, 2020 @06:34AM (#59704652)

            In fact it's arguably better to start with 48 kHz samples since that automatically zeroes out any frequencies above 24 kHz, which I suppose with certain type of editing could become audible.

            Err no. Brick wall filtering using sampling rate limitations is a horrible idea, once which gave CDs their reputation as sounding harsh back in the 80s. There absolutely are benefits to doing all conversion at a higher sampling rate in that it massively simplifies the design of aa filters. It's also the reason why modern DACs upsample before converting back to analogue, the problem occurs in both conversions.

            The audio captured in the 0-24 kHz range by both 96 kHz and 48 kHz is identical. The thing lay persons don't seem to get about the Nyquist theorem (and Fourier transforms) is that if you sample at just 2x the highest frequency, you capture the analog waveform exactly

            That, and nyquist only apply if there's absolutely no signal above the range of interest. If there is it will affect the conversion and because of nyquist's theorem it the resulting undesirable signal is projected into the audible range.

            People look at a sine wave and ask "how can you recreate that exact shape using only two points on it?" What they don't realize (and I completely understand because it's not at all intuitive) is that the way the math works out

            Only if one of those points wasn't moved by an erroneous signal which you seem to be missing. Nyquist theorem holds perfectly true for a frequency range excluding all others. You can easily prove both mathematically and theoretically that if you have a component with one set of frequencies below the Nyquist frequency and a component above the Nyquist frequency that after recording you cannot perfectly recreate the original signal below the Nyquist frequency.

            Look up the section on "practical considerations" on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] There are several things which cause theory and reality to differ outside of of a nicely prepared mathematical equation. The video you posted touches nicely on some workarounds to the problem which is great when converting your final signal to analogue, not so great if you're recording and ending up with a noise floor or affects that affect the subsequent editing you do. There's a very good reason mastering is done way higher than 96kHz and noise shaping attempts to push frequencies into the MHz not just "where hearing is less sensitive".

            But by all means if you like the way digital audio sounded like in the 80s then more power to you, it did afterall take into consideration everything in your post. For the rest of us, we're happy by the continued development companies put into technology for the recording studio.

          • What you say is exactly correct if the ear is not in any way sensitive to frequencies above 24kHz. So, do we know enough about the ear to be sure that it does behave like a detector with a fixed-frequency readout?

            I'm not a biologist so I can't answer this but if our brains can process sounds at higher frequencies around "interesting" sounds then it's possible we could hear the effects of removing higher frequencies from a complex sound track while still not hearing those isolated frequencies by themselve
            • I find it interesting that we still use stenographers. Having voice recordings seems to be adequate--until you actually try to transcribe from a recording where folks talk over the top of each other. In real time, a stenographer (and even you yourself) can hear the two distinct conversations. But from a recording, it's a mish mash.

              And that's not theoretical. Many different courts tried to save money that way. Seems like a slam dunk.
              But given the way the ear works and sound works and recordings work, it
              • That's completely understandable though. Your ears are directional: you can separate the two conversations by using the location of each one. When that is recorded the directionality is lost and the same speakers are reproducing both conversations so they appear to be on top of one another.

          • There's nothing gained (for people) by recording at 96 kHz instead of 48 kHz.

            I make rock operas for dogs, you insensitive clod!

          • The only difference between those two sampling rates is that 96 kHz captures sounds in the 24-48 kHz range, which we can't hear anyway.
            An isolated 30kHz tone you can not hear.
            But you can hear the difference between a 15kHz tone with an overtone of 30kHz, and then again both of them are different with another overtone of 60khz, and all those three again with an overtone of 90kHz or 120kHz.

            And if you pay more attention, and are not really to old, you can hear up to 24kHz anyway. Or you can "relearn" to hear

            • Do you have a link? All serious information I ever got is that the human hearing stops roughly at 20kHz due to physical properties. Mine used to stop around 19k, now I barely get to 13k, less than two decades later.
          • I've made the case to a few recording professionals that they should do their final remastering using $40 earbuds. If they can't hear a change when modifying the mix, then they are done because the vast majority of folks are listening on even cheaper earbuds. (Usually by the time they're ready for final mastering, they've done enough work using their $10,000 speakers to satisfy any radio station.)

