Hello, my name is Nay.
I'm a 3rd year Graphic Design student working on a project.
We were asked to create a project that becomes a homage to something that is unappreciated or forgotten about and I picked Vinyls.
I don't know why, but I love them. There is just something so pure about the sound and so spiritual about the ritual of playing and storing them.
I need to generate some interest from people that feel the same way?
If youre a collector, or you find yourself thumbing through records in a record store week in week out, please get in touch and tell me why you are so in love with the format.
I need some tear-jerking testimonials from people that are fanatical about vinyls.
My end result will hopefully be a photo book which will be accompanied by your beautiful words.
I want this book to really celebrate the ritual of playing vinyls and the love that people still have for them.
I wish I was born in the era when vinyl was king, I really do.
I hope to hear back from people.
Nay
Hi Nay, welcome to HA.
There is just something so pure about the sound and so spiritual about the ritual of playing and storing them.
The ritual of playing and storing vinyl may be of great enjoying to some (I've read many accounts of that and I believe them), but I'm sure their sound is far from pure...
I need some tear-jerking testimonials from people that are fanatical about vinyls.
Not sure if this forum has the right community for that, but I may be proven wrong...
I wish I was born in the era when vinyl was king, I really do.
Why so? I'm only 20 and even if I share some of that feeling it's for other reasons that certainly don't involve vinyl playback... (I'm a big fan of 70's and 80's music though)
Anyway, wish the best comes of your project!
Not sure if this forum has the right community for that, but I may be proven wrong...
Right. Maybe the original poster should try Discogs.
A lot of voodoophiles in the community there, though.
Ah alright,
I'm new to forums,
still finding my feet.
Thanks for your help!
Nay
This place has gobs of vinylphiles too:
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/peop...-at-end.225475/ (http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/people-i-love-ya-but-there-is-no-such-word-as-vinyls-its-vinyl-no-s-at-end.225475/)
Thank you Hotsoup!
Nay
To be fair, HA has precisely nothing against people who really enjoy vinyl as an experience, and there are probably some people here who full in that category. I think the sentiment being expressed above is that such strong sentiments might be relative scarce here, meaning that other sites would be more likely to give quicker and more plentiful replies.
My concern is that, somewhere without well-defined rules that all claims about quality must be evidence-based, you might get a lot of repetitive and technically unfounded answers that people prefer vinyl because it has glorious inherent analogue superiority. That is a debunked myth. People can like the particular sonic signature of vinyl, which is totally great for them, as long as they do not propagate the false idea that it has any advantage over CD-quality digital audio in terms of fidelity to the original signal, noise, frequency response, etc.
But anyway, I know you were looking for feedback about the experience and not technical allegations about sound, and that sounds like a nice thing to research, so I hope you can get the responses you want without having to worry about anything else!
Thanks.
Sorry to have posted in the wrong place.
I'm new to all this.
But thank you for you help regardless.
You've all been very nice
Nay
Erm, my point was that you haven’t posted this in a wrong place, as such! I was just trying to clarify what I assume the other members meant when they said this might not be the ideal place for such questions, which is because we might have fewer experience-based users than technology-based ones, not because we have anything against vinyl in either sense. My wish of good luck was just a general sentiment, not an implication that you should abandon this thread.
I still listen to my 'vinyls' since some of my music has never been re-released digitally. Really, I'm interested in the music, not the transport. Personally, I'd prefer a good recording over a bad one, never mind the medium. Actually vinyl and digital is an excellent combination, as digital is quite capable of transporting my old analog recordings. Recording my vinyls digitally, as needle drops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_drop_%28audio%29), has allowed me to preserve my vinyl from degradation due to usage. Analog has its place for old timers like me, with established vinyl collections. I like vinyl, CDs and the net as sources, only because I so enjoy the music.
I hear vinyl tends to be distorted in a way (some call it "warm") that some might find pleasing.
What is so special about Vinyls?
It's a big, fun picture. That's all. I cannot stand the akward handling of vinyl and am puzzled why people enjoy it, but eh.
Nay,
You posted in the right place. We're not all vinyl haters here. We're just a little more rational about it than most.
See, we anticipate people outside of this forum, when they respond to your survey, will make wild claims when they try to explain why they love vinyl records. They will say things about vinyl's sound quality and technical capabilities ... things that sound plausible and that they're very passionate about, but that actually are not verifiable in scientific testing. This is often based on misunderstandings and false assumptions about analog & digital technology, as well as poor methodology in their own listening tests.
This particular forum is unique in that it's full of skeptics who won't tolerate unsupported assertions about sound quality. You'll see many references to "TOS#8", the forum's rule that demands "ABX" test results to support any such claims; generally people are unwilling to do the testing, or they do the testing and find they were mistaken, so they're forced to abandon their unsubstantiated assertions.
We're also adamant about getting the science right—educating each other, and newcomers, about how acoustics, human hearing, and audio technology all work. Myth-busting is a high priority.
Most of us do consider vinyl to be technically inferior, with good reason, but many of us nevertheless still enjoy collecting, handling, and listening to it, for various reasons. I hope you get some good responses to your survey from the vinyl fans here; our perspectives may be a little different than what you get from other forums. Or not, who knows...
