OT Anyone still listen to actual records (vinyl)?

[Snoo]

I listen to vinyl. I have a lovely old Mitchell Focus One in my main system. I still buy records where I can. Esp. small release punk 7" and stuff.

I also used to scratch and still have my SL1200's and 05Pro mixer. Though haven't had a chance to touch them in about 2 years. Got a big hip-hop collection stretching from the end of the 80's to around '97

Vinyls just so cool, isn't it ?

[Marcos - Munky]

I don't know if vinyl sounds better than a cd, they just sound different. I listened to Alice in Chains "Dirt" in cd, then in vinyl, and they have different atmospheres. I think vinyl have a "dark" atmosphere.

[Arn C.]

I still have my record collection and same with my fiance.  We often have "Vinyl Wars".  We each get a turn to see who comes up with the best song at the time.   To me vinyl is much better,  I don't even mind the scratchy ones.   The first time my 6 yr old granson saw them, he thought they were giant cds.   That was good for a laugh!!!
    We hook our turntables up to our music pa system and crank it up!!!
I read somewhere once that The Beatles "Let it Be" song was compared with vinyl and cd and the cd actually was missing some of the extra harmonics that vinyl didn't cut out.....

Peace!
Arn C.

[Doug H]

I have 3 of those old "Peaches" (remember them?) peach crates filled with vinyl. I still listen to it if I don't have a copy of it on cd. CD's are so dang convenient, but I really miss the artwork on record albums...

Funny thing: A couple yrs ago my wife and I were out taking a stroll through the trendy part of town while out on a date. We peeked through the window of the trendy hardware store (Restoration Hardware- check out their web site, it's really pretty cool) and hanging from the ceiling were all these little record players with their turntables running. They looked like the little record players we used to have as kids (only I'm sure much more expensive here) and they had some kind of deal where you bought the record player and a stack of 45's came with it. Everything eventually gets recycled as a trendy "chic" kind of fad I guess... Wonder if they are still there?

I still have my little box of 45's from when I was a kid too. I've got some really old ones my grandfather gave me with stuff like Della Reese. Have a couple Sun's with Johnny Cash. Have Zep "Black Dog" b/w "Misty Mountain Hop" and so on. I always thought the 45's sounded better than the LP's, then I found out I was right because of the higher speed, better freq resp, deeper bass, etc...

Doug

[petemoore]

I plug a regular CD player into an amp and to me it sounds 'dry'.
 My neighbor has a ton of stuff [literally] "syper duper] A/D...D/A converters, tube pre etc etc...and it sounds huge...different sounding than the old albums on vynil...I suppose it's depending on what you're into.
 Putting LZII on the old spinner and dropping the needle works every time for me. I'll never forget the first time...living in Duetchland with no Radio or TV programs [worth mentioning] I got the LZ from the military base exchange [retail outlet] by order, a follow through from a suggestion, and was literally in tears...[had to lock the door]...I'd never been so far from day to day stuff before...totally floored me !!!
 When I listen to these CD's of same...although nothing could ever replace the first time I was 'exposed'...there are differences I'm sure make the experience 'lesser'...first they just sound 'doctored' to what a CD can make sound 'good', the mixes are changed, the depth just is Not there...the sweetness is missing ... Ok they 'scritch' but not if they're always played with a clean diamond needle and vynil...ok they still wear out eventually...I used to buy second copies because of that...woth it IMO.
 Of course it takes a 'Nice' system to get 'nice' sound from any source...the fact that 'everybody's usin CD's and the availibilty is reflected as such makes them more desirable for todays consumer.
 The fact that 'they' tried got  rid of all [new] vynil platters of recorded music and there are still diehard plastic waffle enthuesiasts like me...and other stuff like 8track [well there are diehards there too but that's 'another' story] and BETA formats went out with little more than a whisper...leads to the obvious conclusion [I think the info's 'in' enough to draw conclusions] that Vynil has something CD's will never have [at least to those who 'believe'...
 That coupled with the common phrase "CD's Suck"...[though that is probably an overstatement and lends itself to much 'discussion']is still not enough to counter the forces that oppose Vynil records the 1rst IMO being the industry that inplemented an 'instant abandonment' to them 'quite effectively' I might add...way more than likely due to the increased ease of production, compatibility with 'other' technological modernizations [they play in and files can be stored in comupers etc] and most improtantly >profit margins<.

