Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[Dimitri]

Personally, I think it’s worse than useless to bury a few truths in a mountain of misdirection. How can the uninformed reader possibly sort one from the other?

They are not supposed to. Politicians pay good money for those that can write in this fashion.

 

[krabapple]

"Physical media" is the common term used to refer to DVDs and Blu rays. Because...it's media on a physical form

It dates from the sensible days when vinyl didn't matter.

Obviously it needs to be further specified, now.

The same could be said for the musical content of many LPs.

If you don't care about mastering, sure.

You can get the same mastering with an audio downloaded or stream of a digital physical media product.

The creative content is the same between streaming and physical blu rays, but the digital information is not identical between most Blu Rays and the versions on streaming services. You are getting a different digital version. It's one reason why many home theater enthusiasts still buy physical media like Blu Rays.

I see you confined yourself to BluRays here. Gee, why?

Well, we are nothing if not pedantic around here.

Speak for yourself.

 

[Leporello]

Sorry for the scuzzy source, but here's a new article:

Does vinyl actually sound better? As sales in Britain hit a record high, experts reveal how records really stack up against digital​

Does vinyl actually sound better? Experts reveal how records stack up

Do you swear by the superior tones of vinyl,or do you think digital recordings are the future? MailOnline asks experts whether vinyl records really sound any better.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Lovely piece of writing indeed.

When you look at a pointillist painting, as you stand back it looks like a picture. Now, if you walk right up to it, you see individual dots not smooth brush strokes: those individual dots are the samples.'

This change, from smooth brush strokes to tiny dots, is something that many record enthusiasts complain about.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

The funny thing is that the author repeats just about every possible misconception about digital but then mentions the sampling theorem - obviously without seeing the connection at all.

 

[MattHooper]

It dates from the sensible days when vinyl didn't matter.

Obviously it needs to be further specified, now.

No it doesn't.

I don't know a single person, certainly no home theater enthusiast, who would be confused by calling DVDs and Blu Ray "physical media."

It is distinguished by the media being on a PHYSICAL CARRIER, like a CD or record or whatever else. The fact you can find the content elsewhere,
in non-physical forms, matters no more than when we distinguished physical records from FM radio playing the same albums.

That's why Blu Rays and DVD are constantly referred to as "physical media" in such discussions. And there are plenty of enthusiasts who talk about Blu Rays and DVDs in just the way people are talking about physical records - they like the physical aspect, the collecting and organizing of the physical movies, the fact when you buy it it's yours and won't suddenly become unavailable on streaming etc.

This is a very strange distinction you seem bent on making and I don't know why.

 

[antcollinet]

experts reveal how records really stack up against digital

Are they though? Really?

A fellow who works in mastering discussing the RIAA curve, as a possible explanation for the sonic appeal of vinyl:

Interestingly, as Mr Gonsalves explains, this curve actually maps closely to the way that humans hear.

Ah, yes - clearly they are not. As the RIAA curve has nothing to do with the way we hear, and everything to do with fitting the audible frequency range into the mechanical reproduction system. And after mastering RIAA followed by reproduction inverse RIAA, then the end result is still (as far as possible) flat. (I know you know this - I'm just re-hashing due to my own annoyance at the ridiculous headline)

In other words, if you took a live sound and reproduced it with perfect linearity/accuracy, then by default that sound would be MORE like what we hear, not less

Yes, of course, that also.


It always makes me cringe when so called (and possibly self appointed) experts are called in to claim a technical superriority to something that is clearly technically inferior.

Fallacies - as you point out - abound.


EDIT : on the other hand, this is the Daily Mail - we really shouldn't expect any better.

 

[CleanSound]

Jesus, 330 pages of vinyl talk and still going strong. Bottom line, old folks who prefers vinyl is nostalgia, new and young people who are getting into vinyl are hippies. Now let's close this thread.

 

[MattHooper]

Jesus, 330 pages of vinyl talk and still going strong. Bottom line, old folks who prefers vinyl is nostalgia, new and young people who are getting into vinyl are hippies. Now let's close this thread.

Oh damn, you've just started the whole thing over.

We'll address this again and will try to keep it under 150 pages...

 

[Platypus20]

I see lots of young vinyl buyers, both male and female, my music store is full of them. The guys at the store say they have been selling 4-5 turntables a week, for about the last 4-5 months, ranging from $300-$500, they have a hard time keeping them in stock. The vinyl section is bigger than their cd section.

 

[Newman]

Best vinyl revival technique I have seen:-

Now that's the spirit!

cheers

 

[MattHooper]

I see lots of young vinyl buyers, both male and female, my music store is full of them. The guys at the store say they have been selling 4-5 turntables a week, for about the last 4-5 months, ranging from $300-$500, they have a hard time keeping them in stock. The vinyl section is bigger than their cd section.

Yeah I'm reading about turntables really being a hot item at this point. Which suggests more people committing to vinyl, which suggests more growth for vinyl.

 

[Jim T]

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

It really depends upon what your listening preferences are in terms of quality. I hve found, to me, that Tidal is the only streaming service that is close to my music collection. I don't compare the streaming services to each other, but I listen to music they offer that I also own on LP or CD and make THAT comparison. Tidal does that for me at their top tier. Listening to Diana Krall on Tidal as I type, and I own all of her music.

