i miss records: why they were better than cds - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

squeeeb · 08-01-2007, 05:18 PM

listen up kids, many years ago, we had things called "records." i miss them.

yes, the music quality is better on cd, and yes, cd's don't scratch and get all "popcorny," HOWEVER....

records came with record album covers. and they were cool and fun, and they were art, and they were puzzles.

the rolling stones "sticky fingers" had a real zipper on the cover.

alice cooper's "billion dollor babies" was a giant billfold, and when you opened it, there was a huge billion dollor bill inside that you could take out.

the led zepplin record with stairway to heaven on it, when you opened it up, there was a picture with an old guy standing on a rocky cliff watching a woman climb up. if you held the rocks up to a mirror, there was a horned skull right there. oooooh, spooky...

the pink floyed "wish you were here" album...the inside jacket cover had this wierd picture of a close up shot of a hankerchief floating in a field of green grass. if you looked "through" the hankerchief, there was a topless woman standing there. no one ever sees it, but once you see it, you can't help not seeing it. optical illusion, and cool topless chick which is awesome when you are 13.

cheech and chong's "big bamboo" came with a giant rolling paper.

queen live killers had all those cool photographs, as did the rolling stones "hot rocks" albums had cool liner notes, some album covers were sheer art, like elton john's "mr fantastic."

cd's are great technologically, but i miss the fun and art and whimsy of album covers. too bad they can't make cd's with huge cool album covers, and we could have the best of both worlds....

does anyone have a record album cover they really liked, or that was different or cool? do any cd's come with anything cool like that?

spectre · 08-01-2007, 05:24 PM

It's just a matter of laziness now. They can do that, most just don't. Check out the work on Tool's "10,000 Days" for an example of what creative things can be done with cd's. Occasionally, some cds do include some liner notes, but again, it's just laziness.

roachboy · 08-01-2007, 05:32 PM

the sound is much better on vinyl--cd sound is highly compressed--you hear it in the relative one-dimensional character of the low end and the lack of warmth overall. you can still indulge a vinyl fetish pretty easily too, especially if your predelections run toward audiophile systems and heavy vinyl releases.

as for packaging, well yes. record covers were bigger canvasses.
but there is lots of cool cd packaging--you wont find much of it in regular stores, however, because they like those nasty plastic jewel cases. go underground---the most interesting music and most interesting graphics live there.

albania · 08-01-2007, 05:42 PM

I don't think I've ever held a record in my hands, or have been close enough to touch one.

SecretMethod70 · 08-01-2007, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

the sound is much better on vinyl--cd sound is highly compressed--you hear it in the relative one-dimensional character of the low end and the lack of warmth overall. you can still indulge a vinyl fetish pretty easily too, especially if your predelections run toward audiophile systems and heavy vinyl releases.

as for packaging, well yes. record covers were bigger canvasses.
but there is lots of cool cd packaging--you wont find much of it in regular stores, however, because they like those nasty plastic jewel cases. go underground---the most interesting music and most interesting graphics live there.

A lot of the problem with CDs is because of the Loudness War.

ngdawg · 08-01-2007, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by albania

I don't think I've ever held a record in my hands, or have been close enough to touch one.

That's just sad....I still have most of my vinyls.

Back about 3/5 of my life ago, I shared an apartment with my best friend. We'd drink a lot and I had a penchant for spending a portion of my unemployment checks on vinyl. One purchase was 'Best of the Guess Who', which came with a huge poster of the group in pink and black....
After a couple of tequila sunrises or screwdrivers(memory is hazy about that detail), my roomie and I said "Let's hang the poster over the stairs!" (Our upstairs apartment had its own private entrance, thus its own staircase). I grabbed some thumbtacks and, being the taller of us two, stretched out over the stairs and hung our newest wall art. Cooool......

The following morning, we noticed I'd hung it upside down.....

Sion · 08-01-2007, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

the sound is much better on vinyl--cd sound is highly compressed

I think you are confusing cd's with mp3's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

you hear it in the relative one-dimensional character of the low end and the lack of warmth overall.

I respectfully disagree.

this was certainly true in the infancy of digital music, when analog recordings were first being digitized. the initial digital mastering of many great records suffered in that respect (a prime example being the Led Zeppelin catalog,which was dreadful upon first cd release, but was later remastered by Jimmy Page himself and suffers no loss of fidelity in comparison with vinyl.) and in today's recording industry, most (all?) music is digitally recorded by highly skilled professionals. the initial short-comings of digital music have long since been overcome.

and, in fact, there are many great records that sound better now, on CD, than they ever did on vinyl...with detail heretofore unheard able to be brought out, due to the precision that digital mastering can bring.

let's face it, other than rap DJ's who use vinyl for scratching, vinyl is nearly as dead as 8 tracks.

snowy · 08-01-2007, 06:03 PM

My employer has a significant vinyl collection--it takes up one half of his garage. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. I love it because then I get to listen to all of my favorites as they were originally meant to be heard. He even has Sade's Diamond Life, of all things.

But I prefer my iPod because it goes with me everywhere.

And some artists put a lot of effort into their liner notes--even if they are with CDs. Look at Muse's last two releases. I used their last release, "Black Holes and Revelations" in an English class I was teaching to illustrate symbolism to the kids in a way they could literally see--and then let them listen to the music to draw their own conclusions. It was probably one of the best classes I've ever taught. The point is--it's out there if you look for it, and if you listen to artists that care about it.

Sion · 08-01-2007, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

A lot of the problem with CDs is because of the Loudness Race.

VERY interesting article...I may have to restate my previous post after I've finished reading and processing the article.

in any case, thanks SM

albania · 08-01-2007, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngdawg

That's just sad....I still have most of my vinyls.

Maybe you have a point. I have no endearing stories about CDs, and in fact I wouldn’t complain if tomorrow there were no CDs in the world, just as long as they were replaced by something of equal or greater convenience. Shoot, I can’t wait for the day when you might be able to just download the music to your brain. No physical copy to speak of, and I could just turn the music up in my head and tune people out.

Jinn · 08-01-2007, 06:32 PM

Quote:

the sound is much better on vinyl--cd sound is highly compressed--you hear it in the relative one-dimensional character of the low end and the lack of warmth overall. you can still indulge a vinyl fetish pretty easily too, especially if your predelections run toward audiophile systems and heavy vinyl releases.

