LOVES IT

Quote :

" As counterintuitive as it may seem in this age of iPods and digital downloads, vinyl -- the favorite physical format of indie music collectors and audiophiles -- is poised to re-enter the mainstream, or at least become a major tributary. Talk to almost anyone in the music business' vital indie and DJ scenes and you'll encounter a uniformly optimistic picture of the vinyl market. "I'm hearing from labels and distributors that vinyl is way up," said Ian Connelly, client relations manager of independent distributor alliance IODA, in an e-mail interview. "And not just the boutique, limited-edition colored vinyl that Jesu/Isis-style fans are hot for right now." Pressing plants are ramping up production, but where is the demand coming from? Why do so many people still love vinyl, even though its bulky, analog nature is anathema to everything music is supposed to be these days? Records, the vinyl evangelists will tell you, provide more of a connection between fans and artists. And many of today's music fans buy 180-gram vinyl LPs for home listening and MP3s for their portable devices. "For many of us, and certainly for many of our artists, the vinyl is the true version of the release," said Matador's Patrick Amory. "The size and presence of the artwork, the division into sides, the better sound quality, above all the involvement and work the listener has to put in, all make it the format of choice for people who really care about music." Because these music fans also listen using portable players and computers, Matador and other labels include coupons in record packaging that can be used to download MP3 versions of the songs. Amory called the coupon program "hugely popular." Portability is no longer any reason to stick with CDs, and neither is audio quality. Although vinyl purists are ripe for parody, they're right about one thing: Records can sound better than CDs. Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound. Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove [this has always been my #1 argument - vb], Nyquist's theorem to the contrary. "The digital world will never get there," said Chris Ashworth, owner of United Record Pressing, the country's largest record pressing plant. Golden-eared audiophiles have long testified to vinyl's warmer, richer sound. And now demand for vinyl is on the rise. Pressing plants that were already at capacity are staying there, while others are cranking out more records than they did last year in order to keep pace with demand. Don MacInnis, owner of Record Technology in Camarillo, California, predicts production will be up 25 percent over last year by the end of 2007. And he's not talking about small runs of dance music for DJs, but the whole gamut of music: "new albums, reissues, majors and indies ... jazz, blues, classical, pop and a lot of (classic) rock." Turntables are hot again as well. Insound, an online music retailer that recently began selling USB turntables alongside vinyl, can't keep them in stock, according to the company's director, Patrick McNamara. And on Oct. 17, Amazon.com launched a vinyl-only section stocked with a growing collection of titles and several models of record players. Big labels still aren't buying the vinyl comeback, but it wouldn't be the first time the industry failed to identify a new trend in the music biz. "Our numbers, at least, don't really point to a resurgence," said Jonathan Lamy, the Recording Industry Association of America's director of communications. Likewise, Nielsen SoundScan, which registered a slight increase in vinyl sales last year, nonetheless showed a 43 percent decrease between 2000 and 2006. But when it comes to vinyl, these organizations don't really know what they're talking about. The RIAA's numbers are misleading because its member labels are only now beginning to react to the growing demand for vinyl. As for SoundScan, its numbers don't include many of the small indie and dance shops where records are sold. More importantly, neither organization tracks used records sold at stores or on eBay -- arguably the central clearinghouse for vinyl worldwide. Vinyl's popularity has been underreported before. "The Consumer Electronics Association said that only 100,000 turntables were sold in 2004. Numark alone sold more than that to pro DJs that year," said Chris Roman, product manager for Numark. And the vinyl-MP3 tag team might just hasten the long-predicted death of the CD. San Francisco indie band The Society of Rockets, for example, plans to release its next album strictly on vinyl and as MP3 files. "Having just gone through the process of mastering our new album for digital and for vinyl, I can say it is completely amazing how different they really sound," said lead singer and guitarist Joshua Babcock in an e-mail interview. "The way the vinyl is so much better and warmer and more interesting to listen to is a wonder.""

3/4/2008 6:38:24 PM

i didnt read the article simply because im kind of busy at the moment... but ill comment simply based on the title.


in all honest it makes sense. the CDs big sell was portability. walkman CD players, ease to play in cars, ease to carry around in general. Now that MP3 players own CDs in every way for portability, I can see why going back to vinyl for the stuff you only listen to in a home stereo almost makes sense.


i bet the article said something like this anyways tho

3/4/2008 7:00:51 PM

Vinyl is shit. Fucking dumbasses. And yes, I know that engineers have been compressing the dynamic range on CD's since the 90's. They're fucking dumbasses too.

