Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[Count Arthur]

There’s something a bit unnerving about the idea of those CDs.

You could put such an enormous amount of information on such a single CD, which also means a staggering amount of information (movies or whatever you put on there) is lost if the CD gets scratched fails or lost!

It’s much more likely you could lose a single CD or even a few back up CDs, then you would lose an entire collection.

I don't think that's a real concern. Most of us manage to keep track of similarly small, but important items, passports, driving licences, bank cards, etc..

Even an ordinary external hard drive is not so physically large that you couldn't misplace it.

 

[antcollinet]

I don't think that's a real concern. Most of us manage to keep track of similarly small, but important items, passports, driving licences, bank cards, etc..

Even an ordinary external hard drive is not so physically large that you couldn't misplace it.

I think there is an even simple answer.

Don't set up your data protection strategy such that loss of any one (or even any two) storage devices causes loss of data.

Add to that - don't set it up such that total destruction of one building and its contents causes loss of data.


These two things apply whether your storage devices are tapes, hard drives, cd's, dvd's etc. or even clouds. Of any capacity.

 

[Count Arthur]

I think there is an even simple answer.

Don't set up your data protection strategy such that loss of any one (or even any two) storage devices causes loss of data.

Add to that - don't set it up such that total destruction of one building and its contents causes loss of data.


These two things apply whether your storage devices are tapes, hard drives, cd's, dvd's etc. or even clouds. Of any capacity.

Yes, unless the cost, or the time required to create a copy, was prohibitive, multiple copies, stored at different locations would be the way to go.

 

[Axo1989]

I think there is an even simple answer.

Don't set up your data protection strategy such that loss of any one (or even any two) storage devices causes loss of data.

Add to that - don't set it up such that total destruction of one building and its contents causes loss of data.

These two things apply whether your storage devices are tapes, hard drives, cd's, dvd's etc. or even clouds. Of any capacity.

The 3-2-1 rule has been with us for a while, and is still good.

Minimum 3 copies of the data, on 2 different local media or devices, plus 1 offsite. In practice minimum for me means Mac, local Time Machine backup on external drive, and iCloud backup. For business I use Backblaze backup (in case iCloud glitches).

Those "CDs" (they aren't) are future contenders for nearline/offline backup/archive, but we'd likely need a new media source format (holographic video, perhaps) to necessitate that capacity for a normal user. With single figure MB/s write speeds and KW per terabyte power consumption they have some development ahead to be usable in any application. The storage concept is very cool though.

 

[Robin L]

I think there is an even simple answer.

Don't set up your data protection strategy such that loss of any one (or even any two) storage devices causes loss of data.

Add to that - don't set it up such that total destruction of one building and its contents causes loss of data.


These two things apply whether your storage devices are tapes, hard drives, cd's, dvd's etc. or even clouds. Of any capacity.

Ran across a scare last night involving one of my forms of mass storage. I've got three fairly sizeable Micro SDs. One is a tiny thumb drive plugged into the computer. It managed to lose a couple of albums worth of songs last year. That, fortunately, was duplicated by another Micro SD - just the chip - plugged into one of my DAPs (digital audio players). The experience got me back into buying CDs. Both the thumb drive and the Micro SD in the DAP are .5 TB. A third Micro SD, 400 MB, was sitting unused in a case originally intended for some IEMs. Decided to plug it into yet another DAP yesterday. I was updating the files last night when the DAP froze. I had to re-boot. In the process it had appeared that all the data was lost. Fortunately, a second try restored the file lists in their original form. But I almost lost that backup.

 

[MattHooper]

The 3-2-1 rule has been with us for a while, and is still good.

Minimum 3 copies of the data, on 2 different local media or devices, plus 1 offsite.

That’s what I use for data related to my work.
And since we are talking about decades of sound files, recordings, libraries, and work, as a hell of a lot of stuff to be backing up.

 

[AdrianusG]

It's "Cranberry Sauce". Really and truly. I've had early pre-mixed versions of the song for years.

My favorite Beatles hoax is Klaatu:

Aliens, Carpenters and The Beatles: The curious case of Klaatu

They were The Beatles – or so a million record buyers thought in ’77. Forty years later, Klaatu come clean on what was quite a trip.

www.loudersound.com

And then there's the Rutles:

Thanks for reminding me of Klaatu they made some nice albums indeed.

