Vinyl sales up again

[BassTractor]

6 hours ago, Woodwind said:

Mind you he might have enjoyed the fact that a home listener was getting up to flip sides so often.

Ha. 😀
I never contemplated that, but think you're spot on. Would've been typical of him.
 

[Nothingman]

Still buy vinyl, always will.

Sonetimes I like to put a CD on. 
 

I still have blank cassette tapes and will make people an all vinyl mix tape, on occasions. 
 

Love the possibilities of streaming in order to discover new music. The convenience it brings - got a 100+ play list for my running sand the ability to share. 
 

Consume it all and bathe in it like Cleopatra in milk.

It’s all good.
 

However, vinyl is definitely the best sound, artwork and looks flipping  great. 

[BigRedX]

On 29/12/2020 at 20:33, bass_dinger said:

I do wonder about the relative prices of the equipment.  A good, hifi, turntable seems to be more expensive than a good, hifi, CD player.  Less robust too....

With £400 to invest in a turntable and vinyl, and the same £400 to spend on a CD player and CDs, which would get you a better outcome?

I’d buy a big (4TB) hard drive for my computer plus an external CD/DVD drive if it did’t already have one. Total cost <£150.

[taunton-hobbit]

Had one of these slung under the parcel shelf of my mini -   in car record player? - sorted !

 

[BassTractor]

1 hour ago, taunton-hobbit said:

in car record player? - sorted !

Oh, that reminds me of the thing that was not an in-car record player, but a record player in a car: Twas a novelty record played shaped like a car, with a needle under and amp and speaker inside, and it drove around on an LP that was on a flat surface. It also existed in non-car-like shape or shapes.
Speak of travel record player! It travelled alright, but I'm not too sure about the "record player" bit - probably more like "record slayer".

[4000]

On 31/12/2020 at 04:50, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

Similar to your Kate bush box sets, the tangerine dream ones are well worth it.

Have been looking at “In Search of Hades” for the past two days. Trying to decide whether I can justify it at the moment. 

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

6 hours ago, 4000 said:

Have been looking at “In Search of Hades” for the past two days. Trying to decide whether I can justify it at the moment. 

It's  the better one of the box sets imho . 
 

That's another thing ....everything  is now in "coffee table " format .

Don't start me off on the jigsaw puzzles   🐄

[J_Bass]

On 29/12/2020 at 19:49, bass_dinger said:

Me too.  Ebay is a good hunting ground for cheap music on CD, as are artist home pages. 

http://www.document-records.com/ are great for Blues completists who want recordings of old scratchy 78s.  https://www.naxos.com/ are good for classical stuff, perhaps recorded by an obscure eastern European orchestra, which is cheap to licence and re-release. 

I think that I like the idea of vinyl, more than I like the sound.   

 

Me too. 

 

Much better quality than vynil, almost indestructible and, many of the times, much cheaper than they used to be. 

Vynil prices are just to take advantage of the hypsters. 

 

I still buy CDs and I love it. It's a collection like so many. 

 

I also have spotify, of course, but when at home I love to play my CDs and read the booklets. 

As for vynil, not for me. Too much hassle for too little sound. 

 

Just now, I'm updating my collection on CLZ. 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by J_Bass

[Quilly]

I had long ditched physical music formats in the mid 2000s and had been streaming music exclusively for the past number of years, however, the lack of gigs, boredom and curiosity prompted me to dig out my 20 something year old Tecnics HiFi system, buy a basic Denon turntable and go get some vinyl. I have to say I'm really enjoying the experience and does seem to sound a lot more engaging that Spotify. There's something comforting and nostalgic about placing the needle on the groove and watching the record do it thing. I find I'm actually listening to the music and not just phone surfing while its playing. 

I'm not convinced however that if I was blindfolded Id be able to tell the difference between Vinyl and a CD. I still think CDs sound excellent and are pretty resilient so long as you keep them in a case and they can be picked up for small money these days.   The shipping costs also make records very expensive.      

[leroydiamond]

2 hours ago, Quilly said:

 

I'm not convinced however that if I was blindfolded Id be able to tell the difference between Vinyl and a CD.  

That would depend on the quality of the turntable, phono amplifier and CD player you are using. For Vinyl IME you need to be spending up on £1000 on a turntable and phono stage, before replay starts getting decent.

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by leroydiamond

[BigRedX]

32 minutes ago, leroydiamond said:

That would depend on the quality of the turntable, phono amplifier and CD you are using. For Vinyl IME you need to be spending up on £1000 on a turntable and phono stage, before replay starts getting decent.

