What's behind the resurgence of vinyl?

[slunky]

it amazes me the amount of people that say i don't get any clicks or pops on my records.
I don't believe that .
And yes classical music does sound better on cd than vinyl.

 

[iMark]

@Secretagentmole
I don't think you have a lot of experience with LPs. No matter how careful you are, you will get clicks and pops with vinyl records. It will get worse over time. Nothing to do with a bad record, a bad stylus or a bad record deck.

Noise, clicks and pops are an inherent disadvantage of the vinyl medium.

I'm old enough to remember the switch from LPs to CDs. Especially for classical music lovers it was a huge step forward to be able to listen to very delicate music without noise, clicks and pops. Going back to vinyl would be a backward step. Digital recording and digital playback is a great thing for classical music.

I also don't believe people who say they don't suffer from clicks and pops.

 

[Secretagentmole]

@Secretagentmole
I don't think you have a lot of experience with LPs. No matter how careful you are, you will get clicks and pops with vinyl records. It will get worse over time. Nothing to do with a bad record, a bad stylus or a bad record deck.

Noise, clicks and pops are an inherent disadvantage of the vinyl medium.

I'm old enough to remember the switch from LPs to CDs. Especially for classical music lovers it was a huge step forward to be able to listen to very delicate music without noise, clicks and pops. Going back to vinyl would be a backward step. Digital recording and digital playback is a great thing for classical music.

I also don't believe people who say they don't suffer from clicks and pops.

Only got 3 decades experience of vinyl. I prefer AAA vinyl, Analogue recording, Analogue mastering, Analogue reproduction.

You see classical on CD does not sound right due to missing frequencies, not necessarily what you hear, more what you feel, or in the case of cd what you don't feel.

Bit like comparing MP3 to FLAC, either you get it or you don't...

 

[slunky]

And i suppose in a blind test you can hear the difference between mp3 320 and flac mr. golden ears

 

[iMark]

What you hear is noise, clicks and pops. What you feel is annoyance because you can't hear the music properly, especially in quiet passages. And there's the slight distortion of sound when the tonearm moves further towards the centre of the record.

All these factors were the reason why classical music lovers embraced digital audio and will never go back to vinyl.

I do like listening to classical LPs from the 1960s and 1970s. I inherited hundreds of them. But the same recordings sound much better on CD.

 

[Secretagentmole]

And i suppose in a blind test you can hear the difference between mp3 320 and flac mr. golden ears

I can, quite easily, which is why all my music files are FLAC...

 

[Al ears]

I can, quite easily, which is why all my music files are FLAC...

This thread is getting quite removed from the OPs original question.

 

[Al ears]

Only got 3 decades experience of vinyl. I prefer AAA vinyl, Analogue recording, Analogue mastering, Analogue reproduction.

You see classical on CD does not sound right due to missing frequencies, not necessarily what you hear, more what you feel, or in the case of cd what you don't feel.

Bit like comparing MP3 to FLAC, either you get it or you don't...

I am certainly interested in these missing frequencies......
Whilst I have always collected vinyl I would not have any classical music in LP format as it is well known that , with its larger dynamic range, the best way to listen to classical music on solid media is CD or to be more precise SACD.

 

[iMark]

The comments are merely an explanation for the fact that the resurgence of vinyl certainly doesn't apply to classical music lovers.

I agree with @Al ears that SACD (or Bluray Audio) is probably the best medium for classical music. But even the humble CD is way better than the compromised sound you get from LPs.

It's a shame that the major record labels dropped the hybrid SACD for they releases. For me the hybrid SACD is the physical medium. You can play the SACD layers on the right equipment. But you can also rip the CD layer so you can listen to your favourite works on your smartphone. I would have a hybrid SACD over a vinyl record anytime.

 

[majex45]

I sold all my LPs back when CDs came out in the 80s believing all the hype and so I could more easily travel with my music. I also sold an SME 3009 with Shure cartridge & Connoiseur turntable for £25 (if only I could get that back).
I recently came back to records in my old age. I bought a very second hand player for £1.00 (!) and then had to buy a couple of records to "try it out". Then someone gave me a couple of LPs and I found a few at car boot sales.
Someone else gave me my current turntable and I buy LPs from charity shops now and again (although most of the stuff in charity shops is not worth buying).
The sound of LPs is more edgy to my ears, slightly less under control than CD. Rather like the difference between a low or zero feedback amp and a high feedback amp.
A well looked after LP with a Watt's Dust Bug does not pop and I hardly notice the extraneous noises (The Final Cut by Pink Floyd, the previous owner didn't like it so it was rarely played), however popular LPs (my copy of Meddle by Pink Floyd for example which the previous owner loved and took to parties) had a hard life and hiss & pop away to an annoying degree.
I listen with 70s to 80s equipment, all old school I'm afraid.
At my age getting up every 20 to 30 minutes to turn the record over is the one chore I could do without. Some of the old bands got away with murder with the short running time of their albums.

