Vinyl records outsell CDs for first time in decades

[Al M.]

The complication is that there are many albums for which the streaming (or downloadable) version has much better mastering than the older CD version. So many of the original CDs were burned from analog sources without much care. Many sound like crap. More recently, many of the classic rock and jazz albums have been remastered to digital and sound superior.

My point? It isn’t just about the format. Often times is it about the mastering.

Yes, see also my post above.

 

[marty]

These discussions are mostly a tempest in a teapot. Enjoy whatever floats your boat. LPs are attractive for many reasons that were cited. It's kind of like asking where you like to sit in concerts. I like sitting in halls in the first tier and not in the orchestra parquet floor. Others like the orchestra parquet floor further back and others enjoy a closer up presentation. It's all good.

David asked which I'd prefer; a vinyl copy from a digital master or a Hi-rez file. The answer is- if it was something I didn't enjoy, it would be neither. If it was Beethoven or Coltrane, probably either. Preferences for these things are fine. But at some point they become moot because isn't the music the thing? Whatever delivers it to you the way you like best is really all you can hope for.

 

[Al M.]

These discussions are mostly a tempest in a teapot.

If you view it that way, all discussions at WBF are mostly a tempest in a teapot.

It's all relative. To what? To something .

 

[AMR / iFi audio]

I'd say the recent craze in vinyl sales among young people is more influenced by the interior design factor than by the music-listening factor. Hopefully, the unique enjoyment factor from the entire ritual of vinyl listening becomes apparent to them as well.

 

[the sound of Tao]

I wonder if Shostakovich or Stravinsky or Bach or Beethoven or Brahms or Miles Davis or John Coltrane or Thelonius Monk or Lee Morgan or Joe Henderson or Freddy Hubbard etc etc (ad infinitum) were alive today whether they’d much give a rats about which recording was technically the most ideal or which format was the most hifi or whether they’d just want to access recorded history to hear which musicians and composers were interpreting their compositions and the music of others in the most profound way.

Streaming is more fundamentally about access to music and a powerful way to learn about performance and music and less about the relative (and marvellous) artefacts of building the hifi sound between formats… as fabulous and absorbing a pursuit as that can also be... though perhaps just not as profound.

 

[bonzo75]

I wonder if Shostakovich or Stravinsky or Bach or Beethoven or Brahms or Miles Davis or John Coltrane or Thelonius Monk or Lee Morgan or Joe Henderson or Freddy Hubbard etc etc (ad infinitum) were alive today whether they’d much give a rats about which recording was technically the most ideal

Well, there is a reason those artists were produced only in the vinyl era

 

[the sound of Tao]

Well, there is a reason those artists were produced only in the vinyl era

Many great musicians were dead a long time before any of the analogue digital format wars… and the advantage (the only one) is that they are all now safely dead and therefore can neither confirm nor deny their particular priorities… though I do like to imagine that music trumps hifi for many/most musicians.

All that said, profound music isn’t era limited as much as we cranky old folk like to cry out that great music or great artistry is dead .

 

[XV-1]

Well, there is a reason those artists were produced only in the vinyl era

Yea, they are all dead.

So much great new music being released on vinyl now that I can't keep up.

Some of us don't have our ears buried in the past only.

 

[Al M.]

All that said, profound music isn’t era limited as much as we cranky old folk like to cry out that great music or great artistry is dead .

Fortunately I am not one of the cranky old folk.

 

[bonzo75]

Yea, they are all dead.

So much great new music being released on vinyl now that I can't keep up.

Some of us don't have our ears buried in the past only.

That past is not our past, as we were not there. It is our future, because you discover it in an advanced state. Always, the kids who are just starting off with music will pick up current generation music first. It is about current Vs not current, not about 2030 Vs 2000 Vs 1950 Vs 1600. Current is for beginners. It will be there on MTV, in elevators, and in restaurants

 

[Al M.]

That past is not our past, as we were not there. It is our future, because you discover it in an advanced state. Always, the kids who are just starting off with music will pick up current generation music first. It is about current Vs not current, not about 2030 Vs 2000 Vs 1950 Vs 1600. Current is for beginners. It will be there on MTV, in elevators, and in restaurants

And you still have to learn to appreciate Bartok.