This has been repeatedly and consistently disproven. Modern pressed CDs present no audible difference in sound quality, even in audiophiles. In double-blind tests with so called "audiophiles" who claimed to hear the entire spectrum and beyond (15 - 20,000 Hz) were unable to determine what was CD and what was a record.

This also assumes a perfectly preserved vinyl record, of which there are very few. CD quality music can be reproduced thousands and thousands of times without a loss of quality (as there always is in analog reproduction).

To the OP:

I think that CDs will start doing more of what you describe; as RIAA lawsuits continual to fail and the prices of songs go down, marketing such as that will become more and more important.

I recently bought the "Year Zero" CD by Nine Inch Nails, and it had a cool packaging/marketing.

"On February 12, 2007, fans found that a new Nine Inch Nails tour T-shirt contained highlighted letters that spell out the words "I am trying to believe."[9] It was discovered that iamtryingtobelieve.com was registered as a website, and soon several related websites were found in the IP range, all describing a dystopian vision of the world fifteen years in the future.[10] Many events reported on these websites take place in the year "0000." Digit Online later reported that 42 Entertainment had created these websites to promote Year Zero."

Even better, the CD itself was black, but after you played it once in a CD player the black wore off, revealing a white background with black lettering to the same website. Neat stuff.

Sion · 08-01-2007, 06:51 PM

JinnKai...that reminds me of the debate about the merits of high-end (read high $$) audio cables...the ones with the gold-plated jacks and/or gold braided in the cabling itself.

I've seen data from an electrical engineer that says that the whole thing is a load of bullocks....unless your cables are over 50 feet in length (which few are) then plain old copper speaker cables are just as effective and way cheaper.

warrrreagl · 08-01-2007, 07:32 PM

Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick actually opened out into a full-size newspaper. Beatles Magical Mystery Tour came with an album-sized booklet of photo stills from the movie.

The sound quality of analog (vinyl) sound is more "three dimensional" to the ear whereas the discrete point sampling technique of digital audio is always flat and two dimensional sounding to me. For example, if I listen to "Twist and Shout" on vinyl, I can "hear" Ringo's drums as actually behind John's vocals. However, digitally-recorded audio seems to have all the instruments and voices side-by-side in a line without anyone being "behind" anyone to give the three-dimensional effect.

Easier to hear than it is to explain.

ngdawg · 08-01-2007, 07:41 PM

I only have the vinyl, but Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is 'split' in stereo, in that you can hear some of the music in one speaker, some in the other-does the CD do that? It's also a cool thing to hear The Mama's and the Papa's California Dreaming that way. Turn one speaker off and all you'll hear are vocals, no intrumentals at all. I know that it's that way with almost any recording made before the 80's...

Push-Pull · 08-01-2007, 07:47 PM

I actually remember riding my crappy 10 speed 8 miles one way to pick up the released-that-day album "Powerslave" by Iron Maiden. Still have it with the shrink wrap. I spent hours looking through all the hieroglyphics in the artwork to find all the oddball whimsical stuff that they tossed in. You don't see that with the CDs, although I admit that stuff is getting more and more creative.

Still have all my child/teenhood records, including some 45's. Just wish I had a record player still.....

ngdawg · 08-01-2007, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by squeeeb

the pink floyed "wish you were here" album...the inside jacket cover had this wierd picture of a close up shot of a hankerchief floating in a field of green grass. if you looked "through" the hankerchief, there was a topless woman standing there. no one ever sees it, but once you see it, you can't help not seeing it. optical illusion, and cool topless chick which is awesome when you are 13.

I must have the PG version....she has a top on

Nnoodles · 08-01-2007, 09:41 PM

Heh.. CD what nows? I never grew up in the record age.. i played a few when i was real young, but really i started out with a bloody tape deck. Cant say i miss those one bit. My old 69 merc half ton i had when i was 16 had a 8 track in it.. it was kinda neat to have something super old but still have the good old g'n'r, ccr, alice, ect on 8 tracks, but that got old quick too. cant say i miss it either..

And now cd's.. i havnt played a cd in about a year and a half now.. not with the satalite radio and mp3 players around. And i definatly do not miss them either.

Glory's Sun · 08-02-2007, 03:46 AM

Vinyl > CD's any day.

Of course being a DJ I'm a bit of a purist. I can't stand these fucking dj's who spin using iPods and I'm even pretty biased against those who use cd spinners (no offense king)

Bill O'Rights · 08-02-2007, 04:41 AM

I'm a product of the vinyl era. There was something about those records that had...I dunno..."depth". Life. A soul. I don't get that with CDs. 8-tracks, on the other hand, sucked. I don't miss them at all. Cassettes? Although better than 8-track, by far, I still don't miss 'em. Cds do have excellent sound quality. But they don't "breathe".

Oh, and I still have the Zenith stereo that I bought with my $2.90 an hour McJob, back in '79. Turntable...intact. 8-track...intact. Cassette deck...intact. Tuner...intact. Along with those giant assed Allegro speakers. I'll still go down to the basement, from time to time, and listen to My Pink Floyd, my Meatloaf, my Billy Joel, and my Boston LPs.

squeeeb · 08-02-2007, 05:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by warrrreagl

Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick actually opened out into a full-size newspaper. Beatles Magical Mystery Tour came with an album-sized booklet of photo stills from the movie.

The sound quality of analog (vinyl) sound is more "three dimensional" to the ear whereas the discrete point sampling technique of digital audio is always flat and two dimensional sounding to me. For example, if I listen to "Twist and Shout" on vinyl, I can "hear" Ringo's drums as actually behind John's vocals. However, digitally-recorded audio seems to have all the instruments and voices side-by-side in a line without anyone being "behind" anyone to give the three-dimensional effect.

Easier to hear than it is to explain.

cool, i didn't know that about thick as a brick...as for the audio...

both the rolling stones let it bleed and david bowie's ziggy stardust came with the disclaimer "to be played at maximum volume" and, they were right, if you did, you heard "more" stuff, like you were saying with the layering....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Push-Pull

.... I spent hours looking through all the hieroglyphics in the artwork to find all the oddball whimsical stuff that they tossed in. ....

that's what i'm talking about...i would spend hours looking at the covers, seeking little inside jokes and such....

