What did you enjoy more if you experienced all of them, buying new LPs, cassettes or cds?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by 80steen, Apr 20, 2022.

  1. Fruff76

    Fruff76 L100 Classic - Fan Club President

    I said CD's, even though I rarely buy them now. CD's were a revelation to me as a kid because of all of the shortcomings of records (one would have as a kid with a cheap stereo). I've enjoyed buying records again, since the late 90's, but it's not quite as thrilling as a brand new technology when CD's came out.
     
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  2. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    I like opening new albums and taking a whiff inside them. Yea, I know, I don't have a life, I don't.
     
  3. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    To me, it's the music that matters over the format. I have great memories of finding stuff on LP, cassette and CD over the years.
     
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  4. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    I chose and bought my first LP in 1964: Mary Poppins soundtrack. I bought my first CD player and discs in 1984...and resisted as long as I could, re-buying LP's in the new medium. Different music in different periods of life lead to different social processes when shopping for music: the college musical expansion, and discovering how you differ from your peers; the young careerperson establishing his own daily soundtrack; the older enthusiast, carefully choosing what to enjoy out of a huge field of options. These all come at you at different points in the LP-to-CD-to-LP story.

    Cassettes? Easy-peasy, pack of 10 TDK SA-90's, and that'll get you by for a few weeks of scrubbing the radio out of your car listening experience.
    (And don't think I wasn't deep into that just because I was on-air...I "counter-programmed" every commute! ;) ).
     
  5. Norman garriock

    Norman garriock Forum Resident

    Location:
    Orkney, Scotland
    I voted records since I have spent much more time buying and poring over those. Some Cd packages, like the Costello doubles, have given me huge satisfaction indeed, but overall lp sleeves and inner groove study keeps me interested.
     
  6. Fender Relic

    Fender Relic Forum Resident

    Location:
    PennsylBama
    I like your "car and movement" comment. I feel the same about cassette and CD. They were primarily for the car. I was a delivery man for most of the 80's into early 90's and I had travel totes of cass. & CD for OTJ listening but at home it was vinyl 95% of the time. I first bought recorded music around 1965 so naturally vinyl has my heart. CD's are only for convenience these days for late nights when I might fall asleep or recovery from some physical problem so I don't have to get up and down to change a record side. The vinyl album covers are like art/magic too.
     
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  7. telecode101

    telecode101 Forum Resident

    Location:
    null
    LPs for sure. The experience of buying one, taking it home, listening to it, reading lyrics, looking at artwork, playing side one, taking a break, flipping and playing side 2. It was a format that allowed artists to control the listening experience of their music. Sort of like the intermissions in movies back in the 70s and 80s. There used to be a time when long movies had intermissions in them and you stepped out to get popcorn and pee break.
     
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  8. Another Steve

    Another Steve Senior Member

    Buying brand new LPs from a real record store as a fifteen year old, way back when, was much more adventurous than buying used CDs for a couple dollars apiece at a thrift store as a sixty-seven year old nowadays.
     
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  9. The Lone Cadaver

    The Lone Cadaver Bass & Keys Cadaver

    Location:
    Bronx
    Pretty much everything I like about each format has already been mentioned, but I'll be redundant just because.

    Buying a new LP in the 60s and 70s was a special experience. Slitting the shrink wrap with a fingernail and getting a whiff of the inner sleeve and jacket while holding that black beauty and admiring the label will always be a great memory. Plus the big artwork, sometimes lyrics in the gatefold and an occasional additional insert or poster. And the format still lends itself nicely for displaying autographs. The only LPs I have left are autographed ones and a few I kept just for sentimental reasons. I've only bought a handful in the past 20 years, all of which still have not been released on CD. I transferred them all to CD and digital immediately after purchase.

    Cassettes. Well, I bought a big, bulky Sony cassette recorder back in the 70s - it had a removable thick solid walnut outer sleeve/cover/holder (or whatever they called it) and it weighed a ton. But it made great copies of LPs for the car on Maxells. And perfect for trading rare stuff or shows which didn't appear on boots. I never bought a pre-recorded cassette and I very quickly learned never to buy those blank chrome cassettes - they always unspooled inside the players after about 3 plays. After buying a stand-alone CD recorder in the 90s I transferred all my rare and boot cassettes to CD and digital files. To date none of those CDRs have ever worn out or degraded.

    One other medium which hasn't really been mentioned yet - 8-tracks. I found a used 8-track of the first Nazz album at Half-Price books in Dallas way back in the day. I couldn't find a used LP and I wasn't about to buy a new 8-track player for my car for one tape. So I went to a pawn shop and bought a used one for $7. I hooked it up to a transformer I had from my slot car track as a kid, did a little wiring magic and plugged it into my stereo. Worked and sounded great.

