I was thinking about investing in a vinyl player recently and was really sad to learn Vinyl is actually worse for audio quality. The standard thickness of the disk is a physical limitation for frequencies which means the sound gets “squished.”
There’s nothing stopping you still! I find the ritual of placing the disc and needle and turning it over halfway through is quite satisfying. It really makes me feel as though the music is more valuable and I’ll be more likely to actively listen rather than if I just put it on my phone with the tap of a button
STFU shill bot, I came here to shit on Vinyl not listen to you rant.
you seem to be a toxic moron
Sometimes you have to be very direct in order to shut down conversations with lemmings.
It is true that vinyl records have a smaller dynamic range than CDs and digital streaming, but it can also be a blessing in disguise on account of the loudness wars. A lot of modern digital music since the 90s have been brickwall mixed so they can be played on devices with inferior speakers or headphones and still sound loud and punchy, but that same music will sound awful and distorted on proper hifi systems.
Because vinyl records have a (slightly) smaller dynamic range they have to be mixed and mastered separately from CDs and streaming, and some times that means the vinyl edition has the only properly mixed sound. And even if the vinyl version gets a brickwalled mix, then it is still slightly better than the brickwalled CD or stream versions simply because the dynamic range capability is lower, so the brickwall is smaller so to speak.
Anyway, even compared to non-brickwalled CDs or streaming, vinyl still holds it own on proper hifi systems, there is nothing wrong with the sound experience under the right circumstances, and it is that combined with the physicality which is the draw for most vinyl collectors I think. It is inconvenient, expensive and often times inferior (especially if you find scratched up used copies), but that is exactly the attraction. It makes listening to the music an event.
Most vinyl record collectors still listens to other formats, because of course in the car or some other place you are forced to, so it is not an either/or situation either.
I expect artists to record the media as they intended it to be heard, idgaf if you think it sounds better after you cut the limbs off of it.
Investing? You want to sell it again?
I measure returns in satisfaction not money. What you put in you should get back out on a relative metric, my baseline is tacos and pizza.
Yeah, vinyl is more about the haptic experience of putting that giant black disc onto the player and watching the needle slowly scrape away that 30-40 dollar item. It’s not about the sound quality. I think with listening to vinyl listening to music becomes more of an experience, because of all the manual steps involved. And with albums these days artists seem to put more effort into them then at the time the CD came around.
that 30-40 dollar item.
Woah. Weren’t they, what, 2$ a piece before CD?
They were definitely cheaper than they are now. But most of them also were produced much cheaper than they are now.
Not only that, but all the “better sound” arguments are just about all the mistakes in the audio, like scratches and bumps.
Digital has no mistakes, it will always sound the way it is intended.
But of course some times “the way it is intended” is not the preferable way (see my other comment to OP).
There’s Audacity & co. for that.
One of my favorite things about vinyl is having to flip the record over. I think it demands more active and respectful listening.
Many albums, especially comedy albums, relied on you flipping over the record. They would have jokes that talked about things on the other side. There’s a Firesign Theater album where one of the characters says, “wait a minute, didn’t I say that on the other side of the record?” There’s a Monty Python album with a locked groove that says, “oh sorry, squire. I scratched the record.” Which is brilliant.
More famously, the end of the Beatles’ peak album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band contains a locked groove which was snippets of recordings mashed-up in a bit of short multi-track recording experimentation. The CD only repeats it 2 or 3 times. The record was designed to play indefinitely.
So yeah, CDs took that away from recordings, but on the other hand, it’s a lot harder to damage a CD and get an unintentional looping segment.
I love that on the CD version of Full Moon Fever they added a bit to the end of Running Down a Dream telling CD listeners they’re going to take a break so that people on vinyl and cassette can switch to the other side.
I think of this clip every single time Chris Pirillo pops up in pop culture somewhere.
I don’t really buy vinyl to listen to it, but for the larger cover art and liner notes
The only vinyls I buy are from charity shops or because I love an album so much that I want it as a collection (I’d also buy the CD to actually listen to)
That is definitely something I loved about LPs. I used to have a big book of album cover art. I have no idea what happened to it unfortunately, but I used to pore over it. Liner notes are less of an issue with the internet, but the shrinking of art was a very unfortunate result of CDs.
I remember getting a copy of Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick” that came with a whole-ass newspaper they made folded into the liner with lyrics and pictures. That’s something you can only do with vinyl.
