Gemini000 wrote:

Granted, the original digital source is typically studio-quality sound recordings at frequency rates far higher than the 44,100 KHz produced by CDs. 😉

Which generally cannot be captured or reproduced, regardless of format (there are very real limits to usable equipment frequency response, which are much narrower than what most high-fidelity formats (be it vinyl LP, CD, SACD, etc) can theoretically achieve; there's also generally a lot of filtering that goes on in recording and mastering). 😊 Here's an FFT analysis of vinyl vs CD for theoretical high-end frequency response if you're interested: http://www.channld.com/vinylanalysis1.html

Now keep in mind the extremely low amplitude of the very HF signals - it's essentially extraneous data that you will never hear (for a few reasons: the limits of human hearing, acoustic masking, and the limits of equipment). It's also not taking into account what that data actually contains - it may just be extraneous ultrasonic harmonics/noise. The link above notes this below, that despite the theoretical upper-end frequency response limits of vinyl, when the record is actually cut there is a lowpass filter employed (I've variably heard this stated as between 15kHz and 50kHz over the years) to prevent overheating the cutting head. It's certainly safe to say that vinyl can reproduce similar frequency response to CD ("20-20"), but going beyond that is very unlikely.

AFAIK, most modern albums released on vinyl are from the same masters as CD, simply for cost reasons. If the album is mastered differently on one format or another, that will likely produce the most significant differences in sound, and assuming you have playback hardware for whatever formats, go for whatever has the best master. 😎

Yes, vinyl *is* making a comeback, and I think the aesthetic/experiential reasons are a big part of that. It's a neat format, and there are a lot of really cool older albums which either don't exist on CD, were very cheaply reproduced on CD, or otherwise aren't as "fun" on CD (this last argument is basically the same reason we like playing retro games on retro PCs). Personally I'm not opposed to it either - I've got a pair of nifty automatic turntables (one is actually an auto-tracker), and a handful of records. I don't listen to them often, but it's still fun to get them out and play from time to time. I prefer digital audio for convenience and consistency though (that, and I can have thousands of songs on-tap on my PC without having to constantly change discs).

On cleaning LPs: I've never heard of taking them in the bath with you, but I don't see why it wouldn't work as long as you aren't using any chemicals that are dangerous to the physical record, and don't scrub them overly aggressively (it risks scratching them). I've heard of covering them in wood glue to take up dust and debris in the past, and I grew up using fresh lint rollers or record brushes to clean mine. In more recent years, I've also had good luck with the same gas dusters used to clean out PCs. Here's an article on the wood-glue thing: http://www.cratekings.com/clean-records-with- … vinyl-facelift/ I've personally always wanted to try it, but I've never wanted to risk a record or a table in the attempt (and something to point out, especially if you have a belt drive table: using the turntable to spin the record and then applying force/weight to the record can be very hard on the table's motor).

2fort5r wrote:

It's not that vinyl audio is getting better, but that CD audio is getting worse:

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

This affects LPs as well as other formats. It unfortunately isn't just a CD thing. The Wikipedia article explains this to an extent. Absolutely, digital audio has allowed this to go on to ridiculous levels, but it's an unfortunate "thing" that pretty much invaded all levels of the music production process some time ago. There are technical limits to how "loud" you can cut an LP, which probably limits some of this with modern pressings, but the actual recording is still likely to be very compressed in mastering.

It seems to me that an inherent limitation of vinyl is that every time you play a record, you inevitably destroy it slightly.

They had needle-less, laser-powered players decades ago; I would have thought the price of the technology would have come down by now.

Vinyl seems to be increasing it's market share over the past 2 years enough that a official "Chart" company has now created an "official" Vinyl Chart. Can't remember who or what, you guys can probably google it.