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngdawg

I must have the PG version....she has a top on

wierd....honestly, on mine she is topless....

warrrreagl · 08-02-2007, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngdawg

I only have the vinyl, but Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is 'split' in stereo, in that you can hear some of the music in one speaker, some in the other-does the CD do that? It's also a cool thing to hear The Mama's and the Papa's California Dreaming that way. Turn one speaker off and all you'll hear are vocals, no intrumentals at all. I know that it's that way with almost any recording made before the 80's...

That was due to limitations in multi-tracking back in the 60's. Pretty much all Beatles stuff recorded in 66-67 are done that way - Yellow Submarine, All You Need Is Love, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite, Strawberry Fields, etc. All the vocals are smashed into one stereo channel and if you turn off that channel you lose the vocals completely.

Sidenote #1) For an unexpected treat-mistake, put the headphones on and listen to Mamas & Papas Creeque Alley. All the vocals are in one channel (left, I think) and all the instruments are in the other. But the best part is near the end because you can tell that they completely re-recorded all the vocals directly onto the same track where they had recorded them previously but they stopped the recording before the end and a slight bit of the earlier vocal recording suddenly jumps in during the fadeout. If you listen all the way to the end you'll see what I'm talking about.

Sidenote #2) I usually have to go into a big explanation to my music classes about what stereo actually means and what it is. To be as simple as possible, "stereo" is an audio illusion. In order to have stereo, you must have two speakers (one speaker would be mono, which is what all the old transistor radios and record players used to be). In order to achieve the stereo effect, the listener should sit equi-distant between two speakers at least six-feet back. Then, if you close your eyes while listening to music recorded in stereo, you will be able to "hear" sounds coming from places directly in front of you where there is no actual speaker. I used to have students "map out" exactly where they heard each voice and instrument coming from in relation to the two speakers on each extreme left and right.

Fun stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by squeeeb

that's what i'm talking about...i would spend hours looking at the covers, seeking little inside jokes and such....

wierd....honestly, on mine she is topless....

Sidenote #3) Give me Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road, Magical Mystery Tour and one hour and I'll have you totally convinced that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by an imposter. Hey, all the clues are right there on the album covers. Try that with a CD......

Sidenote #4) Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy album and Blind Faith's only album are impossible to find anymore because they both have naked children on them. The Houses of the Holy CD has fake stickers placed carefully around the cover art and the Blind Faith album is probably worth 5 years in prison if you're caught with it (just kidding, but it is rather unusual in today's times).

LoganSnake · 08-02-2007, 06:07 AM

Haha, records. You wanna talk about vitage? I grew up in the family that owned a reel-to-reel player as well as a record player. In my childhood, my favorite children's stories were vinyls. In fact, we haven't owned a CD player of any kind until 1998, when I was 12.

QuasiMondo · 08-02-2007, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spectre

It's just a matter of laziness now. They can do that, most just don't. Check out the work on Tool's "10,000 Days" for an example of what creative things can be done with cd's. Occasionally, some cds do include some liner notes, but again, it's just laziness.

I was just about to mention that album. It's all about whether the record company thinks it's worth the money to get creative like that.

On the inside cover of TLC's last album Fan Mail they printed the the names of everybody that was a member of their official fan club. Not much, but that should count for some measure of creativity.

I'll be the new-tech junkie and express my love for CD's. Scratch a record, it's' ruined. Scratch a CD, you can fix it. An old CD player has never eaten up a disc like a tape deck ate my Eric B. & Rakim album. Old hi-fi's look cool, but i think CD's sound better.

vanblah · 08-02-2007, 06:34 AM

I do miss album art. But I have to disagree with the notion that it's laziness that prevents artists from creating album art for CDs. The cost of printing has increased (just price the difference between a single sided CD cover vs. a booklet) and the benefit of album art is diminished by the size of the CD insert. Plus, most artists couple a CD release with a complete website redesign anyway -- if they were really smart they'd allow people to download the equivalent of album art. I'm sure some bands do that now anyway.

As for the sound quality debate: Yes, some things sound better on vinyl and some things sound better on CD. The process of recording music for the two mediums is very different.

CDs do allow for a much, much higher dynamic range. You can get really loud booming bass and screeching highs. In the old days those loud passages could cause the needle to skip on a record. But it's not just the loudness that you get with CDs, you can have a very soft passage in music that doesn't get buried under the sound of scratches and dust.

The problem with CDs is the same problem with any digital medium: bits. Digital recordings aren't "smooth"; they have edges which you can actually hear in very soft passages (such as during a fade out). It's sort of like a low-res JPG where you can see "blocks" in the images. This can also show up in the louder passages as a shrill feel (a lot of people call it "cold").

The loudness war is another problem ... just because you CAN make a CD very loud, doesn't mean you should. When Roachboy was talking about compression he wasn't talking about MP3 compression (which is file size compression). He was talking about compressing the music so that the soft parts are just as loud as the loud parts. It's a little hard to explain.

BadNick · 08-02-2007, 07:03 AM

I also grew up when an "album" to me meant the vinyl LP format, so I have a pretty large vinyl record collection, including mostly 33-1/3 rpm 12" LP's but also a lot of 45rpm discs of the typical 7" variety, these are mostly the small singles, but some large 12" discs were also cut at 45rpm for increased fidelity; and I also have some older 78rpm LP's. As it became obvious that records were becoming obsolete, I wanted to hear them as well as possible and also play them in a manner that would preserve them as long as possible, so I "tooled up" and got as good of a turntable/tonearm/cartridge system as I could afford which complemented my already decent above average sound system ...so I was a mild audiophile I guess.

I also still have my original Motorola 8 track player as well as one of the best Akai cassette tape players they ever made. Prior to CD's I used the Akai to record vinyl discs for listening as background music or at parties where the improved sound from the vinyl disc was a moot point.

The early CD's lacked most of the nice graphic and printed materials already mentioned above that were part of what you got with records, but more recently we're finding additional information on the discs that can be viewed on a computer monitor/other screen and which is a nice enhancement that I think compares favorably with the old records.