 

[bonzo75]

And you still have to learn to appreciate Bartok.

so how do you differentiate Beethoven from Bartok, in terms of timeline? Both are past? I doubt you are old enough to have lived with one them to think that music is nostalgic?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

so how do you differentiate Beethoven from Bartok, in terms of timeline? Both are past? I doubt you are old enough to have lived with one them to think that music is nostalgic?

speaking only for my own musical awakening, i went in a quite linear fashion from a pop/rock mentality from the early 60's to the early 90's, to jazz and classical parallel paths with both digital and vinyl starting in 1994. i went from the most melodic and easy to listen to, progressing as i saw it to more complex and dissonate pieces.

i was exposed to Bartok Orchestral early in that process, and i had a hard time getting into it compared to the Romance pieces, but then i did, later. started with the 'easy' string quartets of Mozart and Beethoven, then eventually Bartok and Shostakovich. now i pursue all the modern really complex stuff.

i still don't 'know' any of it, only that my tastes have evolved. it happens that the more complex stuff is more recently composed. but i don't care about that myself. i only know a slight bit about music history, what i've accidently learned. so the idea of musical nostalgia is only regarding my early love for rock.

i do wonder whether my evolving tastes have more to do with me, or my system being more able over time to make them sound natural. which did for a long time involve vinyl, but with better digital that factor is not any more in play. love to explore off the edge with streaming. maybe Joel Durand (classical composer and music composition professor and builder of my tone arms) helped to push me into more complex music as he gave me a list of pieces about 10 years ago to explore and that really launched me.

 

[gadawg58]

Thank you for telling us your thoughts.

Please note that Marty ended his post with "to me." This recognizes that other people feel and think and hear differently.

You recall that even in the 1980s you had "no problem with digital sound." You were lucky. I found early digital to be amusical and virtually unlistenable from an emotional engagement point of view.

I found early digital to be pretty dang good on my California Audio Labs Tempest CD Player ... It likely didn't have the resolving power to show all of the shortfalls of the format and I'm sure the tubes helped some also but I thought it was great at the time! Then I got my first high end table and then couldn't believe I had spent that much for that CD Player and all the little shiny discs ... LOL

George

 

[Al M.]

I found early digital to be pretty dang good on my California Audio Labs Tempest CD Player ... It likely didn't have the resolving power to show all of the shortfalls of the format and I'm sure the tubes helped some also but I thought it was great at the time! Then I got my first high end table and then couldn't believe I had spent that much for that CD Player and all the little shiny discs ... LOL

George

Sure, digital has moved on from that, including the quality of CD playback (I am not ignorant of great vinyl playback either, hearing it routinely in other systems).

 

[gadawg58]

Sure, digital has moved on from that, including the quality of CD playback (I am not ignorant of great vinyl playback either, hearing it routinely in other systems).

No doubt .. digital has made huge strides since then and although I still tend to prefer vinyl today over my Esoteric DAC... I am going to audition the Wadax Atlantis DAC and Transport at home later this year ...don't want to hear it before I have the money to buy it ...

George

 

[bonzo75]

speaking only for my own musical awakening, i went in a quite linear fashion from a pop/rock mentality from the early 60's to the early 90's, to jazz and classical parallel paths with both digital and vinyl starting in 1994. i went from the most melodic and easy to listen to, progressing as i saw it to more complex and dissonate pieces.

i was exposed to Bartok Orchestral early in that process, and i had a hard time getting into it compared to the Romance pieces, but then i did, later. started with the 'easy' string quartets of Mozart and Beethoven, then eventually Bartok and Shostakovich. now i pursue all the modern really complex stuff.

i still don't 'know' any of it, only that my tastes have evolved. it happens that the more complex stuff is more recently composed. but i don't care about that myself. i only know a slight bit about music history, what i've accidently learned. so the idea of musical nostalgia is only regarding my early love for rock.

i do wonder whether my evolving tastes have more to do with me, or my system being more able over time to make them sound natural. which did for a long time involve vinyl, but with better digital that factor is not any more in play. love to explore off the edge with streaming. maybe Joel Durand (classical composer and music composition professor and builder of my tone arms) helped to push me into more complex music as he gave me a list of pieces about 10 years ago to explore and that really launched me.

There are some different points in your post.

1. Your journey from pop/rock to classical/jazz is an increase in musical appreciation and complexity. This is the same point I made to Shane, and it happens irrespective of era. It happens with age for those who are willing to progress on the musical appreciating scale.

2. How you define complex is another question...Bigger orchestral is not necessarily more complex from smaller orchestra, or from chamber musically...as an audition track for system strengths, some orchestral will highlight some aspects of the system as compared to smaller chamber.

