Be it the lack of an adequate digital remastering, the benefits of vinyl pops and scratches, or simply the satisfaction of watching a record spin around a turntable while magic sounds fill the room, what records are better on vinyl?
I’ll start with all Brian Jones-era Stones albums. The typically shoddy sound and pops and scratches present the band in all its tough, rock ‘n roll glory. Plus you never get distracted by hearing the acoustic guitar and piano on “Satisfaction”.
The Velvet Underground’s Loaded is much better on vinyl because no candy-ass team of engineers did a half-assed restoration of tape that was wisely snipped from “Rock ‘n Roll” and “Sweet Jane”.
Motown’s entire ’60s catalog, because the digital reissues sap the rhythm section of its punch, separating out individual drums, cymbals, and percussion. You shouldn’t be able to easily analyze the rhythm track on a Motown track; it’s for grooving, egghead!
The first Clash album. Nothing was lost in the grooves. Those songs sound terrible, in a good way. Hearing them better only makes them sound worse. Beside, it’s a sign that you were pretty cool if you bought it on vinyl when it came out.
Any one of the classic Neil Young albums. Who wants to hear Young in new jeans?
1950s rock ‘n roll. There’s nothing more to be heard that the original technology didn’t offer, and again, the surface noise adds to the toughness of the records.
Roy Loney era Flamin Groovies.
c’mon now.
ALL rock and roll should be enjoyed on vinyl.
you need to hear that shit on the go?
Tape that Record!
vinyl is where it’s at.
cds blow!(unless yer into classical)
normally i read a thread again after i post and laugh lightheartedly at Saturn’s critique of whatever i said.
not this time.
this word is final.
vinyl.
kil, i like vinyl better too. and i’ve been slowly committing most of my vinyl to mp3s so that i can enjoy those snaps crackles and pops forever. when those songs wind up in the iTunes shuffle, they always sound lovely.
however, since you’ve designated me your own personal curmudgeon, i’ll lovingly oblige: reports of cd suckiness are greatly exaggerated.
in blind taste tests, which i have been conducting since i lived in chinatown circa 1998 up to the present, casual music fans, hipsters, and geeked out audiophiles alike cannot not consistently tell the difference between songs played from clean vinyl of the following albums and their cd or mp3 counterparts:
pet sounds, various beatles songs from rubber soul on, let it bleed, all zeppelin (vinyl vs. boxed set), and late period pavement.
on a peripheral note: comments of a technical nature like this remind me to tell all of you some very sad news.
John Martin, who was quite the tube amp afficionado, connoisseur, repairman, and even *builder*, has died suddenly. I’m not speaking in metaphor, this is just a raw, sad piece of news. He was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm and didn’t make it past the recovery phase of the operation. He was admitted into the hospital Monday night, and was on the other side about 24 hours later.
I mention it here because friends are trying to spread the word, and I suspect there may be some RTH’ers who knew him, but who haven’t heard. If you want details about the services for him (tuesday morning 9 to 11 am), hit me up off list.
Knowing John as I did, and given what a lover of rock, tube amps, vinyl, *and* some of the good things about the new technology that’s out there, I think he would really enjoy being eulogized here in this thread.
Mod, forgive me if I’ve been inappropriate by posting this content here.
Sat, there’s nothing inappropriate about sharing the news of a death that some Townspeople might know and care about. This is MUCH preferable, for instance, to the comment-free posting of links to Billboard articles on the state of some major label’s Q2 earnings.
As for this thread, while I heartily respect Townsman Shawnkilroy’s Final Vinyl Verdict, I’ve slowly come around to accepting the fact that some digital remasters are appropriate and add to my appreciation of an album. A case in point is the digital reissue from about a year or two ago of the second, s/t album by The Band. This is an album I’ve played regularly since my uncle gave me a copy when I was about 5. I love it, and for years I would not consider listening to a digital release of it. My beat-to-hell vinyl copy was just right for the music, I thought, even after I broke down, around 1990, and bought a new used vinyl copy that was slightly less beat to hell. When I finally bought the recently reissued version on CD, thanks to the lure of a number of previously unreleased outtakes, I was astounded by how much more this mastering job brought out in the album while in no way taking away from the original release’s dry, “wooden” feel. Unlike a lot of digital reissues, the friggin’ hi-hats did not get buffed to the surface (see that horrible Let It Be Naked thing from a few years back), and I didn’t find myself distracted by stuff that was supposed to have been buried in the rhythm section but now, thanks to some anal engineer who can’t judge the forest from the trees, is front and center. Nope, the reissue of The Band works just fine, and therefore, to the shock and dismay of the man I was just a few years ago, it does not qualify for this list. Those early Stones reissues, however, still suck. Don’t get them near me. The Mick Taylor stuff may be better on CD because more of that stuff was sketchy in songwriting and performance quality. Maybe I need to hear more of something I’d never heard before to absorb some of the blackface dripping off Mick Jagger’s face.
