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Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

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Now it makes sense.
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I think I'm starting to get over my 10-year romance with vinyl. I've really slowed down my newly-pressed vinyl purchases in the past year and the thought of flipping through used bins has lost some appeal. Coming back a bit more to my "first love" - CDs! Trading one anachronism for another! :p
Every time I think I’m ready to quit vinyl, I inevitably put on a record that reminds me of it’s mellifluous charms. Today, it was “Sunday Mornin’” by Grant Green. Damn.
 
Every time I think I’m ready to quit vinyl, I inevitably put on a record that reminds me of it’s mellifluous charms. Today, it was “Sunday Mornin’” by Grant Green. Damn.

If you like certain features of vinyl, you ain’t gonna get them from digital.
 
I am experiencing a vinyl renaissance. It happens to me regularly. I go for long periods of time listening only to streaming and my music server and then one day a put a record (not a vinyl) on. For the last month I have been going through my record collection and listening to nothing but my turntables. My two of my sister’s 40- something children want turntables probably because it’s fun and sounds good enough to be enjoyable.

I don’t debate the technical superiority of digital formats. There are some reasons why LP’s can sound subjectively better to some of us. One I’ve dragged out before. A pristine LP from a master cut when the tape master was new can sound better than a digital transfer from a 50+ year old tape that has significant deterioration. This is real. The digital release won’t have LP surface noise but the missing musical information can’t be recovered. Another way is additive. A record player generates small amounts of reverberation and intermodulation that can add a pleasing fullness to the sound. I know that ASR folks recoil at anyone liking anything other than pure “fidelity to the master”, considering those that might prefer it to be some sort of low audio perverts. The fact is, some of us care more about a pleasant experience. That’s why people still buy tube amplifiers. The third reason I thought of the other day after a conversation with my sister about her thinking old music ought to be played from a record. Those of us over a certain age (I am 67) spent a good part of our lives listening to music from vinyl records. Even when we where too young and poor to have many of them, we listened to them on the radio. Radio stations played records and records dubbed to tape cartridges well into the 80’s. When you have listened to a song or album 100’s of times via a vinyl record that imprints in your brain, those things about mastering for vinyl and the additions of the turntable are what it sounds like. Music properly enjoyed is an emotional experience as much as a technical one. Listening to a familiar recording in a familiar format can be very pleasant indeed.

I recently acquired a Thorens TT (TD145 Mk1) from somewhere between 1975 and 1978 in excellent condition. I lubed it, adjusted the tonearm bearings, and made a sturdier bottom cover with some leveling feet. I currently have a brand new Denon DL103 cartridge on it. This cartridge was designed in the early 60’s and has a .5 mil spherical stylus. I’ve done all my serious late night/lights down listening with this setup for a week. I still can’t believe how good it sounds. And yes, I was using my distortion generating tube amplifier. I don’t think anyone that seriously loves music would have said,”That sounds so bad”,

It’s a small sample size but everyone that I know personally that completely abandoned LP’s either had less than 50 records, had records that were all trashed, had a cheap plastic turntable and a $10 cartridge, or had no time for serious music listening and still doesn’t. I know one exception who sold his LP collection due to financial difficulties.
 
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A record player generates small amounts of reverberation and intermodulation that can add a pleasing fullness to the sound. I know that ASR folks recoil at anyone liking anything other than pure “fidelity to the master”, considering those that might prefer it to be some sort of low audio perverts. The fact is, some of us care more about a pleasant experience. That’s why people still buy tube amplifiers.
I am enchanted by this effect as well. It would be considered distortion here, but it's that very distortion that produces a pleasing sound, and artificially enhances the soundstage. I was comparing CD to vinyl the other day, I think it was some Elvis Costello, and the CD was fine but the vinyl was more exciting. I believe it was the added noise and distortion providing some kind of dithering effect. Just sounded more like live music to me, or live in the studio. So count me in as a low-brow pervert.
 
I am enchanted by this effect as well. It would be considered distortion here, but it's that very distortion that produces a pleasing sound, and artificially enhances the soundstage. I was comparing CD to vinyl the other day, I think it was some Elvis Costello, and the CD was fine but the vinyl was more exciting. I believe it was the added noise and distortion providing some kind of dithering effect. Just sounded more like live music to me, or live in the studio. So count me in as a low-brow pervert.

