6 ms·

Vinyl is a gimmick. Digital is far beyond anything vinyl achieved, and realistically the vast majority of music on vinyl is going to come from digital sources a

Vinyl is a gimmick. Digital is far beyond anything vinyl achieved, and realistically the vast majority of music on vinyl is going to come from digital sources anyway. Yeah, the tech could be improved I'm sure, but you can also get 24 bit, 192 KHz audio if you want to. It's far easier to produce and to deliver to the end user, even though it's ultimately pointless. As far as consumer-level listening goes, I think it's fair to declare that audio as a technology is done, and has been completed decades ago. We can far outdo human capabilities on cheap, consumer level hardware, not to speak of what we can do on the high end.

j7ake 4y ago
Buying vinyl is like buying a tshirt of your favorite band. It’s mostly a physical representation of what the ethereal media you enjoy consuming. Not practical, takes up space, and not as good as listening to the real thing (either live or digital).
keiferski 4y ago
I think the hipster obsession with vinyl paraphernalia can definitely be gimmicky, but I wouldn’t discount the value of having a physical representation of music, whether that’s a vinyl album cover or some other future thing. People live in a physical world and digital files, while more convenient and technologically superior, lack tactility.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  Well, that's kinda why I think that the music industry, evil as they are, got the right idea. Vinyl's resurgence has nothing to do with its technical qualities, and as a result it's enough to dig up some ancient tech and pander to people a bit.
  - empyrrhicist 4y ago
    Profit-wise, that's probably right (especially if people are listening on $5 plastic mechanisms crammed into a $99 decorative suitcase), but I'm now pretty careful to check the reviews on Discogs before I pick up a new pressing. Nothing worse than throwing on a beautifully packaged record to hear a muddy, poorly mastered mess. It doesn't cost all that much more to make sure the pressing sounds good when played on good equipment.
- rnd0 4y ago
  It is a gimmick and I think people are right to call out it being over sold as a superior experience -that aspect feels scammy to me. I think that's a large part of the negative reaction from myself and other people. That doesn't mean that the appeal of holding a record, reading the cover and liner notes while relaxing to the music, comparing the labels of different eras of the record company (something that's preserved on my Black Sabbath cds though that's a little confusing because I thought they were on Rhino but I haven't checked either), the detail of the art and all of that -doesn't have value, and isn't worthwhile. Sure -it's totally worthwhile but having lost my record collection 25 years ago I don't feel it's compelling enough to spend all of that money replacing it and giving it the physical space in my home -especially when I have everything I had then and much more either on mp3 or some streaming service or another.
maigret 4y ago
I am a big digital advocate, and I didn't buy my turntable myself, I have one because it was a gift. Yet my two year old is fascinated by vinyl in a way that doesn't happen at all with digital music. For some reason, the turning plate producing music makes sense for him, he likes to look at it, and takes more attention to the music being played.
- usrusr 4y ago
  Four year old me (a guess, don't know the exact age) tried to put on his favorite record all alone and ruined not only the needle but also the record in the process. Haven't thought about this event in decades, first time that hn brought tears to my eyes. Weird mix of long forgotten sadness and nostalgic joy. Birds' voices, with a narrator calmly lecturing the names of the species and probably some small tidbits about the way they live. So much to learn when you are young! Completely devoid of all the "why would I need that" and "ugh, more? really?" that eventually creeps in!
  - taejo 4y ago
    My grandparents had something very similar on cassette... no tidbits even, just, "1234, Greater Spotted Swallow [birdcall]" (the numbers referring to an accompanying book). My sister and I must have spent listened to those two tapes dozens of times.
bayindirh 4y ago
Obligatory edit/disclosure: This is written with experience as an ex-orchestra player and as someone who intently listens to music more than 30 years. > Vinyl is a gimmick. I disagree. Because most vinyl listeners (incl. me) doesn't listen it for the sound quality itself. While the sound itself has unique properties, utmost resolution is not one of them. The biggest draw in listening vinyl is the experience itself. Large album covers printed with intricate detail, the manual effort you give to cue in the vinyl and changing sides. Adding coffee, tea, a book or a couple of friends into the music itself. The atmosphere all it creates and the experience revolving around is driving the vinyl. > but you can also get 24 bit, 192 KHz audio ... even though it's ultimately pointless. Yes, and it's not pointless. The higher resolution music shows itself as soundstage, not details. It's as pointless as saying, eyes can see 60FPS at most anyway, so higher frame rates are useless. My set has a turntable, a nice CD player with iPod/USB interface and a BT receiver. The sound quality all of them delivers differ, CD unit being the most detailed, by long shot. However, the input source I'm choosing differs according the time I'm going to spend with the music, not the sound quality. Sometimes I want some nice music while I'm working, so I play from the CD unit. Sometimes, I'm lazy and need some background music, and I open Spotify and stream via BT, but if I have the time and need time for myself with some nice music, it's always vinyls I reach for. Reducing music, listening and being an audiophile to numbers and formulae is great disservice to all. One may not like or prefer vinyl, this is OK, but calling it a gimmick, ah no.
- z3c0 4y ago