I won’t go on about it, but I am completely unsympathetic to this concept. Vinyl does not sound better, and pops and crackles add nothing to my enjoyment of music. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
BigSteve, you can see from my post that I straddle the fence on this one (read past the part about preserving the pops and get to the “blind taste test” part).
I applaud your stance.
I think the mod is being very even handed about it, though…
BigSteve, you can’t tell me you prefer hearing the acoustic guitar and piano vying for attention during “Satisfaction”, can you? And can you tell me you’d rather hear some snazzed-up digital release of a Motown record that was originally made for playing through a mono speaker in a big, honkin’ American car from the late-50s/early-60s? It’s not just nostalgia that I’m using in my own judgements. Sometimes the context in which the piece was originally developed matters. Do you want a “gourmet” version of some simple regional dish, or do you want the real thing, grease and smudged white plates and all? I’m not asking for your sympathy; I’m asking you to take a good, hard look in the mirror.
that’s some nice bloggin’ there, mod.
we’ve been through this before….and it’s a topic best handled case-by-case.
too often, engineers and artists are overzealous in their use of new toys to “fix” what has always bugged them about an old recording. they abuse the cd reissue opportunity. a clear example is the way those stones tunes got remixed. or the use of the “big eighties drum sound” on those zztop cd reissues. in these cases, i’ll keep listening to my vinyl, pops and all, thankyouverymuch.
however, it’s often the case that the handlers of the master recordings do a nice job of remaining faithful to the sound and vibe of the original, polishing the old gems, but not overmuch. and i think the zeppelin boxed set was pioneering in this way. it was basically the original mixes that came out on vinyl but with a volume boost and no physical decay from hundreds of needlings.
The answer is yes to all of those questions. The acoustic guitar was buried on the Satisfaction 45s because of the limitations of the medium. The acoustic guitar was audible through the speakers when they mixed it in the studio, so I can’t imagine why I would prefer that it be hidden from my ears.
My library recently acquired those ‘complete Motown singles’ box sets. The music sounds fabulous. It sounds fabulous through a two-inch car speaker too, but I see no reason to try to reproduce that experience every time I hear the music.
There’s nothing wrong with hearing things in context. And I think if I knew a teenager that fell in love with these Motown CDs, it would be instructive for him to take a ride and hear the music on a vintage car radio. But I would not expect him to abandon the CDs once he heard the music that way.
I wish I could hear how Robert Johnson actually sounded in that hotel room in San Antonio. Failing that, I’ll take the versions we now have. But if it were possible to hear a master ‘tape’ of that, I’d want that.
I also never understood the lo-fi craze. Philosophically I could get behind the idea of making music even when you didn’t have access to expensive recording studios. But people who claimed to prefer crappy cassette sound are a mystery to me.
Speaking of which, do you ever long for the sound of commercially produced big label cassettes from the 70s and 80s? The hissy dull sound of non-Dolby non-CRO2 quarter-inch tape? If not why not?
Let me say too that when I heard that the Who recordings were going to be remixed before being remastered I was horrified. Once I got past the strangeness of hearing these essential recordings in new and different mixes, I was 100% behind them. The ZZ Top remixes are a good example of that approach gone wrong.
I agree, Sat, that the Zeppelin box set was beautifully remastered. That stuff now sounds, I would bet, more like what they were hearing when they were making the album and listening to playbacks of mixes in the studio.
BigSteve, your cassette tape turnaround is hilarious, but I’d rather accept our differences regarding the acoustic guitar in “Satisfaction”, man to man – and privately think you’re out of your mind:) I have no idea what that acoustic guitar and piano were supposed to be adding to the track, but I like what they added better when I couldn’t hear them. The Stones produced shoddy sounding records in the Brian Jones days, and they worked like a charm. I don’t see why I should imagine they knew any better when they heard those mixes in the studio. But it’s cool. This is all part of why we do what we do in the Halls of Rock.
Carry on! Surely there are others out there who actually do prefer a vinyl version of a record for any one of the possibly suspect reasons I’ve tried to outline or beyond.
There are plenty of Stones songs where we can hear both acoustic and electric guitars and piano, all pumping merrily along.