It’s interesting because, before I got back in to vinyl heavily over the years, I would listen to vinyl occasionally - sometimes sometimes at a friends place who had vinyl and we would switch back-and-forth between that and CD, or later on when I had a micro seiki turntable that I throw into my system on occasion.

And I very often had the impression of the speakers “ disappearing” a little bit more with the vinyl, like the sound was a bit more detached from the speakers and floating free of them. Perhaps I was imagining it or perhaps there is something to what you guys are reporting.

In any case, I don’t seem to notice that in particular anymore. I have a different turntable and a higher end cartridge than I’ve ever used, so I have no idea if that’s part of it or not. But it could also just be that my current speakers “ disappear” so well as sound sources already, and I’ve got them up in a widespread CinemaScope type set up, that spaciousness comes naturally with whatever source I play and so I don’t notice as much distinction between vinyl and digital. (or… again… it was all in my head to begin with)
 
You have to check Atmos Always On in the Apple Music settings if you want anything other than plain stereo when using anything other than Apple/Beats BT headphones.

If on iPhone or iPad, setting the Bluetooth device type as ‘Headphone’ gets you on the Atmos mix when set on ‘Automatic’ for at least some non-Apple headphones, works with my Sonos Ace, for example.
 
I am enchanted by this effect as well. It would be considered distortion here, but it's that very distortion that produces a pleasing sound, and artificially enhances the soundstage. I was comparing CD to vinyl the other day, I think it was some Elvis Costello, and the CD was fine but the vinyl was more exciting. I believe it was the added noise and distortion providing some kind of dithering effect. Just sounded more like live music to me, or live in the studio. So count me in as a low-brow pervert.
There are about a half dozen things that vinyl does to the final playback sound.

To SOME, distortions, to some added "ambiance" and so on.

Low level rumble, out of phase noise and so on, all contribute to either a lesser or better "Experience" depending on the listener.
 
There are about a half dozen things that vinyl does to the final playback sound.

To SOME, distortions, to some added "ambiance" and so on.

Low level rumble, out of phase noise and so on, all contribute to either a lesser or better "Experience" depending on the listener.
Don't forget pre and post echo, both of which artificially fatten the sound. Once heard, can never be unheard.
 
Is that inherent in the recording that you are mentioning or that which is added by the TT? (my Technics SL-M3 has a rumble level of -82dB, so I am unlikely to hear that).
I would guess that most LPs add rumble. Most LP pressings have some sort of flaw. Aficionados of the format learn to listen around them.
 
Another year almost over,now over ten thousand posts, and the mystery has only gotten deeper, or, at least, more wordy.

The information content appears to have flatlined thousands and thousands of posts ago. Perhaps the thread is actually dead but doesn't realize it?
 
Another year almost over,now over ten thousand posts, and the mystery has only gotten deeper, or, at least, more wordy.

The information content appears to have flatlined thousands and thousands of posts ago. Perhaps the thread is actually dead but doesn't realize it?
It's the Dunning-Kruger effect in action - the more information we have on the subject, the less we seem to actually know. Also, an indication of information entropy, the heat-death of knowledge. The two are essentially the same thing. Just ask Oedipa Maas.
 
Is that inherent in the recording that you are mentioning or that which is added by the TT? (my Technics SL-M3 has a rumble level of -82dB, so I am unlikely to hear that).
added by playback.
I was referring to rumble, and surface noise and the "Sound" of a needle navigating a physical medium.

I have had tables with similar numbers, and found while it was not clearly easily audible, removing it (through high pass filters) and bringing the sound down to Mono STILL removes some feeling of ambiance, albeit artificial.

I guess to put is simply, some can easily overlook sounds, and some can not.
Hence why some see vinyl having flaws and some see it as ideal.

I am somewhat in the middle, I can tolerate flaws, but see the flaws adding a pseudo ambiance and effect "behind" the music.

It is retained when digitized.
 