[Johan]

the sample rate on a cd is 44,1kHz witch means it is limited to reprodusing about 22kHz of sound..good enough for most of us. with vinyl you can in theory at least, go much higher, and what if your speaker is trying really hard to reproduse a high frequency sound you cant hear? how would that affect the responce of that speaker at that time in the frequencys you CAN hear?.....it might result in something decireble..

...I still have around 150 vinyl records, many of them imposible to replace becouse they went out of print when the CD's started to appear, but I like CD's....and I cant hear higher frequencys anyway..too much time spent with Marshalls and loud drummers....

Johan

[brian wenz]

Hello Hello--
   Yeah, all the time!
The only time I buy CD is to get something that can be had no other way.
I get alot of value out of listening to tha original version on vinyl and then listening to the same thing on CD.......COMPLETELY different experience.
The vinyl  still sounds like it did 40 years ago and preserves the memory that I have of hearing it for the first time,  but the CD allows me to hear some different things for the first time, too!
Brian.

[sir.henry]

I bought "The Wall" album couple of weeks ago (2xvinyl). 10â,¬ isn't that bad. Nice inside-art too.

[petemoore]

Discussion of Album Art has become a generational topic.
 Sgt. Peppers, or Through the past darkly...only a fraction of the info can be had from viewing CD cover compared to the 'real' thing.
 I think the fact that there used to be say 1 way to mess with a mix 'back in the day': which would in most cases mean taking it to your favorite studio, and having them do it...nowadays there are probly a good 500,000 + ways to remix...with an amazing array of playback type devices...as opposed to some tube & speaker deal with two to four knobs of tone control being the standard.
 I feel certain that most of the CD mixes have been doctored in one way or another, obviously when changing format like this you're likely to have 'irregularities'...CD's [most ppl who've A/B'd them on 'regular stuff' would agree CD's at least sound 'different' than Vynil]...one theory is that they are attempting to compensate for what might get 'lost' by a format change.
 The ability to 'visually' monitor and doctor waveforms etc. opens a whole new box of worms...IMO once you depart from the 'human-ness" feedback mixing technique [taking the hearing of waveforms pressure differences which are dependant on atmosphere] an important link in the chain has been bypassed...
  I would take the feedback of two or three sets of 'experienced coniasseur ears' [in humans]  monitoring airborne waveforms over all the electronic waveform analysis equipment you could throw at a monkey...

[Prive]

Here in Argentina, i have some friends playing in a band called Los Natas, they are known worldwide in they genre, Stoner rock, and they edited a lot of records in vinyl, some labels in Europe still do it.

Saludos, Marcelo.

[sirkut]

I have about 800 records, anything from Supertramp, Doobie Brothers, then running into strange death rap like Flatlinerz to crazy stereo test records. My favorites are these radio broadcast sound effects records used during the 50s for seques, etc. I still purchase vinyl, even some new releases (mostly noise), strangely there are a nice demand for rare noise records. Genocide Organ for example, 7" acetate can rack over $300. Hell, sometime real soon I'll be coreleasing a few releases of mine on vinyl. I love vinyl.  If you have a nice player, nice stereo, etc you can easily fool people in thinking they are listening to a cd.

[Zero the hero]

VINIL WILL NEVER DIE!
Recently I've bought Peter Gabriel's "UP" and Massive Attack's "100th Window", both in vinil.

[LP Hovercraft]

Vinyl Better Not Die.  I just got a new needle for my Sony deck from the 70's.  Blared Led Zep II.  Purely Divine Bass tone.  We live in very dark times these days when a cool medium like vinyl is being pushed under the rug by the music industry.  I really want to get the 4040 EL34-based stereo tube amp kit from Velleman and really fry some speakers!

[gorohon]

I've got a player that's totally wireless, uses no electricity, and is true 100% analog.   What is this magical device?  A 1918 Victor Victrolla.  Believe it or not, if you can get mint recordings, such as opera or blues, it will scare the hell out of your ears.  While not without obvious limitations, there is something quite chilling about the way the sound comes out.  It's just something that I never heard, being relatively young.  This was my great grandmother's player.  My brother restored it, put a new spring in it, and got a bunch of new needles machined from an antique dealer.  This doesn't have the big horn sticking out the top; however, it was the first model with the sound horn integrated into the cabinet (mohagany).  The cool thing is that you can control volume with two doors covering the sound hole (balance too,  ha!). The sound horn has a bunch of louvers in it.  Beats me as to what they do.  My personal turntable is a Techniques direct drive, but it is starting to crap out on me--the pitch is not stable now.  Mostly, I have bought cheap LP's of all genres. Now, I only buy what is hard to get and could be worth something later--like an original pressing Badfinger Strait Up or MC5 Kick Out The Jams with the naughty words.  I like the LP sound over CD's if I'm in a certain mood.  Heavy 180 gram, new or mint vinyl on a clean, solid turntable base sounds real good.  But, I don't think that I'd like NIN or similar stuff on anything but digital.

[EdJ]

Sure i do!
I love my Zappa LP`s and to be honest i find it a waste of money to throw things away when they are still functioning.
That`s why i still record myself on casstte.Wouldn`t have a clue how to do it on a computer.I figure that by the time my tascam stops recording my kids will be able to tell me how to do that.
Greetings,Ed

[Mark Hammer]

I really need to get my turntable fixed or get a new one....sigh.

A mountain of vinyl I wish I *could* listen to.  I think mostly I miss my singles collection, the brunt of which hasn't seen a dust sleeve/jacket since before our kids were born.  Somehow, the rubbing together of the tightly-stacked vinyl just gives them more soul.

When we moved into our home two years ago, some people in the row house down the way from us tossed out a couple of bags of 78's.  I scooped them up but have never had a chance to listen to any of it, the brunt of which I suspect is weirdo country music from the 50's.

It may be hard for some here to appreciate, but one of the things about vinyl is that it sounds like radio, more specifically, AM radio.  There is a whole generation or two for whom anything that sounds more like AM creates more urgency in the sound.  Maybe its the way that we had to wait for hours on end just to hear a given song we knew would come along in the playlist...right about........NOW (I can still remember what it was like in Grade 10 when I was stuck at home in bed with mononucleosis, and I would deprive myself of music for hours, conserving the measly little bit of juice left in the batteries in my little Mitsubishi radio, and jkeeping an eye on the clockm just so I could hear those luscious 12-string chords in the beginning of "Look through any window" by the Hollies one more time.

Ironically, though digital format provides more headroom and dynamics, in some respects we LIKE the compression that accompanied radio broadcast of vinyl.  It just seemed to have more presence because of those weaknesses.  Bear in mind that AM radio needs more severe dynamic limiting than FM.  Once rock migrated to a largely FM band for broadcast purposes, the sonic aesthetic changed.

An article in the paper the other day about the Vancouver-based band The Evaporators noted that their latest opus can also be purchased on 8-track!

[Gearbuilder]

Hi,
 
I prefer the vinyls too.My first vinyls  were  Led Zep I,then Deep Purple Made in Japan and Dark Side of The Moon and i listen to them today again with my Thorens TD;always great moments !It's surely because of that i like so much  vintage sound and not the clinic sound of today CD's.
It's the same for the effects Digital sucks.
Bruno

[Mark Hammer]

Oh don't get me wrong, I *like* digital.  I just understand why for a certain segment there is an inexplicable something that is more exciting about vinyl.

My first purchased vinyl was "She's not there" by the Zombies, though I have to say I never really "heard" it until I brought the single over to a neighbour's house and heard that bass run through something a little larger than the 3" full-range on my record player.  Second single bought was "Dance, dance, dance" by the Beach Boys.  Not long after that, I had my Bar Mitzvah, and a relative of a relative shipped me a present that I suspect was picked out by a sales clerk.  I'll never forget when the delivery truck showed up and I ripped the cardboard container open to find "Beatles VI, The Rolling Stones Now, Dave Clark 5 - Glad All Over, and Hermans Hermits On Tour" - Yowza!!  I don't think I came out of my room for a week.

[brian wenz]

Hello Mark Hammer--
 I've got a video clip of the Hollies doing "Look Through Any Window" live on some t.v. show.........doesn't sound as good as the record, though!
Brian.

[B Tremblay]

"Look at these records:  Jim Nabors, Glen Campbell, the Doodletown Pipers!  Now look at her records - they stink!"

Homer, comparing his albums to Marge's.