So I doubt the “limitations of the medium” had anything to do with the acoustic guitar’s original spot in the mix: somewhere south of our awareness. Rather, it was probably a decision to mix it low, a decision that was later revoked. I agree with the mod, it was a bad decision.
The love of lo-fi came out of a distaste for the cookie cutter sounds that professional studios were offering, and a frustration with hearing the way one’s own band sounded when subjected to such environments. It was so refreshing to hear stuff made at home that made creative use of home recording equipment. People who claimed to “like crappy sounding recordings” because they sounded crappy, were taking that idea a bit too far, I agree.
But hey…let’s get back to the mod’s original question rather than getting harangued into defending pops and lo-fi recordings and nostalgia and whatnot.
Riffing on the mod’s Neil Young comment in the post-starter, I would argue that the sound qualities that are inherent in vinyl are suited to certain kinds of music. There’s nothing subtle behind this comment. It’s not rocket science. Nor is it a purely technical issue. It’s also about the vibe.
I recently bought Black Mountain’s first album on Vinyl because in my mind, they are a vinyl band.
When the Photon Band made “Alone on the Moon” I insisted that it should be a vinyl only release. Imagine my delight when, after three attempts at having it mastered, my label found the guy who had mastered all of the “ditch” era stuff for Neil Young. He mastered it for us, and did a great job. He argued in my defense that that music was meant for vinyl.
(editor’s note: said release just came out in the digital realm, but was mastered through analog equipment).
I also think the Malkmus’ more stoner-fied solo albums, “Pig Lib” and “Real Emotional Trash” are analog sounding recordings that do better coming through my speakers from a stylus. “Face the Truth” however, which is much more synth heavy, actually works better in the digital medium.
Conversely, Stereolab, Devo, or My Bloody Valentine recordings should definitely be reproduced digitally.
I’ll buy the Mod’s premise, I probably prefer listening to most pre-1972 music on vinyl, if it was well-pressed and relatively clean. Maybe because vinyl was what I was weaned on, sounding better or worse it is the sound I prefer. As for Motown or Stax or even the Beatles, I think that 45s are the way to go, their punchy sound is irresistibly unique and exciting for me. For convenience I probably play my CDs more but if I’m really listening or company is here, I want to play the vinyl. (If BigSteve came by I’d be hospitable and pull out the CDS of course).
By the late seventies most records were pressed on such shitty vinyl decently mastered CDs are preferable. I’m generalizing of course.
dbus is quite right about 45s.
when the grooves aren’t too crammed, they can be really blustery in ways that *please* me, too…and nothing sounds quite like them.
So today’s over-compressed digital recordings are “tiring” and “samey” while over-compressed 45s from the 60s are “punchy” “irresistibly unique and exciting” and “pleasing”?
Yes.
It’s what’s being compressed and, as our friend Down Under, Homefrontradio, will tell you, it’s the kind of compression being used and how it appears when you view the soundwaves on a computer. Seriously, though, I think there’s a big difference between having Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr shoved in your face as opposed to Billy Corigan and Jimmy Chamberlain.
not only that, but it’s not as if highly compresed 45s from the 50s 60s and 70s sound *just like* highly compressed digital tunes from today.
Using the same adjectives to describe them doesn’t mean they sound alike.
Yes, but you can’t explain the difference except in emotional terms. Which is fine, music is an emotional thing. But it doesn’t make your assertion-as-argument (it’s just better!) any more convincing.
And saying the Beatles made better records than the Pumpkins doesn’t say anything about the relative merits of the different playback media.
Steve,
if you agree that overly compressed 45s and overly compressed songs from today don’t sound the same, which I think you do, then you must allow for the possibility that we *can* explain the difference in terms that are more objective than emotional.
The two couldn’t sound more different. There’s an arm’s length list of reasons why, many of which are as cold and hard and objective as the equipment used to make them.
So it’s perfectly reasonable for someone to like the way old 45s sound but not like the way today’s recordings sound.
You seem to be acknowledging that. So what are you arguing for? Do you like the technical aspect of today’s recordings and their presentation in the digital medium better? To me, that’s not the same thing as “wanting to hear what Robert Johnson really sounded like in that hotel room”.
I don’t think “reasonable” is a good word for preferring the old sound. It’s perfectly all right with me if people prefer 45s. Whatever gets you through the night. What I’m arguing for is the acknowledgment that it is really just a preference for the way things used to be, i.e., nostalgia.
In other words, I think the difference can possibly be explained in objective terms. I just don’t think the preference can.
