The difference between hype and reality

MajorFubar

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The vinyl revival seems to be very rosetinted and people only seem to remember how great the very best records sounded when played on top quality decks. But IMO that rosetinted memory isn't representative of the mean average of either the records nor the record players most people owned. The real truth is, many records were in fact mediocre, especially the cheapy various-artist compilation LPs on labels like Hallmark, K-Tel, Chevron and Ronco, and so were most of the record players they were played on.

For those under 35 who have no real memory of records, but they've bought into the hype and got a record player, there must be a bit of a gulf between their overhyped expectations and reality when they first drop their Crosley's needle on the record and find that their £18 copy of Foo Fighters Greatest Hits sounds far worse than the MP3s on their phone. Perhaps it doesn't matter though; if recent research is to be believed, nearly half of the people who buy new records never play them.
 

Canguino Purlat

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Let's face it: in vinyl field you get what you pay for, more than in digital field. You can have a nice musical experience with digital without having to pay 4 months wage. If you want the same from vinyl you have to stretch it a little more, it's not a cheap love. Fortunately there are quite accessible and decent options in turntables (Rega, Pro-ject, Edwards Audio, Music Hall). But I guess all this comeback would end appealing the old vinyl consumer more than the new one: people like me who grew up buying records, in record stores, having to walk to them, having to pay for music... I don't know if the newbies would stand the inherent noise there is in a physical medium like a turntable: the stylus on the surface, cracks and pops and all that stuff they are not accustomed coming from digital dead silent background. It's a different approach, acceptable to us... but them?
 
K

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Early chevron and hallmark were good..music for pleasure was good too..early records (Paul Hamlyn on logo) some were American jazz recordings..on budget label.even budget stuff wasn't that cheap!
 
keeper of the quays said:
Early chevron and hallmark were good..music for pleasure was good too..early records (Paul Hamlyn on logo) some were American jazz recordings..on budget label.even budget stuff wasn't that cheap!

...."and people only seem to remember how great the very best records sounded when played on top quality decks."

I think you may be a little out there Major. I for one never heard anything on the top quality decks of the day although I guess it depends on your definition of that quality. Sure people had plenty of turntables in the day but not everyone the Linn LP12's or the like.
 

TomSawyer

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At the danger of sounding like a broken record, my view is that no-one plays records for objectively technical reasons. There has to be another reason and a few that I've come across are:

Financial - a large collection of LPs and a good turntable already so replacing with another medium would be expensive;

Emotional - mid-lifers, like me, are wont to do things that they did when they were young because for a brief moment they are transported back;

Enforced stillness - playing an LP forces you to engage with it because you have to play it wherever you have your player and you have to physiclly put it on and turn it over so you tend to make time to sit and enjoy the music. Of course you could do this with digital music but because it doesn't force you, people don't tend to;

Fashion - if beards and turn-ups can come into fashion, then so can LPs;

Novelty - on rifling through charity shop LPs, a 16 year old girl who is a friend of my son came and started on the next box. On saying she was a bit young to be looking at LPs she said she liked them and the surface noise was one of the things she liked!

When you add the other reason(s) into the mix, then records make more sense.
 
K

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TomSawyer said:
At the danger of sounding like a broken record, my view is that no-one plays records for objectively technical reasons. There has to be another reason and a few that I've come across are:

Financial - a large collection of LPs and a good turntable already so replacing with another medium would be expensive;

Emotional - mid-lifers, like me, are wont to do things that they did when they were young because for a brief moment they are transported back;

Enforced stillness - playing an LP forces you to engage with it because you have to play it wherever you have your player and you have to physiclly put it on and turn it over so you tend to make time to sit and enjoy the music. Of course you could do this with digital music but because it doesn't force you, people don't tend to;

Fashion - if beards and turn-ups can come into fashion, then so can LPs;

Novelty - on rifling through charity shop LPs, a 16 year old girl who is a friend of my son came and started on the next box. On saying she was a bit young to be looking at LPs she said she liked them and the surface noise was one of the things she liked!

When you add the other reason(s) into the mix, then records make more sense.
Enforced stillness? Is that by Grim and the reapers? :)
 

Frank Harvey

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MajorFubar said:
The vinyl revival seems to be very rosetinted and people only seem to remember how great the very best records sounded when played on top quality decks.
Whereas many are finding out now how great their LPs are sounding even on good quality budget decks.