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by MrKaos ( 858439 )

          I'm a physicist, not an audio engineer, but I'll hazard a guess that oversampling to 96 kHz or higher is a Good Thing if you need to combine various signals (i.e., tracks) from different sources and then down-sample them to CD's 44.1 kHz sampling frequency. Otherwise, you could introduce aliasing effects in the downsampled output.

          Can any audio engineers in the crowd comment on this?

          I just did. I record all the time. If you want to make a good quality production, you have to start with quality stems. No one is wasting time having discussions about the sample rate, they're making sure they have enough disk space to record for as many hours as they need at the highest resolution they can. Whilst it's all well and good to talk about Nyquist theorem, in theory, in practice there isn't a recording engineer that is going to record any serious work at such a low resolution.

          The only use cas

      • The Nyquist theorem pretty well stipulates that, as it pertains solely to listening purposes, there's no real benefit above 40Khz sampling.
        Yes there is, it captures the Overtones. If you actually had a clue about the topic, which is "SOUND and the human EAR" and not physics about sampling a waveform, you would know that.

      • Side comment: good cassette decks managed about 66dB, so about 11 bits.

    • Stop telling me what to like. Also where can I purchase music encoded at 96KHz now? SACD is long dead along with DVDA.

    • You don't need 24 bits, that wildly exceeds the dynamic range of any conceivable playback system. Get out of the ambient noise on the low parts, and it will blow the walls out of your house on the loud parts.

      96 KHz is vauable only because it permits an less-aggressive output filter to remove the digital noise. 44.1 KHz (Red Book standard) is far more than sufficient to reproduce the entire range of human hearing, and any actual musical content, but requires a pretty steep filter to keep the sampling noise o

    • Oh no no no we have to keep up on how these mature technologies work so that when (not if but when) we totally junglefuck our civilization we'll at least be able to back it up a hundred or so years technologically and have some half-assed chance to start over without having to go all the way back to stone tools and hunter-gatherer societies.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      One reason people like vinyl is that it forces the mastering to be done properly. On a CD you can just crank the levels until it's all clipped to hell and back. On vinyl if you do that the stylus jumps out of the groove so you have to master at sensible levels.

      So often the vinyl release sounds better despite the theoretically lower fidelity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        You can poorly master a vinyl just as well. Listen to most of the actual vinyl from the era, the stuff sold in the $2 bin back then (~$6-10 today) is just as poor and thrift shops are full of them.

        Good music is mastered a lot better both for analog and digital. The analog crowd likes to pay $50+ for a record but it doesn't mean the records are any good, many records you can find (if you're allowed to play them back in the store at all) will have siblance or outright defects. The modern record player is gene

        • If you had internet and could look it up, you'd find that the cheap new record players are as good as mid-range "hifi" ones from the past, and have digital outputs. You can buy good needles for them.

      • And that is most likely the case.

        the Art with the Science to produce a high quality vinyl albums took years to learn and pass down and codify,
        we are now in that same transition with digital, where people are learning the art and science to make a
        wonderful storable digital media.

        I bet in 10 years people will be able reproduce a viable warmth and feel ( subjectively ) in digital media.
         

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Early CDs were well mastered. The loudness was generally similar to the vinyl release but with more dynamic range. I have an original pressing of Brothers in Arms which has exactly one sample that is 0xFFFF on the whole disc. Sounds fantastic.

          • I have an original pressing of Brothers in Arms which has exactly one sample that is 0xFFFF on the whole disc.

            And that is the proper way to master a digital recording. Unless of course the file is 24-bit, in which case you completely botched the job.

          • That album has a rather sparse sound, it is easy to get a lot of dynamic range in that situation.

            Even the cassette sounded really great.

            There might be more to this sound engineering stuff than you realize, or you'd have picked an example that has a lot of dynamic range because it was well mastered.

    • Analogue recording is done

      Yeah, that's why vinyl records are made from digital recordings. Duh.