The acoustic guitar in Satisfaction keeps being brandished as a weapon without anyone even trying to explain why it’s destructive to the song. I don’t think anyone is actually suggesting the song was remixed for reissue, so the acoustic guitar was there on the tape in the mix the reissue was mastered from. If you’re the CD mastering engineer, are you really saying you would presume to EQ out the acoustic guitar just because you had never noticed it when the song was coming through a two-inch car`radio speaker?
As to whether I “like the technical aspect of today’s recordings and their presentation in the digital medium better,” it’s on a case by case basis but on average yes. There are bad digital mastering jobs (my example is always the first batch of Peter Gabriel CDs), but when it’s done right (the Gabriel REmastered versions), yes much preferable to the vinyl.
BigSteve wrote:
I think I’ve been pretty clear in acknowledging the role nostalgia plays while also speaking to much more than that. I can tell you’re getting closer to acknowledging the depth of what some of us are getting at, BigSteve. Open your heart and mind to what’s really being said. Some of us believe that some records sound better on vinyl. I’ve got to take some time to illustrate a couple of examples in the coming days. Wish me luck on the free time part…
Steve, the much derided newer version of Satisfaction *is* a remix. If I can find the info, I’ll deliver, but it won’t be right away (dissertation defense on Tuesday).
Remember, I don’t necessarily prefer one media over another. I react viscerally. And while I do tend to like vinyl, remember my blind taste test post above. I’m not a blind nostalgist or anything. I think some of the new technology for recording is amazing, and artists haven’t come close to tapping its creative potential.
So from my standpoint, I think your argument, which takes a hard line that I find really limiting, over-values linear chronology much more than a nostalgist might:
By this I mean that If the playback of two songs sound different, it doesn’t matter to me *when* or *how* they’re recorded. They could have been recorded in the reverse order from what you’re imagining when you champion newer recordings as being *better*, or even at the exact same moment. But if they sound different, I’m bound to like one more than the other. I happen to know from my own listening experiences, that for the most part, I really like the way old 45s sound better than I like the way Wolfmother’s latest single sounds. However, I also really like the way Broadcast’s “Tender Buttons” cd sounds (full of synths and drum machines) much better than the really thin and blocky sounding songs on the first Velvet Underground album.
And that is reasonable.
Tuesday? Seriously, good luck with that. Once the defense is out of the way you’ll be able to concentrate on what’s really important, discussing rock music on RTH.
This is what wikipedia says about the mix issue:
“In the mid-1980s, a true stereo version of the song was released on the Germany and Japanese editions of the CD reissue of Hot Rocks 1964-1971. The stereo mix features a piano (played either by Ian Stewart or by session player Jack Nitzsche) and acoustic guitar (played by Brian Jones) that are barely audible in the original mono release (both instruments are also audible on a bootleg recording of the instrumental track). The stereo mix of “Satisfaction” also appeared on a radio-promo CD of rare stereo tracks provided to US radio stations in the mid-1980s, but has not yet been featured on a worldwide commercial CD; even the currently-available German and Japanese Hot Rocks CDs feature the mono mix, making the earlier releases with the stereo mix collectors’ items.”
I just went to my Itunes and listened to the versions of the song on Out of Our Heads as well as High Tides Green Grass. Both of them sure sound mono and I can clearly hear the acoustic guitar on both, although I hear no piano. I’m assuming ripped these from the Abcko reissues. So maybe you guys are dissing a mix I’ve never heard, I don’t know….
I’m dissing the Abcko mixes, for starters, BigSteve, and whatever they play on the radio these days. I appreciate your hanging in there with this battle, and I appreciate Saturnismine doing the same, especially while having to prepare for his dissertation defense. As much as we are all benefitting from this broader discussion, I’m still confident that more than a few of us value certain vinyl recordings over their digital versions – FOR WHATEVER REASON. Don’t be shy, Townspeople, there ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy…BigSteve jjust disagrees with some of us. That doesn’t mean YOU will be caught in a crossfire.
Not again!
Ok, to make this very clear, compression is a tool, and it can be over-used and abused no matter the format. I’m not denying that.
However, analogue compression and digital compression are *not* the same thing, and have very different effects on how our ears perceive and interpret sound. The fact they’re both called ‘compression’ is irrelevant.
The qualities of analogue and digital sound are simply not the same. You can record a signal ‘in the red’ with analogue and, with restraint, sweeten the sound. If you do that in digital, you ‘clip’ the sound off entirely, which is why you treat -6dbs in digital recording as you would 0dbs in analogue.
I’m not talking nostalgia, or elitist hipster posing – i’m talking all the boring technical science of the ways our ears work that i simply don’t know how to break down to a non-technical level.