Also, I agree that the first many years of CD production mostly sounded like crap compared to records. But there have been vast improvements in CD production so now they are quite good. I probably don't have the latest and greatest CD's and digital playback hardware from a sound quality point-of-view, so the best aural experience in my home is still playback of the best produced records I have. Some of these are the "direct to disc" cuts where the analog feed from properly placed microphones was fed directly into very special amplifiers that drove the actual master disc cutting heads, and then a limited number of discs were pressed from those direct cut masters. In any case, my best vinyl discs that can demonstrate their capability for realism often ellicit comments along the lines of "...it sounds so real it gives you chills and makes your hair stand up...". But the "problem" with any advanced audio vinyl record format (or other more modern technical demonstrations) is always the limited selection of music made in that format, so if music is your primary interest and not sound quality, you have to find most of your pleasure in more conventional formats.

krwlz · 08-02-2007, 08:06 AM

Alright, vinyl is cool, I'll admit. I listen to my parents collection, and there can be a lot fuller sound. But the comment that "Thats how they were meant to be heard" is pretty absurd. If they had good digital technology back then, that's what they would have used.

No disrespect to vinyl lovers, but vinyl was simply the best technology they had. It was the best sound quality that could be achieved then. Thats why they used it.

That said, I agree with the album art. A larger canvas definitly offers more options, but as someone mentioned the latest tool album... Cool stuff can still be done.

Cynthetiq · 08-02-2007, 08:28 AM

Kiss Lovegun had a real gun that when drawn quickly would make a loud bang sound!

album art and inserts really suffered from the diminutive CD jewel case. The long box was tried but failed since it was a waste of materials for the most part. I recently was in a store and saw some brand new CDs in long boxes. It was surreal.

personally though for the music itself, don't care about the format.

ngdawg · 08-02-2007, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadNick

I also grew up when an "album" to me meant the vinyl LP format, so I have a pretty large vinyl record collection, including mostly 33-1/3 rpm 12" LP's but also a lot of 45rpm discs of the typical 7" variety, these are mostly the small singles, but some large 12" discs were also cut at 45rpm for increased fidelity; and I also have some older 78rpm LP's. As it became obvious that records were becoming obsolete, I wanted to hear them as well as possible and also play them in a manner that would preserve them as long as possible, so I "tooled up" and got as good of a turntable/tonearm/cartridge system as I could afford which complemented my already decent above average sound system ...so I was a mild audiophile I guess.

I also still have my original Motorola 8 track player as well as one of the best Akai cassette tape players they ever made. Prior to CD's I used the Akai to record vinyl discs for listening as background music or at parties where the improved sound from the vinyl disc was a moot point.

We have our Pioneer tuner, JVC tape deck andTechnics turntable, but I don't know where to get a stylus for that so I can play my LP's. Way back in the 70's and 80's, compilation LP's were pretty popular and I have a LOT of those-it'd be great if I could have a setup to put some of that obscure music onto CDs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadNick

The early CD's lacked most of the nice graphic and printed materials already mentioned above that were part of what you got with records, but more recently we're finding additional information on the discs that can be viewed on a computer monitor/other screen and which is a nice enhancement that I think compares favorably with the old records.

Also, I agree that the first many years of CD production mostly sounded like crap compared to records. But there have been vast improvements in CD production so now they are quite good. I probably don't have the latest and greatest CD's and digital playback hardware from a sound quality point-of-view, so the best aural experience in my home is still playback of the best produced records I have. Some of these are the "direct to disc" cuts where the analog feed from properly placed microphones was fed directly into very special amplifiers that drove the actual master disc cutting heads, and then a limited number of discs were pressed from those direct cut masters. In any case, my best vinyl discs that can demonstrate their capability for realism often ellicit comments along the lines of "...it sounds so real it gives you chills and makes your hair stand up...". But the "problem" with any advanced audio vinyl record format (or other more modern technical demonstrations) is always the limited selection of music made in that format, so if music is your primary interest and not sound quality, you have to find most of your pleasure in more conventional formats.

When CDs first came out, a friend of ours got a CD player for Christmas and, at his New Year's party, played a Dire Straits CD and LP almost simultaneously to point out the differences in sound. He did it as well with Bruce Springsteen. Problem was that at that point in time, the music was just basically a transfer of the master recording to CD format, more than likely with little or no remixing, so the changes in sound were slight-the biggest difference was that damages, like scratches and wear, weren't an issue with the CD, so no distortion.
Also, in the first few years of CD production, everything released was new-LP's previously released weren't remixed to CDs right off and it made it very difficult to get older music in the newer format. I'd venture to guess that some of the compilation LPs I've acquired have music that would only be found in peertopeer sites now.

uncle phil · 08-02-2007, 11:43 AM

anybody remember cleaning the sticks and seeds out of your stash in an open "on the threshold of a dream" album cover? can't do that in a CD package...

n0nsensical · 08-02-2007, 05:11 PM

There are a lot of misunderstandings about the technical merits of each format. In terms of accurate sound reproduction, digital is clearly superior. The fact that it's sampled doesn't imply any meaningful loss of quality. Sampling only limits the maximum frequency that can be reproduced, which in the CD's case is 22 kHz, well above the limit of probably 99.9% of human hearing. Few people past their teens can hear over 18 kHz and it gets worse with age and noise-induced damage.

Furthermore vinyl can't generally reproduce frequencies over 20 kHz either. Even if anyone could hear them, or if the vast majority of amplifiers and speakers could reproduce them, even a brand new vinyl on a good system probably won't be that good, and it gets worse with age and wear. After a few plays you probably won't be getting much over 16 kHz. Just because it's an analog format doesn't mean it can reproduce any analog soundwave; analog systems have limitations just the same as digital and usually worse since high-quality analog components are hard to design and expensive. The 'warm' sound of vinyl is caused by distortion plain and simple. But I'm not going to tell you that music sounds worse with analog distortion because it's purely a subjective opinion whether it does or not and I see the merits of both arguments.

Anyway I own plenty of music on both formats. There is definitely something appealing about having a physical representation of your music in vinyl, and in fact, vinyl will probably outlive the CD just as it outlived the cassette because CDs are highly disadvantaged against internet distribution, flash memory, and hard drives while vinyl has those certain benefits that can't be replaced. In the future, if you want the artwork, you'll buy the vinyl, and it will come with a code to allow you to download the album in digital format and you'll have the best of both worlds.

ngdawg · 08-02-2007, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by uncle phil

anybody remember cleaning the sticks and seeds out of your stash in an open "on the threshold of a dream" album cover? can't do that in a CD package...