Which IMO completely negates the point of vinyl as a decent playback medium, if you have to spend that kind of money to recreate what is already lower-quality audio. Plus no matter how much you've spent. it won't remove flaws in the manufacturing process - pops, clicks, surface noise or put the hole any closer to the centre of the record.

[yorks5stringer]

We put vinyl down in the bathroom to replace shabby old carpet, it really has made a difference.

[leroydiamond]

29 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Which IMO completely negates the point of vinyl as a decent playback medium, if you have to spend that kind of money to recreate what is already lower-quality audio. Plus no matter how much you've spent. it won't remove flaws in the manufacturing process - pops, clicks, surface noise or put the hole any closer to the centre of the record.

There is room for Vinyl, streaming, and CD in my world. Indeed streaming on Tidal is the way I listen to most of my music. IMO where vinyl comes into its own, is when listening to recordings that were recorded entirely in the analogue domain from the 60's and 70's. To my ears, very few of these recordings have transferred well on to digital IMO. Indeed some of them have been brickwalled when remastered, which renders them unlistenable. In such cases the vinyl will always be my go to.

In terms of more recent recordings, CD or streaming is my preference, as the vinyl version tends to be a digital master transfer to vinyl.

Edited January 11, 2021 by leroydiamond

[BigRedX]

While it may well be the (re)mastering or the fact that the CD has been produced from the wrong production master (one with a vinyl EQ curve already imposed on the audio), however are you sure it's not simply that you are used to hearing certain albums in certain ways?

For instance, my first record player played one side of the stereo field considerably louder than the other. When I was able to buy something a bit better it suddenly revealed extra instruments in the mix which of which I had been previously unaware. Sometimes these additions IMO did nothing to improve the songs and in many cases were a definite step backwards in my enjoyment compared with what I'd been hearing previously.

BTW if brick wall limiting had been physically possible with vinyl it would have been common place long ago. As it was, one of the reasons for keeping the running time for singles under 2 1/2 minutes was the fact that they could be cut louder, which made them stand out when played on a jukebox. It didn't affect what you heard on the radio since they were already using brick wall limiting to make life easier for the DJs. Finally, regarding quality, when The Terrortones had the vinyl version of our album produced, the cutting room informed us that for the optimum audio quality each side of a 12" disc should be cut at 45rpm with a maximum running time of 10 minutes. Both reducing the speed to 33rpm and increasing the running time of the side would reduce the audio quality achievable in terms of bandwidth and signal to noise ratio.

Edited January 11, 2021 by BigRedX

[Quilly]

27 minutes ago, leroydiamond said:

There is room for Vinyl, streaming, and CD in my world. Indeed streaming on Tidal is the way I listen to most of my music. IMO where vinyl comes into its own, is when listening to recordings that were recorded entirely in the analogue domain from the 60's and 70's. To my ears, very few of these recordings have transferred well on to digital IMO. Indeed some of them have been brickwalled when remastered, which renders them unlistenable. In such cases the vinyl will always be my go to.

In terms of more recent recordings, CD or streaming is my preference, as the vinyl version tends to be a digital master transfer to vinyl.

Agree,I recently purchased Rumours and St peppers and they sound great .

Edited January 11, 2021 by Quilly

[taunton-hobbit]

5 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

for the optimum audio quality each side of a 12" disc should be cut at 45rpm with a maximum running time of 10 minutes. Both reducing the speed to 33rpm and increasing the running time of the side would reduce the audio quality achievable in terms of bandwidth and signal to noise ratio.

Which is why analogue tape masters were usually recorded at 15ips and never below 7.5ips, the 'usual' domestic speed of 3 3/4 ips was regarded as pretty unusable by pro studio setups & usually reserved for sample tapes for clients.

😎

[leroydiamond]

32 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

While it may well be the (re)mastering or the fact that the CD has been produced from the wrong production master (one with a vinyl EQ curve already imposed on the audio), however are you sure it's not simply that you are used to hearing certain albums in certain ways?

For instance, my first record player played one side of the stereo field considerably louder than the other. When I was able to buy something a bit better it suddenly revealed extra instruments in the mix which of which I had been previously unaware. Sometimes these additions IMO did nothing to improve the songs and in many cases were a definite step backwards in my enjoyment compared with what I'd been hearing previously.

