This and the album art is part of the reason why I still buy CDs. Yes, I would miss those.I get the whole convenience of streaming, but doesn't anybody miss liner notes? Credits?
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
The Vinyl Comeback Is Stalling?
- Thread starter brianrost
- Start date
It's simple, Mobile Fidelity and companies like that are catering to people who have really good playback systems set up in a nice, quiet listening room or use crazy expensive headphones. The original label is selling to people that might be using earbuds, a boombox, Bluetooth or wi-fi speakers, listening in their car, etc. in noisy and acoustically awful environments.
It can be educational to take a recording that you know well and play it over different speakers at home and in the car, as well as good headphones and cheap earbuds. You will probably notice that it sounds a lot different depending on what you are listening with. Some will hype the low end (i.e. cars with subwoofers, Beats headphones), some will have no low end and the high end will range from muffled to clear to shrill.
Up until the early 1970s when FM radio began to dominate here in the USA, singles (45s) were mastered and sometimes remixed to sound good over AM radio with it's limited frequency response beng played on low wattage devices with small speakers like a clock radio or the radio in a car as well as jukeboxes. According to legend, Phil Spector liked to mix in mono using a 6x9 speaker like what was commonly used in car interiors. It would sound huge over simple radios but sound like total crap over an audiophile stereo system.
I get the whole convenience of streaming, but doesn't anybody miss liner notes? Credits?
That's my biggest complaint about streaming. Some platforms provide some information, but I have yet to find one that gives access to the full notes. Front covers are embedded in the stream and in some cases videos. Scrolling lyrics on your phone is also commonplace.
Artists using Bandcamp often include notes and cover art with downloads. Just before Christmas I purchased what was a 6 CD box set as a download. The 100+ page booklet was included as a PDF ready to be printed out.
Bloggers who make rare recordings available for download (i.e. bootleggers
) almost always include full scans of the covers and often a basic text file with information on the performers, release date and the label. Some provide files to allow easy CD burning and cover printing. One blogger specializes in jazz concert recordings, mainly from FM broadcasts in Europe. He creates unique cover art for each recording that I see displayed on my phone and car screens.
I get the whole convenience of streaming, but doesn't anybody miss liner notes? Credits?
The most time I've ever spent enjoying the booklet of an album was the hardcover book that came in the Iron Maiden Best of the Beast 4LP box set. I was lost in the pages of live pictures, artwork, and text.
I get the whole convenience of streaming, but doesn't anybody miss liner notes? Credits?
That’s what Google is for.
I like the convenience of lots of stuff in this modern, digital, streaming, connected world but it was a better world before everything was so #$@%& convenient. I probably can’t go back, so I’ll bask in said convenience while yelling at clouds.
The clouds were better back in the day as well.
I paid fifty bucks for my first CD, that year. I didn't even have a CD player to play it on. That was Dream Sequence by Tangerine Dream.
Still have it. Still gets a run every now and then.
And a CD you bought in 1988 for $15 in would still cost $15 in today's money. Things are looking up
Yes!
Ask the man who's been there.
MAYBE the most exquisitely recorded, mastered, and pressed LP MAYBE sounds better than an real average CD, when the LP's brand new, and if you're playing it on a top quality system with a turntable with perfectly balanced tonearm and brand new stylus.
But put those LPs into the real world, where there's dust, where you don't have time to check your stylus with a microscope every month and replace as needed, where you have wives and roommates who can't or won't get with the "maintain immaculate cleanliness at all times" program, and then put a hundred playings on that record, on your ordinary system that people who work for a living can afford after they pay for decent housing and put some money back for a rainy day - and it doesn't sound quite so fantastic.
No one ever wants to admit to this one either: you'd better make sure your trip from the store home is a direct one if you live in Texas in the summer. LP's don't stand up to being left in a hot car. Instant potato chips!
Nope, give me the CD that lasts for decades and sounds exactly the same after you've played it 10,000 times on a $20 CD player.
That $8 new LP in 1975 would most likely have been found in the cutouts or the bargains bin. The problem I have is that today those same but well-played 1975 issues are still $45 (and much more) in the "used" bins. I get why new vinyl is $45 today; I just don't have to like it.
I just scored a double, first-pressing, from that very era — live rust — for twenty. That's about twelve bucks in your money
Last edited:
If you bought one of these — Invalid Link Removed — back then, as I did, and you kept it in pristine condition, as I've done, you'll be looking at roughly $400 (800%) profit, today. Just sayin' (Not sellin'
). I listen elsewhere, by other means. Go here,
… Brian gets a little more in the kicker, and you get to protect your investment
An interesting followup to Ted Gioia's claim that Taylor Swift accounted for a lot of the rise in vinyl sales for 2022. I just read today that Universal Music sold $230 million worth of her album (obviously not all vinyl!!!!) in the fourth quarter. I wonder how much of that Taylor is going to see 
Actually in 1975 the list price (which nobody paid due to store discounts) was $6.98, with tapes and quad LPs a dollar more. By 1980 the list price had risen to $8.98 and MCA was pushing for $9.98 until Steely Dan and Tom Petty refused to relese their new albums at that price.
