Wax and Wane: The Tough Realities Behind Vinyl's Comeback

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Bryan, Jul 28, 2014.

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  1. vinylphile

    vinylphile Forum Resident

    Good point on the "it's all cyclical" business. I guess by the same token we will see an 8-track revival...and a Beta/VHS revival in video. I remember in a vinyl discussion thread some troll actually said that he figures Betamax is currently more widely used than LP!!!
     
  2. kevintomb

    kevintomb Forum Resident


    You make it sound as if your opinion, is shared by all. In reality, very few people, percentage wise, are even aware vinyl is still produced, let alone own it and actually play it regularly.

    I am neither for nor against it, as it is merely "another" music media I once owned a lot of and mostly moved forward from.

    While I did enjoy some aspects of it, I was never fooled by anything really. CD removed about a dozen aspects of vinyl that most found bothersome.
    Not just convenience.
    Durability, lack of noise, far better quality, no warps and so on. Vinyl by its very nature, is often a fairly flawed item.

    I find CD to sound fantastic when done properly. I find vinyl to sound fantastic when done properly. I do not believe there is anything other than a small difference in sound between the two, when both are well done.

    The problem though, one has to often overlook many playback issues with vinyl to be totally happy with it, or pretend the do not exist.
     
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  3. kevintomb

    kevintomb Forum Resident


    I guess the "Reasoning powers" of some are at least partially controlled by factors that "appeal" to them.

    I think part of it for "Some" is sound quality, but a lot of the "Better sound quality" comments to me come off as partially revisionist uh "thinking".

    If records were indeed so far superior sounding, and most simply were not able to realize back in the day, how are we to really trust their opinions about it now?

    I read the stories about people "Re-discovering" how great vinyl sounds etc, but I keep thinking, it sounded exactly the same in 1990.....Nothing has changed in regards to sound quality, yet they are discovering this "Great forgotten sound".

    I had vinyl and CD living together for many years. Owned a few nice tables. Had a few friends with fairly expensive tables.

    I found for sure, a different sound "Character" but never an immense difference in sound quality. I think that part is very overblown and exaggerated for emotional appeal partially.
     
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  4. SoundAdvice

    SoundAdvice Senior Member

    Location:
    Vancouver
    At least half of the RSD releases have nothing to do with sound quality.
    It was the non RSD stuff by indies that got delayed int he early part of the year.
    The postponed Neil Young RSD box would have been 15-25,000 total pieces of vinyl that needed pressing. Some of these plants could do that in a day.
    Machines and parts have become like gold dust and I'm sure people are scouring the globe. Another issue is expertise in getting all this stuff up and running. Not many people in the world left and they can't all be in the same city at the right time.
    The vast majority of my listening in on cd and I own and play a ton of vinyl. I can tell the difference, but most of the time I'm not 100% concentrating on the music itself while I'm doing other tasks. Probably only 5% of my listening is dedicated enough to be retentive about sound quality.
     
  5. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    Yes, we're all entitled to our opinions. IMO, Prairie Wind is one of his best mellow, folk-flavored albums in the Comes a Time/Harvest Moon mode (Not sure if it was one of the previous 5, but it was close) and Americana is the most kick@$$ folk album I've heard since Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.
     
  6. SoundAdvice

    SoundAdvice Senior Member

    Location:
    Vancouver
    There's a few Police/Supertramp/Fleetwood Mac type stuff that makes me roll my eyes but I don't see it anywhere near as often as you. Most reissues are still cheaper/easier to find than originals in clean shape.

    The legit release "cd on wax" myth is also over stated. Lots of stuff is digitally sourced, but still offer minor to major sonic upgrades over the cd counterpart. Most of the cd on wax stuff is relegated to the top 40 pop/dance/rap genres.
     
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  7. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    In 1989, a recording studio engineer told me that CDs would be gone in 5 years, then he picked up a digital audio tape and said, "See this? That's the future."
     