Also, a minor nitpick: When referring to records made from vinyl, native English speakers generally will use the aggregate noun vinyl, or they'll use it as an adjective (vinyl records, vinyl LPs, and so on). The term vinyls sounds very "foreign", although I wouldn't say it's necessarily incorrect.
I was born in the beginning of the 80's and as a kid growing up, my brothers used to educate me on music and the medium then was vinyls. I had some old ones I had gotten from my brothers, but I didn't have a player until April of 2012 when I went ahead and bought a Pro-Ject 1-Xpression III Classic player. After that I have spent around 5000-6000€ on records.
The reason for my vinyl enthusiasm is that I love to hold the records and look at the art work on them, but the real reason for me is that when playing vinyls, I concentrate more on the music, since it is not just a matter of pushing a button on my computer to start the music. I need to take out the record and put it on the turntable, usually I brush the record surface with the carbon fiber brush before placing the needle on it and then I just like to sit down and listen to the music, opposed to the background music I play on my computer while doing something else. I also have to change sides, nowadays not many albums are just two sides, but four.
I find that an odd argument. Just because I don't have to go through a laborious process to listen to music on my Squeezebox it doesn't mean that I'm unable to enjoy and concentrate on music.
I guess it's down to the individual and why they associate music on a computer as somehow not being worthwhile listening to.
It's not an argument, it's just how I do things. I didn't say that I don't enjoy music played back on my computer but I do concentrate more on the music I play from the vinyls. Every media has its purpose, I am constantly listening to music from my phone while I'm on the move and I find new artists and songs via Google Play Music, this was just my take on why I like vinyl records.
@Dotnoir don't worry, I agree with your sentiment. Having only recently picked up a turntable, and a couple of lps it only took about 24 hours of reading and then calibrating (knew nothing of setting VTF or anti skate) before I could finally sit and try to 'get' what it's all about. And what you said is true, once I finally got it all running, and then did some supreme cleaning of a 40 year old copy of Tubular Bells, I 'got' it. The distortion and pops and clicks force you to concentrate, and I find I am more immersed with vinyl vs just 'pressing play'. I think I've listened to that one lp about ten times in the past couple of days, and each time it gets better as 40 years worth of gunk is peeled out of those grooves.
I know that in actuality CDs work in a similar fashion, but I think that it can feel like "magic" to have bumps and grooves in a piece of plastic translate into real, beautiful music. As a record is a physical object (and a large one, at that), vinyl records often have expanded gatefold covers and art (http://f0.bcbits.com/img/0001400776_10.jpg) that you can't have with a CD or a digital download. More modern vinyl often can come in different colors, including clear (http://f0.bcbits.com/img/0000597012_10.jpg).
Mach-X isn't wrong when he says that the format can force you to sit down and actually listen to the music, as an act, rather than having it as something in the background. The distortions, pops, clicks, and static give it a different feel than clean digital CD-quality audio; you could say there is somewhat of a Wabi-sabi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi) aesthetic going on. To others, vinyl harkens back to childhood or being younger when their parents played albums on a turntable, and using the format evokes those memories again.
In an era of digital, cheap and disposable music, it is easy to consume, forget, and never engage with the music one listens to. Vinyl is one way to force you to do that, to cherish every aspect of a musician's art: the music, itself, the album imagery, photography, and the packaging. It is an artifact that you pick up in your hand, slide out of the sleeve, place on the turntable, drop the needle, and devote yourself to just sit back and listen.
How's that?
Again it's how you classify it in your mind, just by saying "digital, cheap and disposable music" as if somehow it makes it not as good.
...the format can force you to sit down and actually listen to the music, as an act, rather than having it as something in the background. The distortions, pops, clicks, and static give it a different feel than clean digital CD-quality audio; you could say there is somewhat of a Wabi-sabi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi) aesthetic going on. To others, vinyl harkens back to childhood or being younger when their parents played albums on a turntable, and using the format evokes those memories again.
No, actually, I don't get it: because listening from a file is as easy as snapping your fingers, it makes music become background? Does one need to suffer to appreciate a thing? I'll be tempted to define this masochism... or just snobbery!
Maybe it's because I actually love music so much and I don't need anything else than music itself to be moved to tears. And the less between me and the music, the more it touches me deeply.
Or maybe it's because I started appreciating music when there was no alternatives to spend at least a couple of minutes (and a lot of care and finger crossing) to listen to every single track that crossed my mind and so many times I ended up to trascurate some LPs I had just because my lazy subconscious was hinting me that they were not worth going through all those annoying stuff!
Anyway, I know I'm experiencing and exploring at full my whole collection and as a consequence I'm pushed to buy more music since I switched completely to file based sources.
Just my two cents...
Again it's how you classify it in your mind, just by saying "digital, cheap and disposable music" as if somehow it makes it not as good.
Oh, I love digital music, don't get me wrong. I was just constructing an argument for what can make vinyl special. I almost exclusively buy CDs or FLAC / LAME V0 downloads. I don't even have a turntable, heh. That being said, I own a few vinyl albums because I love the art and the artifact aspect of them. Again, to restate: I was making an argument. I'm definitely a proponent of digital over analog when it comes to music, especially when it comes to distribution, portability, and the low barrier-of-entry to have great sounding audio.
No, actually, I don't get it: because listening from a file is as easy as snapping your fingers, it makes music become background? Does one need to suffer to appreciate a thing? I'll be tempted to define this masochism... or just snobbery!
