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As someone who started collecting vinyl about 3 years ago, it's about the difference between passive and active involvement in music. So much of our music consu

As someone who started collecting vinyl about 3 years ago, it's about the difference between passive and active involvement in music. So much of our music consumption these days is a largely passive activity. We have music in our headphones while we work. We have music on in our cars while we drive. We have music on in the background of social events. While modern digital formats have given us true ubiquity of music (seriously, thanks to Spotify and Apple Music and LTE connections, even the old "1000 songs in your pocket" claim from the first iPod could be regarded as "quaint") they've driven the trend further and further away from active involvement in music. Contrast that with vinyl. The act of putting on a record indicates a desire to do more than put on music in the background. Walking across the room, thumbing through your collection, pulling the record from its sleeve, etc.--the ritual of it all changes one's frame of mind in approaching the music: it's by definition a more active involvement. When I want to have music on, I reach for my iPhone and Apple Music. When I want to listen to music I grab a record.

amartya916 9y ago
This is very nicely framed, thank you. At the risk of going slightly off track, do you think this argument about active involvement also fits (physical and not electronic)books?
- bcrescimanno 9y ago
  An interesting question, for sure! As someone who doesn't read a lot of fiction or lengthy non-fiction works, I'm definitely not an authority. That said, my gut tells me that the effect can't possibly be as strong--we don't tend to, "read in the background" the way we consume music. A certain active involvement is required to do more than move our eyes across the pages randomly.
- zippergz 9y ago
  I find that an eInk Kindle is "close enough" to a paper book in terms of immersion for me. But reading on my iPad (or even worse, computer) definitely is not. I get notifications, there's always the temptation to jump out and "just check email," etc. With the Kindle there is no distraction, and for me that seems to be more important than the tactile experience of a printed book (though I do still enjoy printed books).
  - eric_h 9y ago
    Personally I've found that the loss of one spatial dimension in the transition from paper to ebook actually makes the book less engaging and more difficult to retain details. I think (again, my personal experience) that reading while also having a tactile sense of where I am in the book (say ~20% of the way through) makes it easier to remember smaller details; perhaps the physical book helps my brain create a sort of "memory castle" that a little progress bar on an ebook does not. One example: I read all but the latest Game of Thrones books in paperback (well before the HBO show was even announced). I devoured them and was able to keep track of all the families/storylines without a problem or a second thought. I tried to read the latest one as an ebook and I found I'd have forgotten details of various storylines between reading sessions. I ultimately never finished it and I'm just watching the TV show now :| Now when I want to read a book, I buy a book - I just can't get into ebooks. Sure, it's not as convenient, but it also doesn't need to be plugged in, ever.
    - eric_h 9y ago
      I'd also add that ever since I figured this out I've wanted to invent an ebook reader that actually gave you a third dimension, multiple (say ~20) eink pages with perhaps an additional tactile slider on the binding as you progress through the book. Maybe it'll become feasible as the price for flexible eink displays drops.
    - zippergz 9y ago
      That's a very interesting observation. It hadn't occurred to me before, but I do think there's some truth in that for me as well.
- the_af 9y ago
  Interesting! To me, it does. Now I'm no luddite: I own a kindle and use it a lot. It's convenient. But to me the experience is definitely different from reading a paper book, in multiple ways: I read randomly, going back and forward a few pages multiple times, and this is currently cumbersome in an e-reader. Also, I enjoy book cover artwork -- I enjoy the look of a book -- and while it is displayed in the book list of my e-reader, it's just not the same. I want to see the book cover every time I pick the book, and in full color. I want to smell the pages. To me this is part of the experience of reading. Still, the Kindle is so damn convenient. It's just that it's not the same pleasurable reading experience for me. It's not true that the Kindle "disappears" like Amazon claims -- or maybe, it actually disappears too much!
- 11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
  At risk of a bit more off topic, the active vs. passive engagement is why I brought Scrum into my company. Circulating an Excel file with a list of tasks was the passive approach. Pulling your tag off the backlog and moving it forward was the active approach. I told my skeptical management that the physical act of moving tasks through their status changes would make a difference in engagement and all members of the team said they felt more engaged with the project when we went to Scrum. There is something to be lost in digitizing our lives, automating our activities and putting it all online. Sure, we gain time to do other things, but it seems we then fritter it away scrolling through facebook feeds, tweets and whatnot.
sosuke 9y ago