If you can remember that, you probably didn't do it

BadNick · 08-02-2007, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngdawg

We have our Pioneer tuner, JVC tape deck andTechnics turntable, but I don't know where to get a stylus for that so I can play my LP's....

Without knowing the turntable model and the cartridge brand/type and/or the stylus type, I can't say if it's still available or not. But it probably is. Try some of these more obvious places first and PM me if they can't help you, then we may have to look at more esoteric, and expensive, sources. Of course in many major cities, like NYC or here in Philadelphia, you can still find stores where you can buy this stuff in person.

http://www.needledoctor.com/Online-S...acement-Stylus and also look in the Phono Cartridges section

http://www.needlefinder.net/

http://www.elexatelier.com/ateliercart1.htm

http://www.everythingradio.com/turntable_needles.htm

flat5 · 08-03-2007, 09:14 AM

roachboy · 08-03-2007, 09:36 AM

there is a lovely audiophile store in philly located in a norton motocycle repair shop around 5th and arch (if i remember correctly, but i could be shifting it south a bit) that you can go to and dream about tube amps, electrostatic speakers, optimized turntable configurations while listening to playback that etches itself into your skull. the kind of sound that spoils you. the kind of sound that prompts you to think that digital, with all its advantages of total reproducibility and almost creepy absolute silence between sound-events, really just doesn't do it in terms of complexity and depth. i am sure that as you sit there, you could also read various studies from consumer magazines that would persuade you that what you are experiencing is an illusion, but it hardly matters as the illusion is consistent internally and so is no different than any other aspect of being=alive. but then again, this perception of superior sound quality might be triggered by the visual aspects: sitting in a chair looking at a wall of tube amps constructed by design fetishist producers and huge flat speakers does have an effect on what you hear and how you hear it, not to mention on the quality and orientation of listening, which is a disposition toward hearing. and hearing is a socially and historically contingent mode of organizing sonic information. if you can measure frequency responses and align them with purely physical responses in the workings of the ear, you are measuring a physical relationship, not hearing and certainly not listening, so perhaps these studies that show your experience in that chair isnt really happening serve mostly as comic fodder, something to make you laugh. and the idea that hearing can be treated as a discrete sense is also kinda silly, given that your everyday experience--like moving up a street on foot, say--demonstrates that what you hear and how you hear it is totally tied to what you see and how you see it. if you want to hear 360 around your head, you have to close your eyes. same logic obtains for the relation of graphic information and music when you encounter a cd or record: what you hear and how you hear it is shaped by what you see, what you read, how you understand it and whether that visual material can function for you to organize projections into the soundspace because projection is central to hearing and listening just as it is central to the experience of space, whcih only exists because of our way of percieving sequence or multiplicity.

MSD · 08-03-2007, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sion

this was certainly true in the infancy of digital music, when analog recordings were first being digitized. the initial digital mastering of many great records suffered in that respect (a prime example being the Led Zeppelin catalog,which was dreadful upon first cd release, but was later remastered by Jimmy Page himself and suffers no loss of fidelity in comparison with vinyl.) and in today's recording industry, most (all?) music is digitally recorded by highly skilled professionals. the initial short-comings of digital music have long since been overcome.

The Led Zeppelin Remasters set sounds awful, everything is clipped and muffled. I've never heard a decent quality Zeppelin CD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sion

JinnKai...that reminds me of the debate about the merits of high-end (read high $$) audio cables...the ones with the gold-plated jacks and/or gold braided in the cabling itself.

I've seen data from an electrical engineer that says that the whole thing is a load of bullocks....unless your cables are over 50 feet in length (which few are) then plain old copper speaker cables are just as effective and way cheaper.

The only problems that can be caused by cables are corrosion on connectors, bad connections, signal loss over long distances, and electromagnetic interference. I work in A/V, and as long as your cable is designed for the load you're putting on it (no, a $5 Radio Shack cable will not power your 800W speakers without melting,) there's no difference unless there's a lot of interference.

If you live under high tension power lines or next to an obnoxiously powerful radio station, you might have to shell out extra for well-shielded cables, otherwise you're better off buying whatever is on the shelf, or better, making you own so you get exactly what you need and don't have extra cable lying around to absorb interference, attenuate your signal, or electrocute your cat when he chews through it.

BentMisanthrope · 08-03-2007, 11:11 AM

I'm too young to have been around when they were still actually releasing vinyl, but luckily my parents have a huge collection. I've listened to my dad rant many, many times about the superior quality of vinyl versus CD. And now after years of comparing, I definitely have to agree. The depth in sound on vinyl is just gorgeous... you can't seem to get the same kind of power from a CD.

As for the album art... I wouldn't say it's necessarily worse on CDs, it's just less versatile. Has anyone mentioned Led Zeppelin III? With the spinning layer? I just love that. They couldn't reproduce that on the CD.

RenaissanceII · 08-03-2007, 11:40 AM

A radio guy and old rocky-rolly DJ I have listened to, Steve King, had maintained that the best quality music and sound came not from a digital CD but from a well maintained phonograph....

He backed that opinion with that of "The Absolute Sound" magazine

I choose to believe that...

/misses pops and hisses and cue burn

Sion · 08-03-2007, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct

The Led Zeppelin Remasters set sounds awful, everything is clipped and muffled. I've never heard a decent quality Zeppelin CD.

I havent heard the Remasters set, so far as I know. What I have is the box set that was released in 1990, though I got mine a few years later. These compare favorably to the original vinyl records. In some cases, there is vast improvement. Specifically, anything from Led Zeppelin II, which was dreadfully recorded in the first place (the entire album was recorded while they were on tour, using any equipment that was available...also it was rushed into pressing so that very little post-production was done).