Maybe it's because I actually love music so much and I don't need anything else than music itself to be moved to tears. And the less between me and the music, the more it touches me deeply.
Or maybe it's because I started appreciating music when there was no alternatives to spend at least a couple of minutes (and a lot of care and finger crossing) to listen to every single track that crossed my mind and so many times I ended up to trascurate some LPs I had just because my lazy subconscious was hinting me that they were not worth going through all those annoying stuff!
Anyway, I know I'm experiencing and exploring at full my whole collection and as a consequence I'm pushed to buy more music since I switched completely to file based sources.
Just my two cents...
Per your first statement, again, I was just posing an argument. And certainly the imperfections in vinyl are not required to appreciate something. All I meant was that the set-up, as far as "ok, I want to listen to something. Let me get out the album. Let me queue up the vinyl on the turntable" when contrasted with the ability to play any of thousands of songs with a few keystrokes, can "force" you to actually pay attention to the music. It always bothered me when I was showing someone some new music that I thought was
awesome, and they tried to talk to me all through it instead of listening, heh.
I didn't intend to make any judgement or infer that either digital or vinyl inherently is better for appreciating music. Like you, I'd probably argue the better fidelity of digital audio vs. vinyl has less stuff that would "get in the way" of appreciating the music. You have to admit, however, in our current age of multitasking and doing 1,000 things at once, flitting from this to that, a format that requires you to put more time and effort into something can force you into a particular mindset of appreciating music.
I was a teen in the 70's, and I amassed a great deal of vinyl. And in truth, I don't miss it much. I suppose you don't want to hear that. ;-)
It is true that going to a store to shop for an album was exciting. New releases were in big displays, often stacked. And taking an LP home, unwrapping it, setting on my turntable, cleaning it, and sitting back to listen while absorbing the cover and liner notes while the music played was pretty sexy. Gatefold covers were the best. Some bands were masters at packaging, such as Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. The cover to Physical Graffiti was endlessly fascinating.
But lost in the nostalgia of vinyl\ are lot of painful truths:
(1) Vinyl varied greatly in quality. Ticks, pops, and rumbles. A lot of releases were so flawed that I had to return it to the store for exchange. Then the store employee had to play the vinyl to decide or disagree. The quality control was atrocious.
(2) Vinyl was fragile. Beyond normal wear during playback, it was easy to overheat it, warp it, or damage it.
(3) Vinyl was heavy. This was probably my biggest problem. Moving was an immense pain. I swear I spent half of my 20's carrying boxes and bags of vinyl up and down stairs.
(4) The covers were fragile. The friction and inevitable bumps and accidents while moving my collection forced me to buy plastic covers for all of my albums.
Digital music may seem ephemeral, but the physical nature of vinyl and its packaging was an immense pain.
I also agree with what everyone else has said, above. To add some thoughts of my own:
On vinyl, the music takes up physical space, covering most of the record's surface area. I really like having the audio be on something where I can see where it is. I can look at it, even when it's not playing.
The large sleeve art that comes with a 12-inch record is also nice to have. If all my records were in plain sleeves, I wouldn't appreciate them as much.
But it's not just the art... I would feel like it was a bit of a rip-off if I got large sleeve art, but the music was invisible, residing on a beensy little CD, USB stick, or digital download. So the music's physical size matching the artwork is part of the appeal.
The 12" size is more-or-less ideal ... large enough to make the artwork feel valuable, small enough to handle.
I like the fact that I can touch the music with my hands, without ruining it—not that touching it is completely harmless, but it's amazing to me that even if I fail to handle a record delicately, it will still play. The music is still there, despite damage (within reason) and grime, which creates noise that our brains somehow manage to filter out rather well.
The music and vinyl are inseparable; the vinyl isn't just a temporary resting place for the music. So handling the vinyl means handling the music. Same with CD, but not digital files. Since I have to put a little bit of effort into caring for the vinyl, it means I am also putting effort into caring for the music. I enjoy that experience, even though it doesn't really make me appreciate the music itself any more than I would if it were on some other format.
The stewardship of CDs is similar, but not as enriching. When a CD is scratched, it either keeps playing through the scratch without error, or it's ruined, so the CD and its music feels more like a "durable disposable," something you're supposed to toss in the garbage at some point. Same for digital files, which must be constantly backed up, because hard drives always fail, usually very suddenly. In contrast, a vinyl record will not hide the sounds imparted by dirt and defects, but the noise isn't as grating as the sound of a skipping CD or bad data in a digital file, scratches have to be really bad before it reaches a point of disposability. So this adds to the sense of value of music on vinyl.
I'm also often amazed at how much music is still only available on vinyl. I'm also amazed at how much music was mastered differently (and less appealingly) when it was eventually released digitally, or that was released digitally after having been ripped from vinyl because the records are actually the best remaining copy of the music. So there's appeal in the treasure-hunt aspect of vinyl collecting. Lots of things on vinyl are just inferior copies of what's on CD, but the exceptions to that rule really make a difference.
As a person who likes collecting vinyl but appreciates the perfection of digital I have a theory:
I believe one thing that's driving many people back to records is piracy. Yes, you read that right. I think that the availability of almost any CD (losslessly ripped and often including cover scans) in the usual places via torrents has devalued the compact disc. Sure, a CD collection can still carry much pride for the collector but it's really not the same anymore.