BTW if brick wall limiting had been physically possible with vinyl it would have been common place long ago. As it was, one of the reasons for keeping the running time for singles under 2 1/2 minutes was the fact that they could be cut louder, which made them stand out when played on a jukebox. It didn't affect what you heard on the radio since they were already using brick wall limiting to make life easier for the DJs. Finally, regarding quality, when The Terrortones had the vinyl version of our album produced, the cutting room informed us that for the optimum audio quality each side of a 12" disc should be cut at 45rpm with a maximum running time of 10 minutes. Both reducing the speed to 33rpm and increasing the running time of the side would reduce the audio quality achievable in terms of bandwidth and signal to noise ratio.

I am not all that knowledgable about the tech behind CD/vinyl/streaming. I was all for getting away from vinyl some years ago, as digital is so much less hassle. However as I already mentioned, I was less than impressed with the CD alternatives to many of the vinyl albums I would listen to.

I even purchased the much sought after and expensive DCC CD cut of Deep Purples 'Made in Japan' but unfortunately it does not come any where close to my 'porky' vinyl pressing. At least that is what my ears tell me. By the way my CD and Vinyl front end are similarly priced. 

I am a big fan of CD's but the brickwell mastering that many recordings have been subjected to, has done the medium no favours. 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by leroydiamond

[BigRedX]

26 minutes ago, taunton-hobbit said:

Which is why analogue tape masters were usually recorded at 15ips and never below 7.5ips, the 'usual' domestic speed of 3 3/4 ips was regarded as pretty unusable by pro studio setups & usually reserved for sample tapes for clients.

😎

Vinyl suffers from an additional problem that the closer you get to the end of the side the lower the bandwidth that is achievable, because the stylus travels less distance with each rotation of the disc. Compare the outer groove of the average 12" disc which is approximately 925mm long with one near the end which will be around 400mm long but will need to contain the same amount of information, which at 33rpm will be 1.8 seconds of audio.

[Leonard Smalls]

3 hours ago, BigRedX said:

3 hours ago, leroydiamond said:

 

Which IMO completely negates the point of vinyl as a decent playback medium, if you have to spend that kind of money to recreate what is already lower-quality audio. Plus no matter how much you've spent. it won't remove flaws in the manufacturing process - pops, clicks, surface noise or put the hole any closer to the centre of the record

Personally I'd say that in order to get serious hifi reproduction using any medium there's an absolute minimum spend...

Frinstance with cd you can achieve reasonable results using a cheap cd player, but not if it's playing into a strained poor quality amplifier and bandwidth limited speakers that distort or have very irregular frequency response curves or impedance that swings wildly with frequency. And the cheap cdp player can be bettered by one which reads more of the information on the disc accurately (stable transports etc), and even more so if digital to analogue conversion is of a higher quality.

However, you may get musical enjoyment from a cheap record player, but not much in the way of actual hifi reproduction because of poor tracking, low quality needle/magnet/coil assembly,  speed instability, bearing rumble, low frequency feedback from inadequate isolation. Then there's the conversion from RIAA standard - a cheap phono stage won't do it particularly accurately. So while a big step up in price for cd playback will probably give some small benefits, if you want serious vinyl hifi you either need to spend some reasonable money, or be very astute on the 2nd hand market!

However, the law of diminishing returns sets in quite quickly... If you look at just the Project line of TTs they start at about £179, up to around £7999 (signature 12). And the top end one doesn't even include a cartridge! The bottom model is capable of reasonable hifi quality - it'll sound OK but won't have anywhere near the detail retrieval or weight (i.e bass quality) of the top one - you could clearly hear the difference between the 2. However, if you move to one of their more mid-range offerings the difference between £7999 and £1049 (the X2) will be much less pronounced, but the X2 will still sound significantly better than the £179 Primary E... You can see where the difference comes by looking at tech specs - the E has speed variance of about 0.8% and wow/flutter of 0.29% with mid-range X2 at 0.25%/0.12% and top line signature at <0.1%/<0.08%. All these differences in spec will mean that the bottom model sounds much thinner, lacks a large stereo image and will suffer far more from pops and crackles that either of the other 2. You'd be surprised just how quiet top flight vinyl can sound - with my set up I find on analogue produced albums that tape hiss is louder than any surface noise (though proper cleaning is also essential (I use a £49.99 Discmagic)). But bear in mind that a Project Experience 2 at £500 2nd hand will sound as good as the £1049 X2 - though both will need a quality phono stage (and amp/speakers) to bring out the best in them!

