"Do Vinyl Records Actually Sound Better Than CDs? We Take A Closer Look" in Slashgear

[mtemur]

Nonsense. People primarily care about the music. Only audiophiles care so much about the sound that it will inform what they listen to.

If recording quality has no effect on regular people then instrument quality doesn’t have any effect either. According to you people only care about the music after all, it shouldn’t matter how good or bad the instrument is.

I wonder Heifetz or Kogan would be as successful as they’re now if they played a $100 violin and recorded on a string metal wire. Would there be rock music without Les Paul and Fender electric guitars or great jazz albums without RVG.

 

[hopkins]

If recording quality has no effect on regular people then instrument quality doesn’t have any effect either. According to you people only care about the music after all, it shouldn’t matter how good or bad the instrument is.

I wonder Heifetz or Kogan would be as successful as they’re now if they played a $100 violin and recorded on a string metal wire. Would there be rock music without Les Paul and Fender electric guitars or great jazz albums without RVG.

Yes, there is great music without great sound or great sounding instruments. Good sound is a bonus, that's all it is.

 

[Neil.Antin]

I would like to dismiss the toxicity risk of the record in use/play. Very simply if the record which is a stable co-polymer (once formed the two components cannot for all practical purposes be separated) of polyvinyl chloride and polyvinyl acetate, off-gassed as stated, the record would never last as long as it does/can. The ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation, 2015 https://www.clir.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/pub164.pdf commissioned for and sponsored by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, states: “Vinyl discs are the most stable physical sound recording format developed to date; they can last 100 years in a controlled environment.” And, based on many 'vinyl' records now nearing 80-yrs, the likelihood of lasting >100 years with just reasonable storage practices is very high.

What does off-gas is flexible PVC of which 10-40% can be plasticizers. If the record had any significant amount of plasticizer (the RCA patent indicated 1%), it could never last as long it has. And of course, one of more notorious plasticizers bisphenol A (BPA) received wide attention for its toxicity concerns in plastic bottles and the ability to be extracted, and now many plastic bottles are labeled BPA-Free. And, for those old enough, remember the ubiquitous cracked car dashboards which is another example of off-gassing/extractable plasticizer. But, to reiterate, the record has very little plasticizer and the plasticizer specified in the RCA patent (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/b6/ac/a3/33b9d37bfdc952/US3960790.pdf) is one that is very stable not subject to be extractable under normal conditions.

I would also like to refresh the concept that the record is elastic. During playback, especially at the high frequencies where the g-forces can exceed 500-g's (Disc cutting in theory, Hugh Finnimore, Studio Sound and Broadcast Engineering, July 1975; https://www.worldradiohistory.com/A...ive-Studio-Sound/70s/Studio-Sound-1975-07.pdf), the record material can distort/move (Disc Phonograph Records by Dr. A. M. Max, RCA Engineer Magazine 1966-08-09, https://www.worldradiohistory.com/ARCHIVE-RCA/RCA-Engineer/1966-08-09.pdf).

So long as the playback forces remain within the material elastic limits, it just recovers. However, if the playback forces exceed the elastic limits, then plastic (permanent) deformation occurs. This was understood >50 years ago and moving to lighter styluses-cantilever assemblies with lighter VTF, generally keeps the forces within the record's elastic limits and this has been addressed in a few articles (https://www.aes.org/publications/anthologies/downloads/jaes_disk-anthology-2.pdf). Additionally, the nature of the stylus radius and its ability to trace groove can be very complicated as addressed in this very technical article Stylus Mass and Elliptical Points John Walton (http://freudhoefer.de/File_Share/Walton.pdf).

Vinyl record playback is very complicated, and the math/science is not simple. Also, because of all the mechanical properties and variations thereof, every table/tonearm/cartridge 'system' along with the variations in the record composition and final pressing processing is inherently a hand-made item that in some ways replicates the natural variation we see in handmade musical instruments; and this will carry over to the final playback sound quality. Ultimately it is so different from digital there should be no comparison. Each will appeal to someone differently. Personally, when I listen to digital, my sub-conscious is aware that there is an element of it that sounds unnatural that when listening to vinyl, my sub-conscious does not register, and I generally relax more into music.

Now back to the regular programming....

 

[tima]

Of course they will not praise modern recordings snd modern performances because that's after all-analog vinyl, and they are not interested in them.

. Too many examples here alone that disprove this dogmatic twaddle.

 

[tima]

Even if we just looked to well regarded musicians, music reviewers and musicologists we’d still find plenty who’d praise a huge amount of music recorded in the digital era.

Maybe. But not because the recording was made in the digital era.

More interesting than when a piece is recorded is when it was written. Out of your favorite top 10, 20, 30 Symphonies, how many were written in the last 40 years?

 

[KPC]

The article seems to ignore the quality of high-end components and audio chains.

 

[the sound of Tao]

No, we are talking about how music is recorded and the format it’s presented. This affects people who consume music and more importantly affects how the music is produced. It’s a circle.

I was genuinely only referring specifically to a comment that you made talking about the quality of the music being performed in the post digital era and not about than the quality of the recordings that have been made of it.