Even cassettes (now that's stupid IMO) are making a small comeback for the same reasons: people want something physical to collect in an age when most are just collecting 1s and 0s on a HDD (whether legally or illicitly.)
mjb2006 has eloquently mirrored my feelings about the collection and playing of vinyl.
For me, the absolute game changer of digital vs the fun, art, ritual, collection of, and nostalgia of vinyl was that it is almost impossible to obtain vinyl pressings that are not pressed slightly off-centre causing intonation variation, particularly noticable on long notes.
I know that in actuality CDs work in a similar fashion, but I think that it can feel like "magic" to have bumps and grooves in a piece of plastic translate into real, beautiful music.
Assuming this to be correct for the sake of argument, I could reply that it’s even more magic to have pits and lands, which differ in not physically mirroring the eventual waveform that reaches your ears, nonetheless be translated to it through various stages of digital technology in integrated circuits whose inner mechanisms are and will remain a mystery to most people?
In an era of digital, cheap and disposable music, it is easy to consume, forget, and never engage with the music one listens to. Vinyl is one way to force you to do that, to cherish every aspect of a musician's art: the music, itself, the album imagery, photography, and the packaging. It is an artifact that you pick up in your hand, slide out of the sleeve, place on the turntable, drop the needle, and devote yourself to just sit back and listen.
How's that?
As has been indicated, treating music as cheap and disposable is a societal or individual problem, not one of digital music, and doing this merely because of its form of delivery is exactly the same. I don’t know about you, but I can still have almost transcendent reactions to my favourite songs even if I’m playing them off YouTube from a video in 240p. If I really want to listen to a song on the spot, I don’t let the method of delivery bother me unless it’s prohibitively terrible. Otherwise, it’s digital, cheap, disposable, and no less valuable. Neither is it a reason for me to imply that myself or anyone else has an insincere approach to listening.
The distortion and pops and clicks force you to concentrate
I don't think it's the pops and clicks. Back in the day when my primary source was vinyl, pops and clicks irritated me. (And they do so even more these days, now that I'm used to clean digital).
I think the underlying reason why vinyl encourages you to concentrate is more down to the effort involved in playing an LP. The act of taking it out of the sleeve, taking care in handling it, placing it on the turntable, perhaps giving it a swipe with a carbon fibre brush, then carefully lowering the stylus is all like some kind of "preparation task". Because you have put in that effort, you are psychologically inclined to appreciate the results more than if you had just pressed a button on a digital player.
Your brain is subconsciously telling you that after going to all that effort to play the LP, you better get the most out of this. So you sit down and listen properly. In contrast, playing a digital file costs you virtually zero effort, and if you ignore it you haven't lost anything. So you are more inclined to wander around and find other things to do while it plays.
Your brain is subconsciously telling you that after going to all that effort to play the LP, you better get the most out of this. So you sit down and listen properly. In contrast, playing a digital file costs you virtually zero effort, and if you ignore it you haven't lost anything. So you are more inclined to wander around and find other things to do while it plays.
You've just reiterated what others have said but it's down to the individual.
Listening to and enjoying the music is what is important not the act of putting it on. I could make playing a track on a PC as much effort as putting on a record if I really wanted but it makes no difference to my enjoyment of the music.
Just from the comments here it seems to me that vinyl lovers seem to think they enjoy music more than us 'digital users' because they have to take something out of a sleeve and put it on a deck.
I think the underlying reason why vinyl encourages you to concentrate is more down to the effort involved in playing an LP. The act of taking it out of the sleeve, taking care in handling it, placing it on the turntable, perhaps giving it a swipe with a carbon fibre brush, then carefully lowering the stylus is all like some kind of "preparation task".
OP simply called it "ritual" and that wording seems to fit very well.
And yes, the amount preparation tasks means that it was simply impossible to play songs randomly, jumping from artist A to artist B, window shopping manner.
You had to sit down and play songs sequentially, from the first track of A-side.
I don't think CD was not much different, though. CD still required disc change or something.
My CD collection resides in a cardboard box in the basement and I have ripped most of it to mp3's several years ago to save on storage space. I might have to go through that ordeal once more now that storage space is cheap enough to handle lossless compression. But in contrast to vinyl, ripping a CD is a pretty effortless affair. Put cd in drive, press the button on EAC and take out the CD when done. It's all automagical with no configuration other than the initial one and the odd cd that isn't listed in databases and needs to have the tags entered manually. And it leaves you with what should be a 1:1 copy.
After taking my vinyl collection out of the basement and through the recent years adding to it I have thought of transferring it to digital. But I get hung up on the potential variables like cartridge/stylus, the needle weight, quality of phono amp/mixer, and the fact that few of my vinyls are without pops and cracks. So the vinyl seems in a "magical" way to gravitate towards staying on its original medium for me.
There is also for me a significant amount of nostalgia/rarity coupled with the vinyl medium as that and music casettes was my parents only medium for playing music. So the sentimentality of looking at the covers of the albums from my youth is strong. Be it from the original vinyl itself or those I have come across in bargain bins which teleport me back and to my childhood and only cost $1. In that respect I do not mind some of the pops and cracks on vinyl when they are the exact ones I heard as a child with the memory triggers that are associated with those cues. But overall the crackle and pop doesn't much do it for me other than the spesific time when I put the needle in the blank groove and the vinyl crackle seems to tell the brain: "You're now going to listen to a vinyl record and it's going to be awesome!"