 

[newlash09]

I was always streaming since 2012. Then on a whim I bought my first cd player only last year. I still don't own any CD's. But I keep borrowing from my friends collections, and I must admit that I liked the physical part of it. Besides, streaming was always a restless experience. I was usually lining up my next track, without enjoying the present track.

So now when I listen to a CD, I throw away the phone and the remote , and just relax into an entire album.

I liked it so much, that iam now just dipping my toes into vinyl. One could i say I tried cd to just gauge if vinyl could be for me.

 

[majex45]

I usually buy my CDs from charity shops. I buy them by the handful at 25p to £1 each.
Often I buy stuff I've never heard of before. I listen and if I don't like them they go back to the shop so they can get more income from them.
I have has some dross but the occasional real gem. Three recent purchases that I had previously never heard: Walter Trout, Merle Haggard, Lemon Jelly.
I now have too many CDs.

 

[manicm]

I sold all my LPs back when CDs came out in the 80s believing all the hype and so I could more easily travel with my music. I also sold an SME 3009 with Shure cartridge & Connoiseur turntable for £25 (if only I could get that back).
I recently came back to records in my old age. I bought a very second hand player for £1.00 (!) and then had to buy a couple of records to "try it out". Then someone gave me a couple of LPs and I found a few at car boot sales.
Someone else gave me my current turntable and I buy LPs from charity shops now and again (although most of the stuff in charity shops is not worth buying).
The sound of LPs is more edgy to my ears, slightly less under control than CD. Rather like the difference between a low or zero feedback amp and a high feedback amp.
A well looked after LP with a Watt's Dust Bug does not pop and I hardly notice the extraneous noises (The Final Cut by Pink Floyd, the previous owner didn't like it so it was rarely played), however popular LPs (my copy of Meddle by Pink Floyd for example which the previous owner loved and took to parties) had a hard life and hiss & pop away to an annoying degree.
I listen with 70s to 80s equipment, all old school I'm afraid.
At my age getting up every 20 to 30 minutes to turn the record over is the one chore I could do without. Some of the old bands got away with murder with the short running time of their albums.

Funny you mention The Final Cut - ime, no CD master sounds better than the original vinyl.

 

[Gray]

Interesting stuff.
I've learned that Newlash owns no CDs.
More surprising to me, is someone reporting never hearing any vinyl pops and clicks.

 

[Paul.]

So I seem to have come to vinyl from a completely different angle than most, it was nothing to do with sound quality or art work or the ritual of it all, it was just trying to get hold of music. Whilst I was at uni (late 90’s early 2000’s) the best way to get electronic music was going in to a record shop and asking the owner what was new. Out comes a white label of something with the track name written in sharpie 😂 at the time most small producers had limited ways of distributing music, small runs of records would go through record shops in the hopes that DJ’s would pick them up and play them. If you heard an awesome track somewhere the options were buy it on record or buy a whole compilation for that one track. My first turntable was a bang & olufsen something or other which I picked up from a cash converter for £30, it looked ace, sounded pretty decent for a while, and I went on from there. As the internet made it easy for producers to self publish, I bought less and less records. Still buy them every now and then but my turntable is relegated to a spare room.

 

[Bromiley]

I'm so tempted to start collecting vinyl but I hear when you start you can't stop and it's expensive!

I agree, sward and I've only just begun (again). I have recently bought my first turntable (NAD C558). I remember playing my mum and dad's records in the early 80's. I have a vague memory of being into The Bay City Rollers. Don't laugh!

I started to collect records throughout the 80's including Duran Duran and Talk Talk amongst others but then lost touch with vinyl. Now I'm back and approaching my 50th, but there is a problem. I'm so used to having what I want to listen to immediately available on streaming services. However, when I now search for an LP to buy, I more than often receive 'not available, out of stock, available in 3 months etc.' Even Robbie Williams Christmas LP isn't available to ship to Europe for months!

A nice Christmas Michael Buble LP = not available. George Michael 'Symphonica' = not available. The list goes on. I jumped on the vinyl revival train only to find that a lot of vinyl simply isn't available. Is this normal?

