Why do records sound so much better than digital?

[Newman]

If you wish to avoid technology, vinyl is not the way, given how it throws the technology in your face and says, “play with me, not on me”.

 

[rdenney]

I am not terribly experienced as a photographer. I didn't know about the Velvia having less range until someone told me about it. They preferred Ektachrome. However, I much preferred Fuji Velvia. The colors seemed much more dead on to me. Sometimes Kodak colors could turn out wonky on odd colors it seemed.

Velvia (THE Velvia--Velvia 50 not Velvia100--that is) is highly saturated much beyond real life. But it's spectacular when projected, which is what it was designed to be used for. (And for making Cibachrome prints, though even then Velvia often required contrast masks.) A lot of art photographers fell in love with it because it was so dramatic. All Fuji films have a greenish/bluish trend, while Kodachrome tends more red/brown and Ektachrome tends more blue. You just had to be careful with it. You had to expose for the brightest part of the scene where you wanted detail, and place that brightness about 1.5-(at most)2 stops above a gray-card or neutral reading. The shadows would fall where they may. On a bright sunny mid-day, Velvia was nearly impossible. But during the golden hour (or the following blue hour)--it could be magical.

My favorite for walking around was Kodachrome.

Provia was, for me, the most accurate for skin tones among consumer films. Velvia would make everyone look like they had a hangover (or were still enjoyed the night before--red or green).

For professional work prints back in the day that needed negative film, I used Vericolor Type S, which was a Kodak film for pros that had to be refrigerated (meaning: It was supplied without any adjustment for anticipate color shifts while sitting on the shelf). In recent years, though, my favorite color film of all (though only available in rolls) is Ektar. It's also a bit ruddy for portraits. For large format in that role, I use Fuji 160NC--NC for "Neutral Color".

Rick "freezer full of the stuff--better use it while I can" Denney

 

[rdenney]

If you wish to avoid technology, vinyl is not the way, given how it throws the technology in your face and says, “play with me, not on me”.

It depends on the technology, but that would depend on the person, I suppose. Most of us grew up with vinyl, so there is no "pace of change" that we would associate with it, unless we had to buy something new and got sticker shock And it's mechanically self-explanatory, as long as the freaking cartridge is already freaking installed.

And it's much less likely to present a profound failure that is impossible to understand. Software is written to be easy, as long as the user stays on script. Example: I am enrolled in Clear to help me get through airports more quickly. (I traveled a LOT before Covid.) Clear now provides a health pass service that a meeting I'm attending next week requires. I don't normally use their app and had never installed it. So I did that and signed in, but the steps required to create the health pass failed with the highly descriptive error message, "Oops! Something went wrong." I wasted an hour last night trying to make it work. Today, I had to call their help desk. No, says they, you don't log in using your regular account. You log in using the account set up for you by the venue. Wha? On what planet would that make sense? So, now I have the app for the health pass that I cannot use for my airport stuff. Yeah, that makes sense. That seems to happen to one degree or another several times a day, and I just get tired of it.

Rick "become more high-touch as I age" Denney

 

[antcollinet]

People see the title, skip the long thread, and respond to the title assuming that the only reason the thread is still going is because they haven't answered the OP yet. Can't fix that tendency.

I think even the vinyl enthusiasts here have agreed (and agree, and agreed, and agreed) that digital methods work better for distribution in every single dimension of measurement than does vinyl. Maybe the occasional stray anthill-kicker wanders in to stir the pot, but we can count on the usual piler-onners to pile on.

But there has also been lots of useful discussion and I think I summarize the salient points thusly:

1. The value of the hobby, and how differently each may approach their enjoyment of it. That includes pursuing the best that an archaic technology can produce just for the joy of the pursuit. This brings them an experiential payoff--a pride of accomplishment against odds not imposed on people who stream onto desktop systems or headphone systems. I've seen lists of headphones people own in the dozens. That's a greater investment than most of us have in vinyl, that can only be justified because trying them out is fun for the sake of it.

2. Flaws notwithstanding, many can listen to vinyl playback and not be distracted from the music. Many others cannot. Some even value the ritual of vinyl playback, while others deride it.

3. Vinyl playback as a broader movement is based on the same sorts of misunderstanding of cause and effect as a lot of other audio foolishness. But in part what drives it is a rebellion against software-based technology that throws change at people so fast they can't keep up. They see these archaic electro-mechanical analog technologies as high-touch rather than high-tech, as John Naisbitt described it 40 years ago.