  I collect music on all formats, usually targeting the rarity of tracks or the issue. I favor digital, due to the ease of archival. However, the cold/warm sounds of digital/analog is very obvious to me, and I don't see how anyone could claim it isn't there. I have a few albums on both formats, and the distinctions on certain notes are clear. Maybe its like the FPS thing you mentioned, but I'll definitely agree that vinyl is not a gimmick.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    The difference is in how they are typically mastered. You can take a vinyl record, digitize it, and put it on a cd, and it will sound exactly like the vinyl.
bernds74 4y ago
Do they maybe put different mixes on vinyl? I find most of today's music unlistenable purely because of the production and the focus on loudness, and I've been wondering whether vinyl has been growing in popularity because there are actual differences in the content. Does anyone know for sure?
- bayindirh 4y ago
  Vinyl needs a different normalization and has its own pre-cut/pre-amp normalization curves [0]. So, you can't stone-wall normalize a vinyl for constant, at your face loudness. As a result, most vinyls have better dynamic range than stone-wall mastered CDs and digital releases, and this is one of the reasons why vinyls sound the way they are. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization
- dale_glass 4y ago
  Yes, vinyl is sorta immune to the loudness war because you can't do it on vinyl -- the stylus would jump out of the groove. It's a bit of an ironic use of a technical limitation of vinyl. Its dynamic range is lower, and it doesn't allow doing what digital can, so it's been spared of this particular sin. Still, properly mastered digital will be even better.
- izacus 4y ago
  It really depends on release - they do tend to have better dynamic range (mostly because vinyl listeners don't listen on AirPods), but it's really a very inconsistent crapshoot on what you're getting. There are plenty of vinyl releases where they just dumped the Spotify mp3 on the plate.
- Tade0 4y ago
  They do put different mixes on vinyl due to its technical limitations. One significant difference is that vinyl recordings are de-essed, because the medium has trouble dealing with high-slope sounds such as loud white noise. Distortion from slope-limiting is actually more pleasant to the ear than say hard clipping, but sometimes you really don't want to have it at all.
Juliate 4y ago
Vinyl (and somehow, though smaller, the cassette and CD) is the physical, analog, tangible artefact of music: you can hold it, you can smell it, you can look at it - and the size of the jacket entices artists to « say » something with it. It’s what makes/keeps music a tangible social object: when you discuss it, you can have it in your hands. That’s what makes the listening experience more complete, more memorable. Digital audio has the huge advantage to allow for more than only stereo - but that’s only relevant for the people or places that can afford to have a surround system. But you can’t see it, you can’t touch it.
- bombcar 4y ago
  What was it, SACD? Or something - the advancements of audio after the CD never really took off. It was more about the convenience than the quality really. Many people have a surround system at home for movies/TV but full multi-channel audio never really took off, not even in the entirely digital world of online music where it is relatively easy.
xwdv 4y ago
The point of vinyl is the tech, not the music. It is for people who want to fidget with an alternative way of playing music, not necessarily better, just different. Similar to people who like gaming on retro consoles.
- mnd999 4y ago
  That doesn't seem to be the case, at least for 50% of the buyers mentioned in the article. They don't have a turntable, so they aren't going to listen to it at all. For them the sound quality is irrelevant, they just seem to want a nice thing to put on the shelf.
  - xwdv 4y ago
    That’s fine too is it not?
    - mnd999 4y ago
      Of course, it's their money. I just found it quite surprising.
vonzepp 4y ago
It is not all about the technology. Someone comes over to your home, they don't get to browser your CV flac collection, and talk about it. Log into Spotify and presented with a world of choice, it's harder to choose. Go to your collection, flick through the records discover favourites you haven't listened to in ages. putting a record on is a ritual, demanding attention, flicking through files is just for diverting attention. The best tech doesn't mean the best product.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  Even the buying of vinyl is an experience. Going to a store dedicating time to purchase something like 12 tracks, while flipping through tens of not hundreds of large items with artwork ranging from Beautiful to meh to thought provoking.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  As an aside, thank you for reminding of how terrible the Spotify library design is. You should be able to have a similar experience with your digital collection. I wish I could flick through covers in my library rather than browse a grid.
m-p-3 4y ago
I see the vinyl revival as another type of merchandise the artists can sell to the more devoted fans out there who wants to have a collection item about their favorite album. Nothing wrong with that, they get to make a bit more money and the fans get what they want. It kind of explains the high price.
moolcool 4y ago
The thing with vinyl though, is it will remain playable for pretty much as long as it exists. I have some Beatles records from the 1960s that sound as good today as the day they were printed. Do your iTunes purchases from today will still function 60 years?
- kuschku 4y ago
  My ripped CDs are digital, their data will sound the same in a thousand years. While your vinyl slightly changes every time you play it.
- rnd0 4y ago
  > Do your iTunes purchases from today will still function 60 years? My mp3 collection from 2001 still works just fine. I'm not getting your point.
usrusr 4y ago