So it's mostly for me a psychologically dependent and nostalgic fascination. The ritual and effort that is mentioned is also a factor for me even though I can appreciate some of my digitally stored music just as well in the right setting. But still there is something about that large physical object of a 12" sleeve and the feeling of communion with the artist as opposed to just letting the feeling of the music itself move you. And for some i suspect vinyl borders on religion.
A small part in addition is the rarity of some releases that are old and obscure enough that a cd or digital release isn't warranted. They are few and far between but for me there is a sense of achievement when I come across what collectors would refer to as a "gem".
Budget and convenience has driven me to purchase lossless and use streaming services for my music fix the past year but I occasionally treat myself to a vinyl to support the artists that "still" cater to that medium and to commune with them better. And the "unfortunate" coming across clearance sales of vinyl has me on the oatmeal diet for weeks.
I would liken it to some peoples fascination with a certain make and model of car, especially ones their family had when growing up. It might not be the fastest or quietest, and it might guzzle gas like a freight-truck. But there is a nostalgic and emotional connection that is hard to quantify and put into words. And even though vinyl has a solid place in many subcultures and a special place in many peoples hearts it suspect might go back to waning now that streaming and digital is what most people growing up today are exposed to and will build their nostalgia from.
So in short, for me personally it's about memories, nostalgia, a slight sense of community. While being fully aware that in many (if not all) regards it is a sonically inferior medium. It still has a certain je ne sais quoi.
And yes, the amount preparation tasks means that it was simply impossible to play songs randomly, jumping from artist A to artist B, window shopping manner.
You had to sit down and play songs sequentially, from the first track of A-side.
Well, no, you didn't have to do quite that. You could put the B-side on first, or not start at track one. And there were even 'record changers' for the really adventurous ;>
Well, no, you didn't have to do quite that. You could put the B-side on first, or not start at track one. And there were even 'record changers' for the really adventurous ;>
Um, yes. vinyl even allows turntablism.
But as far as I can recall, most of the time I was playing vinyl just sequentially.
In case of CD skipping a song is a simple matter of pushing remote control button.
But for vinyl, I had to WALK to the turntable, then I carefully open the turntable cover, and then ...
I know that in actuality CDs work in a similar fashion, but I think that it can feel like "magic" to have bumps and grooves in a piece of plastic translate into real, beautiful music.
Assuming this to be correct for the sake of argument
This shouldn't be a debate. The OP asked to hear from vinyl fans, not from people who just want to argue with them.
I think the underlying reason why vinyl encourages you to concentrate is more down to the effort involved in playing an LP. The act of taking it out of the sleeve, taking care in handling it, placing it on the turntable, perhaps giving it a swipe with a carbon fibre brush, then carefully lowering the stylus is all like some kind of "preparation task".
OP simply called it "ritual" and that wording seems to fit very well.
I very deliberately avoided the word "ritual". To me, a ritual is some sort of (probably irrational) process that is an end in itself. And I agree that for some people, the task of preparing an LP for playback might be part of the pleasure.
But for me, the effort in playing an LP isn't like that. The steps involved are a necessary burden, and I was speculating that perhaps because of this, there is an extra subconscious incentive to try and benefit from the effort expended.
The steps involved [in playing an LP] are a necessary burden
Pardon my thick sarcasm, but I happen to know a way to relieve you of that burden.
I had a couple vinyl records when I was a kid but quickly moved to cassettes (no nostalgia here though, I hated them). Now that I have a nice CD collection, I think I probably look adoringly at it much like any vinylphile would their collection. Someday there will probably be a similar thread for the CD format and my tired a** will wax poetically about the rainbow reflections of a compact disc, old smooth sided jewel cases and Mofi gold albums. The physical media itself is cultural. When the music's playing, it's not really attached to a format anymore. They all succeed at playback when we're grinding on the dance floor.
The steps involved [in playing an LP] are a necessary burden
Pardon my thick sarcasm, but I happen to know a way to relieve you of that burden.
Cute. Perhaps I should have said that the steps WERE a necessary burden, back in the days when I used to regularly play LPs. Please don't make the mistake of assuming that I still use LPs. (The only time an LP ever gets physically played in my house nowadays is when it's being transferred to digital).
But you're missing the point of my post. It was suggested by others that perhaps the reason some people get more pleasure from vinyl is because they concentrate harder when listening. And I offered a possible reason for why they might concentrate more, based on my own (historical) personal experience.
I know that in actuality CDs work in a similar fashion, but I think that it can feel like "magic" to have bumps and grooves in a piece of plastic translate into real, beautiful music.
Assuming this to be correct for the sake of argument
This shouldn't be a debate. The OP asked to hear from vinyl fans, not from people who just want to argue with them.
Although I can’t recall what I did mean, I certainly never intended to argue with anyone for its own sake, if that’s what you’re implying—but hey, thanks anyway for the good faith.