You've hit on a very big part of listening to music that appears largely lost today. Composers would know that they had a captive audience for so long a time and would be able to create large narratives in their music that just can't be pulled off today. I have a hard time imagining just sitting down to listen to music. Not listen to music and converse or eat. Not listen to music and browse the web. Just listening to music sounds like a hard task. However when I am at a live concert it is very easy to completely focus on the music even over a couple of hours. I can see the instruments and my other senses are involved in the experience.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  There's still a lot of narrative-based music, it's just not heavily pushed in music stores and on the radio. A lot of it sits on bandcamp - the New Albion trilogy, The Mechanisms' sets, etc etc.
  - sosuke 9y ago
    Thanks for the leads I'm always looking to expand my horizon.
    - lastflowers 9y ago
      I've been using the Store at VinylMePlease every few months to discover new bands. I'll put their albums on a Spotify list and remove those that really don't jive.
- kazinator 9y ago
  > You've hit on a very big part of listening to music that appears largely lost today. The big part that is lost today is the music.
  - some-guy 9y ago
    Nonsense: there was plenty of horrible music that came out in the past that did not stand the test of time. Ironically it's all on Spotify now for your enjoyment :)
rdiddly 9y ago
I think my "moment" with this passiveness/ubiquity thing was the day when I noticed music was "on" in every store in the mall too, audible as you walked past, serving as an advertisement of sorts, maybe conveying something (the merchants hoped) about what their business was about. And if you walked in the store, of course it would become the soundtrack, influencing your emotions for a perfectly curated retail consumption experience! That's the day I realized music had become plentiful and cheap, in both the Econ 101 sense and others. It was also the epitome of listener passivity, as the customers didn't choose to have music on at all, didn't choose which music was on, and might even have had their buying influenced by it. (Though there's a counter-argument to the last bit, that anyone who didn't like the music might just self-select outta there.) Anyway it didn't make me go back to vinyl... it just made me buy a nicer and more impenetrable pair of headphones. And it made me get the hell out of the music biz.
Z1515M8147 9y ago
Your comment and the other replies to this comment reminded me of this interesting article (2015) by philosopher Roger Scruton: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34801885 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34801885
- maldusiecle 9y ago
  Be sure to read all the way to the end for the (no joke) praise of Metallica. I'm no fan of Scruton or respecter of his intellectual prowess, but it does baffle me how willing old-fashioned aesthetes are to carve out exceptions to their own principles. Surely if late period Metallica has artistic value, large swathes of the music he's condemning do as well.
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empath75 9y ago
This is the only explanation for this that I could actually understand. Anyone telling me that they think it sounds better just triggers eye rolling.
- travislopes 9y ago
  There are cases where it sounds better though. Not because the music on vinyl, but because they did a different master for the vinyl release that's not as brick walled as the digital release.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  Honestly, have you looked at your sound system recently? At the time of vinyl, the RIAA had standards on how to process the sound. Those were good standards. On the move to digital we threw them away, and nowadays some companies go into the cheapest route, some go into the best benchmarks route, and nearly no company tries to release a system that sounds good anymore. But vinyl systems still have to follow the RIAA standards, otherwise they'll get completely distorted.
  - eric_h 9y ago
    This is quite possibly the first post I have ever read on the internet that mentioned the RIAA with a positive tone. For others, here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      I was very surprised when I discovered it :) Looks like they used to develop all kinds of tech for sound record and playback.
  - __david__ 9y ago
    They threw them out because they’re just there to compensate for specific distortion in the analog vinyl medium. As far as I understand the riaa equalization in your phonograph is just to undo the premphasis put there when it was mastered. It’s completely unneeded in digital audio.
kazinator 9y ago
You can walk across the room, thumb through a CD collection, pull a disc out of the case, and put it into your 2U rack-sized CD player.
- Gracana 9y ago
  True. But vinyl album art is bigger, which is nice if you are interested in having a cool collection of art/objects.
  - kazinator 9y ago
    If you scan a 5" CD album cover at 2400 DPI, you get a 12000x12000 image, from which you can probably render a reasonable poster, if you like.
    - dasyatidprime 9y ago
      And if it wasn't printed that fine in the first place, then you have a different problem.
    - randyrand 9y ago
      that doesn't make it a collectible!
    - Gracana 9y ago
      I don't believe that you really think that's a practical alterative.
eanzenberg 9y ago
I dunno.. digital music just sounds better, is more consistent, portable, and all around easier to play than vinyl. Why stop there? Do you also churn your own butter, milk your own cows, shave with a straight razor? Personally, I think it's just silly hipster bias.