24 bit is pointless if the entire piece has been skillfully sent through so many dynamics compressors that nothing meaningful ever happens below the ten most significant bits. The key quality of vinyl is that peaks beyond the "good" range gently decay in quality instead of clipping hard, which allows a trade-off between peaks beyond the baseline level of the mix and distortion. A good vinyl mix will therefore allow subtly higher peaks than a digital mix aiming for the same baseline level. Sure, the digital version could be even better (peaks high above baseline, without even the tiniest distortion), by sticking to a lower baseline levels, but they universally don't. Digital can buy loudness by paying in flatness, whereas analog can pay for loudness in either flatness or (gentle) distortion, and any good vinyl mix will opt for a careful blend of both. Digital will always opt for flat, unless it's completely broken.
- bob1029 4y ago
  The influence of the medium on the mastering process is one reason I participate in a little bit of vinyl. Listening to an EDM track on vinyl vs Spotify is an entirely different experience. Could you 100% perfectly reproduce this experience the way that I subjectively prefer via the medium of 192/24 digital mastery? Sure. But, no one does this.
  - usrusr 4y ago
    Also the secret reason why two guys on stage pressing play in Ableton and pretending they don't feel silly just bobbing their heads along works surprisingly well: if it sounds exactly like on CD, just with pre-downmix dynamics it will be totally awesome.
KyeRussell 4y ago
The conversation, on both sides, has progressed beyond this incredibly simplistic view.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  Really? What did I miss? Do tell.
nwallin 4y ago
It's not about that. The merits of the technology--the fact that even shitty 128kbps MP3 sound better than vinyl--is irrelevant. I don't care that vinyl sounds worse. I digitized my entire CD collection in the late '90s. I had an argument with one of my high school teachers in the '90s who was operating under the delusion that vinyl sounds better than digital because digital 'steps' up/down and vinyl (being analog) perfectly smoothly--you know the BS argument. I upgraded my car's CD player to one that could play data CDs filled with MP3s in the early 2000s. I had an MP3 player before the iPod made it cool. But I found that I drifted away from music. I got in my car and it would play random songs. I put my headset on at work and hit play and it would play random songs. I never really thought about the music and one day at work I just didn't put my headphones on. I was driving and traffic was being quite peculiar, so I turned the music off to concentrate on what the fuck was happening on the road. And I never turned it back on. I stopped listening to music for probably 5 years. At some point my parents moved and something got fucked up in the shuffle. I ended up with a box full of my dad's old records. I bought a record player for shits and giggles and to appease my inner hipster. And you know what, I like it. I like the mandate that I choose what to listen to next. I like the ritual, the physical process of removing a record from its sleeve, putting it on the turntable, picking up the arm thing and putting it on the record. I like the fact that it makes me stand my fat ass up every 20 minutes and walk over and flip the record or pick a new one to listen to. You talk about the convenience of digital, and you're right. Digital is a lot more convenient than vinyl. But that's a bug, not a feature. Music isn't just about audio. There's a whole lot of the human experience wrapped up in it, and for me personally, the ... cumbersomeness of vinyl keeps me connected to it in a way that I lost with digital music.
empyrrhicist 4y ago
Digital is technologically superior in every way, but dismissing vinyl as a gimmick seems unnecessarily judgemental and unkind. People enjoy different things, and there's no reason to be shitty about it. Part of why I enjoy vinyl records is the act of restoring, optimizing, and otherwise fiddling with old turntables. I find interacting with the physical machines enjoyable, and it's neat to hear the results. You aren't the arbiter of what other people enjoy, and it's weird to try and police the "correct" way to do something subjective like listening to music.
lm28469 4y ago
And EVs are better in every way yet a 40 years old 911 will still make people wet their pants And visioconf if more efficient than walking your ass to the local bar to catch up with your best friend yet you'll still do that every single time you can because it's infinitely more enjoyable. People should stop living under the impression that everything in life should be made faster/cheaper/more accurate, and that cheaper/faster/more accurate things are inherently better because the numbers written on them are higher than the numbers written on the previous iterations. Life isn't a problem for which you have to automate and solve every single part of, otherwise the most efficient way to go through life would be in a matrix style coma pod
ghusto 4y ago
> Vinyl is a gimmick I'll go one further; vinyl (revival) is mostly a scam. Sound quality from CD is unarguably "better": https://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5626058/vinyls-great-but-its-not-better-than-cds https://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5626058/vinyls-great-but-its-n... "Better" in quotes, because what constitutes better for you is subjective. It is however objectively true that the fidelity of CDs is more accurate than vinyl. Now having said that, you might prefer the sound of vinyl, or just the physical properties for playback, over CDs. That's all fine, and I sincerely hope you enjoy yourself. What gets my goat though, is this nonsense people are falling for regarding superior sound quality. Buy CDs, rip them to FLAC, and you have both physical media (which I love), and also the convenience of digital copy.
hulitu 4y ago
> We can far outdo human capabilities on cheap, consumer level hardware, not to speak of what we can do on the high end. We can, but we don't. Streaming is still crap quality, majority of music devices are still crap quality, DAB+ radio is still crap quality.
2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
I love vinyl. And yes, it's a gimmick in the sense that the value is mostly in the novelty value rather than vinyl as a medium. Quality-wise, most new records seem sturdy and well-made but the mastering is generably horrible, and records from before the loudness wars sound much better. If I wanted audiophile quality I'd buy a FLAC download instead.

