So what if you had records to listen to?

[Krlll Mule]

Several bands have been offering LP's (old fashioned records for you young folks) the last decade or so because they feel the sonic fidelity is better than the compressed digital crap found on many Cd's. I agree. I'm going to invest in a new turntable for these newer releases and also to tap into my extensive collection of old records. Anybody tried a turntable lately? Reviews? BTW - 8 track rocked! Only thing better than vinyl is tape.   

[|iR|Focalor]

HA! People can "feel" that it sounds better all they want, but all the "feeling" in the world will never make it true. Truth be told, vinyl LP's are more likely a way for them to make more money per album sold than with CD's and definitely more money than selling digital downloads. Most record stores have become a distant memory. All the small specialized record stores in big malls, strip malls and small town shopping centers have become extinct. With so many people opting to download all their music now at cheaper prices, they couldn't get any business. But every once in a while, you'll see some place that actually carries newer releases on vinyl LP, and 98 times out of 100, these places are only open because they mainly sell other merchandise that ISN'T music. And when I have seen LP's in these kinds of stores, they're always about 30 bucks or more, and when you compare that to $13-18 bucks for a CD... are you shitting me? I mean I can kinda see why they cost more. The pressing process is pretty obsolete, there's only a select few places that still do the process, and that means it's a more rare specialty item. Production costs more, and that cost is naturally gonna get passed along to the consumer.

If you're thinking that LP's have only recently been re-introduced, that's not true. Pretty much since LP's were dumped in favor of cassettes, you could still find the occasional new pressed LP. What was out there was extremely limited, but it was still around. None of it was really "mainstream" kinds of music. If it was 1991 and you wanted the latest hot new Madonna album or some pop bullshit like that, you weren't gonna find it on vinyl no matter how hard you looked. There might've been a few exceptions though. I think Guns N Roses Use Your Illusion 1&2 might've been released on some limited edition collectors LP. But it was mostly more heavy rock type stuff. The trendy poppy bullshit artists and their labels didn't give a damn about LP's or collectible shit. They just wanted to sell tons of albums, sell out huge shows, rake up all the money, and then move on to the next new hot artist.

Not saying I don't like LP's, I do, and I have tons. Most of it's old stuff from the 60's and 70's that was my dads. Some of it's classic stuff that I've personally picked up from thrift stores and consignment antique outlets. None of the classic stuff I've bought after the age of LP's is "collectible", it's just old stuff that I still like to hear and like the novelty of having it on vinyl. Stuff like Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Molly Hatchet, Alice Cooper, early Slayer, Steve Miller Band, Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, etc. I don't think I'd buy anything on LP that wasn't actually FROM the era of LP's. The price of the shit just isn't justifiable to me. And the sound quality is not better. LP's have limitations in sound reproduction that 100% digital media doesn't. Vinyl LP's from the early to mid 80's (and even the currently made stuff) was lightyears ahead of the old drum and cone phonographs, but one of the reasons it was phased out is because the frequency response of the reproduction method was limited by the medium itself. Digital is just better. There's no physical needle scrubbing the grooves out flat from playing something a million times, a CD is harder to warp beyond readability, and LP's warp pretty easily. A laser can read a CD a zillion times and it'll sound the same the zillionth time.

I dunno about "compressed digital crap". But I'd argue that anything recently pressed into vinyl is gonna basically have the same sound that a CD would because they're made from the same master recording, and it's the mixing and mastering process where that compression that flattens the overall tone is gonna be used. So unless the vinyl pressing company has access to the multitrack recording sessions to mix it themselves especially for the vinyl medium, which I doubt any record company is gonna allow, then it's all the same shit.

As for NEW turntables, I dunno. I have two. Ones a cheap little no-name Accutech brand CD/LP/cassette self contained tabletop combo thingy that I picked up at Kmart for dirt cheap as Black Friday special back in 03 I think. The speakers aren't terrific, and there's no line out or headphone jack to speak of on it, which means there's no way to hook any better or louder speakers up to it. It sorta gets the job done and it only cost me about 20 or 30 bucks. The other one is an old probably early 80's Panasonic LP/cassette solid state shelf system with two pretty good sized floor speaker cabinets loaded with two probably 10 or 12 inch speaker cones and one tweeter per cabinet (4 cones 2 tweets total). I keep it down in the workshop in the basement and plug my MP3 player up to it so I can listen to tunes whenever I'm messing around down there. Occasionally I'll break out my old box of cassettes and listen to a couple of them. Most of it is older death metal stuff from the early 90's. And I have all or most of it on MP3 anyway, so it's rare if ever break it out.