 

[MattHooper]

Billboard Quietly Scraps Vinyl Sales Data After Backlash Over Reported 33% Drop​

Billboard Quietly Scraps Vinyl Sales Data After Backlash Over Reported 33% Drop

Data confusion aside, the vinyl trend is still going strong.

www.headphonesty.com

 

[Drakon]

Renewed interest/renaissance in Vinyl? It depends how you measure that. Physical audio sales 11% in 2023 from which Vinyl <6%. Put that in a time scale/perspective. So from let say 2000 when we saw a sort of renewd interest in Vinyl <6% over 23 years IMO can't hardly called renewed interest/renaissance in absolute figures.
View attachment 394848

"Renewed interest/renaissance in Vinyl? It depends how you measure that."

That is probably a true statement but begs the question "How does one quantity it"?

If 100000 enthusiasts start listening to their collections and fill threads about their rediscovered joy wouldn't that qualify as a "renewed interest/Renaissance"? Yet you won't see that in the music marketplace. Maybe cartridge or turntable and maybe not. My decades old TT setup still sounds fine though it has its "moments". I venture to guess many are playing what's on their shelves.

I have recently purchased a box set off ebay for an artist that I already have all of their CDs and regularly stream their music. Why the purchase? Collectbility as the set is a limited pressing, uniqueness - the vinyl has patterns that are different album to album but also because I want to hear her music this way. This single purchase is but a tiny percentage of my vinyl "Renaissance" library.

 

[krabapple]

My "go to" version is a NM copy of a "George Prios" cut from the early 1970's. It sounds very similar to the "hot" original but much cheaper and is nice and quiet and clean sounding. Any of these "good" early pressings sound at least as good as any digital copy that followed and to me much better than the later remasters.

I think you mean George Piros.

 

[levimax]

I think you mean George Piros.

yes

 

[polocolo]

I wonder how much of the music experience is not material.

I think of that because I thought of doing an analogy between vinyls and very old books. Like I know a guy from work and his dad is a bibliophile and loves nothing more than reading stuff from the 18th century – like old manuscript of first editions.

Some of this is "hard to read", not as in "intellectually complex" but more like "typographically tough to decipher". But obviously, one wouldn't say that this "low-definition" artefact of the work of art is an obstacle to the access to its truth.

And I suppose it is because if you picture a spectrum of the arts from the most material/least ideal to the most ideal/least material, literature would fall in the latter half. No one says that reading two different editions of a novel must involve a different experience of the work.

Also, one could suppose that knowing he holds a first printing can enhance his emotions (and maybe widen his access to the work's "truth").

So yeah, like, how "material" is music? How much do we "intellectually add" to the perception of sound waves?

 

[Galliardist]

I wonder how much of the music experience is not material.

I think of that because I thought of doing an analogy between vinyls and very old books. Like I know a guy from work and his dad is a bibliophile and loves nothing more than reading stuff from the 18th century – like old manuscript of first editions.

Some of this is "hard to read", not as in "intellectually complex" but more like "typographically tough to decipher". But obviously, one wouldn't say that this "low-definition" artefact of the work of art is an obstacle to the access to its truth.

And I suppose it is because if you picture a spectrum of the arts from the most material/least ideal to the most ideal/least material, literature would fall in the latter half. No one says that reading two different editions of a novel must involve a different experience of the work.

Also, one could suppose that knowing he holds a first printing can enhance his emotions (and maybe widen his access to the work's "truth").

So yeah, like, how "material" is music? How much do we "intellectually add" to the perception of sound waves?

The best way to think of a lot of this is the line composer-performers-listener. The listener hears the performer's rendition of the piece, and brings their knowledge and life experience to the piece. Of course the composer may be one or more of the performers, and indeed may be the listener, but generally the line holds for our purpose.

Recording and. playback puts a construct (is that the best word here?) between us and the original performance. That must affect our response. Our perception of the construct clearly overrides our perception of the performance at least some of the time. We could say that audiophilia is concerned primarily with the construct. Indeed, it's usual only to see comments about performance in the music threads here, though it does happen elsewhere on the site sometimes.

I'd argue that the role of the reader of a book gives more room for an imaginative or intellectual response, than the role of listener to a recording: it's from there that we have some urge to take part in the playback, by choosing the system as we do, by performing the rituals associated with playing an LP, and so on that we don't have with a book in most cases. So I don't think the analogy really holds.

 

[MattHooper]

Peripherally related:

People like tangible things.

In an article about the “re-buttonization” of car dashboards, an expert who has studied buttons is consulted:


“And if you look at DJs and digital musicians, they have endless amounts of buttons and joysticks and dials to make music. There seems to be this kind of richness of the tactile experience that’s afforded by pushing buttons.”

“
What else is motivating the re-buttoning of consumer devices?

Plotnick: Maybe screen fatigue. We spend all our days and nights on these devices, scrolling or constantly flipping through pages and videos, and there’s something tiring about that. The button may be a way to almost de-technologize our everyday existence, to a certain extent.