j7ake 4y ago

Buying vinyl is like buying a tshirt of your favorite band. It’s mostly a physical representation of what the ethereal media you enjoy consuming. Not practical, takes up space, and not as good as listening to the real thing (either live or digital).

keiferski 4y ago

I think the hipster obsession with vinyl paraphernalia can definitely be gimmicky, but I wouldn’t discount the value of having a physical representation of music, whether that’s a vinyl album cover or some other future thing. People live in a physical world and digital files, while more convenient and technologically superior, lack tactility.

dale_glass 4y ago
Well, that's kinda why I think that the music industry, evil as they are, got the right idea. Vinyl's resurgence has nothing to do with its technical qualities, and as a result it's enough to dig up some ancient tech and pander to people a bit.
- empyrrhicist 4y ago
  Profit-wise, that's probably right (especially if people are listening on $5 plastic mechanisms crammed into a $99 decorative suitcase), but I'm now pretty careful to check the reviews on Discogs before I pick up a new pressing. Nothing worse than throwing on a beautifully packaged record to hear a muddy, poorly mastered mess. It doesn't cost all that much more to make sure the pressing sounds good when played on good equipment.
rnd0 4y ago
It is a gimmick and I think people are right to call out it being over sold as a superior experience -that aspect feels scammy to me. I think that's a large part of the negative reaction from myself and other people. That doesn't mean that the appeal of holding a record, reading the cover and liner notes while relaxing to the music, comparing the labels of different eras of the record company (something that's preserved on my Black Sabbath cds though that's a little confusing because I thought they were on Rhino but I haven't checked either), the detail of the art and all of that -doesn't have value, and isn't worthwhile. Sure -it's totally worthwhile but having lost my record collection 25 years ago I don't feel it's compelling enough to spend all of that money replacing it and giving it the physical space in my home -especially when I have everything I had then and much more either on mp3 or some streaming service or another.