4. Electro-mechanical playback technologies, for all their flaws, are not in any way economical. This is not a hobby for the impecunious, though the costs of getting very good performance (relative to what is possible) are often overstated.

5. Many own libraries they wish to preserve the use of, either because it represents cash already spent that doesn't need to be spent again, or because they'd rather use stuff than throw it away, or because they think (rightly or wrongly) it's easier to sustain in the long run, or because the recordings on the vinyl were mastered in a more pleasing way than later remasterings for whatever reason.

As for buying advice, I don't think many of the active participants in this thread would recommend anyone undertake a new vinyl capability if they don't already own a vinyl library, or if they aren't interested in it for its own sake. I know I wouldn't.

Rick "in the vain hope we won't have to relitigate these points" Denney

Nice summary.

You missed out emotional attachment and nostalgia.

 

[rdenney]

Nice summary.

You missed out emotional attachment and nostalgia.

You're right--I had though about it and intended to go back and insert it somewhere, but forgot.

Rick "nothing wrong with either, thank goodness" Denney

 

[antcollinet]

If you wish to avoid technology, vinyl is not the way, given how it throws the technology in your face and says, “play with me, not on me”.

Depends on how you do it.

The only things I had to do with a new TT was set the tracking weight and anti skate - I think that took about a minute and a half. Aligning the cartridge took a little longer since I had to learn how, having never bothered before. Maybe an hour including research and printing an alignment chart.

Since then it has been very much play on, rather then play with.

 

[Robin L]

@killdozzer I wasn't really thinking in terms of being anti-conformist--and that depends on which camp (tribe?) you want to conform to in any case.

I was thinking in the larger philosophical sense of some people feeling overwhelmed by the pace of technological advancement and ubiquity. They seek out ways to avoid technology. We all know people at all points of that spectrum. Hardly anyone escapes technology, of course, but some seek out ways to take refuge from it. That isn't rebellion, really, just weariness.

Even young groups these days have adopted a highly simplified (the overused term is minimalist) aesthetic, which I think is in some ways a high-touch reaction to so many cords and batteries. I think for many it's not hating technology, it's just not want to see it everywhere. Maybe I'm wrong.

Sometimes I feel like my office looks like a Blade Runner set.

Rick "not a big moral question, but rather just a desire to simplify" Denney

Makes me think of the animal simulacra in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep": how there can be nostalgic attachment to older simulacra.

There is a different kind of emotional appeal to older, less successful, attempts at imitating reality. A very Pomo kind of nostalgia, a nostalgia for yesterday's futures.

 

[rdenney]

...A very Pomo kind of nostalgia, a nostalgia for yesterday's futures.

Fantasy, yes. But not porno.

Riffing on my Blade Runner reference: nicely done.

Rick "who knows it when he sees it" Denney

 

[Robin L]

Fantasy, yes. But not porno.

Riffing on my Blade Runner reference: nicely done.

Rick "who knows it when he sees it" Denney

Pomo: Postmodern, as in:

https://www.e-reading.life/bookreader.php/144970/Simulacra_and_Simulation.pdf

see also

https://libcom.org/files/The%20Society%20of%20the%20Spectacle%20Annotated%20Edition.pdf

"If PKD is a poor man's Pynchon, is Pynchon a rich man's Dick?"

[You have to get to Blade Runner 2049 to get inklings of Dickensian Porno]

Check also the liner note by Neil Innes for "The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse" concerning "I'm the Urban Spaceman", who---of course---does not exist.

 

[rdenney]

Pomo: Postmodern, as in:

https://www.e-reading.life/bookreader.php/144970/Simulacra_and_Simulation.pdf

see also

https://libcom.org/files/The%20Society%20of%20the%20Spectacle%20Annotated%20Edition.pdf

"If PKD is a poor man's Pynchon, is Pynchon a rich man's Dick?"

[You have to get to Blade Runner 2049 to get inklings of Dickensian Porno]

Check also the liner note by Neil Innes for "The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse" concerning "I'm the Urban Spaceman", who---of course---does not exist.

I just watched the last half of 2049 last night—I remember the reference. I’ll have to catch the first half sometime to figure out what it means. I’ve seen the original several times, and read the story years and years ago.

Rick “post-Covid TV watching but not really paying much attention” Denney

 

[Robin L]

I just watched the last half of 2049 last night—I remember the reference. I’ll have to catch the first half sometime to figure out what it means. I’ve seen the original several times, and read the story years and years ago.