The simple fact is the majority of modern cds are playing sound that is literally *damaged* and unnatural-sounding. The dynamic range of vinyl matches the dymanic range of the human ear.
I was struck with a problem during recording today, which made me think about this some more.
I picked up a reed organ a few weeks ago at my local dump for $10. Looked like an electric organ until i inspected it more closely. Beautiful casing, surprisingly good sound – very much like a thinner harmonium. Perfect for any swinging Beach Boys parts.
I’ve done some research into the make and model online, and it seems to be rare as hell, when google only brings up one mention of it, and that’s just the fact a band used it in a song.
I worked up a good 4 bar circus style loop as the basis for the ending of a song that builds in a ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ fashion, and was struck by just how damn *noisy* the instrument is. You’ve got the clunk of the foot operating the bellows action, the whoosh of air, and the clattering action of the keys.
Now when i record it, i have to take all that into consideration and try to mike and mix to compensate and block out as much of that ambient sound as i can. But so much of that will still come through on the track.
Now what would happen if someone remastered the track 40 years down the road to bring out the clarity in the instrument, so you could hear every click and clack? Superior sound quality, yes, but not my intention at all.
Firstly, I would say, Mr. Radio, that you may be going down the wrong path trying to eliminate so many of the sounds this instrument makes, but that’s just a personal aesthetic of mine. I have a beautiful electric reed organ that has similar issues (the sound of a vintage diesel boat engine instead of the bellows, and having to speed the tape – or “tape” up 11% to get it in tune.)
Also, I’m glad we’ve had another go round at the inert and ragged carcase of the vinyl vs. CD koan. My opinion from way back when has been that if you have a stereo worth more than, say three or four grand, vinyl is the better choice, and that becomes more true as you go up into top-flight equipment. But my $150 turntable gets its ass kicked by my computer.
As far as “dynamic range,” which means the quietest quiet to the loudest loud, CDs have it hands down. records and tapes give you that six dbs up top, but the digital surface-noise free realm can take you down to -90 db with no added noise, whereas a record will by then be playing you hums, hisses and other emotionally laden character long before that.
With compression, it’s true that tube compression can add beauty, and that digital compression behaves much differently. But almost all studios use either tube compression, or very elaborate imitations thereof to get those effects on things. And once that compression is there, digital media can reproduce it as well as anything. So your wonderfully compressed Nelson Riddle recordings can sound quite fine on CD.
When Eardrumland first got a really swinging set of JBL monitors, Chris said “bring over some CDs and check it out.” I brought, among other things, Cannonball Adderly’s “Somethin’ Else” album. And when we first played it, it sounded very wrong! Every brush wire on every speck of snare-head texture… it was bizarre. And when Miles played with the harmon mute in, you could actually hear the air pressure behind the mouthpice as he began to play! No shit. I never heard all that! But it was only giving the lie to the crappy systems I usually have. I go back home to relative lo-fi ignorance, and all is well.
So I say, get as hi-fi as you can afford, go vinyl if you’ve spent that much, but don’t sell your ’63 nomad just because it doesn’t run anymore, but keep it as a vintage listening room.
Not again indeed, hvb. “The dynamic range of vinyl matches the dymanic range of the human ear” is bullshit, since the ear can hear quiet things that would be obscured by surface noise on vinyl.
Labeling certain kinds of analog sound “sweetened” and certain kinds of digital sound “unnatural” is an assertion, but it’s not an argument.
As I’ve analogized before, traditional engineers used to be horrified by tube amp distortion. “It’s unnatural!” All electronic reproduction of sound is unnatural. That doesn’t make it bad
Hey, BigSteve — don’t be calling bullshit on me here! This is homefront’s fight, not mine.
HVB
Yes, I’m sure BigSteve meant to type “hfr.” Anyone is welcome to dig up the whole digital vs analog debate, as if God planned for us to hear music through one medium or another, but I’m sticking to my assumption that my personal tastes allow me to enjoy some records better in one format than another. I’ll also stick by my belief that I’m not alone in feeling that some records are better on vinyl for reasons that have little to do with waveforms and all that jazz. I hope no one’s been following this thread and withholding the sharing of any non-technical feelings on this matter. Believe me, we’ll all feel better if you get it off your chest.
Sorry, my digits got compressed while I was typing. If only I’d used analog posting!
I don’t think anyone has even mentioned the concept that two 15-20 minute ‘sides’ are preferable to a single 50-80 minute ‘playlist.’
I’m down with “sides” vs “playlists,” BigSteve, especially regarding rock ‘n roll albums.