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  8. The Spaceman

    The Spaceman Forum Resident

    So true! The worst is the record stores that have everything you want but are ungodly expensive. There's a few near me that UK/Import Beatles vinyl (and solo), UK Pink Floyd, Love Forever Changes original vinyl, UK Led Zeppelin all on the wall behind the counter (it's a big wall) for nothing less than ~$125-$145. It lists much higher for those ones. In the regular bins, not a single used record for less than $8 and the condition is VG at best. A few sealed original records but WAY disproportionate what it actually is (The Monkees Present Sealed for $65). Most used is in the $12-14 range for VG condition. Monkees Head for $35 used.

    Is it any shocker nothing moves in that store? I refuse to go there anymore because what good does it do me to find every record I want but they are way overpriced and disproportional with condition. I refuse to spend $8-45 for records barely at VG condition. I also refuse to pay the inflated price for the ones on the wall priced according to their name.
     
  9. vinylphile

    vinylphile Forum Resident

    I guess you'll always be able to find examples of "experts" who make bold predictions that end up being wildly incorrect.
     
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  10. vinylphile

    vinylphile Forum Resident

    Indeed we're all entitled to our own opinions. Mine is that Neil, bless his heart, has not really done anything of significance since his first 4 solo albums...
     
  11. Atmospheric

    Atmospheric Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene
    I guess you'll have to take my word for this, but I approach music, as both a musician and a listener, with a great deal of integrity. Although much about our hobby is personal taste, I believe that there is some truth to be discovered, and I am interested in discovering it. Clearly, a lot of folks approach our hobby with more than a little "confirmation bias" (Google it, if you don't know what that is). I try to be aware of my tendency to do that and completely set it aside so that I might learn something on occasion.

    You seemed to have not fully appreciated this little bit in my original post:

    I have never personally heard a vinyl playback system that is better (warmer, more musical, more detailed) than my current computer-based digital file playback system. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying that every time a vinyl-phile tries to prove the superiority of vinyl on their personal playback systems, they fail miserably.

    And this bit:

    I've I've also heard some very good systems demo'd in stereo stores and friend's homes over the years, and I've done my share of A/B comparisons, as fairly as I can. But, I stand by my assessment.

    One particular A/B comparison stands out in my mind because it was nearly identical high quality source (Little Feat MFSL "Waiting For Columbus") in both vinyl and CD formats on the same very good B+ level tube system in a stereo store. I found that the vinyl soundstage sounded noticeably shorter (less tall), and with the usual amount of audible surface noise that is present on every single vinyl listening session I have ever experienced. The vinyl sounded worse to me, even as the person conducting the audition was raving about how good it sounded!

    Ear fatigue is probably a legitimate issue and digital systems may indeed be more prone to that, or it may be inherent in the playback system regardless of media being played (i.e., some systems may be more fatiguing than others). But just as you (apparently) are willing to tolerate wow, flutter, surface noise, rolled off highs, and audible distortion in order to be less fatigued, I am OTOH willing to forego all that to hear unencumbered musical detail, even if it means tolerating a certain amount of ear fatigue. Truthfully, I do get fatigued listening to music in my vehicle on long trips, but I chalk that up to higher SPL needed to overcome road noise. I do occasionally get fatigued during long listening sessions on my computer playback system, but it is most often while am mixing my own music. It's a well known phenomenon in recording studios. The only solution is to step away for a while and let your ears come back to a baseline. BTW, similar things exists for people who taste for a living (coffee tasters, wine tasters). I don't hear wine tasters complaining that the stemware reveals too much information and fatigues them (stemware does matter when tasting wine)!