maigret 4y ago

I am a big digital advocate, and I didn't buy my turntable myself, I have one because it was a gift. Yet my two year old is fascinated by vinyl in a way that doesn't happen at all with digital music. For some reason, the turning plate producing music makes sense for him, he likes to look at it, and takes more attention to the music being played.

usrusr 4y ago
Four year old me (a guess, don't know the exact age) tried to put on his favorite record all alone and ruined not only the needle but also the record in the process. Haven't thought about this event in decades, first time that hn brought tears to my eyes. Weird mix of long forgotten sadness and nostalgic joy. Birds' voices, with a narrator calmly lecturing the names of the species and probably some small tidbits about the way they live. So much to learn when you are young! Completely devoid of all the "why would I need that" and "ugh, more? really?" that eventually creeps in!
- taejo 4y ago
  My grandparents had something very similar on cassette... no tidbits even, just, "1234, Greater Spotted Swallow [birdcall]" (the numbers referring to an accompanying book). My sister and I must have spent listened to those two tapes dozens of times.

bayindirh 4y ago

Obligatory edit/disclosure: This is written with experience as an ex-orchestra player and as someone who intently listens to music more than 30 years. > Vinyl is a gimmick. I disagree. Because most vinyl listeners (incl. me) doesn't listen it for the sound quality itself. While the sound itself has unique properties, utmost resolution is not one of them. The biggest draw in listening vinyl is the experience itself. Large album covers printed with intricate detail, the manual effort you give to cue in the vinyl and changing sides. Adding coffee, tea, a book or a couple of friends into the music itself. The atmosphere all it creates and the experience revolving around is driving the vinyl. > but you can also get 24 bit, 192 KHz audio ... even though it's ultimately pointless. Yes, and it's not pointless. The higher resolution music shows itself as soundstage, not details. It's as pointless as saying, eyes can see 60FPS at most anyway, so higher frame rates are useless. My set has a turntable, a nice CD player with iPod/USB interface and a BT receiver. The sound quality all of them delivers differ, CD unit being the most detailed, by long shot. However, the input source I'm choosing differs according the time I'm going to spend with the music, not the sound quality. Sometimes I want some nice music while I'm working, so I play from the CD unit. Sometimes, I'm lazy and need some background music, and I open Spotify and stream via BT, but if I have the time and need time for myself with some nice music, it's always vinyls I reach for. Reducing music, listening and being an audiophile to numbers and formulae is great disservice to all. One may not like or prefer vinyl, this is OK, but calling it a gimmick, ah no.

z3c0 4y ago
I collect music on all formats, usually targeting the rarity of tracks or the issue. I favor digital, due to the ease of archival. However, the cold/warm sounds of digital/analog is very obvious to me, and I don't see how anyone could claim it isn't there. I have a few albums on both formats, and the distinctions on certain notes are clear. Maybe its like the FPS thing you mentioned, but I'll definitely agree that vinyl is not a gimmick.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  The difference is in how they are typically mastered. You can take a vinyl record, digitize it, and put it on a cd, and it will sound exactly like the vinyl.

bernds74 4y ago

Do they maybe put different mixes on vinyl? I find most of today's music unlistenable purely because of the production and the focus on loudness, and I've been wondering whether vinyl has been growing in popularity because there are actual differences in the content. Does anyone know for sure?

bayindirh 4y ago
Vinyl needs a different normalization and has its own pre-cut/pre-amp normalization curves [0]. So, you can't stone-wall normalize a vinyl for constant, at your face loudness. As a result, most vinyls have better dynamic range than stone-wall mastered CDs and digital releases, and this is one of the reasons why vinyls sound the way they are. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization
dale_glass 4y ago
Yes, vinyl is sorta immune to the loudness war because you can't do it on vinyl -- the stylus would jump out of the groove. It's a bit of an ironic use of a technical limitation of vinyl. Its dynamic range is lower, and it doesn't allow doing what digital can, so it's been spared of this particular sin. Still, properly mastered digital will be even better.
izacus 4y ago
It really depends on release - they do tend to have better dynamic range (mostly because vinyl listeners don't listen on AirPods), but it's really a very inconsistent crapshoot on what you're getting. There are plenty of vinyl releases where they just dumped the Spotify mp3 on the plate.
Tade0 4y ago
They do put different mixes on vinyl due to its technical limitations. One significant difference is that vinyl recordings are de-essed, because the medium has trouble dealing with high-slope sounds such as loud white noise. Distortion from slope-limiting is actually more pleasant to the ear than say hard clipping, but sometimes you really don't want to have it at all.

