Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[EJ3]

If you are truly connected with music you do not need a particular medium to keep you away from doing something else.

I don't care about the medium as much as I care about "can I find the music I want on a medium I can play?" I can find the Austrian, German, Italian regional folk music on LP's. I can find Appalachian folk music, Bluegrass on LP's. I can find 1920's Jazz, Blues, Soul on 78's. Rock N Roll & it's many sub-variations on LP's, some on CD & most of what I listen to, I already have. One day I'll stream. But it's just another way to get music as far as I'm concerned. & I don't listen to music for back ground noise. If I am busy (and I usually am) I am not listening to music.

 

[EJ3]

I hate car analogies as much as the next man but I saw one of these the other day



30 years ago they were ubiquitous and you wouldn't give it a second glance. Now it's the coolest thing on the road, even though performance is poor compared to the modern cars. I think there's something of that effect with vinyl too.

Easily set up to "go like hell" though. A good tuner can almost double the output while still keeping it somewhat civil. Given the weight and a thorough suspension optimizing, it would be a "sleeper" outrunning a # of modern "sporty" cars in the twisties & the straights. There were a number of performance enhancing upgrades made when it was a popular car.I have seen these setup to so that a 5.0 Mustang couldn't outrun it (it couldn't pass the Mustang either but it could hang with it).

 

[pseudoid]

Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?​

One must admit (w/envy) that the vinyl-ritual takes certain amount of 'dedication' which most of us lack in a world where Siri/Alexa are considered chore free.
I personally lost that desire, after the umpteenth time, that I had to run to the turntable after the LP had reached the end of the groove.

 

[Doodski]

Easily set up to "go like hell" though. A good tuner can almost double the output while still keeping it somewhat civil. Given the weight and a thorough suspension optimizing, it would be a "sleeper" outrunning a # of modern "sporty" cars in the twisties & the straights. There were a number of performance enhancing upgrades made when it was a popular car.I have seen these setup to so that a 5.0 Mustang couldn't outrun it (it couldn't pass the Mustang either but it could hang with it).

Is that a Cortina with a whale tail?

 

[EJ3]

Is that a Cortina with a whale tail?

1973 what was known in the US as a Capri. If I remember correctly that "duck tail" spoiler was part of a German High performance package, as where the wheels. I am not sure if any of this stuff made it to the USA as an available option. But there were channels that you could go through to get the good stuff. And I've seen many that had at least 40% more power than they originally did. (the fist 40-60% of extra power is not that hard to do with cars from that era). In 1984 my 1971 VW Super Beetle was making more than twice it's original power: 105 HP vs 48 HP. City fuel economy suffered (due to the "more power, drive it harder" syndrome) 24 MPG vs 26. HWY was better 31 vs 28.

 

[Doodski]

1973 what was known in the US as a Capri. If I remember correctly that "duck tail" spoiler was part of a German High performance package, as where the wheels. I am not sure if any of this stuff made it to the USA as an available option.

Ahhh rightO... the Capri. I saw 2 of them. One like your pic and the other a 1980's square mustang look alike that had a turbo. It went OK and did great E-brakes. the rear duck tail was much smaller but it had one.

 

[EJ3]

Ahhh rightO... the Capri. I saw 2 of them. One like your pic and the other a 1980's square mustang look alike that had a turbo. It went OK and did great E-brakes. the rear duck tail was much smaller but it had one.

The 80's Turbo 4 did not "go like hell" and took quite an infusion of cash to make it "sort of go like hell"

 

[Doodski]

The 80's Turbo 4 did not "go like hell" and took quite an infusion of cash to make it "sort of go like hell"

I have fond memories of @~ 120km/h (75mp/h) yanking the E-brake and spinning for fun. It could handle it fairly well on a 3 lane asphalt with gravel sides. We where out in the country and had lots of space for this sort of stuff. It was not going super fast as you say so we just did e-brakes for fun.

 

[clearnfc]

Oh I just saw this thread.....

I say it many times, whats measures best (best in terms of score) need not sound best to the listener. Different pple have different preferences, just like some prefer neutral, flat FR, some wants more bass, some more mids etc etc....

Even when it comes to things like minute details, distortion etc... Some likes it more, some likes it less. So, some pple will like the way vinyl or tube sounds etc etc...

This is not about what is better or worse, its about personal preferences. There are still many people (many as in number of people, not % of population) who prefer old stuff for various reasons (not just audio).

 

[600_OHM]

Ah, its very simple - the DR of vinyl was self-limiting - in that good engineers maxed out the DR, but there was a limit you don't cross or it all goes haywire.

CD's, when *first* introduced, was a medium where you could take DR well beyond the older oxide/vinyl medium. Life was good!

BUT, clever people figured out that with all that *excessive* headroom now at their leisure, it was a license to tweak the EQ/DR to suit a marketing demographic - whether it sounded natural or not didn't matter. Re the loudness wars.

