CDs over LP/records assessment - a must watch for experts and beginners

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by raimiz1991inc, Apr 16, 2018.

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  1. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    If I'm making copies for my family, I would be making copies because they are of good work done. Yes, restoring an actual photograph IS something different, and best left to someone with expertise in th arena...which is EXACTLY why I searched these professionals out. I don't WANT rudimentary effort from them, working from a simple scan of a photograph they have not yet done the important work with. That is exactly my point of my whole story. DON'T START with Stop 3, and tell me you are a professional...I'm paying you for the parts that I cannot do. I can scan, I can touch-up digitally. Want I CAN'T do, is start from scratch - that is where they should come into, er, "the picture".

    From my vantage point, I would imagine a bit of "restoration" on an album (particularly if it's intended to be a "showpiece", not just a cleaned-up medium), would be making sure the jacket could look its' best as well. Who's going to hang a copy of a high-selling album where there are good jackets probably not even within a stones' throw of you...if the jacket is ripped, has coffee rings in the corner, and somebody else's name scrawled at the bottom with a Sharpie?
     
  2. raimiz1991inc

    raimiz1991inc Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    La Paz, Bolivia
  3. raimiz1991inc

    raimiz1991inc Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    La Paz, Bolivia
  4. raimiz1991inc

    raimiz1991inc Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    La Paz, Bolivia
  5. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    raimiz1991inc, let me help you get a qualified expert to do the restoration of the album cover for you. Now it may be expensive; her best work was done for free, early on in her career. But, she has become very well-known since then, and as you would expect, the price of her services may have increased a bit. Here's an example of her talents:
    Woman Who Ruined Fresco Of Jesus Now Wants To Be Paid

    You're welcome! :wiggle:
     
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  6. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    They look nice. I think aliens had a hand in this.
     
  7. raimiz1991inc

    raimiz1991inc Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    La Paz, Bolivia
    :biglaugh: I hope she's available!
     
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  8. Sax-son

    Sax-son Forum Resident

    Location:
    Three Rivers, CA
    I think this thread has taken a total detour, but here goes. The guy on the YouTube video laid out a pretty good argument, but I don't totally agree that the loudness wars were the prime reason for the vinyl comeback. It may be one of many reasons, but I think people just dig having large, heavy, vinyl records to handle and fuss with. They are just kind of cool to have in your collection. When you buy them it's like you are really purchasing a "thing". CD's are much more convenient to use, but they are relatively small. There are many reasons people like vinyl and not just one or two reasons. I always thought the sonic argument was a little "reaching".

    I like both CD's and vinyl. I will purchase them both for different reason and I am glad they are both around(for the most part) to choose from.
     
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  9. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Surely you can imagine, record collecting isn't the most frugal of hobbies. For most music collectors, they don't have many options unless they read-up in places such as these, to learn to recognize, and procure, the best sources of music they are interested in. One often makes the mistakes first, before correcting with a well-researched wantlist. Then there's the time and expense, of being the only one in your peer group who knows which Yes album to buy...and your wife doesn't understand why you have to have four copies of the White Album ("alright, already! They're ALL white!!!...").

    Most people "know" what the music sounds like, because they've heard it on the radio all their lives. How much different/better/worse could they sound, huh? And this one, even says it's been "remastered for iTunes", so, that's gotta be pretty good, right? And this Genesis CD? It actually says "remastered" on the sticker, so it's gotta be the best! And that hundred-dolar Sgt Pepper box - now you know, it's never gonna get any better than that, right?

    ...Uhhh..right...? ....r-right..?

    See, in some cases, the last authority to believe, is the company that made it. And in cases like that, you've gotta come to places like here...where unfortunately there are two opinions for any given album in your memory bank. Hell, here we can't even agree on how little we agree on something!

    Bottom line: in the quest for the best sound, there are no easy answers, unless you knuckle-down and listen, and train yourself to know what to listen for, develop an opinion on what the differences are, and (and here's the worst part) not be afraid to show your work to the class. And get ready for the onslaught of public opinion (some who have put in the work, at least as much as you should, and still others, who to be truthful, might not even want the experts to win out here, because it would mean they would have to work harder to come to the same conclusions)...because some of us just don't have the time to be right. Or the budget to have to buy the same album twice or more. Or the equipment budget to be able to formulate an honest opinion. Or frankly, the desire to bring themselves up to the level where we can all talk like sound engineers, when all this time that person just wanted the album that had that song he liked, and now that he's got it, he doesn't want to re-think his purchase.

    raimiz, you have put up with a lot of teasing and taunting here, and I'm impressed you keep your cool and consider people's answers from no matter where they come from. But knowing the science of recording and the art of producing magic, well, that's a skill and dedication that's gonna take you, mmm, really about as much time as you want to put into it. No set rule. Except of course, just...keep listening...
     
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  10. Marc Perman

    Marc Perman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Not all CD players are the same.
     
  11. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Why would you even bring that up? Do you think we don't know that?

    Also, do you know the myriad differences that make issues with vinyl play as opposed to the infinitely smaller number of issues that impair the basic process of CD play?

    Ya know, there are some threads here where I think I can set up a pretty good analogy designed to illustrate my point ... until somebody comes along with, "yeah, but not all Venuaians breathe oxygen", or some such irrelevant detail which does nothing except stop the train, make the passengers get off, call the bomb squad, do the search, get the passengers back on the train, and proceed like nothing happened...except their travel time was three times what they had planned. And why? Because, yes, "some Venusians don't breathe oxygen".