Juliate 4y ago

Vinyl (and somehow, though smaller, the cassette and CD) is the physical, analog, tangible artefact of music: you can hold it, you can smell it, you can look at it - and the size of the jacket entices artists to « say » something with it. It’s what makes/keeps music a tangible social object: when you discuss it, you can have it in your hands. That’s what makes the listening experience more complete, more memorable. Digital audio has the huge advantage to allow for more than only stereo - but that’s only relevant for the people or places that can afford to have a surround system. But you can’t see it, you can’t touch it.

bombcar 4y ago
What was it, SACD? Or something - the advancements of audio after the CD never really took off. It was more about the convenience than the quality really. Many people have a surround system at home for movies/TV but full multi-channel audio never really took off, not even in the entirely digital world of online music where it is relatively easy.

xwdv 4y ago

The point of vinyl is the tech, not the music. It is for people who want to fidget with an alternative way of playing music, not necessarily better, just different. Similar to people who like gaming on retro consoles.

mnd999 4y ago
That doesn't seem to be the case, at least for 50% of the buyers mentioned in the article. They don't have a turntable, so they aren't going to listen to it at all. For them the sound quality is irrelevant, they just seem to want a nice thing to put on the shelf.
- xwdv 4y ago
  That’s fine too is it not?
  - mnd999 4y ago
    Of course, it's their money. I just found it quite surprising.

vonzepp 4y ago

It is not all about the technology. Someone comes over to your home, they don't get to browser your CV flac collection, and talk about it. Log into Spotify and presented with a world of choice, it's harder to choose. Go to your collection, flick through the records discover favourites you haven't listened to in ages. putting a record on is a ritual, demanding attention, flicking through files is just for diverting attention. The best tech doesn't mean the best product.

rhaway84773 4y ago
Even the buying of vinyl is an experience. Going to a store dedicating time to purchase something like 12 tracks, while flipping through tens of not hundreds of large items with artwork ranging from Beautiful to meh to thought provoking.
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
As an aside, thank you for reminding of how terrible the Spotify library design is. You should be able to have a similar experience with your digital collection. I wish I could flick through covers in my library rather than browse a grid.

m-p-3 4y ago

I see the vinyl revival as another type of merchandise the artists can sell to the more devoted fans out there who wants to have a collection item about their favorite album. Nothing wrong with that, they get to make a bit more money and the fans get what they want. It kind of explains the high price.

moolcool 4y ago

The thing with vinyl though, is it will remain playable for pretty much as long as it exists. I have some Beatles records from the 1960s that sound as good today as the day they were printed. Do your iTunes purchases from today will still function 60 years?

kuschku 4y ago
My ripped CDs are digital, their data will sound the same in a thousand years. While your vinyl slightly changes every time you play it.
rnd0 4y ago
> Do your iTunes purchases from today will still function 60 years? My mp3 collection from 2001 still works just fine. I'm not getting your point.

usrusr 4y ago

24 bit is pointless if the entire piece has been skillfully sent through so many dynamics compressors that nothing meaningful ever happens below the ten most significant bits. The key quality of vinyl is that peaks beyond the "good" range gently decay in quality instead of clipping hard, which allows a trade-off between peaks beyond the baseline level of the mix and distortion. A good vinyl mix will therefore allow subtly higher peaks than a digital mix aiming for the same baseline level. Sure, the digital version could be even better (peaks high above baseline, without even the tiniest distortion), by sticking to a lower baseline levels, but they universally don't. Digital can buy loudness by paying in flatness, whereas analog can pay for loudness in either flatness or (gentle) distortion, and any good vinyl mix will opt for a careful blend of both. Digital will always opt for flat, unless it's completely broken.

bob1029 4y ago
The influence of the medium on the mastering process is one reason I participate in a little bit of vinyl. Listening to an EDM track on vinyl vs Spotify is an entirely different experience. Could you 100% perfectly reproduce this experience the way that I subjectively prefer via the medium of 192/24 digital mastery? Sure. But, no one does this.
- usrusr 4y ago
  Also the secret reason why two guys on stage pressing play in Ableton and pretending they don't feel silly just bobbing their heads along works surprisingly well: if it sounds exactly like on CD, just with pre-downmix dynamics it will be totally awesome.