Here’s a rare jazz album I prefer on vinyl: the vinyl version of James Blood Ulmer’s Are You Glad to Be in America (Rough Trade, I believe) has a better sequence to the CD version I picked up about 7 or 8 years ago, AND – and this is crucial – the album version doesn’t have some cheesy, echoed ad libs by Ulmer toward the end of the song. Man, those echoed ad libs bring that otherwise smoking version down a few pegs. Actually, another crucial reason why the vinyl version is better is because it packs more punch, it sounds nastier and more “congealed.” This clarity thing can be overrated. No one gets the time to read the incription on a set of brass knuckles.
I remember that, when CDs first came out, they were were marketed at the audiophile set, not at the rockers. In fact, I was told more than once that some of my favorite records would not sound good on CD, because they weren’t digitally recorded.
I’m still suspicious of CDs because of this. Now, I have a lot of CDs, for they do tend to hold up better, and I don’t have the bucks to buy rare vinyl (or the overpriced vinyl versions of new releases). But I’m still not convinced that rock music is really that well suited for CD. I’ve heard many CDs that sound terrible and tend to believe that remastered versions still must be judged on a case by case basis.
And there are still many records you can’t get on CD (or the CD release is out of print).
I can’t come up with any googled evidence of this, but I’m pretyy sure the Rough Trade version of Are You Glad To be In America? that was released in the UK was remixed before its American vinyl release, and probably it’s the remixed version that was used for all subsequent reissues, including on CD. I used to have both, not sure what I have now, but I remember liking the crudeness of the Rough Trade version, but not being sure if I was just buying into the idea that the import was cooler therefore better sounding.
BigSteve wrote:
A rare admission of possible Cool Patrol considerations from among the most progressive and open-minded of Townspeople?!?! I eagerly await BigSteve’s memoirs, in which he will detail other rare moments in stooping to rock nerdiness. Beside this admission and his Look-based bias against Jeff Lynne, the man usually skirts wide of these shortcomings.
What’s next, dbuskirk admits to not liking an obscure free jazz album because “it doesn’t have enough hooks”?
I don’t really have the dog’s ear for this discussion, but where the Stones are concerned I certainly prefer my mud to be dirty.
I know some cds transferred from vinyl have acoustic guitar jumping out at me in an inappropriate manner, but is that the fault of the cd, or more of a mixing issue?
I think I agree with The General on this, for the most part. That $15,000 stereo probably has five or six invested in turntable, arm and cartridge. It’s hard for people to admit that their investment is easily matched sonically for a few hundred bucks. Audiophiles are a funny bunch. I found a pair of old B&W DM110 speakers that looked brand new real cheap at a house sale, and while I was researching them I found some articles from the early days of the compact disk saying that while lp’s sounded great, they really shined with cd’s. I’m sure the same reviewers today would tell me the opposite.
I think lp’s sound great, but so do cd’s. It depends on what went into making each. Major label lp’s were hit or miss depending on how beat up the stampers got and how thin they decided to make the vinyl. A first pressing doesn’t even always guarantee a quality product. A cd is going to sound exactly like it’s master, every single time. Sure, 180 gram virgin vinyl and limited pressings are going to be great, but they’re designed to be great. Cd’s don’t need that extra effort to be audiophile quality, at least at the manufacturing level.
ABKCO has done a beautiful job with The Stones catalog. The SACD layers are spectacular, but even the DSD layer is so much better. ICE Magazine (are they defunct now?) did a comprehensive interview with the guys that were most involved in the project, like Bob Ludwig, who did such a fantastic job on Exile on Main St. and all the other RSR releases that Virgin put out.
If the object is to hear what’s on the master tape as much as possible, then anything that gets closer to that is a good thing. Hearing Brian’s acoustic guitar on Satisfaction without having to wear headphones and have a Japanese pressing of Hot Rocks to finally hear the layers of guitars that are on almost all Stones records is beyond cool. Ludwig clears away the soggy mud and leaves the dirt behind. Some people prefer the Mobile Fidelity pressings (which were regular releases), but MoFi didn’t have access to tapes from all over the world. The Stones catalog sounds better now than it ever did, and speaking as one of those hard to please “collector types” I have to grudgingly admit that I can’t see ABKCO doing a better job for a band that truly deserves the best.
Here’s some overkill:
http://www.lukpac.org/stereostones/stones-cd-faq.txt
Labeling certain kinds of analog sound “sweetened” and certain kinds of digital sound “unnatural” is an assertion, but it’s not an argument.