It’s to bad there’s no good record players made anymore. Or cassette decks. It’s all the cheap bottom of the barrel mechanisms now. No quality Japanese equipment like there used to be.
Reloop/pioneer/insert 100 other brands here: am I a joke to you
Because CD is a medium for data shrinking in popularity and vinyl is a token of being cool growing in popularity, of course it does.
That’s because it’s getting harder to find CD’s plus the majority of people buy digital
Legit didn’t know people still bought music. CDs though? How does anyone still have cd players, and why. Vinyl is a hipster fad now so I guess that explains records.
If you’re curious, nearly half a million cassettes sold last year, too, according to Billboard.
I’m more curious about who’s still selling music on cassette and who’s willing to buy it.
Vinyls are great, but I can’t copy them to my phone so I still have to buy a CD with it.
I own a USB turntable with an ADC in it. It’s got a USB cable sticking out the back. I can rip vinyl to whatever digital format you want.
you could get the vinyl rip, and listen them on your phone. idk whether it might sound the same like the exact vinyl but it’s better than Spotify if you have a decent headphones.
Vylin is mixed differently. Base is usually centered instead of leaning on any channel at a time. This is to reduce chances of skipping. I personally prefer my music that way because drums and base always feel in the middle leaving room for other instruments to expand on the side.
Bass*
And vinyl*
Ahh, I see. Setting sail to get something I’ve legitimately paid for IS an option. I’d still rather do it myself now that I’m finding out it’s an option with the right equipment
Aux cable from the out port to input on PC. Open recorder app and hit record. Save files. Upload to phone.
Why though? Just rip a CD or download the file. It’s better quality and less effort.
Well ya, but I thought the we were talking about ripping vinyl
My record player has a USB port…
Oh , mine doesn’t . I’m new to vinyl, and have less than 10 in my collection. My turntable was given to me by a friend.
So yours can copy to a computer via USB?
I have a audio technica AT-LP120-USB and it shows up in Audacity as an input source. my good speakers are hooked up to my livingroom PC + TV anyway, so playing back \ recording through audacity is the only way I’ve ever used the player.
Shiiiiit, okay I like that setup. My computer is connected to my tv which has ARC to th receiver, so I could totally do that too
In theory, yes. I’ve never actually plugged it into a computer. It’s a Sony PS-LX300USB. Looks like you can pick one up used for less than $100. Might be worth it if you’re currently buying everything twice.
Sweet, thanks for the info! I’ll check it out
As someone who used to be a member of what.cd, and still has a bunch of incredible sounding FLAC vinyl rips of albums, this definitely is not true.
I still reminisce about my Oink ratio. Seeded Rosetta Stone on a university connection. Access to the school’s radio station’s library.
Probably the closest I’ll come to generational wealth, my grandchildren could have leeched music on my account and I’d still be positive.
Well, there’s still RED and it has almost has vinyl rip for every famous album. I wasn’t a what cd member but RED has a huge collection. If you aren’t in music trackers anymore you should checkout RED
Yeah but it’s members only right? Frankly, I’m just too old and lazy and don’t care enough about that stuff anymore to go through a whole interview process and shit.
Do they have PBTHAL vinyl rips? Those were my favorite by far. That person really knew WTF they were doing.
Do they have PBTHAL vinyl rips?
Yes, there is a collage of 578 pbthal rips
🤤
Yeah but it’s members only right?
Yeah but what cd was a private tracker too right?
I’m just too old and lazy and don’t care enough about that stuff anymore to go through a whole interview process and shit.
Well, considering you were a what cd user, I think you can easily clear that, the wait for the interview is ridiculously annoying though. I had to wait for weeks for that.
Do they have PBTHAL vinyl rips?
I don’t know, have to check. I am just tired of the grind these days and just visit it when my friend asks for an album’s flac, or if I get freeleech tokens.
Yeah but I would need to “prove” I was a member, and it’s not like I still have any kind of evidence. In fact, I got super lucky to get into what in the first place as I just happened to have a screenshot of my OiNK title bar/ratio because I was messing with different CSS themes months/years prior. So when OiNK died, I was able to get into what pretty easily by showing that screenshot.
I have no such thing for what.
Yeah but I would need to “prove” I was a member
Idt you need to prove that unless they ask you specifically or you say it by yourself.