    Finally, I started selling and replacing my LPs as soon as CDs really started coming out in earnest. I have never looked back format-wise since. No, the small size doesn't lend itself to great artwork or extras, you usually can't get the damned shrink off with a fingernail and the jewel cases are a pain in the ass. But to me the sound is far better and I don't need any special time-consuming cleaning routine or expensive equipment. Plus I have over 3,000 CDs neatly tucked away with the inserts and booklets in 20 big binders all in one bookcase. My remaining LPs are on one shelf of another bookcase with my CD box sets on the shelf above. When all I had were LPs, I had plywood LP boxes stacked four high and nine across taking up and entire wall. Nope, never again.
     
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  10. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member


    Never really bought cassettes, but as a kid I used to love record shopping -- flipping through cut out bins, browsing through record crates at a small stores and stands and second-hand shops, visiting record stores in different markets when I travelled because distribution and popularity sometimes differed from region to region. I don't know that it was so much the format -- I mean, what else was I going to buy in the '70s? 8-tracks? -- as it was the discovery. I was young and everything was new. (I also used to love going to the public library and pulling records off the shelf to listen to...it wasn't so much the buying as the music.)

    As I got older -- with more demands on my time -- and as I amassed many thousands of LPs and then many thousands of CDs, the process of shopping and browsing for LPs or CDs (or pretty much anything) largely lost it's appeal for me. Time became my most precious commodity, and shopping was not what I wanted to do with the time that I did have. I get no particular satisfaction out of the act of shopping or out of buying.

    Thankfully e-tail and routine and affordable direct to consumer drop shipping and digital downloads and now streaming came along. What I really enjoy most is being able to hear the music without having to go shopping, or spend time browsing, and even often without having to buy anything at all. The best experience so far for me is being able to hear more music, more different kinds of music, more easily, quickly and cheaply, without having to amass more and more stuff.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2022
  11. canadian73

    canadian73 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    Agree to these 100%.

    Plus using double albums to separate out the seeds
     
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  12. Pastafarian

    Pastafarian Forum Resident

    Whilst I've gone file based, it's lp for me.

    I started buying lps around 1969, by 1973 I had a very basic stereo, so SQ wasn't a issue but I never bought a
    cassettes, as you couldn't see the cover as a work of art and you can't roll up on a cassette.

    When I entered the world of Hi-fi, the SQ of cassettes couldn't compete, I did eventually buy a cassette deck but I've never bought a album on cassette.

    I don't know if I'd still be vinyl now but circumstances obliged me to sell my turntable and go digital in 2005 and now digital has come so far my needledrops from 2004 sound amazing. Also I've still got my favourite lp for rolling up on.:laugh:
     
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  13. Neonbeam

    Neonbeam All Art Was Once Contemporary

    Location:
    Planet Earth
    CDs.

    Not my preferred format but browsing and evaluating 2nd hand stock was dead easy.
     
    timind likes this.
  14. LPs by far. It was always a surprise opening them to see if there was a poster, lyric sheet, what was on the gatefold - all those kind of things.
     
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  15. Aja

    Aja Active Member

    Location:
    Nottinghamshire
    I started with singles and LPs. I bought Brothers In Arms on CD for my best friend for Christmas, who did the same for me, and I was totally sold on the CD hype. I had the LP as well, which sounded abso****inglutely amazing. When I finally got a CD player and played the CD, it was just perfectly OK.

    Through the years, the buying of LPs has definitely been the most fun. The size of the artwork and lyrics/notes is part of the enjoyment. Who wants to read lyrics on CD or cassette? Or see who played the Fender Rhodes on track three? The LP also felt special in my hands, unlike the cassette or the CD.

    Part of the experience is also that the vinyl record was how the artist envisioned the listening experience. Jimi grew up listening to records. He made an album for someone to hear it as a record. The physical waves of his voice and from his guitar made their step by step analogue way to the tape and then to my record, then to my ears. I just feel connected directly to the artist.

    In terms of sound quality, there's something I like more about analogue. I enjoy it more. I should stop there.

    I grew up in 1970s India, and we only had tapes there. ABBA played through a car cassette player sounded better than no ABBA. Tapes were only ever useful in later life for convenience, for example in the car.

    I just never fell in love with CDs. They were and are convenient, especially in the car, the same reason I bought cassettes. I have hundreds of CDs but I just have no attachment to the physical item.

    In terms of clicks, pops and hiss, with a decent hi fi setup there's not much difference. I just have less inclination to play a CD- despite the convenience I prefer the sound of an LP.

