CNN reports on the resurgance of vinyl

[3db]

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/liv...yl.records.cnn

I went to a used record store the other day and I asked how business was doing and the owner said, its just great. I asked him who the biggest age group was that bought records and he surprised me by saying between 14 and 20 years old.

 

[Exit]

It makes sense. Fourteen to 20 year olds never went through the record era of pops, skips, static, noise, dust and limited dynamic range. They missed Diskwasher brushes, dBX dynamic range expanders and waveform peak restorers, pop and click filters, etc. When CDs hit, all those problems were gone. I for one am not nostalgic for the old record days at all. I suppose someday there will be a craze for VHS tapes and equipment.

 

[Halon451]

I think the 14-20 year old demographic may just be interested in vinyl on account of being self-proclaimed "Bedroom DJ's", looking for some of that old vintage material from which to sample. Just a hunch though, I've got nothing to back that up.

For the record (pun intended), my vinyl collection continues to collect dust, and there is a reason for that.

 

[stratman]

Forget vinyl! This is what I want!:






Now, if I could only add a blue laser to it??

 

[Exit]

You have a good point. It would be interesting to see whether turntable sales are mostly DJ type or standard or audiophile type. I have seen it stated that some record fans prefer analog recordings on records to digital recordings on CD. I prefer a CD player's 90+ dB signal-to-noise ratio with none of the hassles of records I mentioned. Do the audio high definition formats (i.e. SACD, ?) have less dynamic range compression and clipping than standard CDs?

 

[Pyrrho]

It makes sense. Fourteen to 20 year olds never went through the record era of pops, skips, static, noise, dust and limited dynamic range. They missed Diskwasher brushes, dBX dynamic range expanders and waveform peak restorers, pop and click filters, etc. When CDs hit, all those problems were gone. I for one am not nostalgic for the old record days at all. I suppose someday there will be a craze for VHS tapes and equipment.

You might enjoy watching a documentary about 8-track lovers (from 1995) called So Wrong They're Right. It is fun viewing, and many of the lovers of 8-track tapes sound remarkably like many LP fanatics I have heard wax poetic about the virtues of their favored format. And a lot of the lovers of 8-track tapes in 1995 were too young to have been original owners, though some were old enough for it.

The film, by the way, is available on DVD.

I am not nostalgic for LPs for many of the same reasons that I am not nostalgic for 8-track tapes. Both are vastly inferior to CDs. But if others want to collect old junk, that is great, as they can prevent our landfills from filling quite so fast, and they can also prevent more pieces of plastic from being made (as they are buying already made junk instead of newly made CDs).

Oh, and you left off wow and flutter from your list of the qualities to be enjoyed with LPs. Such things give the sound a more organic quality.

 

[Pyrrho]

You have a good point. It would be interesting to see whether turntable sales are mostly DJ type or standard or audiophile type. I have seen it stated that some record fans prefer analog recordings on records to digital recordings on CD. I prefer a CD player's 90+ dB signal-to-noise ratio with none of the hassles of records I mentioned. Do the audio high definition formats (i.e. SACD, ?) have less dynamic range compression and clipping than standard CDs?

SACD and DVD-Audio have the capability of having a wider dynamic range than CDs are capable of having. But the reality is that most pop music on CDs uses no where near the capability of the CD format, and could easily be put on a format with more limited dynamic range—like an LP. Typically, you will not be able to get most popular music on SACD or DVD-Audio. The things that you can buy on those formats typically is not the stuff that is so severely compressed when released on CD. In other words, it is often the case that you can get a good sounding CD of the same material that is released on SACD and DVD-Audio. Still, if you have the capability of playing it, I like multi-channel audio, and therefore I like buying things on these superior formats. Hybrid SACDs are great, as they have a CD layer that can be played in any player that can play CDs, and also they have SACD sound (in either stereo, multi-channel, or both).

 

[Geno]

For us Geezers, Vinyl never really went away

Like a lot of people my age, vinyl is still here. I sure don't want to trot out the old wars of vinyl vs digital again. I totally agree that CDs, SACDs and DVD-As are vastly superior in most respects, but I still have a large LP collection and a decent turntable that I enjoy using from time to time. I haven't bought a new LP in decades, with the exception of a couple of 180-gram vinyl "audiophile" pressings of favorite recordings (Steely Dan's Aja and Joni Mitchell's Blue) just to see if they were worth the hype. They weren't.

 

[skizzerflake]

You have a good point. It would be interesting to see whether turntable sales are mostly DJ type or standard or audiophile type. I have seen it stated that some record fans prefer analog recordings on records to digital recordings on CD. I prefer a CD player's 90+ dB signal-to-noise ratio with none of the hassles of records I mentioned. Do the audio high definition formats (i.e. SACD, ?) have less dynamic range compression and clipping than standard CDs?

I have two teens in the house and both like vinyl. At this point, I have two turntables in the house for my records (vintage mainly) and theirs (new). Part of it is a fad (our favorite music store has a big selection and vinyl has a cool factor) but part is what I notice too, which is that vinyl has some sort of vaguely defined "directness" that I don't hear in CDs. That makes it worth putting up with some surface noise. I couldn't define what causes this if my life depended on it, but it seems as though some sort of filter that is missing that is always present on CDs.

I also have SACD's and I have to admit that SACD does everything I want. They DO sound as good as vinyl to my ears and have the advantage of 5 channels, so I guess that makes me not a zealot. As for dynamic range, I havn't heard a CD for years that exploits anything close to the whole range so that isn't much of a loss. The range depend less on the medium than the recording engineer who probably has his strings pulled by a corporate suit who has some sort of attitude about how sound should be.

 

[supervij]

I'm not terribly surprised at this. I recently played an old Charisma pressing of Genesis' Foxtrot, and found it vastly superior to both CD editions of the album. The vinyl had the sound of a very good 2-channel SACD -- fullness, clarity, warmth, I could actually hear the bass notes, the vocals were clear and strong, and the music had energy and life. The Definitive Edition Remaster CD of Foxtrot/I] was, in comparison, compressed-sounding, cold, muddy and lifeless. Until the SACD of this album comes out, I'll be sticking with my vinyl and chucking the CD.

cheers,
supervij

 

[mtrycrafts]

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/liv...yl.records.cnn

I went to a used record store the other day and I asked how business was doing and the owner said, its just great. I asked him who the biggest age group was that bought records and he surprised me by saying between 14 and 20 years old.

Yes, it seems cyclical like so many other products and services in consumerland
And, with the kids, it is a curiosity factor as they probably never seen or heard them while growing up at home and, it can still be experienced.

 

[3db]

You have a good point. It would be interesting to see whether turntable sales are mostly DJ type or standard or audiophile type. I have seen it stated that some record fans prefer analog recordings on records to digital recordings on CD. I prefer a CD player's 90+ dB signal-to-noise ratio with none of the hassles of records I mentioned. Do the audio high definition formats (i.e. SACD, ?) have less dynamic range compression and clipping than standard CDs?

From the plethora of new turntables out there, I would say that turntables being purchased are of the non-DJ hifi type. Companies such as ProJect, Rega, Music Hall, are all offering new turntables. Companies like MacIntosh have ventured into the turntable market again.