Bargain bins were still $2-3 in the late 70s when I bought a crapload of LPs there. I don't recall seeing cutouts above $5 before the advent of CDs.[/QUOTE]
Actually in 1975 the list price (which nobody paid due to store discounts) was $6.98, with tapes and quad LPs a dollar more. By 1980 the list price had risen to $8.98 and MCA was pushing for $9.98 until Steely Dan and Tom Petty refused to relese their new albums at that price.
Bargain bins were still $2-3 in the late 70s when I bought a crapload of LPs there. I don't recall seeing cutouts above $5 before the advent of CDs.[/QUOTE]
Last edited:
It seems I'm in the minority here. Personally, I love vinyl records and enjoy them every day. Am I a hipster? Not even close.
I listen to old vinyl records on old equipment because I get a thrill out of hearing what music actually sounded like in the 60's and 70's. I get to hear the tones of a simpler time and it brings back a wealth of memories. It's really an interest that is closely related to my love of old basses and amps.
I listen to old vinyl records on old equipment because I get a thrill out of hearing what music actually sounded like in the 60's and 70's. I get to hear the tones of a simpler time and it brings back a wealth of memories. It's really an interest that is closely related to my love of old basses and amps.
They're not as available because of this fire and it's probably the reason they are so expensive lately which also puts a damper on consumer sales.
‘This Is Disastrous’: How the Vinyl Industry Is Responding to the Apollo Masters Fire
"We’ve been saying we need to fix this for years," one vinyl-pressing executive says. "Now we actually need to fix this"
FEBRUARY 18, 2020
THE DAY THAT everyone in the vinyl-manufacturing world has been worried about for years finally arrived. Earlier this month, Apollo Masters Corp., one of the two places in the world that produce the lacquer discs needed to assemble master plates for pressing records, burned down. The blaze reportedly took 82 firefighters and three hours to extinguish. No one was harmed, but the fire obliterated the Banning, California, facility responsible for, by most estimates, 70 to 85 percent of the lacquer plates used in vinyl production. There is now just one such factory in the world capable of producing that crucial item, MDC in Japan, leaving the global supply of vinyl in peril.
How the Vinyl Industry Is Responding to the Apollo Masters Fire – Rolling Stone
‘This Is Disastrous’: How the Vinyl Industry Is Responding to the Apollo Masters Fire
"We’ve been saying we need to fix this for years," one vinyl-pressing executive says. "Now we actually need to fix this"
FEBRUARY 18, 2020
THE DAY THAT everyone in the vinyl-manufacturing world has been worried about for years finally arrived. Earlier this month, Apollo Masters Corp., one of the two places in the world that produce the lacquer discs needed to assemble master plates for pressing records, burned down. The blaze reportedly took 82 firefighters and three hours to extinguish. No one was harmed, but the fire obliterated the Banning, California, facility responsible for, by most estimates, 70 to 85 percent of the lacquer plates used in vinyl production. There is now just one such factory in the world capable of producing that crucial item, MDC in Japan, leaving the global supply of vinyl in peril.
How the Vinyl Industry Is Responding to the Apollo Masters Fire – Rolling Stone
Last edited:
It seems I'm in the minority here. Personally, I love vinyl records and enjoy them every day. Am I a hipster? Not even close.
I listen to old vinyl records on old equipment because I get a thrill out of hearing what music actually sounded like in the 60's and 70's. I get to hear the tones of a simpler time and it brings back a wealth of memories. It's really an interest that is closely related to my love of old basses and amps.
I buy records and cassettes and own a reel to reel.....oh yeah I also buy CD's. I have two old MSFL half speed master LP's, Abby Road and Aja, both sound much better than the CD's.
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
My perspective - as a musician and audio engineer/archivist - is that being a 'master of formats' is essential. I still have a tape player, multiple CD players, several generations of iPods, turntable and lots of vinyl, and a CD library that is probably approaching 1,000 at least. Lots of stuff that's out of print or unique that is preserved in a physical format - not even on digital. Same for visual media - I still have DVDs, Blu-Rays, even VHS tapes (and a VHS to DVD transfer unit made by Philips). I don't trust the 'cloud' to last, and at some point in the future, people are going to look back at the last 20 year period or so and not be able to find many written/printed/physical records of a lot of things because everyone is so drunk on cloud storage. No electricity, no computers.... no cloud. At least with electricity you can power your turntable, CD player..... and without it you can play a musical instrument and read a printed book.
QFT. Although I no longer have a turntable or cassette deck (or hardly any records or tapes, consequently).