For those under 35 who have no real memory of records, but they've bought into the hype and got a record player, there must be a bit of a gulf between their overhyped expectations and reality when they first drop their Crosley's needle on the record and find that their £18 copy of Foo Fighters Greatest Hits sounds far worse than the MP3s on their phone.
Some 30 somethings have been brought up with vinyl.

Perhaps it doesn't matter though; if recent research is to be believed, nearly half of the people who buy new records never play them.
I would guess nearer to 30%, mostly collectors. Half sounds way too much to me, and wouldn't be a representative cross section of our customer base.
 
TomSawyer said:
At the danger of sounding like a broken record, my view is that no-one plays records for objectively technical reasons. There has to be another reason and a few that I've come across are:

Financial - a large collection of LPs and a good turntable already so replacing with another medium would be expensive;

Emotional - mid-lifers, like me, are wont to do things that they did when they were young because for a brief moment they are transported back;

Enforced stillness - playing an LP forces you to engage with it because you have to play it wherever you have your player and you have to physiclly put it on and turn it over so you tend to make time to sit and enjoy the music. Of course you could do this with digital music but because it doesn't force you, people don't tend to;

Fashion - if beards and turn-ups can come into fashion, then so can LPs;

Novelty - on rifling through charity shop LPs, a 16 year old girl who is a friend of my son came and started on the next box. On saying she was a bit young to be looking at LPs she said she liked them and the surface noise was one of the things she liked!

When you add the other reason(s) into the mix, then records make more sense.

Put me down as all of the first three.. :)
 

TomSawyer

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David@FrankHarvey said:
I would guess nearer to 30%, mostly collectors. Half sounds way too much to me, and wouldn't be a representative cross section of our customer base.

But isn't your business selling music reproduction equipment in which case wouldn't your customer base be necessarily skewed towards those that own music reproduction equipment?
 

thescarletpronster

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All I can say is that the majority of records I bought 25–30 years ago, including ones I've played hundreds of times on turntables of varying quality over the years and records which were second-hand when I bought them all those years ago, sound better on my current deck than the majority of recent releases I've bought, often costing £20 and upwards.

That's not rose-tinted memory, that's listening to the old ones and the new ones now on the same system.
 
B

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I've had periods of buying different formats. In the very late 70s I started with vinyl, then, when I passed my driving test in '86/'87, I started buying albums on cassette as well as vinyl. I'm not sure whenabouts in the 90s I started buying CDs, but I think it was from the mid-90s onwards, though I did keep buying some albums on vinyl, and then from the late 90s onwards, I've been more or less back to vinyl for all my purchases, though CDs do still get a look-in occasionally.

So, I've always bought vinyl, I never left the format, and it's definitely my format of choice, but it's only relatively recently that I've had a system that really shows off what it can do in comparison to the other formats.

I've recently noticed that cassettes are making comeback, which I find very difficult to understand, and having found a few of my old tapes at my mum and dad's, I've been selling them. A few years ago, you'd be lucky to sell a tape for 10p at a car boot, which is why I ended up throwing most of them away, but now, it's not uncommon for some tapes to go for a tenner or more on Discogs, though I only got £3 each for the ones I've sold so far. Saying that, there are a couple of rare demo tapes that I'm currently in the process of selling to an American guy for $800 in total.

As I said, I find it hard to understand the cassette resurgence. To me, they were always a pretty inconvenient format, and even if they are well looked after, won't last forever. I've also realised after testing the ones that I've sold, that tapes sound crap, so it's a format I'll never ever return to.
 

Frank Harvey

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TomSawyer said:
David@FrankHarvey said:
I would guess nearer to 30%, mostly collectors. Half sounds way too much to me, and wouldn't be a representative cross section of our customer base.

But isn't your business selling music reproduction equipment in which case wouldn't your customer base be necessarily skewed towards those that own music reproduction equipment?
And herein lies the rub. Many aspects can skew survey results, and if only 10-20 took part, that's not properly representative. You'd need thousands and thousands to take part to achieve any meaningful results. It depends where you ask too - hi-fi shop users, record store users, stopping people on the street etc etc.
 

MajorFubar

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Al ears said:
...."and people only seem to remember how great the very best records sounded when played on top quality decks."

I think you may be a little out there Major. I for one never heard anything on the top quality decks of the day although I guess it depends on your definition of that quality. Sure people had plenty of turntables in the day but not everyone the Linn LP12's or the like.