I think ive figured it out. Again ive only just bought a turntable and the appeal is a bunch of factors. Ritual is one. Adjusting vta and such. Cleaning the vinyl, dropping the needle. After windexing the hell out of a 40 year old vinyl of Tubular Bells and playing it repeatedly so that the stylus carved out 40 years of tobacco and gunk I finally get it. It IS the background crackle but not necessarily that it forces you to listen more intently. After listening to both digital and vinyl versions of Mike Oldfields classic, I tried to figure out what drew me to the vinyl version. Its the background crackle itself, it has a mesmerizing effect much like the crackle of a bonfire, which is like an aphrodisiac for 70s opus type recordings. You feel like youre sitting around a bonfire listening to instruments. Now for my usual listening I would never ditch digital, but for grandiose stuff like Oldfield or Jesus Christ Superstar, or some raunchy blues, vinyl is just the ticket. Cassettes and 8 tracks just sucked though.
Playing a constant string of singles can be fun but it become tedious keeping them going. Playing a CD end to end takes too long and your attention wanders.
That's where the 12" vinyl album or LP came into it's own. 10 - 15 minutes is the ideal length for the human attention span. Long and varied enough to immerse yourself in but short enough so you don't risk boredom.
All the above become magnified when listening in a group. Which I think is crucial to the nostalgia many people feel.
You have to consider the context. When LPs started to become popular not everyone had suitable players. Nor the money to buy what was at the time comparatively expensive music. So we all knew who had the best record player. Or whose Dad had built himself a decent stereo. We also had to agree among ourselves who bought which record to avoid duplication and provide variety.
So 'listening to records' was often a group activity. (Also a euphemism for other popular pastimes but that's by the by). Within a couple of hours everyone got a chance to play what they liked, Even if the shy only turned over the last record played. Nothing went on for too long if you didn't really like it much. Likesay. 10 - 15 minutes. Perfect.
You could also build up on the covers and pass them round to read in dim light and a smoky atmosphere. Happy daze indeed.
From a collector's point of view there's a pride of ownership that isn't the same with any other format. I'm primarily a metal fan and have been for years and years (I do collect quite a bit of mainstream '70s and '80s rock as well though.) When I was younger there was this (misguided) notion that vinyl = "real metal" and the hardcore metalheads all had turntables and bought it on wax.
Indeed, similarly to Ronald Dumsfeld's comment, it was awesome for me to cut class and go hang out at a friend's house and listen to his Metallica records (back when Metallica actually meant something IMO.) Those of us who bought the cassette found them far less durable but we had the convenience of portability. The record collectors also had that convenience because they dubbed off copies for the road, but they also had the advantage of the nice TT and huge coverart and wicked collections. ...this is much the same today with CD and digital. In fact, most albums I get come with a digital download which is win/win to me. The record still rules as a collector's choice and dominates in resale value, pride of ownership, etc. When I have friends over they see my record collection and it's way more impressive and interesting to them than even some of my rarer CDs. And I'm always slapping somebody's hand off of my mint original pressings of Number of the Beast and Mob Rules
These days I don't try to acquire every album I want on vinyl because it's cost-prohibitive, but the stuff I do is far more valuable than my digital files or even my CDs. Many of my LPs are autographed by the artists. I went to some effort to put the jackets in a cardboard mailer and take them to them. I also have a few autographed CDs but it's not quite as cool (to me anyway. Some music just isn't released on any other physical format now.) I've often bought "limited tour vinyl" from bands' merch tables and had them sign them...great memorabilia of all the shows I, and now my daughter too, have been to. She doesn't like records nearly as much as I do and has no interest in playing them but, when I cease to breathe and am on the other side of the grass, she wants and is getting them all.
Death metal, while not everyone's cup o' tea, is one of the funnest genres to collect on vinyl. The insanely brilliant cover art of many of these releases is only rivaled by classic Iron Maiden IMO. If I took pics, like these below, of my autographed CDs nobody would care or even look closely:
(http://imageshack.us/a/img716/4208/zv6d.jpg)
(http://imageshack.us/a/img196/6166/5s2b.jpg)
OMG that Torture LP is jawdropping.
I *had* to do a back-cover shot of that one just to show off the fact that I had it signed in gold by Alex Webster and Paul Mazurkiewicz. The front-cover is nowhere near as NSFW as most Cannibal Corpse albums are infamous for. (Admittedly, in this instance, the CD digipak for Torture is pretty cool in its own right. It has the gatefold-cutout while the album cover does not.)
All of the usual discussion here understandably centers around vinyl's inherent flaws and shortcomings as a playback-medium. I just wanted to share a small glimpse of the fun-side; dealing with art and hobby. I thought some pictures would more accurately convey "What is So Special About Vinyls," from one of my perspectives, better than my ramblings. (I have so many more that I would have loved to have posted but it could be seen as obnoxious and overstating my case.)
Again, as the covers comprised so much of the glamour and fun of LPs (at least for me, the actual LPS themselves were a pain), I could never understand why record companies didn't routinely offer CDs in LP covers. Best of both worlds.
Because they didn't have to. The price of cds when they came out was near double that of the cassette, yet cost a fraction to produce. Smaller size also meant less artwork than lp. Yet we happily gobbled them up getting less for our money because they were digital and sounded better and it was a oowie new technology!
Yet we happily gobbled them up getting less for our money because they were digital and sounded better
...monumentally better than what most people had at the time. You can't imagine the impact of music exploding out of silence on a CD compared with all previous analogue formats where the noise started first.