- bitJericho 9y ago
  I agree, for sure. That said, there's a lot to be said about listening to an entire album. I'm a huge fan of CDs for this reason. It's a good mix of Vinyl vs Digital. I know I'm getting perfect, uncompressed digital audio. My setup is designed for involved listening if I want it, and I do that mostly with CDs, rather than records. At the same time, if I want something new, or a cd I don't have, I just put on Spotify. There's no reason why you can't have it all.
  - ovao 9y ago
    I'm a huge fan of CDs for this reason. I know I'm getting perfect, uncompressed digital audio. Ah, but you don't know! On Beck's Odelay Deluxe Edition release, for example, there are at least two tracks that came from a lossy source. I don't think it's something that happens often. But through some combination of factors it has happened before, and probably happens more often than people might be aware.
    - bitJericho 9y ago
      True. There's also issues with volume and with analog to digital conversions. But even still, almost any cd is better than it's analog equivalent in just about every measure.
      - ovao 9y ago
        Certainly true. Even some of the earliest CD masters are still very good, relatively. By most standards it took a fairly short amount of time for CD audio to reach a high standard for quality (loudness wars aside).
nocman 9y ago
While I can understand the nostalgia of playing music on a record player (many of us had lots of records when we were younger), and how that experience could be different for you, perhaps in a very pleasant way, I find the idea that the experience of using one medium over another somehow makes you more "serious" about the music (or more engaged with the music, or whatever else you want to call it) is laughable. You can be every bit as "active" in the listening experience playing the music on an iPod or a CD player as you are sticking a needle on a vinyl record. And for that matter, you can be just as passive in the listening experience listening to a vinyl recording (well, OK, you might get a slight bit more exercise getting your butt off of the chair when the record is over -- if you can't get someone else to put on the next record :-D). I do think that our culture is terribly entertainment-driven, and that much of the time music is just background noise that isn't really being paid attention to, but that has nothing to do with the medium, except that some mediums make that easier to do than others. I Also think the culture tends to underestimate the value of peace and quiet, and that the TV or stereo doesn't have to be on 24 hours a day. Don't get me wrong, I love music, and so does my family. We have it playing regularly at our house. I'll still crank up the stereo when a song is particularly good (it's usually too loud for my kids before it's too loud for me :-D). But having some quiet in the day, so you can think without being bombarded with stuff in the background is also important -- not just for older people either -- kids and young adults need it too. [edited to remove unintended indentation]
- delinka 9y ago
  "...using one medium over another somehow makes you more "serious" about the music" I believe you missed the point. He says the ritual makes the listener more involved with the music. He doesn't say different media make one more or less serious about music. It's similar with food: you can be serious about your food whether cooking it yourself or ordering it at a restaurant (or eating at a buffet.) But you're more involved with the food if you select your own raw ingredients and cook it yourself.
  - nocman 9y ago
    No, I don't think I missed the point. My point was that he was unnecessarily tying the listener's activeness/seriousness/whatever with/about the music to the medium it was on. I totally get the point about there being different levels of interaction with music. I just don't think that listening to music on vinyl equates to you being a more active listener. For some it might help, I suppose, but I think it is far from universal. Also, the implication was (as I read it), that if you listen on vinyl you are tons more likely to be an active listener than someone who is using a more modern medium, and I just don't think that's true.
knownothing 9y ago
Perhaps. I see the passive/active duality more clearly with listening (or consuming) versus performing music. There has been a strong shift towards consumption in all forms as we've gotten better at making things.
nathankleyn 9y ago
I could not agree more As a vinyl collector myself, another thing that interests me is the feeling of quality you get when you buy vinyl. I love looking through the lyric booklets in 10/12" format, beautifully printed and often a piece of art in its own right. I actually feel like I _want_ to sit there and listen through a whole album when you have all that to gaze through at the same time.
6stringmerc 9y ago
This is a great rationale and it makes sense. Listening to Bruce Springsteen talk about "the one rack of records" in the local store, and scarcity, and on and on, it's a special connection possible for sure. As a musician I can't "un-hear" a different method of engagement even as a listener for enjoyment. It's a different subject, but also related to the active notion you described. After all these years, sampling things from across the world time and time again, it takes quite a bit of "Ooomph" for me to really feel the hairs on my arm bristle up. What's great in modern times though, is that I can get a real buzz every time I shop on Beatport, listen through my studio Sennheisers, and at volumes that would be considered torture if inflicted involuntarily. RAM Records and HEAVY ARTILLERY are two that I really enjoy because it's music that will scare people who even love music. Ha!