I see where you think I was coming from, but what I was really saying is, IMO there's a general rose-tinted reminiscence about how all records were fantastic then those darn confounded CDs came along that nobody wanted. No one mentions any more that a lot of records were substandard poorly-pressed rubbish, and irrespective of the quality, most people [away from dedicated hifi enthusiasts] played them with ceramic crystal cartridges on turntables built largely from injection-moulded plastic. It's like everything that was ever bad about records has been forgiven and forgotten and they are the new saviour.
 

mikeparker59

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I used to be a right PIA returning crackly ,warped, and scratchy records for replacements, which were equally bad, then I discovered Japanese vinyl in a local record shop, that were always far superior to the records that we had to endure.

Boy did I love CD when it came out, no more snap crackle and pop.

I still have my TT and those Japanese pressings which get an outing now and again, but CD is still my preferred medium, though I have succumbed to FLAC downloads as a space saving exercise.
 

BigH

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David@FrankHarvey said:
TomSawyer said:
David@FrankHarvey said:
I would guess nearer to 30%, mostly collectors. Half sounds way too much to me, and wouldn't be a representative cross section of our customer base.

But isn't your business selling music reproduction equipment in which case wouldn't your customer base be necessarily skewed towards those that own music reproduction equipment?
And herein lies the rub. Many aspects can skew survey results, and if only 10-20 took part, that's not properly representative. You'd need thousands and thousands to take part to achieve any meaningful results. It depends where you ask too - hi-fi shop users, record store users, stopping people on the street etc etc.

Thats probably true, the survey seemed to be mostly students.

About 50% of vinyl is bought by under 35 year olds.

But also only about 7% of music is bought on the high street in the UK.

Vinyl is about 3% of music sales.
 

BigH

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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW said:
I've had periods of buying different formats. In the very late 70s I started with vinyl, then, when I passed my driving test in '86/'87, I started buying albums on cassette as well as vinyl. I'm not sure whenabouts in the 90s I started buying CDs, but I think it was from the mid-90s onwards, though I did keep buying some albums on vinyl, and then from the late 90s onwards, I've been more or less back to vinyl for all my purchases, though CDs do still get a look-in occasionally.

So, I've always bought vinyl, I never left the format, and it's definitely my format of choice, but it's only relatively recently that I've had a system that really shows off what it can do in comparison to the other formats.

I've recently noticed that cassettes are making comeback, which I find very difficult to understand, and having found a few of my old tapes at my mum and dad's, I've been selling them. A few years ago, you'd be lucky to sell a tape for 10p at a car boot, which is why I ended up throwing most of them away, but now, it's not uncommon for some tapes to go for a tenner or more on Discogs, though I only got £3 each for the ones I've sold so far. Saying that, there are a couple of rare demo tapes that I'm currently in the process of selling to an American guy for $800 in total.

As I said, I find it hard to understand the cassette resurgence. To me, they were always a pretty inconvenient format, and even if they are well looked after, won't last forever. I've also realised after testing the ones that I've sold, that tapes sound crap, so it's a format I'll never ever return to.

Thats good news, £3 each, great, I bought a load in the 80/90s for the car, never thought they would be worth anything. Better find them.
 

knaithrover

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I was brought up on vinyl as I grew up in the 70's and started to buy my own when punk started in 76/77. That was the only format I used apart from cassettes in the car (which were nearly always mixtapes). I then got into cd's in the early 90's but kept a turntable for my vinyl. When that broke in about 2000 I had so many cd's the records went into boxes and into the garage. Downloading and streaming eventually replaced cd's entirely for me around 05. It's only with finally enjoying some success career wise that I have had the funds and time to start all over again with hifi firstly on cd's and then on vinyl. My budget RP1 which ive just upgraded is definitely the best sounding tt I've ever owned miles better than the ones i had as a kid and even later on. I like a bit of crackle on an old record, some of my records I bought nearly 40yrs ago (scary) and they still nearly all sound fantastic. That said brand new vinyl also sounds fantastic on my system even though right now it is a tad expensive. I'm not looking at this as nostalgia or through rose tinted spectacles it's just another one of my sources and records are nice things to have.
 

marb67

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Anyone here still got a cassette tape player in their car ? I do in my 2002 VW Polo and it sounds great. Never been bothered to put my old cd player in as it takes a bit of messing around with adapters, getting the VW one out. Might even go a step further and tape some of my vinyl for the car.

