[woodsyi]

First, the popularity is not being driven solely by newly released vinyl.  It is being primarily driven by those who have found music that they like on vinyl that is not available in other formats.  There's a lot of it.

Very good point Jim.  I have a lot but I continue to look for records of Operatic productions that have not and will not be offered on CD or other digital formats. 

[lazydays]

I don't know either..

The buzz at CES this year was mostly music servers and ways to get your iPod integrated into your
system, along with a lot of people making or introducing DAC's again.

Don't get me wrong, I love vinyl, still have five turntables and a lot of records.
I just think it's really the convenience thing as much as sound.

Personally, CD players have gotten so much better in the last few years especially,
it's not like it used to be where a 500 dollar turntable sounded way better than a
few thousand dollar CD player.

Also, a lot of LP remasters (not audiophile releases) have been re-released from
digital masters, so they don't sound any better than CD's anyway.

I hope that if it can continue, it is with great quality stuff, because that's the
only way LP is worth the effort in my book. If the choice is between an LP
pressed from older digital masters or a CD, I'd just as soon have the CD...

Much easier to take care of.

So, here's to the future of high quality LP's!

if the CD came off an analog master (most do) the LP will flatly kill it! If the CD came off a digital master the LP will usually sound as well if not have better imaging and depth. Also in a good system the LP will have better highs and bass (assuming your speakers will handle the new found sound). A classic example to this is the new Anthony Wilson LP verses the SACD or even a regular CD (if they offer it). The LP kills it everytime.
gary

[lazydays]

I think Tonepub has hit upon the most critical factor a few posts above. If there is to be any "vinyl resurgence" (and frankly, as much as I would like there to be one I doubt it will happen), it will be predicated on the following (in what I would consider to be my order of importance):

1) high quality analog recording and mastering of the original performance

2) high quality pressing of vinyl without warps, surface noise problems, etc.

3) affordable high quality vinyl, ie. under $30, preferably under $25 for records

The recording industry has shown that, for the most part, they're not interested in providing one of the above, let alone all three, so I'm pretty pessimistic.

There really isn't much of a resergance in vinyl. It's always been there, and new folks are discovering just how much better than digital it is. All the while many people that got sucked into the digital spell are dragging out their old turntables after hearing the difference again. CDs are now going they way of the Elcassete, and SACD / DVD-A killed themselves before they even got a solid nitch.
gary

[Wayner]

I've just received several new albums from Music Direct. They are of very high quality, no warps, no surface noise and several have been remastered. some I paid $11 for and 1 I paid $30 for. These albums are a lot better than when I was a kid, as I'm sure back them I brought back a third of my purchases for exchange or refund because of scratches, warps and misc defects.

Wayner

[twitch54]

Wayner, interesting you should mention your purchase today, for when at lunch I stopped into my neighborhhod Goodwill and scored Eugene Ormandy and the Phila Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky along with a very nice early Peter Nero recording from 1972................ 97 cents each ! they cleaned up and sound great !

[TONEPUB]

[/quote]

if the CD came off an analog master (most do) the LP will flatly kill it! If the CD came off a digital master the LP will usually sound as well if not have better imaging and depth. Also in a good system the LP will have better highs and bass (assuming your speakers will handle the new found sound). A classic example to this is the new Anthony Wilson LP verses the SACD or even a regular CD (if they offer it). The LP kills it everytime.
gary
[/quote]

Sorry buddy, you must be listening to some average CD playback..
With the Naim CD555, it's really rare that the LP sounds better.  It happens about 20% of the time
and its a draw about 50% of the time.

I have plenty of LP's and CD's and I love both.  But I spend a lot less time spinning records
these days since I bought the Naim.

[Jampot]

Tonepub wrote

you must be listening to some average CD playback..
With the Naim CD555...

Naim CD555 is £15000 here in UK - lots of folk have to listen to 'average' cd palyback if thats the price of entry to 'above average'.

I'm glad your pleased with it Geoff

Jim

[WGH]

With the Naim CD555, it's really rare that the LP sounds better.  It happens about 20% of the time
and its a draw about 50% of the time.

Another way to say this is that if an LP can sound as good as the Niam CD555 50% of the time, and better than the Niam 20% of the time, then that 70% total means that almost 1 in 3 CD's played will sound worse than an LP. To paraphrase my Dad, I can buy a lot of albums for $28,000.

[zacster]

I'm still using the same turntable I bought 25 years ago, but unfortunately I'm also using the same records from back then too.  Most of them went through the great flood on 1996 in my house.  They are all dirty, and I've tried all kinds of methods to clean them.  The few that didn't go through are pretty worn out as they've been played to death. 