  • And (Score:2)

    by Luthair ( 847766 )
    nothing of value was lost.

    • I would argue there is value to be gained here. Just wait until our ol' friend supply and demand kicks in, especially the positive feedback loop of strained supply increasing the demand of what is arguably a Veblen good [wikipedia.org], then get some popcorn and watch r/vinyl. There is economic value in entertainment, even if it is free.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      nothing of value was lost.

      I disagree. This is not a necessary product, no doubt. But there are lots and lots of products that are not necessary. At least this is a nice product, one with a history and one that was optimized and fine-tuned to the nines. Sure, the claims by "audiophiles" that it actually sounds better are complete nonsense. It necessarily sounds worse compared to high-end digital or, if the digital alternative and the mixing emulates vinyl, it sounds the same. But that is absolutely no problem. Some people enjoy this

      • Some records have better mastering than CDs - less compressed dynamic range. It's ironic since CDs have higher dynamic range as a medium, but a lot of the releases are compressed to within a few dB (and even clipping). Records are sometimes made from better masters, I guess the people in charge know that audiophiles buy records and audiophiles care about sound quality. On the other hand, when releasing a CD they just turn it to 11 because "louder must be better".

        • While it is true that for a few decades, the audio coming out of vinyl was better than CDs, it was no fault of the CD format itself. You can blame the loudness war [wikipedia.org] for that.

          The only thing that made vinyls escape this folly was the fact that you can't do that with it because of physical limitations.

          "edit": JaredOfEuropa beat me to it.

          • The only thing that made vinyls escape this folly was the fact that you can't do that with it because of physical limitations.

            This and the fact that records are usually more expensive and bought primarily by audiophiles. Audiophiles care about sound quality and would probably not buy the record if it sounded bad.
            On the other hand, regular people do not really care about the dynamic range and buy the compressed and clipping CD.

            And so we get the irony of a CD having greater possible dynamic range (96dB vs 48dB or so for the record), but records having greater actual dynamic range because of the mastering.

      • Some vinyl sounds better because it has been mastered / produced differently. Same with records sounding better than their "remastered" digital counterparts. Often, vinyl does not take part in the loudness war [wikipedia.org]. In this case, the digital technology is clearly superior, but the actual product (the audio recording) on vinyl is arguably superior. It's a bit like watching the original Star Wars trilogy versus watching the Special Edition.

  • That explains it (Score:3)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @08:11PM (#59703476)

    That explains why I felt a great disturbance, as if millions of hipsters suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

  • No worries (Score:3)

    by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @08:13PM (#59703480)
    The Hipsters have finally discovered the cassette tape.

    • But those sound so tinny!

    • Cassette was horrible and awful in every possible way and they generally liked to self-destruct at the worst possible times. Still have a tape stuck in a deck I can't be assed to take apart after...20 something years?

      • If you clean the tape deck once in a while it works OK. It also helps to not the the cheapest tape deck.
        I listen to cassettes pretty much every day in my car, so far I have never had a tape eaten.

        But, even if the tape does get damaged, it's usually a small portion that can be cut out (or sometimes just straightened out), compared to a scratched CD that results in skips over minutes of the recording.

  • Music you can hold is music you own (Score:3)

    by jakedata ( 585566 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @08:14PM (#59703484)

    I can play a record no matter what media companies think about who owns it or whether I pay rent seeking ISPs.

    • You can also do that with an MP3 on a USB drive.

      • If you can keep the DRM out of your chips, that's fine with me. I expect future hipsters will collect old computers like I collect vinyl.

      • What's the lifespan of a flash drive?

        • Out of curiosity--I really would like an answer from someone knowledgeable: what is the practical lifespan of a typical vinyl record, unplayed and stored in reasonable conditions? Like the grooves in the vinyl themselves? Can those be expected to deform over time, and if so, how long does it take?

          • Well shellac records are pushing a century now and are just as playable as the day they were pressed. A quick search shows that vinyl doesn't oxidize and is pretty stable, so a few centuries maybe. Meanwhile we can't read Cray disk packs from the 1980s without a research project and crowd sourced talent. As far as flash drives go a 10 year retention span seems to be common.