I like the smell of vinyl Old bookshops, old pianos, old gramophones, old radios, and old stacks of vinyl have their own unique smells. CDs do too. Not sure whether I could ABX the smell of a FLAC against an mp3 though.
I like the physicality of a moving record groove which you can put your finger nail in and hear+feel the music (if you don't care for your records that much!). That same movement is transformed into the movement of speaker cones, air, and the music itself. It's tangible.
I like buying something that no one else wants (I don't buy expensive records) and enjoying it in the same way that people did 10-100 years ago. It's a very cheap time machine.
I fear the OP is long gone.
Cheers,
David.
I like to imagine what it would have felt like, back in Edison's days, for the very first time to hear sound coming out of a mechanical device. That must have caused more than a little amazement, bordering on the miraculous.
By contrast, when I was growing up records were no big deal, and only my great grandparents could relate to what I am describing.
I could never understand why record companies didn't routinely offer CDs in LP covers.
Transportation cost would be higher. Also, LPs take up so much space. CDs are much easier to store.
Record companies are doing something similar to your suggestion: they sell the LPs to hipsters. The hipsters can keep the LP for its looks. For actual music listening, they can use the download code to obtain the audio files...
As for the covers themselves: sure, cover art can be a beautiful thing. Although, most of the vinyl I bought were 12 inches that came in generic label sleeves or generic plain sleeves. That's just my personal experience, I realize it's different for LP buyers.
Again, as the covers comprised so much of the glamour and fun of LPs (at least for me, the actual LPS themselves were a pain), I could never understand why record companies didn't routinely offer CDs in LP covers. Best of both worlds.
My understanding is the original "long box" retail package, 12 inches long, was concocted to add bulk as a shoplifting deterrent [not as easy to stuff them in a pants pocket, I guess], yet added only minimal weight. The height was selected so existing record stores could intermingle long boxes with LPs and people could leaf through them, yet the storage bins needed little to no modification.
For people who liked the "mini poster art" aspect, some were made such that unfolding them resulted in a similar poster as the LP cover:
(http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m01f3zToeG1qjbawfo1_500.jpg)
I remember keeping some long boxes which I thought had interesting or artistic merit, but fewer and fewer ones had anything worth keeping, beyond a small truncated version of the album cover, and eventually they were completely phased out, largely due to the environmentally wasteful bulk.
You may wish to join their preservation society (http://longbox.org/), however.
...
Record companies are doing something similar to your suggestion: they sell the LPs to hipsters. The hipsters can keep the LP for its looks. For actual music listening, they can use the download code to obtain the audio files...
People can buy and choose whatever products they want and not necessarily be hipsters. Also: there are plenty of records that do not come with download codes so we can do our actual listening on turntables as well. I don't think that is similar to krabapple's suggestion at all.
...I remember keeping some long boxes which I thought had interesting or artistic merit..
I sure miss the CD long boxes and their time. Not just for the LP-like packaging but because CDs were generally well-produced and couldn't be easily duplicated as they can be now. When I got my first CD player (1990 or 1991) I was so impressed with the format that I sold almost all of my LPs and cassettes. At first I saved all of my long boxes too but got rid of them when I joined the military.
It was said in several posts, and my opinion too is that the ritual about it (or call it a series of well-defined steps of affordable effort) together with the properties of this physical medium is the major thing that makes vinyl attractive to many listeners.
I am personally missing something similar in our modern internet world: going to a LP/CD store finding out what's new and might please me. Today all this is just a fingertip away in the net (including the buying process). I feel like this in a much more general way. When finding information about technical stuff (photo, electronics, hifi in my case) formerly I went to a book store with a good selection of corresponding magazines, had a glance at them and eventually bought some. Today all this information can be found much easilier and earlier on the net.
But somehow my life has become a bit poorer.
So I can understand the positive feelings towards vinyl very well (though I don't practice it because I rarely like all the tracks of an album that's why even in the good old days of vinyl I produced extracts on a tape recorder and listened to that).
My understanding is the original "long box" retail package, 12 inches long, was concocted to add bulk as a shoplifting deterrent [not as easy to stuff them in a pants pocket, I guess], yet added only minimal weight.
Interesting. I had always been led to believe that the long boxes were introduced due to the lobbying power of the companies that made LP covers. Their business was cardboard based, and they could see it disappearing. So they put pressure on the music industry to add these superfluous bits of packaging. Long boxes were not used in the UK - we just had jewel cases in racks. Presumably the cardboard companies didn't have the same influence over here.
I am personally missing something similar in our modern internet world: going to a LP/CD store finding out what's new and might please me. Today all this is just a fingertip away in the net (including the buying process). I feel like this in a much more general way. When finding information about technical stuff (photo, electronics, hifi in my case) formerly I went to a book store with a good selection of corresponding magazines, had a glance at them and eventually bought some. Today all this information can be found much easilier and earlier on the net.
But somehow my life has become a bit poorer.
Really? I'm managing to become a grumpy old man in many respects, but the ease of access to information and discussion (and media) on the internet is a joy. I wouldn't want to go back.
Long boxes were not used in the UK - we just had jewel cases in racks. Presumably the cardboard companies didn't have the same influence over here.
One CD single I bought came in one, and I wondered what on earth to do with it. I don't like throwing things away, so I stuck it on my bedroom wall. It seemed a bit pointless though.