There is something that I think many of us have been overlooking in this discussion and that is the role of the playback equipment. Just as records always sounded better when played on good quality equpiment, so do cds. And most people balk at the price of a really good cd player and speakers. I have to wonder how much this plays into the formation of all these opinions we are expressing.

squeeeb · 08-03-2007, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BentMisanthrope

As for the album art... I wouldn't say it's necessarily worse on CDs, it's just less versatile. Has anyone mentioned Led Zeppelin III? With the spinning layer? I just love that. They couldn't reproduce that on the CD.

actually, the album cover art was the original intention of this topic, cool album covers, but the audio quality discussions are pretty great.

i totally forgot about led zepplin III, thanks for bringing that one up. that's what i'm looking for, cool album covers that did stuff....

like led zepplin's in through the out door which came in 4 different covers that supposedly made a story when you put them together. i've only seen one cover...damn, zepplin had lots of cool album covers...

sadistikdreams · 08-04-2007, 10:57 PM

Amen squeeb.

I buy vinyls for two reasons:
1) sounds better
2) it gives me the right to have all this downloaded music on my hd. if the riaa ever comes and knocks on my door, i can just say I ripped the music from the vinyl.

08-01-2007, 05:18 PM	#1 (permalink)
squeeeb part of the problem Location: hic et ubique	i miss records: why they were better than cds listen up kids, many years ago, we had things called "records." i miss them. yes, the music quality is better on cd, and yes, cd's don't scratch and get all "popcorny," HOWEVER.... records came with record album covers. and they were cool and fun, and they were art, and they were puzzles. the rolling stones "sticky fingers" had a real zipper on the cover. alice cooper's "billion dollor babies" was a giant billfold, and when you opened it, there was a huge billion dollor bill inside that you could take out. the led zepplin record with stairway to heaven on it, when you opened it up, there was a picture with an old guy standing on a rocky cliff watching a woman climb up. if you held the rocks up to a mirror, there was a horned skull right there. oooooh, spooky... the pink floyed "wish you were here" album...the inside jacket cover had this wierd picture of a close up shot of a hankerchief floating in a field of green grass. if you looked "through" the hankerchief, there was a topless woman standing there. no one ever sees it, but once you see it, you can't help not seeing it. optical illusion, and cool topless chick which is awesome when you are 13. cheech and chong's "big bamboo" came with a giant rolling paper. queen live killers had all those cool photographs, as did the rolling stones "hot rocks" albums had cool liner notes, some album covers were sheer art, like elton john's "mr fantastic." cd's are great technologically, but i miss the fun and art and whimsy of album covers. too bad they can't make cd's with huge cool album covers, and we could have the best of both worlds.... does anyone have a record album cover they really liked, or that was different or cool? do any cd's come with anything cool like that? __________________ onward to mayhem!

08-01-2007, 05:24 PM	#2 (permalink)
spectre Junkie	It's just a matter of laziness now. They can do that, most just don't. Check out the work on Tool's "10,000 Days" for an example of what creative things can be done with cd's. Occasionally, some cds do include some liner notes, but again, it's just laziness. __________________ "Fuck these chains No goddamn slave I will be different" ~ Machine Head

08-01-2007, 05:32 PM	#3 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the sound is much better on vinyl--cd sound is highly compressed--you hear it in the relative one-dimensional character of the low end and the lack of warmth overall. you can still indulge a vinyl fetish pretty easily too, especially if your predelections run toward audiophile systems and heavy vinyl releases. as for packaging, well yes. record covers were bigger canvasses. but there is lots of cool cd packaging--you wont find much of it in regular stores, however, because they like those nasty plastic jewel cases. go underground---the most interesting music and most interesting graphics live there. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

08-01-2007, 06:03 PM	#8 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	My employer has a significant vinyl collection--it takes up one half of his garage. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. I love it because then I get to listen to all of my favorites as they were originally meant to be heard. He even has Sade's Diamond Life, of all things. But I prefer my iPod because it goes with me everywhere. And some artists put a lot of effort into their liner notes--even if they are with CDs. Look at Muse's last two releases. I used their last release, "Black Holes and Revelations" in an English class I was teaching to illustrate symbolism to the kids in a way they could literally see--and then let them listen to the music to draw their own conclusions. It was probably one of the best classes I've ever taught. The point is--it's out there if you look for it, and if you listen to artists that care about it. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

08-01-2007, 06:51 PM	#12 (permalink)
Sion Dumb all over...a little ugly on the side Location: In the room where the giant fire puffer works, and the torture never stops.	JinnKai...that reminds me of the debate about the merits of high-end (read high $$) audio cables...the ones with the gold-plated jacks and/or gold braided in the cabling itself. I've seen data from an electrical engineer that says that the whole thing is a load of bullocks....unless your cables are over 50 feet in length (which few are) then plain old copper speaker cables are just as effective and way cheaper. __________________ He's the best, of course, of all the worst. Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...

08-01-2007, 05:42 PM	#4 (permalink)
albania Psycho	I don't think I've ever held a record in my hands, or have been close enough to touch one.

08-01-2007, 07:32 PM	#13 (permalink)
warrrreagl pinche vato Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton	Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick actually opened out into a full-size newspaper. Beatles Magical Mystery Tour came with an album-sized booklet of photo stills from the movie. The sound quality of analog (vinyl) sound is more "three dimensional" to the ear whereas the discrete point sampling technique of digital audio is always flat and two dimensional sounding to me. For example, if I listen to "Twist and Shout" on vinyl, I can "hear" Ringo's drums as actually behind John's vocals. However, digitally-recorded audio seems to have all the instruments and voices side-by-side in a line without anyone being "behind" anyone to give the three-dimensional effect. Easier to hear than it is to explain. __________________ Living is easy with eyes closed.