Great music and performances existed a long long time before analogue recording and happily continues on… I imagine in 100 years plenty of older and newer music will still be extraordinary and as always plenty of other music unmemorable and ephemeral. Hopefully in the decades to come technology may be advanced to where the digital analogue debate may even be gone and forgotten. I love analogue recording process but the quality and the art of the music exists safely beyond the boundaries of how we attempt to capture and hold on to it.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Maybe. But not because the recording was made in the digital era.

More interesting than when a piece is recorded is when it was written. Out of your favorite top 10, 20, 30 Symphonies, how many were written in the last 40 years?

If we are talking just about classical music then the majority of the classical repertoire has obviously been written over quite a few centuries. New classical music invariably takes decades to establish itself deeply into the core repertoire. Great music like anrchitecture is often a bit ahead of its time and that it leads culture rather than follows it. Popularity of all music has its own pattern of flow… it at times ebbs and peaks and often returns to sync up with the curious generational sine wave patterns.

But this isn’t just about any one area of music as obviously there can be great music across most every genre. Music and culture has its own lifecycle and trajectory, the technology to record the music is working itself out in its own way and time (edit: I hope)

 

[mtemur]

Great music and performances existed a long long time before analogue recording and happily continues on…

If great music still exist as good as before the Cd era then where are the new Stokowski, Munch, Karajan, Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Michael Jackson etc?

How good the music is recorded and how it’s perceived by people emotionally cannot be separated. I don’t mean just pure recording quality here. I mean qualities enable emotional engagement, quick acceptance and bonding with music. I don’t know what creates those qualities but IMHO they are not as high as they have been before Cd era. Something must have been lost in the transition. It is not sincere, intimate as it has been. These qualities affect people’s connection with music. How good an album is received by people affects an artist’s creativity. I don’t think Pink Floyd or others would continue to record if they haven’t sold millions of albums. Even if they continue to record could they still do great music when nobody listens?

Recording quality or qualities bonds music with people. Reaching more people and their appreciation drives artist to do better. It’s a circle.

 

[tima]

Recording quality or qualities bonds music with people. Reaching more people and their appreciation drives artist to do better. It’s a circle.

Before that I would say content quality and performance quality bonds music with people. Many original rock recordings were not that great. Rock reached people through the radio and concerts.

 

[tima]

If great music still exist as good as before the Cd era then where are the new Stokowski, Munch, Karajan, Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Michael Jackson etc?

Is Quality temporarily becalmed in the Horse Latitudes of Genius?

Is the CD era likewise the Internet era?

Is today's motive 'Stardom' rather than 'Art'?

 

[mtemur]

Before that I would say content quality and performance quality bonds music with people. Many original rock recordings were not that great. Rock reached people through the radio and concerts.

As I said earlier it's not only about recording quality. Maybe it doesn't seem a good recording but there are other qualities we lost now make those recordings special. So, young generation is still searching and listening their father's or even grandfather's music. Young generation's interest with old rock and jazz cannot be explained by radio and concerts IMHO.

 

[tima]

Young generation's interest with old rock and jazz cannot be explained by radio and concerts IMHO.

agreed

 

[sbo6]

Short answer - no, the biggest variable is the quality of the source material, the media that delivers it can be poor or excellent (and everything in between), depending on price and implementation.

 

[Rexp]

If great music still exist as good as before the Cd era then where are the new Stokowski, Munch, Karajan, Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Michael Jackson etc?

How good the music is recorded and how it’s perceived by people emotionally cannot be separated. I don’t mean just pure recording quality here. I mean qualities enable emotional engagement, quick acceptance and bonding with music. I don’t know what creates those qualities but IMHO they are not as high as they have been before Cd era. Something must have been lost in the transition. It is not sincere, intimate as it has been. These qualities affect people’s connection with music. How good an album is received by people affects an artist’s creativity. I don’t think Pink Floyd or others would continue to record if they haven’t sold millions of albums. Even if they continue to record could they still do great music when nobody listens?

Recording quality or qualities bonds music with people. Reaching more people and their appreciation drives artist to do better. It’s a circle.

Yes it's not a coincidence that creativity also suffered post CD, I always think of David Bowie's music in this regard.

 

[Ron Resnick]

If great music still exist as good as before the Cd era then where are the new Stokowski, Munch, Karajan, Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Michael Jackson etc?

How good the music is recorded and how it’s perceived by people emotionally cannot be separated. I don’t mean just pure recording quality here. I mean qualities enable emotional engagement, quick acceptance and bonding with music. I don’t know what creates those qualities but IMHO they are not as high as they have been before Cd era. Something must have been lost in the transition. It is not sincere, intimate as it has been. These qualities affect people’s connection with music. How good an album is received by people affects an artist’s creativity. I don’t think Pink Floyd or others would continue to record if they haven’t sold millions of albums. Even if they continue to record could they still do great music when nobody listens?

Recording quality or qualities bonds music with people. Reaching more people and their appreciation drives artist to do better. It’s a circle.

I would like to agree with you, but I cannot. I think this post just reflects generational music arrogance.