3. My question to Al about Bartok and Beethoven was more to do with the fact that someone who passed away in 1940s is not current for us. Let's not pretend any of these guys are modern for us, and appreciating either of them has nothing to do with "being old" - the age here, like you rightly said, has to do with maturity and progress on musical appreciation as compared to Britney Spears. If people of my generation wanted to be nostalgic, they would listen to Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Stevie Wonder's I just called to say I love you on cassette or CD. So on this forum when someone says people listen to vinyl because they are nostalgic, or listen to classical because it is music for the old people, I mark the guy as lacking exposure to good recordings, and lacking exposure to, or not having moved on to appreciate good music. Same for vintage. Nothing to do with nostalgia...actually, for most people today who are into vintage, they found it at the end of their journey (unless they revert), and not at the beginning, to be nostalgic about it (and for me read that as vintage drivers and speaker, not crossover or electronics or catridge).

4. In the 90s, before youtube and internet, it was cool to find bootlegs (e.g. led zep bootlegs) for my generation, because that showed you were willing to scrounge around and were passionate about finding good music. Same for books. The lazy ones just heard MTV top 20, channel V, and such stuff. With YT, some of that went away because you have equal chance on clicking on a bootleg track as compared to a current track. But it stays true for the type of music you listen to, the records you select, and research you do. Anyone can go out to a show today to listen to current performances in their local area...you really need to search across conductors, orchestras, and performances, to find the good stuff. The act of searching alone will develop your skills/taste/appreciation more, and to me it shows a guy who is into it vs an arm chair poster.

5. In the stuff that lives with us, why is classical from Renaissance and classical period, LP records from 50s to 60s, rock from 60s and 70s, digital recordings developing today - why didn't the nostalgic choose the same era for each? It just happened that the best for those respective categories, fell in those eras, because certain factors during that era led to development on that aspect. And electronica might have a different era.

6. I listen only to modern performances live (2 this week, 1 last week, 5 this month). I doubt anyone other than Larry in the regulars here has heard the old performances live. However, I choose the old recordings and performances, because recreating them on a stereo system appeals most to my auditory template of realism...The new ones don't.

 

[rando]

6. I listen only to modern performances live (2 this week, 1 last week, 5 this month). I doubt anyone other than Larry in the regulars here as heard the old performances live. However, I choose the old recordings and performances, because recreating them on a stereo system appeals most to my auditory template of realism...The new ones don't.

Might you be convinced to expand upon your first two sentences for the sake of clarity? You seem to have implied a meaning that escapes me.

The predominant reasoning I would have for pursuing vinyl as of this date would be the Classical catalog from a half century or more ago containing a large amount of works no longer performed or recorded. Could this possibly be where you were going in your sixth point?

 

[COF]

Interestingly I derive no incremental value or utility or benefit from the physical manipulation of physical media. I feel no positive nostalgia whatsoever.

Compared to the non-fussiness of CDs and compared to the convenience of streaming, I find analog playback klunky, organic, tweaky and a bit annoying.

I completely understand!

Vinyl is a pain in the butt if you don't actually enjoy that stuff. I really, really don't enjoy setting up cartridges, but mercifully in my case that seems necessary only every couple years. Likewise I want my vinyl to sound as good as possible, but I'm way too lazy to turn washing records in to a part time job like some vinyl enthusiasts. Fortunately buying a Degritter US record cleaner mostly solved that for me as it makes washing a record kind of fun and easy.

But in terms of how people react differently to things that add or detract to an experience, it reminds me of owning a garden.

I appreciate having a nice garden to look at in our backyard. But I hate gardening. Hate it. Total bother. So I hire someone to do make us a nice little garden.

On the other hand I have a friend who loves gardening. Every weekend is spent digging up and planting something or other in his expanding garden. All that effort and physical work creating the garden adds to his appreciation of the garden, where for me it would detract from it, and keep me from making a garden.

But we still both appreciate gardens.

Same with vinyl. For some the additional tweaky physical aspects of vinyl are a plus, for others a minus, but we all like music.

 

[bonzo75]

The predominant reasoning I would have for pursuing vinyl as of this date would be the Classical catalog from a half century or more ago containing a large amount of works no longer performed or recorded. Could this possibly be where you were going in your sixth point?

A lot of stuff is performed, and recorded today, for which I will choose recordings from the past. If, as an audiophile, you are trying to recreate a sound to satisfy your auditory template, while your auditory template might have been formed from modern performances, that live sense of realism is recreated by old recordings. The recordings of the modern performances don't cut it - save exceptions as some from harmonia mundi. Modern represses of old performances don't cut it as well as old pressings of old performances, either.