I just up-dated my AT-VM95 cartridge to the ML from the E. I then used my old Shure test LPs to and rean the 1khz and 10khz bands at the various velocities. The 10KHZ output of the ML stylus is over +10db above the E stylus in output. This would mean, to me, that it has greater trackability, thus worth every penny of the $149 price. I recorded it at 2496 and put if in my DAW and viewed The FFT display of the frequency response. Seeing is believing. I am using a 2 box Vincent phono stage on my older Dual 501 table with a REGA RB250 arm I installed. I like the high torque AC motor of the old Dual. It now matches my other table with an old Shure M97 with the HE JICO stylus.

If you have a decent table with a good phono stage, vinyl can be very nice. You just can't do it justice for a total of $500 or less. The phono stage is like the mic preamp in a recording studio, better is much better.

The only sad part is the high cost of much of the new vinyl releases which I believe is due to shorter production runs. I have found some good sounding vinyl for $25 or less and used in good condition is worth the effort to find. The key is to go to used LP stores in more affluent neighborhoods as previous owners who had decent gear would take care of their old vinyl they are selling. Much is from estate sales as well. Bin diving can be fun.

I use a Spin-Clean on all my vinyl, built a 25 LP vertical drying rack and have an ultrasonic cleaner on the way. I also use an old bulk tape eraser to remove static electricity from my LPs. LPs take some effort, which I don't mind.

 

[Canuck57]

 

[tmtomh]

Oh damn, you've just started the whole thing over.

We'll address this again and will try to keep it under 150 pages...

If you can get a 330-page vinyl thread down to 150 pages, then we can all read it at 45wpm instead of 33wpm and it will sound so much better!

 

[Platypus20]

A speed reference, another 200 pages of which is better

 

[krabapple]

No it doesn't.

I don't know a single person, certainly no home theater enthusiast, who would be confused by calling DVDs and Blu Ray "physical media."

It is distinguished by the media being on a PHYSICAL CARRIER, like a CD or record or whatever else. The fact you can find the content elsewhere,
in non-physical forms, matters no more than when we distinguished physical records from FM radio playing the same albums.

Well of course it does matter, since the term began to be used, during the digital era, for a reason. Otherwise why specify 'physical ' at all?

Are you being obtuse or are you simply ignorant of history?

That's why Blu Rays and DVD are constantly referred to as "physical media" in such discussions. And there are plenty of enthusiasts who talk about Blu Rays and DVDs in just the way people are talking about physical records - they like the physical aspect, the collecting and organizing of the physical movies, the fact when you buy it it's yours and won't suddenly become unavailable on streaming etc.

This is a very strange distinction you seem bent on making and I don't know why.

I'm going with option #1.

But in case it's #2:
'Physical media'' is a term from the digital era, arising when downloads and streaming started to become a force in retail. This was before the thoroughly mysterious vinyl renaissance mattered commercially. So there was no need to be explicit about physical media meaning: a physical medium containing digital audio. But of course, digital discs and LPs are both 'physical media' in a literal sense. The non-inclusion of LPs in that category is a historical artifact because the term was meant for digital audio, even though the 'digital' part goes unsaid .

 

[golio]

il ya des gens qui écoutent surtout la musique peu importe d'où elle vient et peu importe parfois la qualité du son, moi j'ai comme toujours mis plus d'intérêt au son qu'à la chanson comme tel , tellement de différence entre un bon son et et son ordinaire et parfois j'envie ceux qui n'ont pas ces passion audiophile, çà coute bien moins cher .
o n découvre parfois des notes qu'on a jamais entendues sur un système ordinaire

 

[MattHooper]

Well of course it does matter, since the term began to be used, during the digital era, for a reason. Otherwise why specify 'physical ' at all?

Are you being obtuse or are you simply ignorant of history?

Huh? I literally just wrote why Blu Rays and DVDs are referred to "physical media"....because it's different from just streaming which isn't considered a physical media.
What point do you even think you are making?

You seem to have lost the plot here.

You for some reason found it necessary to chide me in not writing "digital physical media." I've been pointing out that there was nothing wrong with my simply using the term "physical media" as that is a common way to reference Blu Rays and DVDs. And that is especially among the people who care about Blu rays and DVDs - home theater enthusiasts. Virtually nobody on the largest home theater forum, AVSForum, bothers to call Blu Rays "digital" physical media.

It's why one of the most important sites devoted to home theater digital sources, The Digital Bits, phrased the exit from stocking DVDs and Blu Rays:

BREAKING/EXCLUSIVE on The Bits: Best Buy is exiting the physical media business for good in 2024​

BREAKING/EXCLUSIVE on The Bits: Best Buy is exiting the physical media business for good in 2024 [UPDATED]

BREAKING/EXCLUSIVE on The Digital Bits: Best Buy is exiting the physical media business for good in 2024

thedigitalbits.com

And I could post many AVS threads in which you will see Blu Rays and DVDs simply referenced as "physical media" not "digital" physical media.