3/4/2008 7:01:35 PM

but then collecting vinyl CDs wont make people hip anymore

3/4/2008 7:05:08 PM

Quote :

"Vinyl is shit"

wat?

You have obviously never heard a record on a STR8.150.

CDs don't have shit on vinyl with the right equipment.

3/4/2008 7:05:28 PM

vinyl may be better in those ways but i still love CD's. I still buy cds pretty regularly.

3/4/2008 7:09:07 PM

Quote :

"vinyl CDs"

wat

Quote :

"vinyl may be better in those ways but i still love CD's."

wat * 2

the artwork is tiny and they sound like shit when you blast them. i mean, i buy cd's too, but still.

3/4/2008 7:20:26 PM

p90s suck.

3/4/2008 7:22:33 PM

yea that totally shoulda been vinyl records

but im not gonna edit that shit for lulz

3/4/2008 7:24:29 PM

Quote :

"Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound. "

This is the reason I would seriously consider buying music on vinyl. Because it forces the audio engineers not to master the music like a retard when cutting a record. They don't have this restriction on CDs, or SACD/DVD-A either.

3/4/2008 7:26:24 PM

This is weird, because I just recently realized myself that all I buy CDs for is to collect (in most cases I already have downloaded the mp3s long before I even buy the CD), so I might as well just start buying vinyl instead.

3/4/2008 7:26:57 PM

3/4/2008 7:28:12 PM

it encourages more involved listening, too...you can just throw a CD in while you're driving or doing homework, but when you have to put on a record and make a concerted effort to turn it over, you're more inclined to sit down and just listen

good times

3/4/2008 7:29:07 PM

I buy the CDs; and if I really dig the album, then I buy the vinyl too. But I recognize the superior sound quality of records.

3/4/2008 7:34:11 PM

Records can bite the dust for all I care. They don't come close to a proper multi-channel SACD for an all-around listening experience. This resurgence is just a fad.

3/4/2008 7:41:43 PM

a CD, even an SACD, will never have a sample rate high enough to fully reproduce an analog recording's waveform

bullshit recorded on protools probably sounds the same, though

3/4/2008 7:45:29 PM

vinyl ftw

3/4/2008 7:46:52 PM

Quote :

"an SACD, will never have a sample rate high enough to fully reproduce an analog recording's waveform"

Yeah, and you'll never have hearing good enough to detect an appreciable difference between the two either. Except for the extra 50 decibels of dynamic range with the SACD.

[Edited on March 4, 2008 at 7:52 PM. Reason : .]

3/4/2008 7:52:20 PM

vinyl is a joke. vinyl pressed from digital sources, doubly so.

Also, lol at vinyl enthusists using mp3s.

3/4/2008 7:52:56 PM

i need a fucking record player

3/4/2008 7:56:33 PM

it's not a sound.

it's a feel.

sort of like transistors vs. tubes

3/4/2008 7:56:58 PM

give up man. You won't convince people who think otherwise.

3/4/2008 8:01:47 PM

these people probably like the stereo mix of pet sounds, too

3/4/2008 8:07:35 PM

It's been 15 years since I bought a music CD.....And I think vinyl freaks belong in the same group as beer/wine snobs.

3/4/2008 8:09:25 PM

^^^^ That just sounds like bullshit

Quote :

"a CD, even an SACD, will never have a sample rate high enough to fully reproduce an analog recording's waveform bullshit recorded on protools probably sounds the same, though "

All things being equal as possible, you probably could tell a difference between a CD at optimal mastering and a record still. But an SACD easily has resolution high enough to make it impossible to tell the difference between a record and an SACD. Records don't have a "perfect" frequency response either, there's an upper limit to the resolution you can get from a record. I would even go so far as to say that an SACD can surpass this limit, but I haven't looked in to the different physics of recording records in a while.