 

[gregvet]

I have just got my first turntable recently, because I inherited all my parents old vinyl and I wanted to keep it but refuse to have something in the house that I physically can’t use.
I also discovered all my old vinyl from my teenage years in the loft

so for me I guess it’s nostalgia, but I have to say I am loving the listening experience, and having to listen to whole albums is a joy I had forgotten in the streaming age.

I have yet to buy any new (or second hand) vinyl, but that’s only because I am still working my way through the old stuff. I can’t wait for the opportunity to buy second hand stuff later this year (hopefully that will be possible at some point)

 

[Earsome]

WOW! Three pages of posts on this topic. I am very pleased to see this. HOWEVER, I can't see anyone getting to grips with why 'progress' in this particular instance is running in reverse. It is a unique situation in human development and deserves close attention I think. What is going on?

My first album purchase was the soundtrack to 2001 A space Odyssey in 1969 and I am still collecting. My first CD purchase was The Inner Mounting Flame by the Mahavishnu Orchestra and it contained the wrong master mix of some tracks - leaving in errors that had been mixed out for the LP. I gave the CD away and decided not to replace my record collection with CDs right then. A blessing in disguise.

To all of us hifi enthusiasts there is something I think we forget. No matter how good it is, recorded sound cannot sound at all like live sound, No Hey Banda! It is an illusion! MP3, CD, tape, records, wax cylinders, there is no orchestra and we know it. But we're still moved to tears -why?

We're somehow giving ourselves emotional permission to respond as if it were real. That's why the analogue/digital debate will run forever - it's not the format, it is your own disposition. But that's not the end of it - we're progressing in reverse, why?

For me music can be a lot about enjoying sound, sometimes more about enjoying skill, or ideas, there's a lot of different ways of listening. But if you're enjoying the actual vibrations I would understand why an analogue format is better than a digital one. Both a magnetic tape head and a record cartridge produce tiny vibrations and those vibrations are amplified massively. I think this is what people are saying when they refer to the 'organic' sound of records. It is working the same way any musical instrument works. So that is the 'warmth' you are hearing - even if it's a crap pressing.

There is no vibration in any digital format until it reaches your speaker. Sound is being re-synthesised from code by computers working very fast in real time. That is what gives it that startling immediacy and presence we all love(d). But it can never be real in the way the groove of a record or a magnetic, or optical trace is real. These things are 'prints' or 'impressions' made in physical material and the ear seems to love that quality.

 

[Roog]

Hi,

I own a collection of 3000+ records. Many will say it's all about "the warm sound" but I personally feel it's almost like collecting art. Many album covers are a true masterpiece and I always appreciate all the artwork that comes with a record. It also kind of forces you to listen to a full song and or album rather than skipping the tracks on your phone all the time...

Yes I do agree, I used to listen to a whole album much more than I do now, but in many ways I still tend to chose music by the album cover and listen right through, a habit from listening to LPs perhaps.

Plus LPs were so expensive, (they still are) I used to listen to the whole thing because I knew I wouldn't be getting another for a while!

 

[wescandela]

I love the sound of vinyl, except how temporary it is without proper care and even with proper care. Which is why I like super audio CD and Blu-ray audio and properly mixed 96 kHz 24 bit high resolution digital music.

I can take it anywhere I can play it anywhere. I don’t have to worry about scratches.

I think part of the resurgence of vinyl is because of the purity to audiophiles, and partly because people follow bandwagons and what they assume is popular. However, I am an advocate for pushing the Digital audio realm as far as it can go.

Let’s keep pushing

 

[wescandela]

@Secretagentmole
I don't think you have a lot of experience with LPs. No matter how careful you are, you will get clicks and pops with vinyl records. It will get worse over time. Nothing to do with a bad record, a bad stylus or a bad record deck.

Noise, clicks and pops are an inherent disadvantage of the vinyl medium.

I'm old enough to remember the switch from LPs to CDs. Especially for classical music lovers it was a huge step forward to be able to listen to very delicate music without noise, clicks and pops. Going back to vinyl would be a backward step. Digital recording and digital playback is a great thing for classical music.

I also don't believe people who say they don't suffer from clicks and pops.

I agree completely and totally
Listening to Herbert Von Karajan conducting the Berlin symphony Orchestra in 1977 playing all of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, by the time you get to the ninth, it’s incredible.

It’s now available in high resolution and Dolby Atmos. The only issue with Dolby Atmos is that the sample rate is capped at 48 kHz 24 bit

But otherwise, classical music sounds marvelous when mastered correctly on CD on digital audio in high resolution

 

[Winter]

People with plenty of money !

 

[A-Line]

Linn used to have the logo: "If it sounds better then it is better."
I believe this answers the question...😁