I mean, yes, it IS digital information on a physical media, but the claim that it REQUIRES that modifier now, as if my use wasn't the norm, is simply naive.

Rather, the norm is when talking about physical media, that if you want to be clear about specifically which physical media, you generally name the specific physical media - which refers to the specific physical content carrier! - you are talking about - e.g. "CDs" "Blu Ray" "Vinyl" etc.

And that's exactly what I did. I originally wrote Best Buy and Target have announced they will be removing physical media from their stores - e.g. DVDs, Blu Rays, removal has already begun - and yet...vinyl stays!


So this idea that I needed to "clarify" by using the term "digital media" is truly unnecessary pedantry. I had already distinguished which physical media was being removed vs which stayed.

 

[Jflijohn]

View attachment 340414

By far this is the best post on this 330 page (so far… ) thread

 

[atmasphere]

Back to the topic of vinyl and its renaissance:-

It’s not “a very safe bet” at all. It’s wishful thinking. It’s taking a technical truth, that the tape on which tape recordings are made physically degrades over time, and jumping to excessive conclusions about impact on sound quality.

Firstly, though, let me agree that in some instances tape degradation makes it impossible to make a better remix or remaster today. I wouldn’t deny that. But your claim reaches much further…much too far.

There are several reasons why remixes and remasters, and even reissues, can and often do sound better than the original issue.

One. Decently archived tapes don’t degrade so quickly and badly as to warrant an assumption that we can audibly detect the degradation, when it is time to reissue or remake.

Two. In many cases, the tapes have been digitised a long time ago, when they were relatively young. From that point on, all new mixes, masters and issues are ‘time-proofed’.

Three. Tape reproducer machines were improving for decades after the original release, and the audibility of those improvements outpaced the, if any, audibility of the tape degradation. This has been mentioned elsewhere. It means that the older the master tape, the better the sound quality of the new version, straight out of the R2R reproducer. At least, up to a point where the reproducer tech plateaus and eventually the ongoing tape degradation will overtake it. It seems that we are nowhere near that point yet, though. Besides, by now, the old tapes should be digitised if they are precious, so we can stop pontificating on any such date.

Four. Back in those days, multitracking required serious audible degradations that don't apply today. By the time they got to the final stereo master, some of the instruments are as much as five generations of analog tape copy removed from the multitrack master tapes. But today, by accessing the original track masters, every instrument is at source quality. So, for example, when Steven Wilson was accessing 40-year-old tapes of King Crimson, he said he was able to compile a master tape “using only first-generation, pristine tape recordings”. Note that he described them as pristine. He won’t say that if they are audibly degraded. He also said that the difference is quite clear and that anyone can clearly hear it, ie that the new master is far superior.

Five. And of course, accessing the original track masters will allow remixing to multichannel playback formats, with their superior sonic attributes if well done.

Six. And there is @krabapple's valid point, that the sound of an original pressing is only a vinyl version of the sound of the original studio master.


Conclusion: the argument that the original pressing is the best sound quality that will ever be achieved is full of holes.

I recommend you actually work with the tape machines and tape and see if you still think your 'points' are real. And not just tape machines but those that are properly refurbished. It would also help if you had experience with a mastering lathe, then you would know false your point 6) really is.

Some tapes are actually stored properly. They have the best chance of a decent transfer. We were given a master from an old folk LP and the artist (John Koerner) had stored the tape in his attic. It was as fresh as a daisy and needed no baking at all- it simply played perfectly. That sort of thing is rare; most labels didn't store their stuff all that well. So there are the rare exceptions but most of the time the master tapes have degraded so much that the digital transfer will be lacking.

Huh?

How is it cheaper to apply a mastering move, than to not apply it?



That won't tell you what the young master tape sounded like. It will tell you what a vinyl mastering of that young master tape sounded like.

And keep in mind, the most energetic and excited proponents of digital audio were the professionals involved in recording and producing classical LPs. They were intimately familiar with, and frustrated by, the limitations of vinyl.

Its way cheaper to compress with vinyl than it is to spend the money to allow the mastering engineer to work out a means of cutting a trackable groove without compression. I ran a mastering operation up until Appollodisc burned down so I'm speaking from experience. The limitation of vinyl is in the playback. The recorder can cut undistorted grooves that most pickups have no prayer of tracking.

One example: a 3dB change in the level can result in a vastly different cut. a 3dB reduction cuts the amplifier power in half. That in turn results in half the groove modulation. So a 1dB cut can have a dramatic effect in the trackability of a groove while being nearly inaudible. But you have to go through the project to find those spots that are going to cause trouble- such as out of phase bass you might see from a multi-tracked recording. In the entire time we were cutting LPs, we never had to use compression or even the mono bass processor simply because we took that extra time to sort out what the best approach was to problematic areas. Most labels don't want to pay for that; LP mastering can be over $600/hour.

If you apply compression all you have to do is load the project (file or tape) and let the lathe do its thing. That's very easy and cheap, but it results in a lackluster product too.

 

[Count Arthur]

Best vinyl revival technique I have seen:-

Now that's the spirit!

cheers

I preferred the digital remix: