USA Today article

ericks0ns

Just wanted to say how encouraging it was to pick up yesterdays copy of USA Today and find the front page of the Life section was devoted to the resurgence of Vinyl with an interview from Mobile Fidelity. Almost felt like I was back in the early eighties for a minute.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2013/01/22/vinyl-appreciation-at-a-new-high/1821601/

timalan

That is a happy article. Thanks for sharing. There was a similar vinyl piece back in the NYTimes last year, which also made me smile:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/technology/personaltech/the-secrets-of-a-high-quality-vinyl-record.html

always good to see a little audio love.

ericks0ns

Thanks as well for the Times article, a smile indeed. All this notoriety has got to be good for the mediums longevity.

mantis

Very cool. As cool as Turntables are and how good Vinyl sounds when everything is clean and perfect , I would never go back to it. I'm also not even fond of playing Cd's anymore. Computer music is where I live now and I see no reason to do anything else.

Thank you for sharing this , it's very cool.

cnh

That's certainly interesting. But one has to wonder "why" just when we finally have things like SACDs and other new super high resolution formats that reach beyond the CD we would "return" to vinyl. Should we not be "moving forward"?

I mean, Dan has a kind of point, except that I would restrict it to the most lossless, highest resolution digital formats possible that can compete and probably reproduce vinyl sound. If it's a choice between those two I don't see how I would choose vinyl (you have to spend every minute of your waking life "cleaning" it and discharging static, you have to invest in cartridges whose needles are less than good in a 100 hours or so, buy turntables with 50-200 lbs. platters, etc., etc.--generally a giant pain in the butt, whereas with digital you just access and play, seems like a no brainer to me, unless you're just into the "nostalgic" experience of it all; which I'll grant you can be pretty "cool" as a hobby).


cnh

[Deleted User]

It just plain sounds better, more realistic, more life-like, reminds me more of actual musical experiences listening to live musicians playing real instruments and human voices singing. It's not that big a deal to clean and maintain a record and play it back with convincing fidelity. The investment can be fairly modest and it can be fun finding records and building a collection. I find the "treasure hunt" aspect to be an enjoyable part of the hobby and nothing beats listening to something so fundamentally basic as actual vibrations etched in plastic with readable covers and artwork. There's more traces of a human soul apparent in listening to records and tapes.

ericks0ns

Ken- very eloquently stated. I share the love of the vinyl "hunt" ,and the ritual of spinning discs. Indeed there is something undefinable about vinyl that makes it special. Perhaps your comment "vibrations etched in plastic" crystallizes the idea best. Having said that, in my opinion there are no bad choices when it comes to the format a listener chooses, I think one could make a valid argument for many different audio mediums. . For me it is a very subjective experience.

thsmith

I have a TT and Music Server and enjoy both for different reasons. I enjoy the hunt, cleaning, prepping and sound of vinyl.

Music server is easy and convienent, sounds very good but the process has something missing for me.
The most fun is digging out the optical drive so I can rip a CD.

treitz3

Kenneth Swauger wrote: »

It just plain sounds better, more realistic, more life-like, reminds me more of actual musical experiences listening to live musicians playing real instruments and human voices singing. It's not that big a deal to clean and maintain a record and play it back with convincing fidelity. The investment can be fairly modest and it can be fun finding records and building a collection. I find the "treasure hunt" aspect to be an enjoyable part of the hobby and nothing beats listening to something so fundamentally basic as actual vibrations etched in plastic with readable covers and artwork. There's more traces of a human soul apparent in listening to records and tapes.

Nominated for the best post of 2013. Amen, brother. Amen.

Tom

rromeo923

Ditto!

txcoastal1

Hopefully this stimulates the competition of all audio formats and will all-in-all bring better recordings