OTOH, I bought a new copy of Dylan's Greatest Hits at J&R the other day for 12.99, probably less than the original price adjusted for inflation.  They have a small selection of reissues, and a lot of hip-hop.  I didn't see much there that I wanted.  The album sounds OK, but the recordings were only OK to begin with, and greatest hits albums were frequently made with multi-generation masters, whatever version they could find on the shelf. 

One thing I always notice though is that the vinyl has the potential to always sound better than the CD, which still sounds grainy to my ears. 

[Wayner]

ZACSTER,

YOU CAN'T OBVIOUSLY FIX VINYL DAMAGE, (sorry cap lock), but you did say those records may have gotten wet. Do they have mold on them?

Wayner

[zacster]

Probably, mold, crud, whatever travels in water.  This was 12 years ago already.  There were way too many to handle at the time, and I just figured they were beyond repair at the time.  What I find now is that I want to play them, and I give them a good wash with the kitchen hose, but the edge that was in the water just doesn't ever get silent.  I tried disk cleaner (I think it was Discwasher) at the time but it didn't do any good.  Water worked just as well.  Wiping with a soft cloth, sponge, carbon brush, wet, dry, nothing really helps.  I still play them.  I probably need to clean the stylus as it must be picking stuff up.

[Wayner]

The reason I asked is that on some really dirty/moldy records, I've used some stuff called De-solv-it. You can get it at Walmart and it is an orange based product. Let it soak, then rinse it off....careful of the label

W

[twitch54]

Also sounds like they would be good candidates for 'steam cleaning'. See this discussion in the record cleaning section .

[lazydays]

I've just received several new albums from Music Direct. They are of very high quality, no warps, no surface noise and several have been remastered. some I paid $11 for and 1 I paid $30 for. These albums are a lot better than when I was a kid, as I'm sure back them I brought back a third of my purchases for exchange or refund because of scratches, warps and misc defects.

Wayner

you know I have LP's that I bought back in the sixties, and seventies, if taken care of they sound very good even today. I (for one) am not completely convinced that all these new remastered disc sound anybetter each and everytime. I'm sure some do, but not everyone. I think a lot of this is who mastered it, and who pressed it in the first place.
gary

[lazydays]

if the CD came off an analog master (most do) the LP will flatly kill it! If the CD came off a digital master the LP will usually sound as well if not have better imaging and depth. Also in a good system the LP will have better highs and bass (assuming your speakers will handle the new found sound). A classic example to this is the new Anthony Wilson LP verses the SACD or even a regular CD (if they offer it). The LP kills it everytime.
gary
[/quote]

Sorry buddy, you must be listening to some average CD playback..
With the Naim CD555, it's really rare that the LP sounds better.  It happens about 20% of the time
and its a draw about 50% of the time.

I have plenty of LP's and CD's and I love both.  But I spend a lot less time spinning records
these days since I bought the Naim.
[/quote]

I'll stand pat with my post! It's not just my ears, but just about everybody that listens to them.
gary

[Daygloworange]

if the CD came off an analog master (most do) the LP will flatly kill it!
gary

That's one opinion, and one that I don't agree with.

Also, most recording sessions nowadays never leave the digital realm. Most stay digital from start to finish, until there is a master lacquer cut for vinyl.

If the CD came off a digital master the LP will usually sound as well if not have better imaging and depth. Also in a good system the LP will have better highs and bass

This doesn't hold up for vinyl doing anything better than digital, just different.

If that's your preference, that's great. But to herald it as superior, is unfounded. And in your example, impossible.

How can vinyl, by virtue of another transfer process (from digital) do anything to improve?

It can't purify a digital input, make it more linear, or better. Just different, (and actually degrade it from linear).

But if you dig it more, that's totally cool. 

But let's just be clear, on what's physically possible, and what is physically impossible.

Cheers

[lazydays]

if the CD came off an analog master (most do) the LP will flatly kill it!
gary

That's one opinion, and one that I don't agree with.

Also, most recording sessions nowadays never leave the digital realm. Most stay digital from start to finish, until there is a master lacquer cut for vinyl.

If the CD came off a digital master the LP will usually sound as well if not have better imaging and depth. Also in a good system the LP will have better highs and bass

This doesn't hold up for vinyl doing anything better than digital, just different.

If that's your preference, that's great. But to herald it as superior, is unfounded. And in your example, impossible.

How can vinyl, by virtue of another transfer process (from digital) do anything to improve?

It can't purify a digital input, make it more linear, or better. Just different, (and actually degrade it from linear).

But if you dig it more, that's totally cool. 

But let's just be clear, on what's physically possible, and what is physically impossible.