Yup. I feel that. I preferred if possible to stop having to interact with another screen in order to listen to music, be it my phone or whatever, or at least minimize the interaction.


I even had a custom remote build with a single big volume knob which I much preferred in terms of the richness of the tactical feel versus sliding a digital volume knob.

Playing records I get to fully unplug from digital life.

Full article:

Touchscreens Are Out, and Tactile Controls Are Back

https://spectrum.ieee.org/touchscreens

 

[Leporello]

Peripherally related:

People like tangible things.

In an article about the “re-buttonization” of car dashboards, an expert who has studied buttons is consulted:


“And if you look at DJs and digital musicians, they have endless amounts of buttons and joysticks and dials to make music. There seems to be this kind of richness of the tactile experience that’s afforded by pushing buttons.”

“
What else is motivating the re-buttoning of consumer devices?

Plotnick: Maybe screen fatigue. We spend all our days and nights on these devices, scrolling or constantly flipping through pages and videos, and there’s something tiring about that. The button may be a way to almost de-technologize our everyday existence, to a certain extent.

Yup. I feel that. I preferred if possible to stop having to interact with another screen in order to listen to music, be it my phone or whatever, or at least minimize the interaction.


I even had a custom remote build with a single big volume knob which I much preferred in terms of the richness of the tactical feel versus sliding a digital volume knob.

Playing records I get to fully unplug from digital life.

Full article:

Touchscreens Are Out, and Tactile Controls Are Back

https://spectrum.ieee.org/touchscreens

Touchscreens may not be suitable for everything. Physical buttons work better on some occasions. That is a simple usability issue. The author tries to get philosophical about it and read too much into it (”The button may be a way to almost de-technologize our everyday existence, to a certain extent”).

 

[Galliardist]

Touchscreens may not be suitable for everything. Physical buttons work better on some occasions. That is a simple usability issue. The author tries to get philosophical about it and read too much into it (”The button may be a way to almost de-technologize our everyday existence, to a certain extent”).

I do wonder why I'm happier with mouse/trackpad, keyboard and computer screen than device touchscreen when playing music. I'm looking for a better streaming interface for my system, but very reticent to commit for some reason.

 

[polocolo]

I'd argue that the role of the reader of a book gives more room for an imaginative or intellectual response, than the role of listener to a recording: it's from there that we have some urge to take part in the playback, by choosing the system as we do, by performing the rituals associated with playing an LP, and so on that we don't have with a book in most cases. So I don't think the analogy really holds.

Well, precisely, that wasn't an analogy–it was a comparison like the one you did, and it already concluded this. I was trying to imply that literature is indeed "less material" than music, which can translate as: "is more grounded on intellectual processes like imagination".

So yes, I agree with your answer, I had already took all that into consideration. I meant to ask "how much", not "is it/is it not".

 

[Galliardist]

Well, precisely, that wasn't an analogy–it was a comparison like the one you did, and it already concluded this. I was trying to imply that literature is indeed "less material" than music, which can translate as: "is more grounded on intellectual processes like imagination".

So yes, I agree with your answer, I had already took all that into consideration. I meant to ask "how much", not "is it/is it not".

Also

I think of that because I thought of doing an analogy between vinyls and very old books.

As to how much, we bring our understanding and life experience to both. So I guess in a sense it's up to us individually. Subjective, as it were.

 

[polocolo]

Also

yes, there was an analogy and a comparison. You addressed the comparison–which was indeed the more important one.

I think the analogy still holds, though, since it says nothing about music itself but was just there to give context. I mean, I do think an analogy can be made regarding the relationships we have to formats – like a fetish: some people love vinyls even though it's not a better format (from a sound perspective) and some people love old books/first editions even though it doesn't improve the quality of the text.

As to how much, we bring our understanding and life experience to both. So I guess in a sense it's up to us individually. Subjective, as it were.

Of course. Everything is a "construct", to go back to the word you chose. But we could probably think of a "range", you know? As in: however subjective is the relationship with literature, it's never gonna be as "material" as it is with painting.

To take an extreme example: how should we qualify the emotion felt while reading a score? It is musical, isn't it? But it's definitely not "material" (for lack of a better word).
Some music are pure sensations, others bring out images, ideas... the "range" seems very wide.

 

[ejr]

I don't agree with favoring analog over digital, but I understand it. In addition to the nostolgic or retro vibe you get when using it, you are basically trading one set of audible artifacts for another. For records, you accept the occasional pop, scratch or skip for the music not having any digital "glare", "distortion", or whatever you want to call it.