david-cako 9y ago
While I completely agree with the sentiment, I think that most people who spend a serious amount of time seeking out and listening to music digitally have the same level of involvement. Communities like private trackers and /mu/ are some of the most expansive record stores in the world. Try walking into a record store and finding someone that listens to whatever weird shit you're into. It'll be more rewarding, but far less likely.
com2kid 9y ago
> We have music on in our cars while we drive. I am not sure how this is a passive activity. For me, listening to music in my car is when I am actively listening, I have time to contemplate the lyrics, listen to songs over and over again and hear the nuances, and really gain appreciation for a song. It is sad that my car has the worst audio quality, but it is far from a passive experience. That is not even beginning to talk about the fact that on an open road (admittedly rarer and rarer each day), that music becomes an interactive experience. Be it slowing down and opening the windows to feel the wind pass by while the perfect Americana song plays, or pushing that pedal to the floor when just the right song comes on. I'll readily agree that music at work is very passive though, I have to avoid songs that require (or encourage!) active listening. > When I want to listen to music I grab a record. I reach for my FLAC collection, legally ripped, and stored in the cloud.
agumonkey 9y ago
I believe in this, and also a part of our brains relates to the physical embodiement of a perception. When I ran an old pentium box full of mechanical drives, it beeps, it moves, it cringes .. and I like it. It's a piece of stimulus that is the basis for my other activities on the device. I love the bliss of SSD and tablets but I'm holding a piece of magic vapor. It tickles my brain less. Same goes for the vynil players, or even CD players, there were a magic show that you could experience in itself. ps: this and the album scale, art, lyrics. It felt crafted a lot more. I spent most of my life trying to generate everything perfectly and I miss the analog stuff.
mb_72 9y ago
One can still have a ritual for digital music, and - having grown up using cassettes and vinyl and getting very over the time and hassle needed to maintain the media or the playing equipment - I'm more than happy having an option of a non-ritualistic music session. I can understand younger folk or those seeking sentimentality going for a vinyl experience, though. Digital does offer so much these days - cataloguing, cross-indexing, choice of quality of storage, transfer between different devices, streaming - I can't imagine myself going back (in time / in terms of overall experience).
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zeep 9y ago
Why can't you plug your iphone in your home stereo and "listen"?
- zeep 9y ago
  For me, i cant listen unless the band is playing live in front of me...
InclinedPlane 9y ago
Precisely. Do vinyl records sound better than, say, mp3s? Objectively not (at least from a pure audio perspective). But that's not what's it about. Humans aren't robots. The ritual, the priming of the experience, the necessity of putting effort into the selection and stewardship of your music collection, even the fragility and fussiness of dealing with vinyl records themselves. All of these things help deepen the experience and make it easier to justify taking time out of your day just to listen to music (there's so much temptation to multi-task and push music into the background otherwise). Could you do all of these things otherwise? Sure, but it definitely seems a lot harder for people to do so. This is just how the human psyche works, and it's pretty serious, important stuff. Think about how much of religion is built on the same elements (ritual, caretaking, tradition, etc.) for example.
wepple 9y ago
Thank you. This is exactly how I feel but I haven't been able to describe it before.
kovek 9y ago
I had a friend tell me about how there was a group that wanted to see how much time do surfers actually spend surfing. It turns out, only 1% of the time they put into getting set up to surf a wave are they actually surfing waves. Still, it's a very fun sport. It seems like working up to that moment is very important and has some positive elements in itself. That is similar to how using vinyls allows you to have some buffer before and after listening to music or a musical piece. You can't have the same high all the time. Similarly, you can't enjoy that one part of a song for 10 minutes. Similarly, you can't music playing all the time at the same level as you can enjoy some music (that you like) playing sometimes.
mixmastamyk 9y ago
We noticed this the other day dusting off our last records, there was artwork to look at and lyrics to read and one even had two posters inside.
taylodl 9y ago
If you want ritual then may I suggest reel-to-reel tape? You get ritual and awesome sound. If we're going to bring back analog then let's at least bring back good analog!
robbrown451 9y ago
I agree, except that once digital music became available, going through that ritual feels artificial to me. Like, in the old days (say when I was in college in the 80s, when I used to make regular trips to the used vinyl record store), it was a necessity to go through that ritual. As much as I can appreciate vinyl, I can't force myself to go through the hassle (and expense) of trying to do that today.

