BigRedX Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 3 minutes ago, mcnach said: You mean physically? My experience disagrees quite strongly... my CDs back to the 80s are all ok. Scratch damage has happened through carelessness... but even that is easy to fix. So, what do you mean they don't last? Read my post above. Given the wrong climatic conditions even glass-mastered manufactured CDs will deteriorate to the point where they will no longer play. It's not a problem that we really need be worried about in the UK (yet), but in other parts of the world the CD is not the permanent musical delivery medium that it was originally hoped to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcnach Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 3 hours ago, BigRedX said: Read my post above. Given the wrong climatic conditions even glass-mastered manufactured CDs will deteriorate to the point where they will no longer play. It's not a problem that we really need be worried about in the UK (yet), but in other parts of the world the CD is not the permanent musical delivery medium that it was originally hoped to be. Do you really think it is a problem? In the UK? US? China? Malaysia? Are we really concerned about CDs lasting *forever*? I thought we were talking about reasonable lifetimes. I think by now CDs have been shown to be pretty durable all over the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Count Bassy Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 18 hours ago, vbance said: I Saying that, I've no doubt that vinyl is the best format when looked after and played on a quality turntable. Why, if I may be so bold? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 2 hours ago, mcnach said: Do you really think it is a problem? In the UK? US? China? Malaysia? Are we really concerned about CDs lasting *forever*? I thought we were talking about reasonable lifetimes. I think by now CDs have been shown to be pretty durable all over the world. As I said anywhere with a hot and humid climate. Right now here in the UK we should be safe for the moment, but there's climate change to consider and the fact that micro-organisms show a remarkable ability to adapt.... However if you've ripped your CDs to a hard drive and have well-maintained local and remote backups the music contain on your CDs should last your lifetime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 26 minutes ago, Count Bassy said: Why, if I may be so bold? Especially considering that every time you play your vinyl you are wearing it away very slightly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vbance Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 count bassey...it's just an opinion i've formed whist pursuing a good home hifi. Before spending my cash I listened to many systems and vinyl sonically i felt always came out on top...so i bought a cd player:-) I felt that records always delivered more detail and i can't explain why but mostly sounded warmer to me imo. Just to say all systems had no tone controls. i bought a cd player because i had loads of cd's and knew i wouldn't keep records in good condition so if i heard the slightest crackle or pop it would have to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocker Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 Vinyl won't ever go away but it will always be a niche market product. LPs are also very expensive, I saw one of Air 'Moon Safari' for around €30 in a Dublin shop recently. And the fallacy of cheap vinyl from charity shops is just that - a fallacy. Fine if you like Val Doonican or Nana Mouskouri but hopeless for music that we can rock out to. I buy my music on CD and rip it [FLAC] to my computer hard drive. I use Sonos to access the music and Daphile on a laptop for my hi-fi system. Online music systems like Spotify are OK to check out music but, sound quality wise, are no better than YouTube videos. You won't notice this sound degradation on a pair of earbuds connected to your phone but you will if you play those lossy files through your hi-fi system. Some people see vinyl as cool or hip or somesuch word but the only reason to use vinyl as a music source is sound quality. That sound quality does not come cheap. Everything matters for vinyl replay, everything from the disk cleaner to the wall mounted shelves for the turntable to the phono stage and the cables to connect everything up. To get a good vinyl system correctly setup, you won't have any change out of £10K, in actual fact closer to £20K is a more realistic spend. That is assuming you already have a decent amplifier and a pair of loudspeakers good enough to replay the extra information received from the vinyl setup. Lower priced turntables like Rega, Pro-ject etc. allow vinyl to be played but you are not hearing all that is on the record. There is no way that a £50 phono stage is able to handle and present the information received from the cartridge in an accurate way. Sorry guys, but that is the reality, that is how it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bolo Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 To hear the compressed track on a 20p piece of rapidly degrading plastic 😂 Who are you kidding mate? 🤣 Good is good, better is in your imagination. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcnach Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Bolo said: To hear the compressed track on a 20p piece of rapidly degrading plastic 😂 Who are you kidding mate? 🤣 Good is good, better is in your imagination. Thank you :D !!! Edited June 7, 2018 by mcnach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taunton-hobbit Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 Interesting thread - we used to run a couple of Garrard SP25s, fitted with Sure jukebox carts & additional headweights (usually a 2p piece)........400watts of Ormat Amps & some 18" speakers with Vitavox S3 horns......kept a lot of people happy for a long time (!) 