They don’t care what private trackers you are/were in as long as you pass the interview.
Right. I was able to skip the interview process for What because I was a member of OiNK and got lucky enough to find someone on reddit to send me an invite. The whole idea of interviewing to join a torrent site rubs me the wrong way and as I said above, I don’t really care about that stuff enough anymore to go through the hassle.
It’s not true that I cannot copy my vinyls to my computer? Okay how do I do that then? It just has the red and white left and right cables going to an amp, and then my receiver. Kinda new to vinyls over here
Maybe try Google? As I said, I downloaded them I didn’t rip them myself. There was this person with the username “PBTHAL” that always had to best lossless vinyl rips, if you do a search that includes that name, you might find alternate download sources for them. I think they ran their own site where they posted all of their rips outside of what, but don’t know if it’s still there. They were also very thorough while explaining the process, equipment, cables, etc. for each and every rip. This person was really a perfectionist, and boy did it show. There were albums that they ripped and then refused to upload because they didn’t feel their rip was perfect enough.
Absolute fucking legend.
I even have FLACs of reel-to-reel versions of all Zeppelin albums, as well as, Bowie, Dylan, et. al. and they sound fantastic. Don’t ask me how it’s done. And given the pedigree of that website, these people took the ripping process incredibly seriously.
Haha nice, that’s an area of music collection as a hobby that I’ve never explored., and I can really appreciate that level of dedicstion. Thanks for letting me know, I’ll see if I can even find my type of metal on there
You might be able to find some dedicated metalheads ripping vinyl, but my experience was that it seemed to be done more with albums that were released prior to the rise of digital music. I feel like it makes more sense when the album was written and recorded with vinyl in mind, otherwise you’re taking a digital recording and putting it on a record so I’m not sure you’re going to get anything that sounds better by ripping the vinyl over just ripping the CD. If that makes sense.
I could be wrong though…
There are usb turntables that let you rip your vinyl, but theyre usually not the highest quality turn tables. I like vintage tables because it adds to the atmosphere and there were fewer corners cut. You could probably get some separate equipment that would let your turn table talk to your computer.
TIL, thanks for pointing out the thing about quality. The table I’ve currently got sounds pretty nice (for never really having used anything else), so maybe I’ll check out ones with USB and at least keep it around for copying!
Man do I miss what cd. I love RED. But what will always have a special place. I still have tons of merch I bought from what. T-shirts, coffee mug, koozie and so many rippy stickers. I still wear the shirts in my regular rotation
I’ve got a what.cd hoodie lying around somewhere. Wore that thing out for years, so it’s falling apart at this point.
why have streaming and not radio?
CDs are this odd junction between quality, inconvenience, and low cost, one that makes it niche. They are a physical product and thus higher quality, so to speak, than digital music. Yet vinyls are higher quality (in the hand) and more novel due to the design options. Then they are lossless but even personally ripping is far less convenient than digital music, much less inserting the disc with every use. The others combined— a vinyl copy for display and pirating/a lossless streaming service like Qobuz or Apple’s— costs more for what can be seen as a minimal improvement in the other categories.
So I’m not surprised. Vinyls are a neat little souvenir of songs or albums I enjoy, and though I’ve never actually played a single one, they’re still something I like to collect. Can’t say the same for CDs.
Vinyl isn’t lossless. First they start with a master - either analogue or digital, then they strip out high frequency and compress the dynamic range to make it fit the format. Also, the act of pressing discs introduces errors, and the playing equipment can introduce noise like wow, flutter, hisses and pops. I bet some record players, especially ones with USB connections or equalizers probably toss in some adc / dac conversion in there too depending on how they do their thing. There are losses end to end in other words.
CDs are also downsampled from studio tracks, but the format has a higher frequency and dynamic range so providing a CD and vinyl record were from the same master you are going to get a truer, better quality audio from the CD every single time. Also, since it’s digital (with error correction) you are hearing EXACTLY what was put on the disc. You could rip it to FLAC or some other lossless format and it would be bit for bit identical.
Bbut CDs have no soul!
Then they are lossless
Vinyl? No, not at all. Pressing the platter is already the lossy part, playing is low-quality too.
Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
Then they are lossless
LOL, they are lossy after every playback.
Though admittedly music CDs are not that much qualitatively different in practice.