JUST LIKE the FM radio stations do with their companders, and had been doing so for years earlier!

Satellite tv did much the same, but from a video aspect. Keep throwing channels into a limited bandwidth, and compress the hell out of them. Until people complain, who obviously aren't going to call up their provider and demand to know if they are using static vs dynamic muxing, channel overload, etc.

So for an audiophile, the draw of vinyl was that a limit of performance could be reached, but could go no further, limiting the marketing meddling with the product or artists intentions.

 

[EJ3]

Oh I just saw this thread.....

I say it many times, whats measures best (best in terms of score) need not sound best to the listener. Different pple have different preferences, just like some prefer neutral, flat FR, some wants more bass, some more mids etc etc....

Even when it comes to things like minute details, distortion etc... Some likes it more, some likes it less. So, some pple will like the way vinyl or tube sounds etc etc...

This is not about what is better or worse, its about personal preferences. There are still many people (many as in number of people, not % of population) who prefer old stuff for various reasons (not just audio).

And even those of us who listen to a lot of live music have different perceptions of how it sounds to us, where we outside, at a lake with a mountain in the background, inside at a club or a bar, at a symphony or an amplified rock or hip-hop event or out in a field with Jamaican music. The effect of the state of mind, who you where with, the people around you, etc affects your perception of how the music sounds to you. And that affects how you think it should sound at home. The Harman curve (& other suggestions) are a great starting point for adjustments because you have a base that is the starting point. It eliminates a lot of trial & error. Perhaps even a life time of trying different things to get the sound the way you perceive it should be.

 

[anmpr1]

A lot of it is 'feel good' marketing. The idea that you can actually hold something and look at it. Explore in a way you don't get with those smallish shiny metalized discs. Bring back the inserts, posters and things like that. Picture discs.

I recently came across Steve Vai hawking his 'latest' thing-- I smiled as I watched him pulling all the stuff from out of the album jacket. I remember when I was a kid, it was the same feeling I had. He has the same look on his face. The Beatles White Album, or earlier, the Beach Boys Party record with all the photos and other stuff inside. No hot sauce, though.

 

[welsh]

I'm a member of a couple of reddit audiophile threads where people post pictures of their rigs and most of the time they include turntables and every time I see one my mind is blown because I outgrew vinyl only a few years after buying my first CD player in the '80's. Back then I had a tape deck, a turntable and a CD player but once I heard digital I knew they was no going back yet people en mass are and I find it baffling given all the benefits of youtube. The first and most obvious benefit is, it's free. Secondly, youtube has an almost endless catalog of music, with the original music video, the karaoke versions of songs, live versions and videos that include the lyrics. Thirdly, the convenience of simply clicking my mouse a few times and opening up a world of music is pretty alluring. I always wondered about the sound quality though so I bought a CD a few years ago to compare youtube to CD and couldn't hear any difference. LP's on the other hand can only be played one at a time, require time, money and effort to obtain and play and also require money and effort to maintain and as your collection of LP's grows it obviously becomes more expensive and takes up space-something youtube doesn't yet most reddit audiophiles are flocking to them

Does the vinyl renaissance make sense to you because it sure doesn't to me

1) Clicks, pops and ‘vinyl roar’ from the plastic groove. Especially good fun when you know that the click/pop is about to happen.
2) The quality of information per second worsens as the stylus traverses the spiral groove. This makes vinyl the worst choice for what is loosely called ‘classical’ music, as climactic crescendoes are usually found next to the dead wax. There’s a reason that classic rock albums often have a ballad at the end of a side.
3) Almost no LPs have a spindle hole that is actually central. I cannot listen to piano music on vinyl, as I am sensitive to pitch wobble. Speed stability is dodgy even on super-expensive turntables.
4) Deep, powerful bass has to be summed to mono on LPs, lest the stylus jump out of the groove.
5) Both the record and your stylus wear with every play. Some stylus tips are significantly degraded after 500 hours.
6) Like a stopped clock, cartridge alignment can only be correct twice across the record surface. Linear-tracking arms have their own problems.
7) Pickup cartridges require huge amplification, resulting in noise.
8) Almost all LPs are warped to some degree (making a mockery of audiophools who like to adjust vertical tracking angle).
9) Terrible channel separation.
10) All pick-up cartridges have massively rising distortion above 10KHZ.
11) Many converts to vinyl are buying albums created from digital files, delivering the worst of both worlds. And at £20-30…
12) The only plus point is that 12” album art is big enough to be effective.

 

[welsh]

I hate car analogies as much as the next man but I saw one of these the other day



30 years ago they were ubiquitous and you wouldn't give it a second glance. Now it's the coolest thing on the road, even though performance is poor compared to the modern cars. I think there's something of that effect with vinyl too.