          • If it is stored properly, a vinyl record can last for decades. Vinyl records from the 30s still play OK. 100 year old shellac records also play pretty much as well as they did when new, provided they are not worn out.

            IIRC, PVC is really stable.

            • PVC may be stable, but the "provided they are not worn out" part is the major weakness of the format.

              Vinyls are made to be played. Playing vinyls destroys them.

              On the other hand, you can play a digital audio file zero times or billions of times, it's still going to sound exactly the same every time.

              • On the other hand, you can play a digital audio file zero times or billions of times, it's still going to sound exactly the same every time.

                But at the same time, you cannot store it on a shelf somewhere for many years. Flash memory loses its data over time (10 years I think, enterprise SSDs do it faster), hard drives may not spin up, recordable CDs rot*. Tape probably is the only format that lasts a long time on a shelf.

                By the way, if you want your record to last a long time, you need a good record player (so it does not damage the record) and if you intend on playing the record a lot, copy it to tape and play the tape.

                * Some years ago, I bough

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      I can do the same with CD, without the media being slowly destroyed by the process of playing it. As a bonus, it's easy to rip to a file. I also have portable CD players, try that with vinyl.

      • While the technology of CDs is good and the sound quality can be better than records (especially if I do not have a record player that costs 10k$), for some reason CDs are mastered differently - very low dynamic range. OTOH, the same album on a record can have higher dynamic range, not because the record is inherently better, but because the mastering is different.

        Low dynamic range makes it good to copy to a cassette for listening in a car or with walkman outside, but it's not that great on a good system. I

      • Can you? Last I remember when I put an audio CD in the computer I had to jump through fucking hoops to play it.

        • Get a Mac, Man!
          Ah ... I forgot, they have none with a CD/DVD player build in anymore :(
           

        • Yes, I remember that time of red book non-conforming CDs. Fortunately, thanks to the DVD and BD players that also often used PC drives enough CDs have been returned to the stores that the companies stopped that crap so nowadays playing the CDs is hassle free again.

    • If all you care about is hearing the music and aren't as obsessive-compulsive as audiophiles then all you have to do is make a recording via a baseband audio connection and you'll have a DRM-free version of whatever it is you want to hear. Also buy CDs and rip them to FLAC files or whatever format you like, those are DRM-free too. Plenty of ways around all this, just stay away from 'streaming', it's a trap.
  • All your lecords are berong to us you have no chance to survive make your time

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nadass ( 3963991 )

      All your lecords are berong to us you have no chance to survive make your time

      Racist. But really funny =o)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
        Let the snowflakes be offended. Fake indignation is easy to create therefore has a marginal cost that approaches zero. I treat it according to what it's worth. Humor, on the other hand, is priceless.
  • The 8 Track manufacturers. They want on that sweet, sweet revival train, too!
  • If there's enough of a market demand for the materials they'll build a new factory.

  • That means that hipsters' favourite media for recorded music just got a whole lot rarer & more collectable. Pre-Apollo Masters' fire vinyl sounds so much better than the stuff that came out after it. I swear.

    I feel sorry for the people at the factory though. I hope nobody got hurt & they can find new jobs.

  • Guess its time to upgrade guys!

  • While musing important retro trivia, it was very subtle reference to Punkin Puss in Once Upon a Time in HW, after a brief dialogue on Disney. Hana Barbera were also popular cartoons in the 70â(TM)s , some including me preferred to Disney. But like Easy Breezy glory days pass by. The 2 character scene parallels many of the Punkin Puss and Mush mouse episodes. Vinyl like Easy Breezy and rest of us seeing there best days fade with time. Records offered art and a useful de-seeding utensil but nowadays no
  • If only there was some way to store the music on something more durable. I'm making a note of this to revisit ideas in 10 years. For safety, going to burn this to CD so as to not lose the idea.

  • Letting the problem work itself out, we don't like confrontation.

    Wonder if Milton found his red stapler?

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