To me, Vinyl is more than just the little platter inside, there's the artwork and sometimes the sleeve that contains some interesting visuals as well. I have a collection (shared with my wife) of over 375 vinyl records that we have accumulated over our teens and twenties. To someone who just wants to listen the music, I can see how none of that stuff matters, but to me and her, vinyl is a bit like a wine connoisseur and wine, special occasions + a bit of a ritual when listening to it. OLD vinyl is where it's at, as most of the new stuff is just Digital to Analog, which does not work as well, ditto putting something recorded analog onto a CD, I remember buying Midnight Madness by Night Ranger, nice and loud and punchy on my turntable, then I buy it on CD, noticeable drop in volume, dynamics, and all the highs were lost somehow.

I've seen people cutting CD quality audio on vinyl, which defeats the very purpose of using vinyl, unless we're talking this moronic DJ thing.

Personally, all the music I'd ever want to listen to is already on vinyl and it's been so for decades now. Maybe just a fad, maybe not.

And the grade of vinyl they use is much better than what was used in the past. Sound quality on the vinyl they use today is much better.

sliderider wrote:

And the grade of vinyl they use is much better than what was used in the past. Sound quality on the vinyl they use today is much better.

Maybe in theory. In practice, a lot of labels are cheap and just source the vinyl master from the material that's already mastered for CD, as mentioned above, which is *far* from optimal.

Also, truly high-quality gear for cutting vinyl is expensive, and not as cost-effective to maintain as it was in the past. So the typical equipment used these days isn't top-notch either.

I'm pretty sure it's still the same black PVC. There have been attempts to produce improved vinyl back in the 70's/80's though, like JVC Super Vinyl for example.

What did improve are mastering and (I think) cutting techniques, new records are cut much louder nowadays, so the signal to noise ratio improved quite a bit.

Look at the labels and you'll see on some of the higher quality ones it will say something like 180 gram vinyl, audiophile quality. The lowest quality ones are in the 120-140 gram range (which is what they were made of originally) and the highest run 200-210 gram. The higher the number, the thicker the LP and the deeper they can cut the grooves to prevent wear and crackle. Some are also made of virgin vinyl with no recycled content which audiophiles swear results in more faithful sound reproduction because the record is consistently the same quality throughout.

Vinyl still can't be beat for it's unique spatial and volumetric quality. It's not 'positional' sound in the digital sense, but LPs can produce a definite sense of place in the recordings that seem to me to be completely lacking in digital. But I stopped playing and collecting LPs some time ago since the amount of space needed to deploy all the equipment and store the records exceeded my real music needs - other things take priority these days. I keep a short shelf of the old faves on display for old times sake but if I ever want to listen to them I'll need to pull all the gear out of storage...

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/27/ … est-vinyl-hoard

The collection is so vast that it has to be housed in several large warehouses, in boxes and crates stacked high on pallets and covered in polythene or plastic sheeting. Many are likely to stay unopened for years. So far just 250,000 discs have been catalogued and filed on shelves.

To accelerate the process, 15 interns work two shifts a day to clean, dust and photograph each record and log it in a computer database. They have a seemingly endless job.

“We can do four or five hundred a day,” says one of the archivists, Lucas Behmer. “Since there are over 6m records and counting, it will take about 40 years to finish.” Even that optimistically assumes that Freitas will not go on any more spending binges.

If nothing else I'm glad to see that the music world is getting out of its "newer is better" and "we must make old technologies irrelevant!!" mentalities. Why must we always fix what isn't broken? They're perfectly fine. Vinyl records have great audio, if different sounding. I mean, I'm all for expanding technology and creating something new of course. We can't stagnate. But it doesn't have to invalidate or replace what came before if there's nothing wrong with it. Diversity is good. It's nice to see a recording medium that's actually appreciated for its quality despite its age. Also, I love the large size. I always was jealous of my dad's generation who would collect music with these lovely giant album covers. They were works of art. CD covers, while larger than cassette covers, are still quite small.

I bought the record Five Miles Out by Mike Oldfield a few years back and never had anything to play it on. Finally was given a record player not long ago and I'm itching to try it.