    One day I hope to hear a vinyl playback system that surpasses what I currently enjoy from my digital playback system. I truly do. Hearing wonderful music wonderfully reproduced delights me on every level. I would love to have my world broadened in just that way. I've been waiting for that experience for 25 years. I'm still waiting. Just saying.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2014
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  12. RightOff

    RightOff Well-Known Member

    Good points. I would answer by saying that there is a solid percentage of people who are into music who want a physical manifestation of the music that they listen to. Some are choosing vinyl because it's presently "cool," true, but the larger reason, IMO, is that when you look at it objectively, vinyl simply gives you more of what you buy physical media for. Arguments like CD vs. vinyl are kind of outmoded in 2014, IMO. That was an argument for a time when, if you wanted the album, you had to have either/or. But now, nobody needs to have any physical media at all - it is a luxury item. It is cheaper to use a streaming service, pay for a download, or simply DL it from someone's blog. So music fans, say, under 35 (people less likely to have the traditional purchasing habits ingrained into system as those who are older) who buy phyiscal media are looking at it from a different perspective. Vinyl gives you a larger, more attractive product and one that requires more interfacing with as a user (thereby distinguishing it further from a CD). Some of the bigger selling points of the CD, in the '90s, were its convenience advantages over vinyl. But now these are largely erased. If you buy new vinyl, you usually get a download code, so you can play it on your digital devices (which take up no space) anyway. And, if not, you can still make digital files from vinyl on one's own. I think many younger people see that a CD is just a fancy way of packaging a computer disc, and they don't see the point of paying for that when they can get those 0s and 1s for free elsewhere.

    Mind you, my above statements are not taking sound quality into consideration. Audiophile sound quality will always be a concern for only a tiny percentage of music fans. Sound quality in general seems to be a concern for only a minority of music fans these days and I don't know that a majority of people who have taken to making vinyl their physical format of choice would say that sound quality is an important reason for this.

    Again, IMO, it all comes back to the mentality of why someone in this day and age chooses to own the physical format of a music recording.
     
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  13. vinylphile

    vinylphile Forum Resident

    This has been explained to you multiple times and in multiple different ways in other threads. Not sure why you still don't comprehend.
     
  14. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    It seems to me that the claims that one medium has vastly superior sound quality to another is largely a marketing scheme initiated by the record manufacturing execs. When CDs came out, there were all these articles about how much better they sounded than vinyl, and listeners were repeating it. The record companies then set out to sabotage their own vinyl product by putting bonus tracks on CDs. Now there's a reversal of the opinion. Many of the execs and listeners are saying vinyl sounds so much better. Now we're seeing bonus tracks available only on vinyl. Fickle industry.
     
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  15. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    I would imagine that most of the corporate radio stations have absolutely no use for vinyl at all -- they must be all digital by now.
     
  16. Atmospheric

    Atmospheric Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene
    I don't think they even use on-air DJs for music, only for morning shock jock stuff. So there's no one around to cue vinyl.
     
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  17. mantis4tons

    mantis4tons Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO, USA
    I think this has more to do with Arcade Fire booking a stadium tour than a decline in their popularity. The venues they're playing are too big for their fan base. When they came through Denver on this tour, they played the Pepsi Center (home of the Denver Nuggets), and didn't come anywhere close to filling the venue. I like Arcade Fire, but I chose not to go because I don't really like big stadium shows. Had they played a smaller but still sizable venue like Red Rocks or the Fillmore, I would have bought tickets without a second thought. I have trouble imagining that I'm the only Arcade Fire fan who went through this thought process when evaluating whether or not to buy a ticket for their recent tour.
     
  18. Beholdentonoone

    Beholdentonoone Forum Resident

    They got greedy and thought the $$$ gravy train would never end…2 nights at the Forum in LA, 3 nights at Barclays in Brooklyn (with tix almost being given away on stub hub).

    Sadly it's the promoters who "overbought" and will be left holding the bag as the band is "guaranteed" their guarantees!!!

    By rights after playing 2 nights at MSG in NYC last tour cycle and on the back of a big album (The Suburbs) a Grammy, and a big push for this album my feelings are if the album was THAT GREAT the demand would have INCREASED not DECREASED.
     
  19. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I saw 'MFSL' and rolled my eyes. That titles not as nice sounding as the standard LP (the Hollywood cutting..). And if that luscious Japanese vinyl was being presented through the system you were listening to with the "usual" surface noise - then something was wrong with the LP or in the chain. Mastering and tape issues aside for that release, a clean MFSL pressing should be inky black quiet. Unless that conformation bias kicks in.