[Krlll Mule]

Thanks for the opinion.  It's wrong.     Guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not going to argue with newbs     You admit you've never heard vinyl through a good system, so hold the bias until you have all the evidence. I appreciate you and the replies you provide......keep 'em coming.  We can amicably discuss most things  {{}} 

[fdrjk]

i thought every band puts out their stuff in vinyl 

[yahoo]

i thought every band puts out their stuff in vinyl 

some in 8 tracks

[fdrjk]

my dads old turntable broke about like 3 years ago and we havent bought another one, so no listening to dark side of the moon on vinyl

at least my headphones are good enough



studio headphones ftw

[quadz]

hold the bias

Ironically not something one would wish to do when recording to vinyl or tape.

An intriguing overview of the limitations imposed by physics on various consumer and pro analog formats:

Analog "Did You Know?" (part 1)
Analog "Did You Know?" (part 1)
Analog "Did You Know?" (part 2)
Analog "Did You Know?" (part 2)

The takeaway for me is that vinyl recording/playback colors the audio a little like an Instagram filter colors a photo. But vinyl happens to produce artifacts people find pleasing to the ear (much like tube amplification vs. transistors.)

[|iR|Focalor]

Thanks for the opinion.  It's wrong.     Guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not going to argue with newbs     You admit you've never heard vinyl through a good system, so hold the bias until you have all the evidence. I appreciate you and the replies you provide......keep 'em coming.  We can amicably discuss most things  {{}} 

It's not wrong. If vinyl were sonically "better", everyone wouldn't be using CD's right now. CD's had the advantage of being smaller and lighter, easier to store, cheaper to ship, longer play time per disc, and also have better sound reproduction capabilities than vinyl. It doesn't matter how you make the LP record and what you make it out of or what system you use to play it on, it will never be able to stack up to the capabilities of 100% digital reproduction by way of CD (granted you might be limited by the system doing the playback, but that has little to do with the CD itself). Like part 2 of what Quadz linked says, the needle simply can't accurately read some grooves because of their size and because of the speed at which the needle passes over it. It's fact. It's science. Maybe you can't hear the difference, but it's still there.

hold the bias

Ironically not something one would wish to do when recording to vinyl or tape.

An intriguing overview of the limitations imposed by physics on various consumer and pro analog formats:

Analog "Did You Know?" (part 1)
Analog "Did You Know?" (part 1)
Analog "Did You Know?" (part 2)
Analog "Did You Know?" (part 2)

The takeaway for me is that vinyl recording/playback colors the audio a little like an Instagram filter colors a photo. But vinyl happens to produce artifacts people find pleasing to the ear (much like tube amplification vs. transistors.)

God, I hated cassettes. Sure, it was the first time that music became portable by way of the Walkman, which made life WAY fuckin cooler for us kids back then. But tapes didn't last very long, at least not in a good quality state. I suppose you'd need a real high end cassette deck to prevent some of the residual damage that happens to tape as it gets run through most tape decks. One thing that often happened to so many of my cassettes is that the tape would ever-so-slightly warp on the spindle. I dunno if this was caused by exposure to heat or cold, or maybe the rubber rollers in the tape deck I played them on was stretching it. But after a while, the higher frequencies (especially evident in cymbals) would all fluctuate in and out like a sine wave during playback, obviously because one side of the tape was slightly warped and was losing contact with the head... I guess? Cassettes? Pfft. Good riddance.

But like you mentioned, the different mediums do have their own qualities about them that people like. A lot of people still like the old style analog tape delay effects because of the somewhat "warmer" midtones they produce.

So yeah, Mule, in a way we can agree to disagree. You "feel" that vinyl has a more pleasing sound. I can't argue with what you personally find pleasing. But speaking as to what is sonically measurably possible with CD versus vinyl, CD just has vinyl beat, and that's the truth.

[Krlll Mule]

Yea, it's all good; to each his own.  Us old farts will forever argue analog has more "warmth" than 011011010011011101000011101001011111011100101011011111100001010101010101010101010011001010010110110101010111101010101001010100101010101010101000010100000001011111110101101010101010101010101001000011010101010101010100010101010101010100101010101001010100101...even though digital has the ability to reproduce the real thing with a wide range of enhancement options. I play through tube bass and guitar amps to get this warmth, but I have to admit new technology has a switch for almost any sound you want to copy.  Copy the sweeeet tones.   

Anyway, I really wanted some feedback from those who have a turntable and use it; give me tips about what to spend $ on or avoid before I open my wallet.

Peace and Love,

Krlll

P.S.  Quadz, you smart ass.... I just got the bias joke....good one.   

P.S.S.  Man, I thought I was just talking about the sound of music:     

How paranoid is digitizing a 9 - 13 bit equivalent signal to 24 bits?  How paranoid is digitizing ultrasonic distortion products and noise?  That's a deep-seated psychological question out of my area of expertise.  There's no "engineering" reason to do it though.