amartya916 9y ago

This is very nicely framed, thank you. At the risk of going slightly off track, do you think this argument about active involvement also fits (physical and not electronic)books?

bcrescimanno 9y ago
An interesting question, for sure! As someone who doesn't read a lot of fiction or lengthy non-fiction works, I'm definitely not an authority. That said, my gut tells me that the effect can't possibly be as strong--we don't tend to, "read in the background" the way we consume music. A certain active involvement is required to do more than move our eyes across the pages randomly.
zippergz 9y ago
I find that an eInk Kindle is "close enough" to a paper book in terms of immersion for me. But reading on my iPad (or even worse, computer) definitely is not. I get notifications, there's always the temptation to jump out and "just check email," etc. With the Kindle there is no distraction, and for me that seems to be more important than the tactile experience of a printed book (though I do still enjoy printed books).
- eric_h 9y ago
  Personally I've found that the loss of one spatial dimension in the transition from paper to ebook actually makes the book less engaging and more difficult to retain details. I think (again, my personal experience) that reading while also having a tactile sense of where I am in the book (say ~20% of the way through) makes it easier to remember smaller details; perhaps the physical book helps my brain create a sort of "memory castle" that a little progress bar on an ebook does not. One example: I read all but the latest Game of Thrones books in paperback (well before the HBO show was even announced). I devoured them and was able to keep track of all the families/storylines without a problem or a second thought. I tried to read the latest one as an ebook and I found I'd have forgotten details of various storylines between reading sessions. I ultimately never finished it and I'm just watching the TV show now :| Now when I want to read a book, I buy a book - I just can't get into ebooks. Sure, it's not as convenient, but it also doesn't need to be plugged in, ever.
  - eric_h 9y ago
    I'd also add that ever since I figured this out I've wanted to invent an ebook reader that actually gave you a third dimension, multiple (say ~20) eink pages with perhaps an additional tactile slider on the binding as you progress through the book. Maybe it'll become feasible as the price for flexible eink displays drops.
  - zippergz 9y ago
    That's a very interesting observation. It hadn't occurred to me before, but I do think there's some truth in that for me as well.
the_af 9y ago
Interesting! To me, it does. Now I'm no luddite: I own a kindle and use it a lot. It's convenient. But to me the experience is definitely different from reading a paper book, in multiple ways: I read randomly, going back and forward a few pages multiple times, and this is currently cumbersome in an e-reader. Also, I enjoy book cover artwork -- I enjoy the look of a book -- and while it is displayed in the book list of my e-reader, it's just not the same. I want to see the book cover every time I pick the book, and in full color. I want to smell the pages. To me this is part of the experience of reading. Still, the Kindle is so damn convenient. It's just that it's not the same pleasurable reading experience for me. It's not true that the Kindle "disappears" like Amazon claims -- or maybe, it actually disappears too much!
11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
At risk of a bit more off topic, the active vs. passive engagement is why I brought Scrum into my company. Circulating an Excel file with a list of tasks was the passive approach. Pulling your tag off the backlog and moving it forward was the active approach. I told my skeptical management that the physical act of moving tasks through their status changes would make a difference in engagement and all members of the team said they felt more engaged with the project when we went to Scrum. There is something to be lost in digitizing our lives, automating our activities and putting it all online. Sure, we gain time to do other things, but it seems we then fritter it away scrolling through facebook feeds, tweets and whatnot.

sosuke 9y ago

You've hit on a very big part of listening to music that appears largely lost today. Composers would know that they had a captive audience for so long a time and would be able to create large narratives in their music that just can't be pulled off today. I have a hard time imagining just sitting down to listen to music. Not listen to music and converse or eat. Not listen to music and browse the web. Just listening to music sounds like a hard task. However when I am at a live concert it is very easy to completely focus on the music even over a couple of hours. I can see the instruments and my other senses are involved in the experience.