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Quote from an AI search:

".. Research suggests that IQ scores rose by about 3 points per decade over much of the 20th century, but may have dropped over the past 30 years or so. Some experts argue this reflects changes in the school curriculum or maybe just the complexity of modern life. .."
 
Quote from an AI search:

".. Research suggests that IQ scores rose by about 3 points per decade over much of the 20th century, but may have dropped over the past 30 years or so. Some experts argue this reflects changes in the school curriculum or maybe just the complexity of modern life. .."

With no fact checking. Just believing what AI says, could be a problem.
 
With no fact checking. Just believing what AI says, could be a problem.
AI just quotes among established "facts". It has zero ability to create stuff that human research hasn't published before. Zero. Nada. What we call AI is a glorified paraphrasing and plagiarazing machine. There are ongoing legal cases about it I actuall predicted 3 years ago on this website.

So what I posted is based on established and credible insights somewhere. The claim isn't by any means the kind of outrageous lie that is presented as fact in everyday politics.
 
AI just quotes among established "facts". It has zero ability to create stuff that human research hasn't published before. Zero. Nada. What we call AI is a glorified paraphrasing and plagiarazing machine. There are ongoing legal cases about it I actuall predicted 3 years ago on this website.

So what I posted is based on established and credible insights somewhere. The claim isn't by any means the kind of outrageous lie that is presented as fact in everyday politics.

OK - how do we explain theis?

 
OK - how do we explain theis?

I actually don't feel I need to.

If we are honest we all know the mix of a disinformation overload combined with other factors has wrecked utter disaster on our collective IQ level as humanity. We are supposed to kind of accept ignorance.

To give you an example - a few weeks ago I was asked to build a presentation on some technical stuff and make it catchy. In one of my slides, I wanted to show the evolution of some very innovative capabiliies. I created a pretty slide that combined the evolution of that technology with the ability of life to swim-crawl-walk-think. I was told it could be offensive to some audiences. To which I replied people that writhe in the slime of ignorance are unlikely to be be the kind of innovative thinker we are targetting. Corporate branding edited my (visually beautiful) slide into the usual meaningless stuff, utterly destroying a decent analogy to be "woke" to utter, wilful ignorance. We are no longer publicly allowed to reference evolution, moon landing, relativity or quantum theory to avoid "offending" those who prefer to know nothing. Such progress, this ability to estabish one's own wilfully ignorant belief system as a universal truth.

That truly powers our collective IQ as humans... :p

PS: I *did* use my own slide and refused the branding edits. No one complained in the audience (smart people). The presentation got the highest score in the event. I even dared to add a visual of the world not being flat as I showed some global internat data. :) I'd rather become a hermit than bow down to the idiotization of the world.
 
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I actually don't feel I need to.

If we are honest we all know the mix of a disinformation overload combined with other factors has wrecked utter disaster on our collective IQ level as humanity. We are supposed to kind of accept ignorance.

To give you an example - a few weeks ago I was asked to build a presentation on some technical stuff and make it catchy. In one of my slides, I wanted to show the evolution of some very innovative capabiliies. I created a pretty slide that combined the evolution of that technology with the ability of life to swim-crawl-walk-think. I was told it could be offensive to some audiences. To which I replied people that writhe in the slime of ignorance are unlikely to be be the kind of innovative thinker we are targetting. Corporate branding edited my (visually beautiful) slide into the usual meaningless stuff, utterly destroying a decent analogy to be "woke" to utter, wilful ignorance. We are no longer publicly allowed to reference evolution, moon landing, relativity or quantum theory to avoid "offending" those who prefer to know nothing. Such progress, this ability to estabish one's own wilfully ignorant belief system as a universal truth.

That truly powers our collective IQ as humans... :p

PS: I *did* use my own slide and refused the branding edits. No one complained in the audience (smart people). The presentation got the highest score in the event. I even dared to add a visual of the world not being flat as I showed some global internat data. :) I'd rather become a hermit than bow down to the idiotization of the world.

But the IA responses include the Flat Earthers, Young Earthers, moon landing hoax believers, etc.

I am guessing your premise here is that the vinyl revolution is that it takes us back to when our IQ was higher? :)
 
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