    Classic. Emphasize the worst aspects of what you dislike; fail to acknowledge the negatives of what you like. "I walk because cars break down, leave you stranded at night, cost an arm and a leg, require expensive gas constantly, get damaged in parking lots, require insurance, fly off the road and kill you, are prone to head on collisions....." "I don't have a significant other because they interrupt my quiet time with chatter, snore, hog the covers, require a bunch of money for food, dinners out, clothes & gifts...."

    Lets say you like rock music of the 1960's & 70's. You disdain vinyl so you collect CDs of the 1500 to 2000 titles you want for the collection. What you may not realize is that a large percentage of those Cds were made from higher generation or copy tapes and cannot have 'more' detail (despite the bias of perceiving more detail because of the 'clean and quiet sounding background.') And as the "from the master tapes" craze kicks in, EQ and compression introduced by latter day engineers counteract and negate the entire purpose behind obtaining the masters. And to top it off, some of those masters turn out not to be first generation masters. So there goes the 'unencumbered' misbelief. Then theres the audible digital artifacts that can come from the transferring and mastering processes. I've noticed over time the digital-only crowd rarely hears or acknowledges them. And the hundreds of superb mono mixes of those 1960's albums? Forget it. Band to the right of me....tambourine and vocals to the left of me. Fun stuff.

    It probably isn't going to happen...and thats OK! Audio enjoyment isn't a contest. As a collector of both vinyl and Cd I enjoy the best aspects of both. Vinyl can be a bi**h, no question, but like preparing your own meals from scratch and the best sources, the rewards can be sublime and incomparable. I wish there were more CDs made the way the best engineers (such as our host) have done, but they're not the norm, sadly. Its why so many audio hounds don't limit themselves to one media.
     
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  20. Atmospheric

    Atmospheric Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene
    What you may not realize is that my original post was in response to a typical vinylphile "vinyl is always better, people who care about music always prefer vinyl" bullish!t. Most of the time I consider the source and ignore such ignorant comments. Perhaps I should have done so here.

    I am merely making the case that I have respectably good ears and I personally prefer digital for very solid and rational reasons. Furthermore, I've lost count of the number of times someone has raved about how great their vinyl sounds when their playback system is demonstrably subpar. In fact most of the time these vinyl playback systems sound like sh!t because they feature "vintage" components, often in questionable condition, so to be as "cool" as possible.

    Therefore, my direct personal experience is that vinyl worship for the vast majority of folks is as much about being part of the cool hip "in" thing as it is about hearing great music well reproduced. I am openminded enough to realize that a) my direct personal experience is a dataset of 1 - pretty small, and b) there likely exist really nice vinyl-based playback systems that could absolutely rock my world. I would love to have that experience someday. I really would. It just hasn't happened yet, and that's not for a lack of trying, although I don't go out of my way to do it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2014
  21. Chip Z

    Chip Z Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cleveland, OH, USA
    They played the big arena in town. And I thought about that. But if you get the GA floor tix -- and move toward the front -- it certainly doesn't feel like a big arena. And it was a magnificent show.
     
  22. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Thanks for the clarification, I agree with most of what you're saying here. Its funny because I just dropped the needle down on my mono copy of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man. No surface noise....just the ambient noise of my system on, pretty much CD like quietness. Then the title track comes in with aplomb out of a quiet background. I read the blatant anti-vinyl posts here, thinking to myself... what planet are these folks living on?
     
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  23. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    So when exactly did we stop talking about the article and digressed into another CD vs vinyl debate?
     
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  24. rhubarb9999

    rhubarb9999 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    And tube amps .. they added warmth to the pain.

    They must of had McIntosh sponsor them because Marc had all Mac gear (and horrible speaker placement).
     
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  25. Danby Delight

    Danby Delight Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    Maron is in real life a firm proponent of McIntosh tube amps. He talks about them all the time on his podcast.
     
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