vertex-four 9y ago
There's still a lot of narrative-based music, it's just not heavily pushed in music stores and on the radio. A lot of it sits on bandcamp - the New Albion trilogy, The Mechanisms' sets, etc etc.
- sosuke 9y ago
  Thanks for the leads I'm always looking to expand my horizon.
  - lastflowers 9y ago
    I've been using the Store at VinylMePlease every few months to discover new bands. I'll put their albums on a Spotify list and remove those that really don't jive.
kazinator 9y ago
> You've hit on a very big part of listening to music that appears largely lost today. The big part that is lost today is the music.
- some-guy 9y ago
  Nonsense: there was plenty of horrible music that came out in the past that did not stand the test of time. Ironically it's all on Spotify now for your enjoyment :)

rdiddly 9y ago

I think my "moment" with this passiveness/ubiquity thing was the day when I noticed music was "on" in every store in the mall too, audible as you walked past, serving as an advertisement of sorts, maybe conveying something (the merchants hoped) about what their business was about. And if you walked in the store, of course it would become the soundtrack, influencing your emotions for a perfectly curated retail consumption experience! That's the day I realized music had become plentiful and cheap, in both the Econ 101 sense and others. It was also the epitome of listener passivity, as the customers didn't choose to have music on at all, didn't choose which music was on, and might even have had their buying influenced by it. (Though there's a counter-argument to the last bit, that anyone who didn't like the music might just self-select outta there.) Anyway it didn't make me go back to vinyl... it just made me buy a nicer and more impenetrable pair of headphones. And it made me get the hell out of the music biz.

Z1515M8147 9y ago

Your comment and the other replies to this comment reminded me of this interesting article (2015) by philosopher Roger Scruton: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34801885 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34801885

maldusiecle 9y ago
Be sure to read all the way to the end for the (no joke) praise of Metallica. I'm no fan of Scruton or respecter of his intellectual prowess, but it does baffle me how willing old-fashioned aesthetes are to carve out exceptions to their own principles. Surely if late period Metallica has artistic value, large swathes of the music he's condemning do as well.

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empath75 9y ago

This is the only explanation for this that I could actually understand. Anyone telling me that they think it sounds better just triggers eye rolling.

travislopes 9y ago
There are cases where it sounds better though. Not because the music on vinyl, but because they did a different master for the vinyl release that's not as brick walled as the digital release.
marcosdumay 9y ago
Honestly, have you looked at your sound system recently? At the time of vinyl, the RIAA had standards on how to process the sound. Those were good standards. On the move to digital we threw them away, and nowadays some companies go into the cheapest route, some go into the best benchmarks route, and nearly no company tries to release a system that sounds good anymore. But vinyl systems still have to follow the RIAA standards, otherwise they'll get completely distorted.
- eric_h 9y ago
  This is quite possibly the first post I have ever read on the internet that mentioned the RIAA with a positive tone. For others, here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    I was very surprised when I discovered it :) Looks like they used to develop all kinds of tech for sound record and playback.
- __david__ 9y ago
  They threw them out because they’re just there to compensate for specific distortion in the analog vinyl medium. As far as I understand the riaa equalization in your phonograph is just to undo the premphasis put there when it was mastered. It’s completely unneeded in digital audio.

kazinator 9y ago

You can walk across the room, thumb through a CD collection, pull a disc out of the case, and put it into your 2U rack-sized CD player.

Gracana 9y ago
True. But vinyl album art is bigger, which is nice if you are interested in having a cool collection of art/objects.
- kazinator 9y ago
  If you scan a 5" CD album cover at 2400 DPI, you get a 12000x12000 image, from which you can probably render a reasonable poster, if you like.
  - dasyatidprime 9y ago
    And if it wasn't printed that fine in the first place, then you have a different problem.
  - randyrand 9y ago
    that doesn't make it a collectible!
  - Gracana 9y ago
    I don't believe that you really think that's a practical alterative.

eanzenberg 9y ago

I dunno.. digital music just sounds better, is more consistent, portable, and all around easier to play than vinyl. Why stop there? Do you also churn your own butter, milk your own cows, shave with a straight razor? Personally, I think it's just silly hipster bias.