[quadz]

P.S.  Quadz, you smart ass.... I just got the bias joke....good one.   

hehe 

[|iR|Focalor]

Well comparing the sound of valve amps and vinyl LP's is apples and oranges in my opinion. If we're talking about playing LP's through an old valve format system, sure, it's gonna sound warmer. But in my opinion, none of the warmth really comes from the LP itself. Maybe it's the less than stellar units I play them through, but when I spin one of my LP's, what I always notice is how somewhat flat and screechy the really high frequencies are reproduced as well as the noise created by dust and tiny fibers collecting in the grooves of the LP as the needle passes over it and makes a popping static sound. I get the same sound out of my guitars wah pedal from dust collecting in the expression pot. It ain't pleasant or ideal. It just happens and there ain't much you can do to eliminate it completely. And that's why I prefer CD's. There's no noise. Speaking to your original point, sure, you gotta hear the castrating rampant compression and clipping these assholes in the music industry have decided is the new standard for mastering, but even with a newly minted LP you're gonna hear that. That's not something exclusive to CD's. That happens when they mix it in a studio. They can burn that same castrated sound to CD just like they can press it into a record.

Valve amps having warmth, though... hell yeah. I definitely agree with that one. I've test driven plenty of transistorized valve imitator amps, and I've yet to meet ONE of them that can completely and accurately reproduce the same naturally compressed throaty midrange of a good valve preamp and poweramp combination. The only not-100% tube amps I've ever played through that came anywhere into the vicinity of sounding like a real tube amp were hybrid amps, and those have tubes in 'em, so technically, it is a tube amp. They have a sound all their own. For the guy who just can't decide which way he wants to go, a hybrid amp is a pretty good choice. They're typically very problematic though. If you're a working musician, buy TWO, one to have and play while the other ones always in the shop.

[ex]

Pretty dumb argument.  The only real use for LPs are turntables.  As far as being better to listen to?  Again, a dumb argument.  Even the best turntable on earth will give you an inferior sound to a computer-controlled digitally-corrected sound.

I think where Krill is coming from is the idea that the old-school way has a "better sound" because of the slight imperfections inherent in LPs.  With older recordings of music, which were recorded on actual tapes in studios years ago, the LPs can actually get a slightly warmer sound simply because the recording quality was pure shit back in the day in the first place.  But now?  With EVERYTHING being recorded with Pro Tools and being maxed out digitally in every possible way?  Yeah, an LP is going to detract from the audio.

And also, some of the audio that was recorded just before everything went digital (late 80s-early 90s) has ended up sounding better when digitally remastered.  It all matters on the original recording, of course, but it seems the closer we got to the digital transition of the studio recording formats, it seems harder to find a major benefit to the analog recording formats.  And for damn sure, when everything went digital, that completely blew apart any reason to keep old formats in place.  That's why you can't buy cassettes anymore (or 8 tracks for that matter).

In short, the only reason for LPs now is for DJs.  Anything else is a pointless bullshit reason.

[|iR|Focalor]

I wouldn't call it "dumb". Some people just like records. Some people hate mayonnaise. Some people like caviar.

With older recordings of music, which were recorded on actual tapes in studios years ago, the LPs can actually get a slightly warmer sound simply because the recording quality was pure shit back in the day in the first place.  But now?  With EVERYTHING being recorded with Pro Tools and being maxed out digitally in every possible way?  Yeah, an LP is going to detract from the audio.

That reminds me of something. I dunno if they still do it, (and after checking through my CD collection, apparently they don't) but there used to be a little rectangular box printed either on the face of the CD itself or on the back cover of the CD that would read "AAD", "ADD", or "DDD" (A for analog, D for digital). If I'm not mistaken, that would denote the process used to record, mix, and master the CD. Since by the time CD's came out, everybody remastered everything to digital in order to get it onto the CD, the last letter was always a D.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_code

[random]

the recording quality was pure shit back in the day in the first place.  But now?  With EVERYTHING being recorded with Pro Tools and being maxed out digitally in every possible way?

This has got to be the dumbest shit you have ever said.... "back in the day"??? Everything now is modeled after all that "pure shit back in the day"...Learn to google better before you open your twat.

In short, the only reason for LPs now is for DJs.  Anything else is a pointless bullshit reason.

  LP's are meant to be enjoyed, a collection of music that reminds you of "back in the day". Enjoyed like a normal person would enjoy riding in a '57 Bel Air.

I prefer LP's over anything now for 1 reason: Dynamics. Now, music of every genre is getting the life squeezed out of it. It's all about that -5 to -10 rms with a 2-3db 2khz boost. Hence, "Digitally Remastered" aka Loudness War.

It looks something like this:


Krill Mule - Get whatever makes the most sense to your wallet, unless you have some really nice monitors (speakers) it wont matter. I grew up learning to DJ on a pair of Techniques 1200's, unless you plan on doing some sort of turntablism id recommend any standard cheap priced one.

FYI ex - Everything is STILL recorded analog, everything is STILL recorded on Mic Pre's, and everything is STILL tracked on an SSL Board. 

[fdrjk]

not all remastering compresses the fuck out of the music bro