I grew up with one of those old wooden cabinet stereos my Mum and Dad had where you could stack a few singles together for successive playing. I used to love going through all their scratchy 60's singles (no sleeves) and try and find something interesting. A bit like an early version of trawling Youtube. It was quite exciting. I have also basked in the sounds of my parent's 8 track Wien player in the house as well as the car cassette player that I witnessed chewing up many a tape.Then in 1979 I had a cheap record player of my own (can't remember the make but it was white with a red power light). As a teen I Moved on to a Waltham second hand music centre in 1981 with my holiday job wages of which I spent £75. That was a huge leap forward for me as I could record with a bundled stereo mike, make cassette recordings from vinyl and FM radio. 1983 (still in my Mum's loft) I moved up to a Fergerson stack hifi with tape to tape. No fancy cartridge, weights etc but the speakers sounded superb. I must dig them out again. Looking back perhaps the Waltham was a better turntable as it had adjustments but it was way over my head then.

For me I have so much vinyl with so much time and memories invested I am enjoying hearing them properley now I have invested in a decent cartridge for the first time. It seems the jury is out on which is best but I am keeping my tapes, vinyl and cd's to have the best of a few worlds. There are vinyl enthusiasts who say some of the new pressings of say Beatles albums are better than the originals, some pressings of other artists can be dodgey as they are mastered from cd's so it's a bit of a jungle.
 

Frank Harvey

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BigH said:
About 50% of vinyl is bought by under 35 year olds.
Another one that doesn't add up to me. Whilst a decent amount of under 35s are buying vinyl, I'd say more than 50% are bought by over 35s. I would also hazard a guess that a fair number of older vinyl buyers buy used.

But also only about 7% of music is bought on the high street in the UK.
Enough for HMV to decide to start stocking it again. And now some supermarkets...
 

Frank Harvey

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marb67 said:
some pressings of other artists can be dodgey as they are mastered from cd's so it's a bit of a jungle.
No official releases are "mastered from CDs". Some are mastered from high quality digital masters - in a similar way to old movies being scanned to a 4K digital master, cleaned up, then downsampled to the resolution of the format they're being played on.
 

MajorFubar

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marb67 said:
Anyone here still got a cassette tape player in their car ? I do in my 2002 VW Polo and it sounds great.

Yep, our 53-plate daily runner has a Kenwood cassette radio front end and a CD changer in the boot. The latter tends to get used the most of the two, though if I'm in the car it's likely I'll stream Apple Music from my iPhone to a cassette adaptor and use that. With decent home recordings and considering the limitations of the car's speakers and the listening environment, there's no massive qualitative difference between the cassette player and the CD player. We also have two older cars which we run and maintain as pseudo classics, one of them still has its original radio cassette but the other has a bluetooth CD radio head unit.
 

Jim_W

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I've spent years trying to work out how to fit a record player, amp and speakers to a succession of motorbikes, but, alas, I have made very little progress; probably do it on a Goldwing though whilst you have your hair cut. Ooooo a bit of bikers' banter.
 

Canguino Purlat

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Jim_W said:
I've spent years trying to work out how to fit a record player, amp and speakers to a succession of motorbikes, but, alas, I have made very little progress; probably do it on a Goldwing though whilst you have your hair cut. Ooooo a bit of bikers' banter. 

100 W tube amps I presume
 
K

keeper of the quays

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Canguino Purlat said:
Jim_W said:
I've spent years trying to work out how to fit a record player, amp and speakers to a succession of motorbikes, but, alas, I have made very little progress; probably do it on a Goldwing though whilst you have your hair cut. Ooooo a bit of bikers' banter. 

100 W tube amps I presume
Wind up gramophone..bungee hooks..sorted!
 
K

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MajorFubar said:
marb67 said:
Anyone here still got a cassette tape player in their car ? I do in my 2002 VW Polo and it sounds great. 

 

Yep, our 53-plate daily runner has a Kenwood cassette radio front end and a CD changer in the boot. The latter tends to get used the most of the two, though if I'm in the car it's likely I'll stream Apple Music from my iPhone to a cassette adaptor and use that. With decent home recordings and considering the limitations of the car's speakers and the listening environment, there's no massive qualitative difference between the cassette player and the CD player. We also have two older cars which we run and maintain as pseudo classics, one of them still has its original radio cassette but the other has a bluetooth CD radio head unit.
I have a tape player in my vehicle..sounds good.I had actually dreamed up a amusing skit around the topic of this thread but as I would have got moaned at for irrelevant blather? I chose to remove my humoresque and replace it with.my van has a tape player! Yawn...for information my story contained references to Steptoe and son..krell amplifiers...and 78 players..and clip clop cobblestones! Oh well..i have already remembered to forget my cheerful tale..
 

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