I've never been that bothered about cover art, but if you want a nice full-screen cover art display on your new 4k TV, you're going to need vinyl to scan it from. Scans from CD cases aren't good enough. Even when people share them at 2500x2500 they're blurry because the resolution isn't there on the original.
Cheers,
David.
...But somehow my life has become a bit poorer.
Really? I'm managing to become a grumpy old man in many respects, but the ease of access to information and discussion (and media) on the internet is a joy. I wouldn't want to go back.
Yes, I don't want to go back either. We can't turn back time. Nevertheless I feel like being poorer in some respect. Shopping with my wife has changed a lot for me just because of this. Women always see and buy things which are interesting to them. Men usually need a lot less new clothing, shoes, living room accessories etc., but in those good old days I also had interesting things to look for when in town. This has changed a lot.
Shopping with my wife has changed a lot for me just because of this.
Please don't tell me you enjoy shopping with your wife
For most men it's purgatory.
How Men and Women go Shopping (http://granitegrok.com/pix/men_women_buy_pants_diagram.jpg)
Sure not, but it was much easier formerly with some highlights waiting even more me.
(BTW, in the How Men and Women go Shopping (http://granitegrok.com/pix/men_women_buy_pants_diagram.jpg) reality example man's buying behavior is more expensive on a $ per hour basis. )
A coworker told me yesterday that he is happy he doesn't have to go to the well for water.
I have to agree with him. Thanks to modern technology it tastes better; to the point that I savor it more, not less. I especially notice every time I change a cartridge (pun absolutely not intended, nor applicable here).
Warning: the following contains mild irony, sweeping generalizations and kitchen philosophy.
One appeal of vinyl is its imperfection and the ability to tweak and twiddle with the goal of mitigating said imperfections. (Whether that goal is achieved is another story.) You can fool around with the anti-skating, change your cartridge, use various cleaning-brushes, try wet playback, ... After each tweak you feel the need to re-listen to your records. They may in fact sound different and you may suddenly hear things you've "never heard before".
Digital, on the other hand, is pretty much perfect from the start and you can't make it better (or worse) by fiddling with it, because there is nothing to fiddle with. Where's the fun in that? This is when people start to put their CDs in the freezer, paint the rims green, burn-in their USB-cables or mess with LAME command line parameters. Why? Because people are seldom happy with the status quo (even if it is practically perfect) and need to tweak. Vinyl readily satisfies that urge and is thus a more engaging experience as a whole.
put their CDs in the freezer
What if I told you that I've been able to get error-free rips by reducing a disc's temperature?
put their CDs in the freezer
What if I told you that I've been able to get error-free rips by reducing a disc's temperature?
That depends on whether you were unable to get an error free rip without reducing the disc's temperature.
I wouldn't have otherwise mentioned it.
It's OT, but I'm intrigued now.
That was at least ten years ago when I would try just about anything to get accurate rips of my entire collection with a substandard drive. That is all behind me now.
If you wish to analyze the method, you have to consider whether the coefficient of the disc is significant enough compared to the quarter-wavelength of the laser, given the possible temperature differences involved.
There's a topic on it somewhere, though I don't know that it has been rigorously tested. Maybe Monty will make a video. After all, who doesn't like to play with liquid nitrogen?
What if I told you that I've been able to get error-free rips by reducing a disc's temperature?
I would thank you for supporting my point.
Was your experience similar to this one: http://www.soundstage.com/synergize/synergize199912.htm (http://www.soundstage.com/synergize/synergize199912.htm)?
The overall character of the change was that of a higher degree of clarity and focus, ...
Joking aside, I doubt you would recommend routinely freezing CDs to enjoy better fidelity when played back in a CD-player. But I'm curious: how much did you cool the disc and did you let it thaw before ripping? What coefficient do you mean?
Joking aside, I doubt you would recommend routinely freezing CDs to enjoy better fidelity when played back in a CD-player.
Of course I wouldn't.
how much did you cool the disc and did you let it thaw before ripping?
I put it in the freezer left it there long enough for it to get cold and immediately put it in the drive and started ripping. I believe I also had to make sure the drive had not recently been in use so as not to have an elevated internal temperature. This was a long time ago and I really didn't take lots of data to support any blanket claims. It could have just been an anomaly or it may have been just a coincidence.
The point is that I don't know that I would so easily dismiss the idea that temperature can influence extraction quality.What coefficient do you mean?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_expan...ion_coefficient (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_expansion#General_volumetric_thermal_expansion_coefficient)
Can we please let this go and get back on-topic?
I can't help but speculate, that if a CD is taken from the freezer then moisture will condense on it, and the lens will be looking through a drop of water, which may make surface scratches less visible.
@greynol: delete this OT post if you like.
That raises an interesting point. This can be split or merged with an older thread if anyone wishes to discuss it further.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the EDM scene yet. Many house/dance tracks come/came out on vinyl before they were released on CD or via online distribution. Before the age of the Pioneer CD-DJ systems vinyl was thé format for DJ's, so new music would get pressed first not 'burned'*. This could be a reason to love vinyl; being able to get your fix of 'look at me, i'm listening to music nobody has heard in the club yet'.
*: Before anyone starts nitpicking. Yes, I know technically CD's from the factory get pressed as well.