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Do you think that vinyl is making a comeback?

#21
For me, the convenience of CD/digital mediums trumps the dynamics of vinyl. I don't like clicks, pops, scratches... I don't spend much of any time just kicking back and listening to music anymore. Most of my listening is done in the car these days. I still have a lot of the vinyl I had as a kid- but I did replace a lot of it as soon as I discovered how awesome it was to use CDs.

Yes 12" artwork was so much better, yes, the dynamics are better. But not enough to justify the physical problems of dust and scratches and lack of portability.

For me anyway.
 
#23
I'd say all formats other than direct digital access will be considered obsolete within 5-10 years. You can buy a 500 gig external hard drive that's smaller than those nokia 5100 cellphones we used to carry with us in the 90s for about $200 bucks now. Add to that the fact that a WIRELESS harddrive is being put on the market by years end and imagine what that means in 10 years:

Riding w/your friend in his car you say "have you heard the new Radiohead retrospective?," he says "no." You say "well I've got it, let's listen to it" you reach to his stereo and use it to scan through YOUR HD that's in YOUR wallet and listen to the album in HIS car. You get back to your place and he says "hey man, have you seen scary movie 12 yet?... well check it out" (etc etc)

No thought of hardware whatsoever, if you buy an album or a movie you simply have it and can access it anywhere you are at any time.
 
#25
dancehallclasher said:
But that's the same reason that it's not going to drop in popularity from this point: if the format is still holding on now that we have the even more convenient mp3 format, it means that no advance in technology will kill it.
Click to expand...

oh yeh, no doubt. to me, no digital format has replicated the sound of wax. they don't even come close. i'd have a record player myself if i had a home of my own.

but as far as it taking over or competing with the sales of digital media....not likely. unless there is a total dj revolution that spurs the sale of albums. vinyl, i mean.
and that won't really happen - heck, 30 years later and people are still arguing over whether rap is music. :spit:
 
#26
I've been buying and listening to records since i was about 5; I'm 30 now. Unfortunately, I have a crappy record player right now. I'm hoping to find one at a garage sale or something like that this summer. If I have to, though, I'll buy a new one. Will "any old" DJ turntable work, or is there a better type to listen to records with?
 
#30
Jeramaya said:
I've been buying and listening to records since i was about 5; I'm 30 now. Unfortunately, I have a crappy record player right now. I'm hoping to find one at a garage sale or something like that this summer. If I have to, though, I'll buy a new one. Will "any old" DJ turntable work, or is there a better type to listen to records with?
Click to expand...
Unless you're planning on using it as a DJ, It's better to get a turntable that was designed and marketed as a hi-fi music source. There are many available, for fairly low prices, even some with USB.
 
#31
The Golden Boy said:
For me, the convenience of CD/digital mediums trumps the dynamics of vinyl. I don't like clicks, pops, scratches... I don't spend much of any time just kicking back and listening to music anymore. Most of my listening is done in the car these days. I still have a lot of the vinyl I had as a kid- but I did replace a lot of it as soon as I discovered how awesome it was to use CDs.

Yes 12" artwork was so much better, yes, the dynamics are better. But not enough to justify the physical problems of dust and scratches and lack of portability.
Click to expand...
Actually from a purely technical standpoint, the "dynamics" of vinyl, measured as dynamic range, is horrible; worse than FM radio. But due to better mastering the end result may be better dynamics from a record than a CD for reasons I stated earlier in this thread.
 
#33
Eric618 said:
Who cares if it makes a come back. Something recorded on Pro-Tools and put on vinyl is still gonna sound like Pro-Tool cookie cutter crap! :(
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Good point. Since now (almost) all the recording/mastering is done digitally, converting it back to analog won't help. It's like decompressing MP3 back into WAV.

My guess is that vinyls won't go further than beeing a niche medium. They aren't practical, need great care, the quality degrades with each playback... I used to have a small vinyl collection of organ music, it sounded AMAZING, but I listened to those records only once in a while. As of now, CD quality is fine for me (assuming that there's no signal clipping that plagues many releases nowadays).
 
#34
Eric618 said:
Who cares if it makes a come back. Something recorded on Pro-Tools and put on vinyl is still gonna sound like Pro-Tool cookie cutter crap! :(
Click to expand...
There's nothing inherently wrong with pro-tools.

If you're referring to the brickwall limiting which affects most mastering, then, yes, it will sound just as bad on vinyl as it does on CD (actually considerably worse due to the inferiority of the actual format). But typically that does not happen. Mastering happens after mixing, so when the final mix is mastered to CD and vinyl there are two completely different masters, one for vinyl and one for CD. Using masters specifically made for LP to transfer to CD is a reason many early CDs don't sound very good.
 
#35
For sure.

CD's are no good anymore when you can get the same thing in MP3 or Flac.

Vinyl gives you a nice big piece of artwork, and an involving listening experience: you have to actually sit down in your living room, put on the disc, listen, flip it over. It makes you part of the music, instead of just what's on your iPod while you're on the bus.

It seems like the old guys who had Vinyl growing up have moved on to the better quality of CDs, while the youngsters are getting into 'new, hip' vinyl.
 
#39
Philbiker said:
There's nothing inherently wrong with pro-tools.

If you're referring to the brickwall limiting which affects most mastering, then, yes, it will sound just as bad on vinyl as it does on CD (actually considerably worse due to the inferiority of the actual format). But typically that does not happen. Mastering happens after mixing, so when the final mix is mastered to CD and vinyl there are two completely different masters, one for vinyl and one for CD. Using masters specifically made for LP to transfer to CD is a reason many early CDs don't sound very good.
Click to expand...

A vinyl version of In Rainbows will have more dynamic range than the digital version of it. If it didn't, the vinyl would skip, because the volume is too loud. Maybe I didn't read it clearly enough, is that basically what you just said?
 

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