No, anything you don’t already believe yourself is apparantly an ‘assertation’, such as the simple scientific fact that cd can’t ever reproduce the sound vinyl can, it can only reproduce a *downsampled approximation* of the sound. The lack of a noise floor of pops and crackles might make you assume you’re getting more clarity, but all you’re getting is a sketch of the soundwave, compared to the accurate reproduction of the soundwave with the drawback of the noisefloor, (which i see as the reflecting how we hear live music anyway).
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm
Now reduce that cd waveform even further into a 192kbps mp3, and you’ll see how pathetic an approximation of real sound the IPod has made dominant in the marketplace.
This is *basic audio science*. Yet i’m constantly patronised by people for preferring vinyl as it being some kind of hipster posturing to want quality out of an audio recording simply because my ears are developed enough to drastically notice the difference.
Now let’s say this is a natural waveform
^^^^^^^^
Digital clipping can do this
^-^-^^^-^
Producing moments in the waveform that are flat, straight lines.
Flat waveforms do not occur anywhere in nature, hence, it’s unnatural.
It’s a harsh, ugly sound to the ear, because our ears aren’t able to interpret flat, unchanging frequencies for long periods of time without growing tired. This also not an assertation – the fatiguing, distressing effects can be seen in those who suffer diseases like tinea, where they hear constant frequencies sounding inside their head.
It also drastically affects a mix, the more of it there is. Hence, a common problem with loud remasters changing the overall sound of how the instruments are laid out in the mix and their relationship with each other, and especially reducing the ambient space down to a narrow band, hence my wariness of remasters.
No, but once again, because the mix sounds ‘louder’ to the amateur ear, there’s the fallacious belief it’s ‘better’, because louder = more exciting in short term hearing.
I’ve bought some brilliant remasters lately where people know what they’re doing, such as ‘The Axiom Collection’ or the early ‘Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel’ catalogue. More often than not though, i stumble across putrid remasters that have simply damaged the album, such as the recent ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ my mother bought, that made her say “I remember this being a lot better”, or the Triffid’s ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ that completely crushes the widescreen grandeur of ‘Wide Open Road’, a song that needs all the air a quieter master provides to work.
Hfr (otherwise known as ‘man yelling at cloud’), the sound mix created in the studio was cut to tape, not vinyl. Isn’t cutting that sound to a slab of vinyl a kind of analog ‘downsampling.’
Assuming that there are still some of those among you who are comfortable with sharing their feelings on records they prefer on vinyl for whatever reasons, I look forward to hearing more about your experiences!
I do not discount the constant bickering over any attempts at getting to the heart of these technical matters – and I find this part of the discussion not only informative but entertaining. However, I’ll try once more to draw out any possible lingering comments regarding YOUR feelings over records and CDs YOU’VE spun on YOUR EQUIPMENT. I did not pose this original question to gauge your feelings based on the $430,000 stereo system of your dreams but to gauge your feelings on whatever you’ve used over the years to listen to music, in whatever setting. Trust me, it won’t hurt to share. OR, just tell me to stop hoping that all but a few of us have assessed things and made judgments the way I have been assuming more than a few of you have done.
For instance, do digital releases of the early Ramones records help or hurt your enjoyment of them? Does nostalgia ever play a role in your preferences? Do you get annoyed by the added measures of rhythm guitar in, at least, some digital releases of The Velvet Underground’s “Rock ‘n Roll”? Tell me I’m not dreaming, Rock Town Hall. Tell me we haven’t entered the age of clutching onto hypothetical technological teddy bears to get us through the night.
2K, BigSteve, and Homefront, I should point out that you have come through and stated your feelings fairly adequately, if slightly disappointingly. I’m not picking at anyone who’s participated so far in particular, just trying to see if there’s anything else of personal value to be mined from this discussion. Meanwhile, feel free to carry on with the 0s and 1s!
All right, Mr. Mod wants a more emo response here, so I’ll belly up. Mr. Radio hasn’t said much of anything I feel is incorrect, yet I still feel fine with CDs. In fact, at risk of my music nerd badge, I will even say that I don’t listen to CDs anymore. It’s mp3s for this full-time father of 2. I can count the number of times recently that I’ve had the luxury to sit and listen to music as a primary experience – not on headphones – I can count them on my, well, on something I have only one of, let’s say. And still have one left over.