Ford marketed it as ‘The car you always promised yourself’. The original version was a storming 1300cc… but it is insanely cool.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

1) Clicks, pops and ‘vinyl roar’ from the plastic groove. Especially good fun when you know that the click/pop is about to happen.
2) The quality of information per second worsens as the stylus traverses the spiral groove. This makes vinyl the worst choice for what is loosely called ‘classical’ music, as climactic crescendoes are usually found next to the dead wax. There’s a reason that classic rock albums often have a ballad at the end of a side.
3) Almost no LPs have a spindle hole that is actually central. I cannot listen to piano music on vinyl, as I am sensitive to pitch wobble. Speed stability is dodgy even on super-expensive turntables.
4) Deep, powerful bass has to be summed to mono on LPs, lest the stylus jump out of the groove.
5) Both the record and your stylus wear with every play. Some stylus tips are significantly degraded after 500 hours.
6) Like a stopped clock, cartridge alignment can only be correct twice across the record surface. Linear-tracking arms have their own problems.
7) Pickup cartridges require huge amplification, resulting in noise.
8) Almost all LPs are warped to some degree (making a mockery of audiophools who like to adjust vertical tracking angle).
9) Terrible channel separation.
10) All pick-up cartridges have massively rising distortion above 10KHZ.
11) Many converts to vinyl are buying albums created from digital files, delivering the worst of both worlds. And at £20-30…
12) The only plus point is that 12” album art is big enough to be effective.

Sounds like you're not a candidate for listening to vinyl. So don't invest in it, and leave all us flat earthers to our misery without further comment.

 

[IPunchCholla]

1) Clicks, pops and ‘vinyl roar’ from the plastic groove. Especially good fun when you know that the click/pop is about to happen.
2) The quality of information per second worsens as the stylus traverses the spiral groove. This makes vinyl the worst choice for what is loosely called ‘classical’ music, as climactic crescendoes are usually found next to the dead wax. There’s a reason that classic rock albums often have a ballad at the end of a side.
3) Almost no LPs have a spindle hole that is actually central. I cannot listen to piano music on vinyl, as I am sensitive to pitch wobble. Speed stability is dodgy even on super-expensive turntables.
4) Deep, powerful bass has to be summed to mono on LPs, lest the stylus jump out of the groove.
5) Both the record and your stylus wear with every play. Some stylus tips are significantly degraded after 500 hours.
6) Like a stopped clock, cartridge alignment can only be correct twice across the record surface. Linear-tracking arms have their own problems.
7) Pickup cartridges require huge amplification, resulting in noise.
8) Almost all LPs are warped to some degree (making a mockery of audiophools who like to adjust vertical tracking angle).
9) Terrible channel separation.
10) All pick-up cartridges have massively rising distortion above 10KHZ.
11) Many converts to vinyl are buying albums created from digital files, delivering the worst of both worlds. And at £20-30…
12) The only plus point is that 12” album art is big enough to be effective.

And what amazes me about vinyl, is that even with all those very real flaws, it can sound very, very good. There is something about that, something about this ridiculous medium that I find humbling and beautiful. The flaws are often apparent enough that I am aware of listening through them and somehow connecting to someone making music. Yesterday I was listen to Heart’s Dog and Butterfly, and this one chord struck me. The clarity of the separate strings, the clear sound of skin rubbing on them, that I could hear through the awe full clicks and pops and serious vinyl rumble that completely struck me. On the same record there are stretches that even listening on headphones, I have to focus very hard, already knowing what the flaws are, to even hear them. If I focus on the instruments or music instead, I might as well be listening to digital (except for the FR differences).

This experience reminds me that I am always listening through flaws. My room is full of them, my headphones are too, and most importantly, I am a very restricted sensory device.

Digital is better in every way. I love vinyl too.

 

[welsh]

What goes ‘clip clop clip clop - BANG - clipclopclipclop?’ An Amish driveby.

 

[F1308]

Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

In addition to the many explanations layed down, and the many others sure to come, two things are infinite, as far as we know: the universe and human stupidity.

 

[welsh]

For me (and I imagine most classical music fans) the advent of CD was a real eye opener, especially with opera. I remember how it was with Wagner's music-dramas.

The big thing for record producers was to figure out where to make the side end. There was really no way to 'fit' Wagner's music on a record without cutting the Acts up, artificially. Listening to Rheingold, one expected the music to naturally stop, right after Alberich stole the gold, and right before Fricka woke Wotan up, from his dream. At which point we were all conditioned to the cut, forcing us to get up out of our seats in order to turn the record over.

With CD, transitions were intact. The first time I encountered that I automatically wanted to get up and flip the side. It was an unexpected shock not to have to do it, actually. A funny experience I remember to this day.

Also, at the beginning of Rheingold, music slowly rises from silence. That was never possible with a record, because you heard all the surface grunge until the music became loud enough to mask it.

When my father was young, he had to listen the the Ring on 78s… must have broken the mood somewhat.

 

[antcollinet]

Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

In addition to the many explanations layed down, and the many others sure to come, two things are infinite, as far as we know: the universe and human stupidity.

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