😎 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 (edited) 2 hours ago, Rocker said: Vinyl won't ever go away but it will always be a niche market product. LPs are also very expensive, I saw one of Air 'Moon Safari' for around €30 in a Dublin shop recently. And the fallacy of cheap vinyl from charity shops is just that - a fallacy. Fine if you like Val Doonican or Nana Mouskouri but hopeless for music that we can rock out to. There's no need for vinyl to be expensive. The Terrortones only did a 500 pressing of our LP "SnakeOil For Snakes" but we are still able to sell it with its fancy packaging at £10 + P&P and make an overall unit profit. However it's when record shops want to add their markup that the prices become ridiculous. We approached Rough Trade here in Nottingham to take some, but couldn't agree on a compromise price where the shop would actually be able to sell their copies and everyone would make some money. Edited June 7, 2018 by BigRedX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grassie Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 I use all 3 formats for listening to music - mp3/CD/vinyl, but overall I prefer CDs. I'm another one who likes to have the artwork/liner notes in my hand, and although vinyl is the ultimate format for the "whole package", the claim that it's sonically superior to CDs is a myth. Back in the day, when you routinely had to pay 15 quid for a CD, I thought nothing of the price and during the 90s I bought a lot of albums, at least one a week. A few years later I got rid of some that weren't getting played, and regretted it later on. Sites like Music Magpie are great because I can now spend £22 like I have his week on albums (Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Kyuss and Mad Season for anyone interested...😊). Even the price of new CDs makes owning physical copies more attractive - both Royal Blood albums for a tenner in HMV recently. 😁 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barking Spiders Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 8 minutes ago, Grassie said: I use all 3 formats for listening to music - mp3/CD/vinyl, but overall I prefer CDs. I'm another one who likes to have the artwork/liner notes in my hand, and although vinyl is the ultimate format for the "whole package", the claim that it's sonically superior to CDs is a myth. Back in the day, when you routinely had to pay 15 quid for a CD, I thought nothing of the price and during the 90s I bought a lot of albums, at least one a week. A few years later I got rid of some that weren't getting played, and regretted it later on. Sites like Music Magpie are great because I can now spend £22 like I have his week on albums (Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Kyuss and Mad Season for anyone interested...😊). Even the price of new CDs makes owning physical copies more attractive - both Royal Blood albums for a tenner in HMV recently. 😁 Yep, it never takes long for HMV to put 2 for £10 deals on new albums after they've been released. The dance /electronica section in my local branch is a bit miniscule so i don't go there much but for rock n' pop they still offer reasonable VFM on CDs. Price of LPs is a bit bonkers though. I get most of my stuff on Amazon from sellers like Magpie sometimes for as little as 1 penny + pp! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Count Bassy Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 I thought that there was pretty conclusive evidence that a CD or uncompressed (file size wise rather than acoustically) digital format matches or exceeds vinyl in terms of reproduction fidelity. Compression in an acoustic sense is more a case of current (annoying) production practices rather than the medium used, and, as has already been mentioned, the RIAA standard for vinyl recordings includes compression and decompression of the bass anyway. Some people might prefer the sound of vinyl over CD etc, and it may indeed sound 'warmer' (I quite like vinyl myself), and this is perfectly valid, but to claim that it is a more accurate reproduction seems unfounded. The other thing with vinyl is that it inherently degrades every item you play it. It might sound wonderful the first time, by the 100th time it won't sound the same. Personally I am more interestinged in listening to the music rather than the quality of reproduction. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 35 minutes ago, Count Bassy said: I thought that there was pretty conclusive evidence that a CD or uncompressed (file size wise rather than acoustically) digital format matches or exceeds vinyl in terms of reproduction fidelity. Compression in an acoustic sense is more a case of current (annoying) production practices rather than the medium used, and, as has already been mentioned, the RIAA standard for vinyl recordings includes compression and decompression of the bass anyway. And let us not forget that the only reason the more unpleasant brick wall limiting that can be found on some CDs didn't make it onto vinyl, is because the production and playback mechanisms simply wouldn't allow it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectoremg Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 On 20/05/2018 at 11:50, Christine said: We're vinyl lovers in this house, we invested in a decent system just as CDs were being released and have stuck with the medium throughout making further investments along the way. It was only very recently we bought our first CD player, 4-5 years ago? Now I admit our vinyl player is of a far higher quality than our CD player even though it was still quite expensive but vinyl has a big edge over listenability in my opinion as long as the vinyl is spotless (we have a record cleaning machine). There is also something more of an occasion to playing a record the set up, the album art, it's less so with a CD but not gone and let's face it the sound quality isn't bad at all with minimum fuss and it still gives that sense of ownership. Downloads, we did try but it seemed wrong somehow, download, click/play despite the excellent sound quality it feels disposable somehow. So are CDs going to become relics of the past? I hope not, there is something extra to owning a physical medium Gratuitous photo of my two Tbirds next to the hi-fi You need a lefty Thunderbird to preserve the symmetry. And where's the sub? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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