I can hear many of the differences, and have a good ear, as middle-aged men go. But I’ve never become an audiophile. I prefer vices I can afford. I have a Rec-O-Kut turntable that looks like a cadillac crossed with a flying saucer, and I even cut it into my desk surface – O! Pride! O geeky hedonistic pleasure! And when those old Gordon Jenkins and Nelson Riddles spun around, with that beautiful Capitol label design, It was a pleasure only abstractly mated to the sound coming out of the speakers. Which was fine, but when the music got quiet, the hum of the motor on that thing was a bit much. I felt records of that era were spiritually in some kind of fundamental agreement with the hardware. But my ears are way over here on my head. So mp3s it is.
I have bowed to cultural pressure and agreed that what I have in my barn is a “Man Room.” Into which I have inherited a small dorm-style fridge. So now, in the warmer season, I have a frosty beer, a decent cigar, and sounds. I have brought the laptop out, and bought a 500GB drive, and now have my 25,000 songs to multiply the joy while smoking. And to me, Louie Armstrong’s staggering recording of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” (which fits more instruments through the speakers to better effect than almost anything I can think of) leaves me with no digital divots as per Mr. Radio’s illustration.
And on the emo-digital side, I have a period recording of the Bach solo violin that the first time I heard it gave me chills. And one of the things about it that gave me chills was that it has very little reverb, unlike a lot of recordings. It also is played with very little relative vibrato, so things sound less like outtakes from Les Mis. And it comes out of the speakers sure and still, without that slight waver I often hear on quiet parts of lps. From shoddy pressings, wobbly turntables, unever table legs, whatever. I Red-Heart My Digital Media Units.
Just throwing this out there, from the owner of Newbury Comics in this week’s newsletter:
“In what has to be one of the most amazing phenomena in my entire life of selling music, vinyl records are making a huge comeback! Sales of vinyl albums at Newbury Comics are running UP over 60% from a year ago. At our flagship Newbury Street location, vinyl now represent unit volume equal to over 10% of the units we sell on compact disc! I think maybe a lot of folks who have made the conversion to ipods are enjoying re-connecting with collecting things that are tangible. Plus the sound is amazing, with great artwork to boot!
We are now making huge strides to improve our vinyl selection at all of our stores, with special emphasis at our 332 Newbury Street location. We are bringing in more 180 gram and limited edition albums. Also, next week we will begin to sell USB turntables, some with an integral ipod dock, but more on that in a few more weeks.”
Me, I don’t really have a dog in this race. LPs, CDs, mp3s: I like ’em all, and the one I like best is whatever best suits my purposes at the time.
I really like hearing someone like HFR explain the science of sound recording and playback because of the real world examples he uses. Sometimes I think the analog crowd believes that record grooves are exact duplications of sound waves that go from the lp and out of the speakers in essentially the same way a voice or acoustic guitar in the same room as the listener does.
Either way, it has to be turned into an electric signal and then go through amplifiers. I know tube amplifiers are pretty high end, but there’s some new digital amplifiers I’d love to get to bring home, but my stereo gear will never be that nice because that’s not what we need, it’s what I want. But if the stereo isn’t purely analog, then does it matter what the source is? Provided they’re both quality recordings, I think the playback equipment is going to play a larger part in the overall sound.
For Mr. Mod’s question, I can’t think of anything I enjoy more on lp. Then again, I need to hook up my turntable again, but I’ve been thinking about it. When I was a kid one of the first lp’s I ever owned was Bachman Turner Overdrive II. I killed it on a plastic GE record player. I was at the drugstore at midnight the other night and decided to look at the 25 budget cd’s (a place I gave up on years ago until I came here) and I found that for five bucks. The beers in me said, “Go for it!”
While it has all the dynamic range of a twenty inch box fan, I have to admit that I’ve really pretty much enjoyed it. CF Turner could really belt it out.
When my friends and I discovered the Kinks’ Arthur album, you literally could not find their previous albums, and even Kink Kronikles would not become available until after Lola became a hit.
Somehow I discovered a 99 cent copy of Face to Face at a Woolco (remember Woolco?). One of the sides had some kind of permanent damage which caused horrible irregular surface noise. Even the other side wasn’t in great shape, but this was literally the only way to hear this music, and I was very happy to have it. In fact I was the envy of all of my friends.
It was years before this LP was re-released, and now of course I have a fine CD version with extra tracks etc., but I still remember discovering that great music, obsessing over it, and not caring so much about the poor fidelity.
THIS, my friends, is what I was looking for, what I needed earlier today, as The Man tried to bring me down. Stand and deliver!
I have Felt’s GOLD MINE TRASH on LP, with a pressing fault on “Primitive Painters” that I thought was part of the song for quite literally years. It’s all wobbly ‘n’ shit, and given that it’s a Robin Guthrie production, it fits right in.