08-01-2007, 07:41 PM	#14 (permalink)
ngdawg peekaboo Location: on the back, bitch	I only have the vinyl, but Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is 'split' in stereo, in that you can hear some of the music in one speaker, some in the other-does the CD do that? It's also a cool thing to hear The Mama's and the Papa's California Dreaming that way. Turn one speaker off and all you'll hear are vocals, no intrumentals at all. I know that it's that way with almost any recording made before the 80's... __________________ Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

08-01-2007, 07:47 PM	#15 (permalink)
Push-Pull I'll ask when I'm ready.... Location: Firmly in the middle....	I actually remember riding my crappy 10 speed 8 miles one way to pick up the released-that-day album "Powerslave" by Iron Maiden. Still have it with the shrink wrap. I spent hours looking through all the hieroglyphics in the artwork to find all the oddball whimsical stuff that they tossed in. You don't see that with the CDs, although I admit that stuff is getting more and more creative. Still have all my child/teenhood records, including some 45's. Just wish I had a record player still..... __________________ "No laws, no matter how rigidly enforced, can protect a person from their own stupidity." -Me- "Some people are like Slinkies..... They are not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs." -Unknown- DAMMIT! -Jack Bauer-

08-01-2007, 09:41 PM	#17 (permalink)
Nnoodles Upright	Heh.. CD what nows? I never grew up in the record age.. i played a few when i was real young, but really i started out with a bloody tape deck. Cant say i miss those one bit. My old 69 merc half ton i had when i was 16 had a 8 track in it.. it was kinda neat to have something super old but still have the good old g'n'r, ccr, alice, ect on 8 tracks, but that got old quick too. cant say i miss it either.. And now cd's.. i havnt played a cd in about a year and a half now.. not with the satalite radio and mp3 players around. And i definatly do not miss them either.

08-02-2007, 03:46 AM	#18 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	Vinyl > CD's any day. Of course being a DJ I'm a bit of a purist. I can't stand these fucking dj's who spin using iPods and I'm even pretty biased against those who use cd spinners (no offense king)

08-02-2007, 04:41 AM	#19 (permalink)
Bill O'Rights will always be an Alyson Hanniganite Location: In the dust of the archives	I'm a product of the vinyl era. There was something about those records that had...I dunno..."depth". Life. A soul. I don't get that with CDs. 8-tracks, on the other hand, sucked. I don't miss them at all. Cassettes? Although better than 8-track, by far, I still don't miss 'em. Cds do have excellent sound quality. But they don't "breathe". Oh, and I still have the Zenith stereo that I bought with my $2.90 an hour McJob, back in '79. Turntable...intact. 8-track...intact. Cassette deck...intact. Tuner...intact. Along with those giant assed Allegro speakers. I'll still go down to the basement, from time to time, and listen to My Pink Floyd, my Meatloaf, my Billy Joel, and my Boston LPs. __________________ "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony "Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

08-02-2007, 06:07 AM	#22 (permalink)
LoganSnake We work alone Location: Cake Town	Haha, records. You wanna talk about vitage? I grew up in the family that owned a reel-to-reel player as well as a record player. In my childhood, my favorite children's stories were vinyls. In fact, we haven't owned a CD player of any kind until 1998, when I was 12. __________________ Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

08-02-2007, 06:34 AM	#24 (permalink)
vanblah Junkie	I do miss album art. But I have to disagree with the notion that it's laziness that prevents artists from creating album art for CDs. The cost of printing has increased (just price the difference between a single sided CD cover vs. a booklet) and the benefit of album art is diminished by the size of the CD insert. Plus, most artists couple a CD release with a complete website redesign anyway -- if they were really smart they'd allow people to download the equivalent of album art. I'm sure some bands do that now anyway. As for the sound quality debate: Yes, some things sound better on vinyl and some things sound better on CD. The process of recording music for the two mediums is very different. CDs do allow for a much, much higher dynamic range. You can get really loud booming bass and screeching highs. In the old days those loud passages could cause the needle to skip on a record. But it's not just the loudness that you get with CDs, you can have a very soft passage in music that doesn't get buried under the sound of scratches and dust. The problem with CDs is the same problem with any digital medium: bits. Digital recordings aren't "smooth"; they have edges which you can actually hear in very soft passages (such as during a fade out). It's sort of like a low-res JPG where you can see "blocks" in the images. This can also show up in the louder passages as a shrill feel (a lot of people call it "cold"). The loudness war is another problem ... just because you CAN make a CD very loud, doesn't mean you should. When Roachboy was talking about compression he wasn't talking about MP3 compression (which is file size compression). He was talking about compressing the music so that the soft parts are just as loud as the loud parts. It's a little hard to explain.

08-02-2007, 07:03 AM	#25 (permalink)
BadNick Riding the Ocean Spray Location: S.E. PA in U Sofa	I also grew up when an "album" to me meant the vinyl LP format, so I have a pretty large vinyl record collection, including mostly 33-1/3 rpm 12" LP's but also a lot of 45rpm discs of the typical 7" variety, these are mostly the small singles, but some large 12" discs were also cut at 45rpm for increased fidelity; and I also have some older 78rpm LP's. As it became obvious that records were becoming obsolete, I wanted to hear them as well as possible and also play them in a manner that would preserve them as long as possible, so I "tooled up" and got as good of a turntable/tonearm/cartridge system as I could afford which complemented my already decent above average sound system ...so I was a mild audiophile I guess. I also still have my original Motorola 8 track player as well as one of the best Akai cassette tape players they ever made. Prior to CD's I used the Akai to record vinyl discs for listening as background music or at parties where the improved sound from the vinyl disc was a moot point. The early CD's lacked most of the nice graphic and printed materials already mentioned above that were part of what you got with records, but more recently we're finding additional information on the discs that can be viewed on a computer monitor/other screen and which is a nice enhancement that I think compares favorably with the old records. Also, I agree that the first many years of CD production mostly sounded like crap compared to records. But there have been vast improvements in CD production so now they are quite good. I probably don't have the latest and greatest CD's and digital playback hardware from a sound quality point-of-view, so the best aural experience in my home is still playback of the best produced records I have. Some of these are the "direct to disc" cuts where the analog feed from properly placed microphones was fed directly into very special amplifiers that drove the actual master disc cutting heads, and then a limited number of discs were pressed from those direct cut masters. In any case, my best vinyl discs that can demonstrate their capability for realism often ellicit comments along the lines of "...it sounds so real it gives you chills and makes your hair stand up...". But the "problem" with any advanced audio vinyl record format (or other more modern technical demonstrations) is always the limited selection of music made in that format, so if music is your primary interest and not sound quality, you have to find most of your pleasure in more conventional formats.