[Edited on March 4, 2008 at 8:11 PM. Reason : ]

3/4/2008 8:11:19 PM

you can say all you want about sampling fidelity

the feel is still different

just like transistors vs. tubes

3/4/2008 8:12:45 PM

Quote :

"Vinyl may be final nail in CD's coffin"

right on

(as long as you mean digital audio when you say vinyl)

3/4/2008 8:13:55 PM

If by "feel" you mean harmonic distortion then you're right. distortion != quality

Quote :

"The best cartridges and styli have response up to 76 kHz.[citation needed] The RIAA has suggested the following acceptable losses: down to 20 kHz after one play, 18 kHz after three plays, 17 kHz after five, 16 kHz after eight, 14 kHz after fifteen, 13 kHz after twenty five, 10 kHz after thirty five, and 8 kHz after eighty plays. While this degradation is possible if the record is played on improperly set up equipment, many collectors of LPs report excellent sound quality on LPs played many more times when using care and high quality equipment.[citation needed]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record#Frequency_response_and_noise

76khz, while superior to audio CDs, is vastly inferior to an SACD, with a max sampling rate in the Mhz range (which out classes pretty much all recording equipment for audio that I know about).

3/4/2008 8:15:22 PM

The rock 'n' roll music has ruined my hearing over the years, so I can't hear your sampling rates and whatnot anyway. But I do know that I like holding a record gatefold better than opening a folder on my hard drive.

Also, is there a link to this article?

3/4/2008 8:25:06 PM

^^^ CDs ARE digital audio

3/4/2008 8:28:36 PM

^^ i got it off some blog, apparently it's from wired

and digital audio boy up there didn't read the article

3/4/2008 8:30:25 PM

haha, silly music snobs.

3/4/2008 8:30:42 PM

I think he means... digital as in lives completely on a computer/mp3/etc and not a CD.

3/4/2008 8:31:40 PM

They need to have cheaper equipment to transfer music from vinyl to mp3. Or have it so that if you buy a record you can download the mp3 for free. I'm all for playing records again, but there's no way I'm buying the same music twice.

3/4/2008 8:32:24 PM

I'd pay for another media twice... like I buy the CD, i get the record at cost or something similar--but yea, full price for both is stupid

3/4/2008 8:33:09 PM

^^ they sell a USB turntable at Best Buy that makes it easy as it can possibly be without using a topographic scanner on the record.

^^^ I know what he meant hence the " "

3/4/2008 8:34:49 PM

I have two copies of this on vinyl, two on CD, one tape, one 8-track, and in MP3.

3/4/2008 8:35:11 PM

Quote :

"Or have it so that if you buy a record you can download the mp3 for free. I'm all for playing records again, but there's no way I'm buying the same music twice."

The smartest thing I've seen an artist do is include a CD in a paper sleeve with the vinyl copy. I bought Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" on vinyl after digging the CD and got a second copy of the CD with the records.

I think that's brilliant!

[Edited on March 4, 2008 at 8:51 PM. Reason : ]

3/4/2008 8:51:40 PM

Quote :

"^^^ CDs ARE digital audio"

yeah i guess i could have worded that better, since WAVs are in fact digital. I guess computers/downloading would have worked better

3/4/2008 8:55:08 PM

It's been a while, but here goes:

3/4/2008 8:55:31 PM

1000 Hurts on vinyl came with the CD in the package, too.

^ thx u

3/4/2008 8:56:58 PM

^^ you realize that first picture is actually of a CD made to look like a record?

[Edited on March 4, 2008 at 8:57 PM. Reason : ]

3/4/2008 8:57:22 PM

yikes...you're right


i'll edit it right away

3/4/2008 8:58:17 PM

just this last week, Nonesuch/Warner Bros sent us a white-label vinyl promo of the new Black Keys, with a letter included that said something about how they thought everyone should listen to this album on vinyl before hearing it on cd or something.. pretty sweet

and we got these sweet Mars Volta promos when their new album came out.. they were cds, but they had vinyl on the top of them, so you could throw it on a record player and listen to some b-side.. more artists should do that

[Edited on March 4, 2008 at 10:08 PM. Reason : ..]

3/4/2008 10:06:10 PM

pretty sweet

3/4/2008 10:06:44 PM

10,000BC pre-release on betamax is so amazing




[Edited on March 4, 2008 at 10:18 PM. Reason : let me get that in .pad format]

3/4/2008 10:15:55 PM

Quote :

"they were cds, but they had vinyl on the top of them, so you could throw it on a record player and listen to some b-side.."

This has my attention... I'd love to see this in action. Can these be bought or are they just for demo?

3/4/2008 10:17:57 PM

well, the tones from vinyl are more well suited for the human ear so i can understand this
i love vinyl and need to pick up a player sometime

record players are so baller

3/4/2008 10:18:18 PM

i'm not nearly indie enough to buy vinyl.

3/4/2008 10:39:15 PM

3/4/2008 10:44:51 PM