Your comment illustrates well which kind of people affects the market in this area, though.
Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
Only a few more years now till the retro sound of CDs comes back into style. I realize vinyl is a great and unique user experience with a specific timber, and more enjoyable to collect.
It’s kind of funny when you hear about the “analog warmth” when albums were being digitally mastered as early as the late 70s… And pretty much all re-releases are digitally remastered.
CDs are already showing signs of a comeback! https://www.axios.com/2024/01/06/gen-z-cds-buying-collection
Lol, knew it was coming!
Vynil is mixed differently. Base is much more centered to help prevent skipping tracks. This makes music sound a bit differently. Also, it’s not easy to change track or author, so you usually end up listening to entire side or record. Overall it’s a different experience.
I personally never liked CDs. They never lasted for me. Either the case breaks on the first wrong glance of it or the disk starts flaking or being scratched.
I think the mixing being different is likely dependent upon how good the engineer and mastering engineers are/were. I’d wager a fair number of bands releasing their albums to vinyl these days simply send over a very similar final master (maybe slightly less loud if you are lucky) to the vinyl cutting without much thought, because it’s the hip thing to do.
You are accurate, that they should ensure that low frequencies are mono compatible, but it is likely less of an issue for the style of music most associated with vinyl releases (indi etc), as stylistically they don’t tend to use stereo widening on low frequency instruments. Generally they have kick and bass down the center channel, or I suppose going mono style out of L/R if they are trying to be really old school, but that would likely take a completely different mix adding to production budget as I can’t imagine if would work to well on phones etc, which a lof of music is mix for unfortunately.
None of the artists I produce or mix for have requested it yet, but if they did I would send them to Fuller Sound Mastering as Michael has been around for ages and knows how to handle masters for vinyl.
Vinyl cutting also has an EQ curve offset that is printed into the vinyl itself, cutting the bass and boosting the high frequency, which is then re-applied by the players preamp circuitry, I believe it’s referred to as pre and de-emphasis. Funny enough my mastering DAC actually has this feature for some kind of old early CD technology for some lower resolution digital formats that had issues with noise and filtering and used a similar technology, I had never heard of this until I purchased this particular unit haha.
Retro sound of a CD?
They sound exactly the same as the digital releases. Only audiophiles up there own arses believe that they can hear a difference. Vinyls sound different but for obvious reasons.
I think you missed my sarcasm…
Edited to add: most CDs sound the same as their digital releases (assuming they had the same master which I’ve found isn’t always true), but occasionally you can actually get higher resolution, up to 96k/24 bit, which do sound different depending on your playback device.
Most of the difference is likely due to the nature of the DA filter being applied during playback, as I certainly won’t notice the noise floor between 16-24 bit, and any frequency difference is far far behind my range of hearing.
If you aren’t familiar with what I’m referring too, different DA implementations use varying filtering techniques, some have a slight roll off in the upper frequency range to improve the accuracy of transient response, while others use a flatter frequency response sacrificing the transient. Newer DAs from some manufacturers allow you to select which option you prefer. At double and quad sample rates this can largely become a moot point as any sacrifice to the frequency response is far out of the range of human hearing.
Only a few more years now till the retro sound of CDs comes back into style.
I liked the artwork on the disks themselves, and the feeling of opening a box, taking the disk out with that cracking sound, pushing a button on the drive and seeing and hearing it open, and then the sound of spinning when it’s being read.
Every bit as “warm” as vinyl in my opinion (born in 1996, so of course it is).
Exactly, although CD isn’t so much “retro” as it is a high frequency, high dynamic range audio recording. The only reason vinyl sounds “warm” is because their dynamic range & frequency is compressed so the needle doesn’t bounce out of its groove.
While it’s possible for a CD to receive a terrible master, if the mastering across formats is the same and other biases are eliminated (i.e. proper A/B testing) then CD will be objectively better sounding every single time.
the retro sound of CDs
Your mistake is equivocating digital with analog. There is nothing “retro sounding” about CDs, you can download lossless digital versions of albums that are identical to what you’ll find on a CD.
I’m a professional audio engineer for a living, with a masters in the subject, it was sarcasm lol…
That’s technically true, but it is entirely possible CDs come back as a retro meat-space alternative to the corporate streaming dystopia we’re headed towards, or using CDs as a secondary retro proxy to feed nostalgia for production mastering trends of the 1990s-2000s era.