08-02-2007, 08:06 AM	#26 (permalink)
krwlz Fledgling Dead Head Location: Clarkson U.	Alright, vinyl is cool, I'll admit. I listen to my parents collection, and there can be a lot fuller sound. But the comment that "Thats how they were meant to be heard" is pretty absurd. If they had good digital technology back then, that's what they would have used. No disrespect to vinyl lovers, but vinyl was simply the best technology they had. It was the best sound quality that could be achieved then. Thats why they used it. That said, I agree with the album art. A larger canvas definitly offers more options, but as someone mentioned the latest tool album... Cool stuff can still be done.

08-02-2007, 08:28 AM	#27 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	Kiss Lovegun had a real gun that when drawn quickly would make a loud bang sound! album art and inserts really suffered from the diminutive CD jewel case. The long box was tried but failed since it was a waste of materials for the most part. I recently was in a store and saw some brand new CDs in long boxes. It was surreal. personally though for the music itself, don't care about the format. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

08-02-2007, 11:43 AM	#29 (permalink)
uncle phil comfortably numb... Super Moderator Location: upstate	anybody remember cleaning the sticks and seeds out of your stash in an open "on the threshold of a dream" album cover? can't do that in a CD package... __________________ "We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done." - Robert S. McNamara ----------------------------------------- "We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches... We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles." - Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message" ----------------------------------------- never wrestle with a pig. you both get dirty; the pig likes it.

08-02-2007, 05:11 PM	#30 (permalink)
n0nsensical Junkie Location: San Francisco	There are a lot of misunderstandings about the technical merits of each format. In terms of accurate sound reproduction, digital is clearly superior. The fact that it's sampled doesn't imply any meaningful loss of quality. Sampling only limits the maximum frequency that can be reproduced, which in the CD's case is 22 kHz, well above the limit of probably 99.9% of human hearing. Few people past their teens can hear over 18 kHz and it gets worse with age and noise-induced damage. Furthermore vinyl can't generally reproduce frequencies over 20 kHz either. Even if anyone could hear them, or if the vast majority of amplifiers and speakers could reproduce them, even a brand new vinyl on a good system probably won't be that good, and it gets worse with age and wear. After a few plays you probably won't be getting much over 16 kHz. Just because it's an analog format doesn't mean it can reproduce any analog soundwave; analog systems have limitations just the same as digital and usually worse since high-quality analog components are hard to design and expensive. The 'warm' sound of vinyl is caused by distortion plain and simple. But I'm not going to tell you that music sounds worse with analog distortion because it's purely a subjective opinion whether it does or not and I see the merits of both arguments. Anyway I own plenty of music on both formats. There is definitely something appealing about having a physical representation of your music in vinyl, and in fact, vinyl will probably outlive the CD just as it outlived the cassette because CDs are highly disadvantaged against internet distribution, flash memory, and hard drives while vinyl has those certain benefits that can't be replaced. In the future, if you want the artwork, you'll buy the vinyl, and it will come with a code to allow you to download the album in digital format and you'll have the best of both worlds.

08-03-2007, 09:14 AM	#33 (permalink)
flat5 Very Insignificant Pawn Location: Amsterdam, NL	.. Last edited by flat5; 05-03-2008 at 01:36 AM..

08-03-2007, 09:36 AM	#34 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	there is a lovely audiophile store in philly located in a norton motocycle repair shop around 5th and arch (if i remember correctly, but i could be shifting it south a bit) that you can go to and dream about tube amps, electrostatic speakers, optimized turntable configurations while listening to playback that etches itself into your skull. the kind of sound that spoils you. the kind of sound that prompts you to think that digital, with all its advantages of total reproducibility and almost creepy absolute silence between sound-events, really just doesn't do it in terms of complexity and depth. i am sure that as you sit there, you could also read various studies from consumer magazines that would persuade you that what you are experiencing is an illusion, but it hardly matters as the illusion is consistent internally and so is no different than any other aspect of being=alive. but then again, this perception of superior sound quality might be triggered by the visual aspects: sitting in a chair looking at a wall of tube amps constructed by design fetishist producers and huge flat speakers does have an effect on what you hear and how you hear it, not to mention on the quality and orientation of listening, which is a disposition toward hearing. and hearing is a socially and historically contingent mode of organizing sonic information. if you can measure frequency responses and align them with purely physical responses in the workings of the ear, you are measuring a physical relationship, not hearing and certainly not listening, so perhaps these studies that show your experience in that chair isnt really happening serve mostly as comic fodder, something to make you laugh. and the idea that hearing can be treated as a discrete sense is also kinda silly, given that your everyday experience--like moving up a street on foot, say--demonstrates that what you hear and how you hear it is totally tied to what you see and how you see it. if you want to hear 360 around your head, you have to close your eyes. same logic obtains for the relation of graphic information and music when you encounter a cd or record: what you hear and how you hear it is shaped by what you see, what you read, how you understand it and whether that visual material can function for you to organize projections into the soundspace because projection is central to hearing and listening just as it is central to the experience of space, whcih only exists because of our way of percieving sequence or multiplicity. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 08-03-2007 at 09:39 AM..

08-03-2007, 11:11 AM	#36 (permalink)
BentMisanthrope Upright Location: Canada	I'm too young to have been around when they were still actually releasing vinyl, but luckily my parents have a huge collection. I've listened to my dad rant many, many times about the superior quality of vinyl versus CD. And now after years of comparing, I definitely have to agree. The depth in sound on vinyl is just gorgeous... you can't seem to get the same kind of power from a CD. As for the album art... I wouldn't say it's necessarily worse on CDs, it's just less versatile. Has anyone mentioned Led Zeppelin III? With the spinning layer? I just love that. They couldn't reproduce that on the CD.

08-03-2007, 11:40 AM	#37 (permalink)
RenaissanceII Psycho Location: Grand Rapids	A radio guy and old rocky-rolly DJ I have listened to, Steve King, had maintained that the best quality music and sound came not from a digital CD but from a well maintained phonograph.... He backed that opinion with that of "The Absolute Sound" magazine I choose to believe that... /misses pops and hisses and cue burn __________________ *And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.* Anais Nin I Wish *You* Well.

08-04-2007, 10:57 PM	#40 (permalink)
sadistikdreams lonely rolling star Location: Seattle.	Amen squeeb. I buy vinyls for two reasons: 1) sounds better 2) it gives me the right to have all this downloaded music on my hd. if the riaa ever comes and knocks on my door, i can just say I ripped the music from the vinyl.