KyeRussell 4y ago

The conversation, on both sides, has progressed beyond this incredibly simplistic view.

dale_glass 4y ago
Really? What did I miss? Do tell.

nwallin 4y ago

It's not about that. The merits of the technology--the fact that even shitty 128kbps MP3 sound better than vinyl--is irrelevant. I don't care that vinyl sounds worse. I digitized my entire CD collection in the late '90s. I had an argument with one of my high school teachers in the '90s who was operating under the delusion that vinyl sounds better than digital because digital 'steps' up/down and vinyl (being analog) perfectly smoothly--you know the BS argument. I upgraded my car's CD player to one that could play data CDs filled with MP3s in the early 2000s. I had an MP3 player before the iPod made it cool. But I found that I drifted away from music. I got in my car and it would play random songs. I put my headset on at work and hit play and it would play random songs. I never really thought about the music and one day at work I just didn't put my headphones on. I was driving and traffic was being quite peculiar, so I turned the music off to concentrate on what the fuck was happening on the road. And I never turned it back on. I stopped listening to music for probably 5 years. At some point my parents moved and something got fucked up in the shuffle. I ended up with a box full of my dad's old records. I bought a record player for shits and giggles and to appease my inner hipster. And you know what, I like it. I like the mandate that I choose what to listen to next. I like the ritual, the physical process of removing a record from its sleeve, putting it on the turntable, picking up the arm thing and putting it on the record. I like the fact that it makes me stand my fat ass up every 20 minutes and walk over and flip the record or pick a new one to listen to. You talk about the convenience of digital, and you're right. Digital is a lot more convenient than vinyl. But that's a bug, not a feature. Music isn't just about audio. There's a whole lot of the human experience wrapped up in it, and for me personally, the ... cumbersomeness of vinyl keeps me connected to it in a way that I lost with digital music.

empyrrhicist 4y ago

Digital is technologically superior in every way, but dismissing vinyl as a gimmick seems unnecessarily judgemental and unkind. People enjoy different things, and there's no reason to be shitty about it. Part of why I enjoy vinyl records is the act of restoring, optimizing, and otherwise fiddling with old turntables. I find interacting with the physical machines enjoyable, and it's neat to hear the results. You aren't the arbiter of what other people enjoy, and it's weird to try and police the "correct" way to do something subjective like listening to music.

lm28469 4y ago

And EVs are better in every way yet a 40 years old 911 will still make people wet their pants And visioconf if more efficient than walking your ass to the local bar to catch up with your best friend yet you'll still do that every single time you can because it's infinitely more enjoyable. People should stop living under the impression that everything in life should be made faster/cheaper/more accurate, and that cheaper/faster/more accurate things are inherently better because the numbers written on them are higher than the numbers written on the previous iterations. Life isn't a problem for which you have to automate and solve every single part of, otherwise the most efficient way to go through life would be in a matrix style coma pod

ghusto 4y ago

> Vinyl is a gimmick I'll go one further; vinyl (revival) is mostly a scam. Sound quality from CD is unarguably "better": https://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5626058/vinyls-great-but-its-not-better-than-cds https://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5626058/vinyls-great-but-its-n... "Better" in quotes, because what constitutes better for you is subjective. It is however objectively true that the fidelity of CDs is more accurate than vinyl. Now having said that, you might prefer the sound of vinyl, or just the physical properties for playback, over CDs. That's all fine, and I sincerely hope you enjoy yourself. What gets my goat though, is this nonsense people are falling for regarding superior sound quality. Buy CDs, rip them to FLAC, and you have both physical media (which I love), and also the convenience of digital copy.

hulitu 4y ago

> We can far outdo human capabilities on cheap, consumer level hardware, not to speak of what we can do on the high end. We can, but we don't. Streaming is still crap quality, majority of music devices are still crap quality, DAB+ radio is still crap quality.

2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago

I love vinyl. And yes, it's a gimmick in the sense that the value is mostly in the novelty value rather than vinyl as a medium. Quality-wise, most new records seem sturdy and well-made but the mastering is generably horrible, and records from before the loudness wars sound much better. If I wanted audiophile quality I'd buy a FLAC download instead.