Rick “post-Covid TV watching but not really paying much attention” Denney

There's "Joi", the one really "human" character in the movie, hustling her ass in the neon of the street. So much of the story's "Is it real, or is it only AI?" is in that scene. The one player in the movie with no ulterior motives is 100% synthetic.

 

[buzzy]

Three things come to mind.

1. Better mastering; no loudness wars for vinyl.
2. Euphoric distortion.
3. Psychoacoustics. When I am going to focus on music with intent, I usually pour a drink and put a big wholesome record onto my gorgeous analog system, after taking pride in ownership of the physical medium and spending a moment looking at the artwork in my hand. It sounds way better to my ears than the digital I stream while working.

A serendipitous typo or intentionally coining a new phrase? It's euphonic distortion, but it's also euphoric distortion.

IMO the perceived difference is of course completely about what the listener brings to the situation. Memories, preferences, attention, etc.

 

[Holmz]

Hard drives are a bit different thing, because this is a medium (disk platter) integrated with a reader (all the mechanical parts that read it). I think that trying to read an old analog medium on equally old player which wasn't maintained properly, could end up with similarly bad results.

And a hard drive almost seems like it was modelled after an LP?
It even has what looks like an anti-skating spring, but it’s on the outside of the arm.

how did they dream up such an invention?
(And this one even has what loos like an adapter for small 45 RPM singles.)

 

[Holmz]

The world leading expert on wasps is walking down the street when he passes a record store.​

In the window he sees a record called "wasps of the world, and the sounds they make". Intrigued, he walks into the store.
He says to the shopkeeper "I'll have that wasp record in the window please. You know I'm the world leading expert in wasps, there are thousands of different species of wasp, and I can identify any one of them just by listening to the sound it makes!"

He smiles smugly as the shopkeeper fanes interest.
The wasp expert pays and leaves. When he gets home he puts the record on.

"Bbzzzzzzzzz" it goes, but the man is stumped, he doesn't know what type of wasp this is!
He waits for the next track.

"Bbbbzzzzzzzzzzzz" and again, he can't identify which
species of wasp this is!

It gets to the fifth track and he breaks down in tears. He can't identify a single wasp yet he thought he was the world's leading expert!
He calls his old professor round to the house to help, when he arrives he explains to him,

"I thought I was the best in the wasp business, but I can't identify a single wasp on this whole record!"
He says, still in tears.

The old professor ponders for a minute as he looks at the record.

"Ah, I know what the problem is"

Says the professor.

"What? what is it?!"

-"you've got it on the B-side"

 

[Blumlein 88]

And a hard drive almost seems like it was modelled after an LP?
It even has what looks like an anti-skating spring, but it’s on the outside of the arm.

how did they dream up such an invention?
(And this one even has what loos like an adapter for small 45 RPM singles.)

Even worse, the predecessors were drum style drives. Rather like an Edison cylinder no?

 

[Andysu]

LP's sound rubbish. I have no idea why I brought a Technics SL-1210GR. I can hear cross-talk not very good stereo separation. I not brought any new movie soundtracks only the ones I've had for decades.
Thinking of selling it, as I hardly used it much in last 3 months since brought it late last year.

 

[j_j]

LP's sound rubbish. I have no idea why I brought a Technics SL-1210GR. I can hear cross-talk not very good stereo separation. I not brought any new movie soundtracks only the ones I've had for decades.
Thinking of selling it, as I hardly used it much in last 3 months since brought it late last year.
View attachment 179346

Well, I'm primarily digital myself, but I wonder about the setup and wiring given what you describe.

Yeah, I still have a turntable, but then again, I learned how to set one up somwhere circa 1968 or so. It is somewhat tricky.

 

[Sal1950]

LP's sound rubbish. I have no idea why I brought a Technics SL-1210GR. I can hear cross-talk not very good stereo separation. I not brought any new movie soundtracks only the ones I've had for decades.
Thinking of selling it, as I hardly used it much in last 3 months since brought it late last year.

Finally a honest person! It's a very hard thing for people to say they wasted their hard earned money.
If you value the LP's you already own, do digital recordings of them on your computer, then sell everything while the fad is still at it's peak.

 

[JP]

but I wonder about the setup and wiring given what you describe.

Yes something isn’t right.

 

[TrevC]

Change the cartridge for a better one.

AT-VM95ML​