bitJericho 9y ago
I agree, for sure. That said, there's a lot to be said about listening to an entire album. I'm a huge fan of CDs for this reason. It's a good mix of Vinyl vs Digital. I know I'm getting perfect, uncompressed digital audio. My setup is designed for involved listening if I want it, and I do that mostly with CDs, rather than records. At the same time, if I want something new, or a cd I don't have, I just put on Spotify. There's no reason why you can't have it all.
- ovao 9y ago
  I'm a huge fan of CDs for this reason. I know I'm getting perfect, uncompressed digital audio. Ah, but you don't know! On Beck's Odelay Deluxe Edition release, for example, there are at least two tracks that came from a lossy source. I don't think it's something that happens often. But through some combination of factors it has happened before, and probably happens more often than people might be aware.
  - bitJericho 9y ago
    True. There's also issues with volume and with analog to digital conversions. But even still, almost any cd is better than it's analog equivalent in just about every measure.
    - ovao 9y ago
      Certainly true. Even some of the earliest CD masters are still very good, relatively. By most standards it took a fairly short amount of time for CD audio to reach a high standard for quality (loudness wars aside).

nocman 9y ago

While I can understand the nostalgia of playing music on a record player (many of us had lots of records when we were younger), and how that experience could be different for you, perhaps in a very pleasant way, I find the idea that the experience of using one medium over another somehow makes you more "serious" about the music (or more engaged with the music, or whatever else you want to call it) is laughable. You can be every bit as "active" in the listening experience playing the music on an iPod or a CD player as you are sticking a needle on a vinyl record. And for that matter, you can be just as passive in the listening experience listening to a vinyl recording (well, OK, you might get a slight bit more exercise getting your butt off of the chair when the record is over -- if you can't get someone else to put on the next record :-D). I do think that our culture is terribly entertainment-driven, and that much of the time music is just background noise that isn't really being paid attention to, but that has nothing to do with the medium, except that some mediums make that easier to do than others. I Also think the culture tends to underestimate the value of peace and quiet, and that the TV or stereo doesn't have to be on 24 hours a day. Don't get me wrong, I love music, and so does my family. We have it playing regularly at our house. I'll still crank up the stereo when a song is particularly good (it's usually too loud for my kids before it's too loud for me :-D). But having some quiet in the day, so you can think without being bombarded with stuff in the background is also important -- not just for older people either -- kids and young adults need it too. [edited to remove unintended indentation]

delinka 9y ago
"...using one medium over another somehow makes you more "serious" about the music" I believe you missed the point. He says the ritual makes the listener more involved with the music. He doesn't say different media make one more or less serious about music. It's similar with food: you can be serious about your food whether cooking it yourself or ordering it at a restaurant (or eating at a buffet.) But you're more involved with the food if you select your own raw ingredients and cook it yourself.
- nocman 9y ago
  No, I don't think I missed the point. My point was that he was unnecessarily tying the listener's activeness/seriousness/whatever with/about the music to the medium it was on. I totally get the point about there being different levels of interaction with music. I just don't think that listening to music on vinyl equates to you being a more active listener. For some it might help, I suppose, but I think it is far from universal. Also, the implication was (as I read it), that if you listen on vinyl you are tons more likely to be an active listener than someone who is using a more modern medium, and I just don't think that's true.

knownothing 9y ago

Perhaps. I see the passive/active duality more clearly with listening (or consuming) versus performing music. There has been a strong shift towards consumption in all forms as we've gotten better at making things.

nathankleyn 9y ago

I could not agree more As a vinyl collector myself, another thing that interests me is the feeling of quality you get when you buy vinyl. I love looking through the lyric booklets in 10/12" format, beautifully printed and often a piece of art in its own right. I actually feel like I _want_ to sit there and listen through a whole album when you have all that to gaze through at the same time.

6stringmerc 9y ago

This is a great rationale and it makes sense. Listening to Bruce Springsteen talk about "the one rack of records" in the local store, and scarcity, and on and on, it's a special connection possible for sure. As a musician I can't "un-hear" a different method of engagement even as a listener for enjoyment. It's a different subject, but also related to the active notion you described. After all these years, sampling things from across the world time and time again, it takes quite a bit of "Ooomph" for me to really feel the hairs on my arm bristle up. What's great in modern times though, is that I can get a real buzz every time I shop on Beatport, listen through my studio Sennheisers, and at volumes that would be considered torture if inflicted involuntarily. RAM Records and HEAVY ARTILLERY are two that I really enjoy because it's music that will scare people who even love music. Ha!