To take the worst example I can think of for me personally, I personally hate rap. But I would never think that there is any objective sense in which I love the music of Stevie Nicks more than the people who like rap love their favorite rap artist. The microeconomic principle of the incomparability of interpersonal utility teaches us that there is no way for you to prove that you like The Doors more than some 25 year old likes his/her favorite rap artist.

 

[hopkins]

Rappers loved vinyl as well

Great song!

Check out the comments... First one is asking: "where did the golden era go?" Is that you @mtemur ?




There is no age at which you can't enjoy a good "groove" (in this case "Planet Rock") as this video proves

 

[the sound of Tao]

If great music still exist as good as before the Cd era then where are the new Stokowski, Munch, Karajan, Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Michael Jackson etc?

How good the music is recorded and how it’s perceived by people emotionally cannot be separated. I don’t mean just pure recording quality here. I mean qualities enable emotional engagement, quick acceptance and bonding with music. I don’t know what creates those qualities but IMHO they are not as high as they have been before Cd era. Something must have been lost in the transition. It is not sincere, intimate as it has been. These qualities affect people’s connection with music. How good an album is received by people affects an artist’s creativity. I don’t think Pink Floyd or others would continue to record if they haven’t sold millions of albums. Even if they continue to record could they still do great music when nobody listens?

Recording quality or qualities bonds music with people. Reaching more people and their appreciation drives artist to do better. It’s a circle.

I’ve been listening to that small handful of talent that you point to starting out from the 60’s and 70’s, it’s easy to write out what represents a ridiculously small list of musical talent but where do we really start or end… is your musical exposure really that limited. This just comes about perhaps with a surprising lack of accessibility or exposure… to think that musical greatness ends with just your personal preferences and such a meagre list of musical talent given all those who have been important and influential from the past or those that are still around and those yet to come.

The world of music is so much greater than you seem to indicate if you choose to open yourself up to it. I wrote out a list just of influential classical conductors since the 20th century and had over 80 just in that. Classical composers, I struggle to get a shortlist just for orchestral down to a few dozen and that’s only possible by keeping it just to important composers that I personally relate to and by then cutting out vocal and chamber music. Jazz greats… omg where to start or end… If I cull the life out of even just the blue note rostrum there’d be easily 40 or 50 important jazz musos just there, open it up to all jazz including contemporary jazz and it’ll skyrocket… and rock, alternative music, rnb, even pop. You might be happy with your personal super small list but there’s just so much more of value and greatness available.

If people needed hi end systems to connect to music the world would have given up on music many years ago. Audiophiles are a small band with super special needs. That level of need for absolute fidelity to connect to music is just for a few. Music doesn’t need to be exclusive and out of reach of the masses to be great. Most music lovers can emotionally engage with much more mundane gear. Perhaps many of us are just not a typical example of a music lover. None of that is bad but it is not really representative of reality at all. Music has survived and flourished without audiophile recordings for many generations and will continue and survive as long as culture exists and almost certainly with or without us.

 

[mtemur]

I would like to agree with you, but I cannot. I think this post just reflects generational music arrogance.

To take the worst example I can think of for me personally, I personally hate rap. But I would never think that there is any objective sense in which I love the music of Stevie Nicks more than the people who like rap love their favorite rap artist. The microeconomic principle of the incomparability of interpersonal utility teaches us that there is no way for you to prove that you like The Doors more than some 25 year old likes his/her favorite rap artist.

But I didn’t compare rock against rap. I raised the question where are the counterparts of great musicians of old for each genre. Apples to apples. I should have been more specific.

 

[mtemur]

I’ve been listening to that small handful of talent that you point to starting out from the 60’s and 70’s, it’s easy to write out what represents a ridiculously small list of musical talent but where do we really start or end… is your musical exposure really that limited. This just comes about perhaps with a surprising lack of accessibility or exposure… to think that musical greatness ends with just your personal preferences and such a meagre list of musical talent given all those who have been important and influential from the past or those that are still around and those yet to come.

The world of music is so much greater than you seem to indicate if you choose to open yourself up to it. I wrote out a list just of influential classical conductors since the 20th century and had over 80 just in that. Classical composers, I struggle to get a shortlist just for orchestral down to a few dozen and that’s only possible by keeping it just to important composers that I personally relate to and by then cutting out vocal and chamber music. Jazz greats… omg where to start or end… If I cull the life out of even just the blue note rostrum there’d be easily 40 or 50 important jazz musos just there, open it up to all jazz including contemporary jazz and it’ll skyrocket… and rock, alternative music, rnb, even pop. You might be happy with your personal super small list but there’s just so much more of value and greatness available.

If people needed hi end systems to connect to music the world would have given up on music many years ago. Audiophiles are a small band with super special needs. That level of need for absolute fidelity to connect to music is just for a few. Music doesn’t need to be exclusive and out of reach of the masses to be great. Most music lovers can emotionally engage with much more mundane gear. Perhaps many of us are just not a typical example of a music lover. None of that is bad but it is not really representative of reality at all. Music has survived and flourished without audiophile recordings for many generations and will survive as long as culture exists and with or without us.

If there are more great artists now, greater than the ones from the past then why didn’t you name them instead of condescending my musical knowledge?