 

[taunton-hobbit]

Purists look away now -

Sound system set (as used, by me, for years)

Garrard 401 turntable (with felt pad brake removed)

Felt slip mats for instant start of disc on already revolving 401

Goldring Lenco arm with strung thrust weight removed and rear of arm fixed with epoxy

Cartridge - Shure N44c (juke box jobby)  

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by taunton-hobbit
sp

[BigRedX]

37 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

However, the law of diminishing returns sets in quite quickly... If you look at just the Project line of TTs they start at about £179, up to around £7999 (signature 12). And the top end one doesn't even include a cartridge! The bottom model is capable of reasonable hifi quality - it'll sound OK but won't have anywhere near the detail retrieval or weight (i.e bass quality) of the top one - you could clearly hear the difference between the 2. However, if you move to one of their more mid-range offerings the difference between £7999 and £1049 (the X2) will be much less pronounced, but the X2 will still sound significantly better than the £179 Primary E... You can see where the difference comes by looking at tech specs - the E has speed variance of about 0.8% and wow/flutter of 0.29% with mid-range X2 at 0.25%/0.12% and top line signature at <0.1%/<0.08%. All these differences in spec will mean that the bottom model sounds much thinner, lacks a large stereo image and will suffer far more from pops and crackles that either of the other 2. You'd be surprised just how quiet top flight vinyl can sound - with my set up I find on analogue produced albums that tape hiss is louder than any surface noise (though proper cleaning is also essential (I use a £49.99 Discmagic)). But bear in mind that a Project Experience 2 at £500 2nd hand will sound as good as the £1049 X2 - though both will need a quality phono stage (and amp/speakers) to bring out the best in them!

 

Can you please explain why a better turntable will reduce pops and crackles? I thought that these were due to manufacturing flaws or damage to the record itself. Also while reducing wow and flutter should be a good thing, IMO the relationship of the hole in the "centre" of th record in relation to the grooves is by far the biggest contributing factor.

The problem for all analogue music reproduction systems is that they rely on the real-time extraction of the information from the playback media, and any fluctuations in the mechanics of of the playback mechanism will adversely impact on the final sound.

[PaulWarning]

I had a feeling this would turn into a discussion about sound quality, I've said it before, most people aren't that bothered about the nuances of the sound, took me a while but I realised your mood and the atmosphere are more important when listening to music, I bet most of us have really enjoyed a track more, played on a crappy pub jukebox because we've had a couple of beers and out with mates.

If putting a record on a turntable and listening to the stylus hitting the vinyl increases your listening pleasure then so be it.

[BigRedX]

The problem with vinyl is that it is hard to reconcile the physicality and often luxury of the packaging with the poorly produced lump of plastic within. 

I love the look of a good record collection with its expansive 12" and 7" sleeves, but as someone whose vinyl mostly consisted of indie/DIY records bought during the late 70 and the 80s, I don't for a moment miss the badly pressed discs contained within.

And to get back to the OP I'm not convinced that the current additional expense of vinyl over other formats is either acceptable or can be justified in terms of production costs.

Edited January 11, 2021 by BigRedX

[PaulWarning]

19 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

And to get back to the OP I'm not convinced that the current additional expense of vinyl over other formats is either acceptable or can be justified in terms of production costs.

Well I agree, I wouldn't buy vinyl now but I'm not a materialistic person, but a lot of people would and do, and if it puts more money into the pockets of artists I'm all for it, because streaming certainly doesn't

[Leonard Smalls]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Can you please explain why a better turntable will reduce pops and crackles? I thought that these were due to manufacturing flaws or damage to the record itself.

The whole thing is more stable. Bearing noise, ac motors and resonances between arm,  cartridge and TT itself all exacerbate surface noise; after all just the act of scraping a diamond over moving plastic will make some noise but if all the stuff related to the TT itself is minimised then so is the noise. Not only that, but a cartridge properly matched with a decent tonearm seems to track better and almost ignore anything that isn't music - no idea why, but could be because there's effectively more dynamic range due to reducing the surface noise floor? Perhaps it's audiophile pixie dust I like to sprinkle before listening? 😁 Either way, I know I have records where I can hear master tape hiss (I know it well after all those years at BBC sound!) when played on my system, but not on cheaper kit...

As for poor pressings, I've found that to be relatively rare - I've got a couple of thousand LPs and while some have some damage from my DJing days not many have obvious lumps n bumps. And when properly cleaned even they are listenable without scratches intruding too annoyingly.