    Lemme know when your thread discussing the differences in CD players goes live, and I'll be sure to stick my foot right in the middle of it with such irrelevancies as, "yes, but RCA and Toshiba are the same thing", and "this is only proven with 60-cycle electricity", or "No, Paul, George and Ringo have confirmed it: Yoko had nothing to do with the breakup".
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2018
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  12. fluffskul

    fluffskul Would rather be at a concert

    Location:
    albany, ny
    I must be extremely lucky... I've found 2 restored to mint copies of "Hello I Must Be Going" in the $1 bin at my local salvation army in the past year. I'm glad you are enjoying record collecting. And your girlfriend is beyond sweet to go out of her way like this for you. But if she was charged more than $5 for either of these LPs, I would never set foot in that record store again. Unless, she was charged more than $20 for either of those LPs, at which point I would probably attempt to go into that record store and forcibly shove them up the owner's ass.
     
  13. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Okay, that was fun. But what I really ment to say was, "I never meant to imply that they are. But they all work the same way: laser 'looks' at a sequence of pits, transmits the information back to the processor, which figures out what that means in a language that speakers can reproduce. Tics, pops and electrical noise don't usually configure into CD play as is common with turntables. CD players are also capable of delivering a true-er signal back to the receiver than LP players do with less expense, less extra steps to ensure care of the disc, and proper adjustment of the mechanics, and indeed pushing a button, then pushing forward and back is one helluva lot more ergonomic that eye-sighting where on the record you want to drop your needle down."
     
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  14. Remote Control Triangle

    Remote Control Triangle Forum Member Rated 6.8 By Pitchfork

    Location:
    Las Vegas
    That hasn't been my experience at all. I was relatively late to vinyl, only got into over the past several years, and I actually had the opposite experience. Albums that I'd heard a 100 times on CD sounded almost totally new again. I was hearing things in songs that I'd never heard before. Granted, I did spend some $$$ on a decent setup, but I'm constantly amazed at how incredible records can sound. In my experience it's THE format that captures the signal the best from the mastering room. There's some serious magic in the format that CD just doesn't seem to have.
     
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  15. raimiz1991inc

    raimiz1991inc Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    La Paz, Bolivia
    Are you kidding? That's what I love about this forum in particular, people will defend their opinions and stand by their decisions and disagree constantly. If I wanted someone to agree with me on most things then there is nearly no use in commenting and participating. I guess I'm not a new member around these forums threads at all and I'm familiar with the heated discussions that sometimes get a little too hot, but I appreciate every single comment (not even mentioning the fact that where I live no one is even remotely interested in heated debates regarding sound quality, formats, gear, etc so you guys keep the wheel spinning and teach me this and recommend me that, wouldn't change it for anything).
    I completely agree with what you say in your conclusion, and I think the linked video kind of reaches that conclusion as well, to knuckle down and listen until you hear something that satisfies you. This is really my only hobby, at least the one I feel the most passion for and there's a lot of quest for the perfect sound and experiences left for me to discover.
     
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  16. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Deja'VU thread.
     
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  17. raimiz1991inc

    raimiz1991inc Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    La Paz, Bolivia
    She really is sweet, but I think she doesn't know she was overcharged and frankly wouldn't want to be the one to tell her, just educate her (well, us really) in record shopping which will happen eventually. I didn't ask her how much she paid of course, but judging from her reaction when I told her my brother bought a Peter Gabriel record for 15 bucks in NM condition she was surprised and suggested she paid much more because she said she wished she was charged 15 bucks for one PC record, which leads me to believe she paid north of 20 bucks for each. Not gonna happen again of course.
     
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  18. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    Questionable? Not at all, it's sound. It mimicks a commercial product sold under various brandnames in the 1980s. It was the best cleaning method available, because it literally removes all dirt, and doesn't involve any fluids.
     
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  19. onlyconnect

    onlyconnect The prose and the passion

    Location:
    Winchester, UK
    Both excellent records. Maybe you can get them cheap but they are still worth a lot :)

    Tim
     
  20. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    One way I could imagine is to take a well preserved record from one item, a well preserved sleeve from another and merge them. If the inner sleeve contains lyrics or graphics maybe from a third, or give it a new blank inner sleeve otherwhise. And of course clean the record with one of the tested methods. This would create a new record/sleeve ensemble with the best quality achievable for both today, and it would also justify an elevated price because the dealer would have additional costs to do all that.
     
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  21. Morpheus

    Morpheus Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    Well, restored could mean anything. Unless the record seller specifically spells out what he means by that it's just hard to say. It could just mean he buys older records and runs them thru one of those expensive, but nice, VPI record cleaning machines: VPI - 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine | Shop Music Direct I guess you could say that is restoration. Then just jack's up the price to include everything. That would be my best guess as to what he mean. I assume the Collin's records didn't come sealed?
     
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  22. raimiz1991inc

    raimiz1991inc Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    La Paz, Bolivia
    No, they weren't sealed, and that's what I imagined he did as well, just polish it up and dress it up handsomely.
     
  23. Morpheus

    Morpheus Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    By the way I still buy both CDs and vinyl. I don't hugely prefer one over the other, both have their strengths and weaknesses. I think I prefer CDs just a tad over vinyl these days because you don't have to worry about surface noise, newer lps are about twice more expensive, and with a CD you don't have to get up to turn it over. Plus with the type music I listen to today: jazz, synth, ambient, etc. it just suits my listening.
     
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  24. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    I just meant he sounds like someone who'd be a regular here on SHF. Some of those YouTuber's are.
     
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  25. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    I don't know about Bolivia, but over here in Europe new records don't normally come sealed and never used to. Re-sealing a used one would be kind of pointless anyway.
     
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