Cheers

when the digital format came out I laughed at all the fools that dumped their turntables, and I'm still laughing to this day. I've ran into one (single, solitary, lone, by themselves) person who felt that a CD sounded "just as good as vinyl. Many felt that digital was the way to, and many are having second thoughts. I never did have second thoughts after listening to that Sony deck for thirty minutes. Didn't say it stunk, but it did. Just left knowing that I'll be dead before they ever make a digital setup that can truely compete. The one thing digital does well is convience. But that's at the loss of imaging, and sonics. If you like digital best, then by all means stay with it. After all it leaves mor vinyl for me to pick thru.
gary

[TheChairGuy]

The several years I tried to use only the CDP (ie, another household appliance  ) was the worst several years of my adult music life .  Never again 

That said, the latest crop of CDP's and DAC's are uniformly good and listenable now.....but 16/44.1 just doesn't and won't ever cut it as a hi-fidelity source.

Denny - I know you love me saying it so I will re-iterate for you ..... 16/44.1 just doesn't and won't ever cut it   

At best it will be good enough....but never truly high definition.

24/192 with Meridian Lossless Packing (originally known as DVD-A and now adopted by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) is just a pip away as good as vinyl and may in fact be better sonically (one day, at least). 

It's simply a great digital format created in the past decade - Redbook was created 30+ years ago when calculators cost $100.00 (and we ohhhh'ed and ahhh'ed at it).  Redbook technology is a contemporary of the fascimile (fax) machine...it was a good first try at digital sampling, but only that.

If anything is recorded at 16/44.1 to start - the entire sonic chain is compromised no matter what format the recording ends up on.

44,100 samples per second and 16 bit resolution isn't enough to convey the essence of the original (analog) event and that's the best they could come up with in 1975 or so...but 24 bit and or 96 or 192K samples per second, with MLP, really is a great format.

Nonetheless, I bought 17 albums for $44 at my local record store (Mill Valley Music) yesterday....man, it was sweet. I dove into the $0.50 bin and came up with lotsa' winners...and even have a 180 gram Herbie Hancock / 'Crossings' re-issue (for $12 new). 

It's so damn quiet and engaging right outta' the sleeve...click and pop-less and this all before giving it a spin in the RCM.

John 

[Daygloworange]

Denny - I know you love me saying it so I will re-iterate for you ..... 16/44.1 just doesn't and won't ever cut it   

According to you. And according to your ears. Vinyl/analog is your preference. That's fine. But the arguments you and other audiophiles use to re-enforce your preferences are hardly supportive in fact.

And just for the record John, I started listening to music on vinyl, cut my teeth on recording on reel to reel analog, and still have a huge warm spot for what it does, and does not do. So prejudice, I have none.

I just care about accuracy, transparency and fidelity.

I don't expect you or lazydays to ever convert your thinking. It's pretty clear that you can't/won't.

I try and suggest otherwise to analog diehards, and always get a similar defensiveness. They never ask "why" is it that digital might actually be a better, higher fidelity format. It's like they're threatened by it.

Digital bad  , Analog good  . Tubes good  , silicon bad  .

Why is that? The answers coming from lazydays would be "because". Hardly a substantial illustration.

And just for the record, since (almost) every studio on the planet switched to digital, studio guys refer to analog as "grungy".
When we want something to sound loose and tubby, and rolled off, and compressed or distorted, we say it needs to be "grungied up" like the old analog.

There are plenty of recordings done years ago on pure Class A gear (consoles, amps, mics, sound processors) from many years ago that can't hold a candle to today's recordings in terms of sonics and fidelity. Period.

That fact does little to corroborate the assertions of vinyl proponents.

Yes, Redbook was invented 30 years ago. By people with a lot more science of things to use as a basis for designing a new recording format than when analog was in it's infancy. So, I don't know what that has to do with anything, other than 30 years ago, RAM was very expensive(so, file size was of great concern), and so they didn't adopt a 24/192 sample rate from the onset of digital.

Redbook technology is a contemporary of the fascimile (fax) machine...

Get real.  You need to dig a little deeper, and learn more about what's really going on...

While your at it, read some articles that discuss how our hearing might actually be digital (as in neurons firing one after the other, and not an unbroken analog stream).

Only someone without knowledge and hands on experience of (reel to reel) tape machines, could feel all warm and fuzzy (no pun intended  ) thinking that they were listening to pure fidelity. Just look at the non linearities of recording to analog tape, the crosstalk problems, pitch problems, aliasing problems, pre emphasis/post emphasis problems, self erasure, print through, high frequency aliasing, high frequency roll off, bias problems, signal to noise problems, magnetization problems, tape saturation and overload compression problems.......