david-cako 9y ago

While I completely agree with the sentiment, I think that most people who spend a serious amount of time seeking out and listening to music digitally have the same level of involvement. Communities like private trackers and /mu/ are some of the most expansive record stores in the world. Try walking into a record store and finding someone that listens to whatever weird shit you're into. It'll be more rewarding, but far less likely.

com2kid 9y ago

> We have music on in our cars while we drive. I am not sure how this is a passive activity. For me, listening to music in my car is when I am actively listening, I have time to contemplate the lyrics, listen to songs over and over again and hear the nuances, and really gain appreciation for a song. It is sad that my car has the worst audio quality, but it is far from a passive experience. That is not even beginning to talk about the fact that on an open road (admittedly rarer and rarer each day), that music becomes an interactive experience. Be it slowing down and opening the windows to feel the wind pass by while the perfect Americana song plays, or pushing that pedal to the floor when just the right song comes on. I'll readily agree that music at work is very passive though, I have to avoid songs that require (or encourage!) active listening. > When I want to listen to music I grab a record. I reach for my FLAC collection, legally ripped, and stored in the cloud.

agumonkey 9y ago

I believe in this, and also a part of our brains relates to the physical embodiement of a perception. When I ran an old pentium box full of mechanical drives, it beeps, it moves, it cringes .. and I like it. It's a piece of stimulus that is the basis for my other activities on the device. I love the bliss of SSD and tablets but I'm holding a piece of magic vapor. It tickles my brain less. Same goes for the vynil players, or even CD players, there were a magic show that you could experience in itself. ps: this and the album scale, art, lyrics. It felt crafted a lot more. I spent most of my life trying to generate everything perfectly and I miss the analog stuff.

mb_72 9y ago

One can still have a ritual for digital music, and - having grown up using cassettes and vinyl and getting very over the time and hassle needed to maintain the media or the playing equipment - I'm more than happy having an option of a non-ritualistic music session. I can understand younger folk or those seeking sentimentality going for a vinyl experience, though. Digital does offer so much these days - cataloguing, cross-indexing, choice of quality of storage, transfer between different devices, streaming - I can't imagine myself going back (in time / in terms of overall experience).

deleted 9y ago

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zeep 9y ago

Why can't you plug your iphone in your home stereo and "listen"?

zeep 9y ago
For me, i cant listen unless the band is playing live in front of me...

InclinedPlane 9y ago

Precisely. Do vinyl records sound better than, say, mp3s? Objectively not (at least from a pure audio perspective). But that's not what's it about. Humans aren't robots. The ritual, the priming of the experience, the necessity of putting effort into the selection and stewardship of your music collection, even the fragility and fussiness of dealing with vinyl records themselves. All of these things help deepen the experience and make it easier to justify taking time out of your day just to listen to music (there's so much temptation to multi-task and push music into the background otherwise). Could you do all of these things otherwise? Sure, but it definitely seems a lot harder for people to do so. This is just how the human psyche works, and it's pretty serious, important stuff. Think about how much of religion is built on the same elements (ritual, caretaking, tradition, etc.) for example.

wepple 9y ago

Thank you. This is exactly how I feel but I haven't been able to describe it before.

kovek 9y ago

I had a friend tell me about how there was a group that wanted to see how much time do surfers actually spend surfing. It turns out, only 1% of the time they put into getting set up to surf a wave are they actually surfing waves. Still, it's a very fun sport. It seems like working up to that moment is very important and has some positive elements in itself. That is similar to how using vinyls allows you to have some buffer before and after listening to music or a musical piece. You can't have the same high all the time. Similarly, you can't enjoy that one part of a song for 10 minutes. Similarly, you can't music playing all the time at the same level as you can enjoy some music (that you like) playing sometimes.

mixmastamyk 9y ago

We noticed this the other day dusting off our last records, there was artwork to look at and lyrics to read and one even had two posters inside.

taylodl 9y ago

If you want ritual then may I suggest reel-to-reel tape? You get ritual and awesome sound. If we're going to bring back analog then let's at least bring back good analog!

robbrown451 9y ago

I agree, except that once digital music became available, going through that ritual feels artificial to me. Like, in the old days (say when I was in college in the 80s, when I used to make regular trips to the used vinyl record store), it was a necessity to go through that ritual. As much as I can appreciate vinyl, I can't force myself to go through the hassle (and expense) of trying to do that today.