They already are! Some young artists are already doing those 2000s nostalgia CD releases for the kicks of having a physical medium.
However a big part of the marketing for vinyl has historically been “the sound is warm/high definition/whatever audiophile bullshit”. Anyone can achieve the same “warmth” with an EQ and some crackle/white noise (it works so well it’s a whole genre called lofi…), but the “vinyl sounds better” crowd will make the unfalsifiable claim that “it’s not the same”.
However, good luck claiming that “CDs sound different from FLACs”!In the end both vinyl and CD enjoyers are doing the same thing: enjoying music through personal and ritualistic manipulation of physical objects, that also come with nice album art. It’s just that some vinyl enjoyers are attributing some of that enjoyment to a largely made-up supposed “superiority” of sound (yes there are edge cases like “bad” remasters of songs originally released on vinyl, but is that really why anyone buys a turntable? Be honest.).
This is only new vinyl, right? In my town, used records are king, by far. In fact, I probably buy 10+ used records for every new record.
I wish this was true for me, but I only have one record shop within 45-drive of my house (and their prices and selection are far from competitive), so I wind up buying pretty much all my records online through Discogs. Frequently, the new represses are just flat-out cheaper than the vintage vinyl, especially for a lot of the more esoteric albums I buy. For instance, even though they’re not really hard to find, for Black Sabbath’s first four albums I paid just as much for mediocre, water-damaged copies of Sabbath and Volume 4 as I did for brand-new represses of Paranoid and Master of Reality. If you actually buy your vinyl to listen to, buying used online can be a pretty big gamble as far as quality, so for the same price, I frequently wind up consciously choosing the new vinyl over the used copy.
Even though I do frequently manage to package one or two cheap used albums with each new album purchased to take advantage of that sweet “media mail” shipping, it’s not even close to a 10:1 used:new ratio.
Edit: I suppose now that I think about it, I’m starting from a pretty decent used vinyl collection from my days in the early 2000’s as a hipster music snob before used vinyl got nearly so expensive, so my collection overall has much more used vinyl than my current buying habits would indicate (I probably have 200 albums, of which 30-40 were purchased new in the past 3-4 years)
The only record store I ever go to is actually a front for a weed store lol . Even though weed is legal in Canada the legal stuff is the worst and most expensive.
Even though weed is legal in Canada the legal stuff is the worst and most expensive.
Give it time. I’m far from a connoisseur, as these days I mostly just partake in edibles 1-2 times per week, but California has some pretty sweet weed prices, at least compared to my college/grad-school days. I saw an ad on a billboard just yesterday for 10 USD Eighths at a pretty reputable shop in my town, and I think I usually pay 35 USD for a pack of 10 2-dose THC:CBD gummies (compared to 40 USD for an eighth of mediocre bud in the early 2000’s).
As people get less paranoid about enforcement and local governments ease up on restrictions, the price should come down and the quality should go up (although this probably depends a lot on local government, so who knows, really)
I hope so. Right now I can get 3.5 grams of shatter for the same price as 1 gram at a legal place . And 500 mg of edibles for the same price as 50 mg . It’s crazy high prices, mostly only casual users by from a legal source where I live and its been legal since 2018 .
Vinyl, which tends to be pricier than the newer format, also far outstripped CDs in actual money made, raking in $1.4 billion compared to $537 million from CDs.
Vinyl is definitely overpriced these days. I do love all the art and care that artists seem to put into their vinyl releases, but typically I’m spending $30-$50 on a new vinyl release. But what am I going to do? Not buy that limited edition colored vinyl gatefold with art and lyric pages?
I view vinyls as collectors items, not something you actually listen to. I still buy CDs because I hate the idea of subscription services.
I buy mine from the merch stand at the artist’s show, they usually go for 20€-30€, even the limited edition ones.
Depends really. Seller am buying from has for example AC/DC records for 26$ a piece or 16$ a piece for CD. You simply can’t compare the two and the difference is 10$. They of course have 50th anniversary edition for 42$, but that’s up to you.
Well, you could always just download the music, art and lyrics from the internet, since it is the year of our lord 2024
Yeah, at this point you’re paying because it’s a collector item, or to support the artist, not for the actual content of the package.
I also just really like the physical media. Putting on a record is ritualistic at this point.
