Hi Galliardist, thanks for your reply.
I’m afraid that is literally the opposite of what I was saying in my post, and what I have argued through this whole thread.
In that very post, you can see that I addressed some of the concerns you brought up:
“Again, nobody’s in a position to tell anybody else what to do to be fully into the music.
My choice is no better than yours, and yours no better than mine.”
And:
“(None of that means that the same amount of satisfaction can’t be gotten from digital, of course to anybody who dedicates their listening to digital! The point is we have to look at how people are actually listening and how that affects the experience).”
The thread started with someone talking about how Reddit audiophiles were posting pictures of their turntables, and puzzling at this phenomenon, as well as the vinyl Renaissance in general. Since I’m a member of the Reddit audiophile forum myself and got back heavily into vinyl, and have followed with interest the vinyl revival, i’ve been giving my perspective on that question.
My stance has never ever been that vinyl is better or that anybody else “should” be playing records. Per the question starting this thread: I’ve explained the reasons why I do it, what I get out of it, as well as referencing the views of others who have gotten into vinyl. And when I reference the views of others, for instance, pointing out certain themes seen among vinyl enthusiasts, I have provided plenty of references for this in the form of articles on the vinyl revival, threads from vinyl enthusiast sites discussing the issue, etc. so that nobody has to just take my word for what others are saying.
You point to the subjective nature of my assessment of vinyl, and I agree because that very point has been my theme all along: we can talk about technical differences between digital and vinyl, and the audible consequences or not, but when it comes to the significance of those sonic differences, that’s where things get subjective. One person may hone in on some vinyl artefact and be so bothered by it that they find it utterly discrediting of the format. Where another person may not notice it at all or notice it and not care and enjoy all the other facets that he or she enjoys.
And as I keep emphasizing: how one person reacts to vinyl is going to be entirely individual. One person’s “enriching ritual”
is another person’s useless distraction and hassle. That has obviously played out many times in this very thread.
So I hope that makes clear that a no way am I arguing that anyone else here should be enjoying vinyl instead of using a digital source, nor am I arguing that someone can’t have just as deep a connection to music listening to digital as to vinyl. How one gets into the music is entirely individual, which is why I push back on suggestions (such as Newmans) about which format one would choose “ if they were all about the music .” I switch between both sources and I have deep connections when listening to tons of my digital music library!!
Cheers.
So, I've been thinking about this post and what I said. I do believe I've misread you in part, because my post isolated your response to Newman rather than considering your argument across posts.
However, dealing with the quotes you pulled out:
I'm not going to accept that vinyl is superior or a correct choice because some people listen in different ways to music. Believe it or not, among the vast majority of people who listen to digital, there will be way more people "listening to entire albums" than the entire number of people listening regularly to vinyl.
I'm not going to accept that because you can ignore the problems in vinyl playback, everybody else can or should. The simple fact that some of us argue hard against you on that matter tells me that is not the case.
These are the full sentences that you pulled the phrases from.
Dealing with the first, you make the specific claim that you had problems with listening with digital/streaming, that were resolved by switching to vinyl. I'm simply disputing that that is necessary. Also, in your case, both before and after your turntable purchase, you have been recommending longform music videos and entire albums that you didn't yet own. Clearly, then, you could listen to those! I can pull out the quotes if you wish. I also believe that most people making these types of claims are either using this to rationalise their decision to go to vinyl, or adopting their ideas from others who have post-rationalised.
I'll accept that people use some of these reasons to continue using vinyl: that's a different case. Nor am I claiming that you say that everybody should use vinyl or anything like that: I'm essentially disagreeing with a specific reason that you give to support people that do use vinyl, including yourself. I also believe you may be naive in believing everything said by the posters on Reddit at face value.
On the matter under discussion here, why not just leave your remote next to your turntable after starting to play an album, and walk over to your seat to listen? You have to do exactly the same, then, to stop listening....
The second point is self-evident. You have argued with more than one person on this point. As it happens, I tend to your side of that argument with a well setup system: it takes a hell of a lot to destroy actual musical content - serious wow and flutter to kill timing, or something like 80kb/sec AAC processing with the incorrect spectral replication applied (hello, ABC Classic FM on DAB+ in Sydney!) to truly destroy tonality.
Your system with a well treated room and good speakers (that ticks off the two main points repeatedly put forward as the main drivers of sound quality here) will, I believe, sound excellent with decent vinyl playback, noise notwithstanding. I think we forget, because your subjectivism is more on show here than others', how far into ASR territory you actually are on the most important things. While I disagree with you on some matters, I certainly don't mean to disrespect you.
LOL
