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I think I'm done with vinyl (my short forray into the hype)
I've been avoiding vinyl for a long time, hearing from avid devotees about how great vinyl is, about it's "warmth", yada yada yada yada.
Well, I decided to go for the hype and here's what I discovered:
1. Vinyl is a pain in the a$$ - from the point of "which stylus" to cleaning the records, to even shopping for records, I see it as a bad investment of time, money and energy
2. Sound of vinyl vs. CD. Long debates have raged on for years and some are clinging to one school of thought, anothers are willing to fight to the death to argue contrary. Bottom line, in my listening experience - CDs kick vinyl's a$$ when it comes to sound quality.
"Bollox!", you say, "vinyl sounds 10x better than CD". Really? Well, after spending $400 on deck, $125 on stylus, and about $700 on records - I have a different opinion on the matter. For craps and giggles, I ordered the same record - one on Vinyl another one on CD. CD came with 4 more tracks than Vinyl (bonus!). I then had a friend and I did a blind test:
I left the room and came in when the beat started, so that I wouldn't be able to hear the LP noise at the start. I also had to leave before the end of the record.
I could tell a difference between CD and Vinyl without much problem. CD sounded crisp, clear, punchy and had more presense than brand new vinyl. Vinyl tended to sound more muddy at lower frequencies and actually felt more muted. (Yes, we did calibrate the decks and cartridge before hand).
3. All the nonsense about proper calibration of stylus, cleaning records, properly handling the records, yada yada yada - PAIN PAIN PAIN.
I can certainly see the true reason why so many swear by vinyl - when you've invested over $10 or more into LP that has maybe 2 or 3 songs, it's hard to admit and say "I'm a moron for spending this kind of cash, so I'll convince others that my choice is right".
Well, I'm not going to argue - there's a certain sentimentality and attachment that comes with vinyl collecting but aside from that - everything about, to me, seems like a placebo effect.
Given a choice between vinyl or CDs now - I'm going CD route, unless I can't find a particular song I like any other way (excluding MP3s).
Interesting discussion on Wendy Carlos' (Walter Carlos ???  ) site, echoing my findings (which, by the way, were done before I stumbled upon the article):
http://www.wendycarlos.com/open7.html
read Early 2007 Open Letter section, some interesting observation from one of the most tallented and unique accomplished musicians and professionals of our time (all the freaky quirkiness aside).
| quote: | To demonstrate that this wasn't an isolated case, another writer begged me to have some of my new remasterings pressed on vinyl. He ended with a familiar comment, that while he knows CDs have become the norm, he much prefers "the warmth of vinyl over digital -- which enhances the sound experience", and that vinyl is actually making a comeback currently. I've also saved my reply to post here below the last one:
Please let me beg you to keep an open mind on this topic. Some original CDs WERE hard and nasty, for many extracurricular reasons. Eventually they became a lot more transparent than any LP (which I used to cut for a living, and know the old roller coaster medium too well). After decades of gradual improvements and refinements to digital recording, the old arguments have become "beliefs without proof", like the folks who claim we never went to the moon, or that Roswell is the site of an alien landing.
Since you do like the warmth factor of older gear, why not buy a good used tube amp/preamp on eBay, play your CDs through that? (It's called class-A harmonic distortion, containing BOTH odd and even harmonics, and can sound lovely and warm, although it's not actually "pure.") I've A/B tested my masters against all the media, and LP and Cassette now are simply inferior, dated, although not without a very honest nostalgia factor (let's hear it for nostalgia!). Until I made the series of double-blind, carefully calibrated tests (several times), I had no grasp of the reality of audio reproduction (personal confession: for several years I hated all the early digital sound I'd heard). Memory and pure subjectivity play tricks on us all the time, and NOT just in audio. We have to guard against reinforcing our current beliefs and biases. That's why the scientific method was invented -- to guard against the natural human ability to see/hear only what we expect to. Would I lie to you about something this important? |
Thought I'd rekindle the flames of dialogue about vinyl vs cd.
discuss 
Last edited by emc^2 on Oct-10-2007 at 20:32
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