    I have to say the sound of cassette is fine. Definitely better than nothing. Maybe I would prefer it to CD, but I never had a good tape deck like a Nakamichi. I'm not likely to get a Nakamichi Dragon now, but maybe if they are going dirt cheap I'll change that. Cassettes must be dirt cheap now right?

    In terms of the buying experience as asked for at the start of the thread, vinyl LP, no question.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2022
    Shawn likes this.
  16. kundryishot

    kundryishot Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wales
    During the 80s you could get 2 albums in one on cassette, I remember getting Quark strangeness and charm, paired with PXR5 that way

    The sound of cassettes was a lot better than people remember

    The advent of CD promised much but delivered little, whilst convenient the sound quality for analogue transfers has never been up to the mark
     
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  17. When I bought my first LPs, I was probably around 12-13 years old, and listening to albums was exciting. The packaging, everything.
    I generally preferred my homemade cassettes to the record company cassette versions. But when I no longer owned a working turntable, I did buy record company cassettes.
    I was a little late to the CD phenomenon, but the superior sound and durability certainly was impressive.
    But yeah the combination of being young and listening to albums on LP by my favorite bands wins.
     
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  18. cdash99

    cdash99 Senior Member

    Location:
    Mass
    Records in my teens and college years
    Cassettes when I started commuting
    CD's when players got added to cars
     
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  19. Fitter Stoke

    Fitter Stoke You don't suspect my life's a mess...

    Much as I enjoyed (and still do) browsing through LPs, I have to say that CDs have proven much less subject to the stressful experience of having to return faulty items. So CD it has to be for me.
     
    Jack Torrance likes this.
  20. TheRunoutMatrix

    TheRunoutMatrix I'm sticking with you, cause I'm made out of glue.

    I'm 53, so I've firmly experienced all three formats.

    There is something about the sound of a vinyl record vs. digital cds that engages me. I don't care which actually sounds better. I have nothing against cds. There is just something about the sound, or maybe the way it travels, that makes me want to turn it off. It's a mystery to me.

    So, no desire to derail the thread. I buy and listen to LPs because it is the only thing that engages me to listen. Tapes engage me as well, but I don't have a cassette player at the moment. :laugh:
     
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  21. Adam9

    Adam9 Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй.

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I can't choose between LPs and CDs. Both were fun to shop for. I'm getting less and less enthused about buying music as I have a large collection and feel I should revisit it more often.
    I bought a few cassettes but was almost always disappointed in the sound quality.
     
  22. bamaaudio

    bamaaudio Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    Tough question as I enjoyed them all and even went back to collecting tapes again in the 2000s. I prematurely got rid of them as a lot of them are worth good money now considering most were more niche and collectible grenres like punk and metal. But I'd say cds around 1994 might be the peak. I was a kid and it seemed like around the time when people were moving away from tapes. It just seemed like such a premium and exciting product. Plus 1994 is still one of the best years of all time on the music spectrum, in my opinion. And as far as vinyl, the biggest time I was collecting them was a bit over a decade ago when there wasn't yet really a mainstream interest in the format again. I used to hunt all over for them at dedicated record shops, flea markets and so forth. Attending record shows was kind of weird since I was in my 20s and nearly everyone else was say over 50. Commons used to be so cheap to the point where dollar bins might be majority of a store. Sometimes I'd even be desperate enough to try music equipment shops to try to find new releases. It used to be so hard to find releases from newer artists at the time on vinyl in a store just a few years ago.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2022
    JDE1982 likes this.
  23. Jack Torrance

    Jack Torrance Killing Confusion By Eliminating Options

    Location:
    Tacoma, WA
    Settle down, Beavis!
     
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  24. ARK

    ARK Forum Miscreant

    Location:
    Charlton, MA, USA
    Shortcomings of records? Off to my ignore list with you and your opinions!
     
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  25. Post-Punk Monk

    Post-Punk Monk Seeking divinity in records from '78-'85 or so…

    Location:
    North Carolina
    Vinyl was always a pain to me. When it was all there was, I would have to put out even more money for nice high-bias ties that I would record the LP the one time I played it to have the cassette for my listening. Preserving the LP from diminishment. Once I got a CD player, all that clutter between me and the enjoyment of the music was GONE. I can even buy CDs and listen immediately in my car. In the last 35 years I have still bought many records…and it takes sometimes decades before I can find the time to play them, which now means digitizing it to hard drive instead of cassette. And then carefully denoting it. But files of music annoy me. They need to be backed up. They are not immediate. Putting them on my personal device is time consuming. CDs I can grab and go. They are the file, the backup, and the play copy! I make archival CD-Rs but that takes time.

    I bought about 6 pre-recorded cassettes in the last 40+ years. There were a few things, apparently, which were tape only.
     

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