The fact that the latest generations of tape recorders all used either DBX or Dolby SR noise reduction ( an encode/decode process..... in order to get the low level artifacts of the "music" above the noisefloor....

Oh yeah, then there the subsequent (degenerative) transfer and non linearities of cutting a lacquer master, the next transfer from that to a stamping master, the impurities of the raw vinyl itself....

Then there's the almighty turntable, with it's millivolt output, that needs tons of gain, often adding that wonderful 60 cycle hum.... the always wonderful RIAA curve that rolls off all the low end (but we don't care about that...), the fact that a needle is trying to read both sides of a groove with one stylus and not go into hysterisis and more non linearities.....and the associated clicks and the pops (essential parts of the "music"  ....), microphonics, and table rumble....

Yeah......I can see why analog is clearly better....

I guess I'm not thinking scientifically enough. 

The one thing digital does well is convenience. But that's at the loss of imaging, and sonics.

And how does analog do it (technically) better?

John, lazdydays, I don't harp on you guys just to get on your case, but I just don't understand the constant bashing of digital in order to herald analog.

Why can't it be just "Man,......this analog stuff really floats my boat" instead of " Man, I really like analog, digital is cold, heartless, is totally inferior because (blah, blah,blah......).

This kind of talk not only is factually inaccurate, but quite frankly insulting to myself, and others, as it implies the rest of us that are quite happy with digital (and some of us who actually prefer it, as opposed to just accepting it) are a bunch of tin ears, who don't possess the acumen of vinyl lovers.

I'll never be so silly as to argue with someone's preferences, but I will argue factual inaccuracies just for the sake of posterity.

But without in depth factual comparisons, your assertions become personal.

And I find it hard to believe that you're unaware that you might actually be offending others who love and enjoy audio as much as you clearly do.  with the way you go about professing your love for analog reproduction.

Just think about it. I'm just (constantly) asking to tone down the bashing. Why the bashing?

It's red wine vs white wine.... some prefer one, some prefer the other, some like (gasp!) both...

Cheers

[TheChairGuy]

Well first off, in case you haven't looked where your posted - this is the Vinyl Circle - where us uninformed half-apes can gather, sharpen our flint arrows, huddle around a fire we just made by vigorously rubbing two twigs together...... and bash CD all we like   

Why can't it be just "Man,......this analog stuff really floats my boat" instead of " Man, I really like analog, digital is cold, heartless, is totally inferior because (blah, blah,blah......).

Because, for me at least, there is a lot of guys tossing a lot of (finite) cash at trying to achieve higher fidelity from the Redbook format....and it is and will mostly be in vain.  'Cause, as stated earlier, Redbook AIN'T good enough, never has been and one cannot improve the playback side enough to overcome the inertia of only adequate recording format to begin with.

I think DVD-A is marvelous...better than vinyl in most respects, but barely loses out in sheer musicality/listenability.  It is an advance of fair magnitude over Redbook if the original recording was a quality analog master of 24/96, or better yet 24/192.

I've even go on to state several times around AC that today one can buy a $500 CDP that is better value than comparable $500 spent on vinyl (NOT counting phono pre-amplification).  I think one needs to spend 3x as much on vinyl front end now to exceed Redbook performance today. So, I'm no heretic, I recognize the advances...but Redbook won't ever progress past vinyl.

Just look at the non linearities of recording to analog tape, the crosstalk problems, pitch problems, aliasing problems, pre emphasis/post emphasis problems, self erasure, print through, high frequency aliasing, high frequency roll off, bias problems, signal to noise problems, magnetization problems, tape saturation and overload compression problems....

All true, yet despite this...vinyl is an inherently more listenable format.  Either 70 extra years of refinement was key to getting it right, or 'digital' required a better first effort to exceed vinyl.  It did not; but, fortunately, DVD-A and it's offspring, Blue-ray and HD-DVD, exist and combine wonderful appliance-like ease and excellent sonics.

So prejudice, I have none.

Nor, do I...but neither do I lose context between musicality and convenience.  I believe you have and do - often and regularly

Diehard I'm not.....I ditched my TT for several years...and they were miserable music years (the new players are better so this is not likely to happen anymore).  I don't think belt drive tables (until you get to adulturous money) are capable of making high-quality analog, nor do I think the moving coil  as a preferred cartridge device. 

These beliefs put me at odds with the other turntablists here and elsewhere - it doesn't matter to me - but most of us come together and know we're not doing this for the convenience, for the memories; we do to because we honor the music.  And, vinyl honors the music more capably than Redbook ever can or likely will.

You're painting us all with an overly broad brush and your missing the real painting when you do so.

Peace, John