Vinyl records outsell CDs for the second year running
Vinyl records outsell CDs for the second year running
www.theverge.com Vinyl records outsell CDs for the second year running
Some people will never give up a spinning disc.
363 comments
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CDs are just digital files plus waste. Vinyl is a musical ritual.
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CD is still the only way to buy a digital popular music in most countries.
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Don't forget digital music stores like Qobuz and www.bandcamp.com.
Artists get more money when you buy their music outright instead of stream it.
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No it's not. The iTunes Music Store is available in the majority of countries in the world. Plus there are other services that cover some of the other countries. Vanishingly few people can choose only a CD.
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vinyl is cool, but cd is the digital recording, mastered in a known manner, to a high degree. It's the most consistent form of product you will get from music. Plus it's a physically collectable thing. And it's cheap.
I'm not made of money over here.
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Vinyls break easily and sound kinda meh, even with decent equipment. CDs have fairly good quality and are easy to store and handle. Honestly I get why people like vinyl, big discs are fun and tinkering with analog stuff is its own hobby, but when it comes to collecting I prefer CDs.
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I like old vinyl because these are my grandparents' and parents' records which I have heard myself a few times in my childhood.
I don't get recording digital data, then writing it to an analog medium which is then sold 15 times more expensive than it historically was.
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I'm glad I saved my CDs, as I was able to rerip them to FLAC and undo the mistake my juvenile self made of ripping to WMA. I still keep the CDs to play in my car from time to time
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While I agree with you, I still want to be able to buy CDs.
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I do miss caring about my CD collection. I still have them but I have nothing to play them on.
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What is everyone's opinions on the sound quality of vinyl?
I understand the collectibility of physical media, and the novelty of owning a vinyl and the machine that plays them. The large art piece that is the case (and often the disc itself). Showing support for your favorite artists by owning physical media from them.
Those are great reasons to collect vinyl.
But a lot of my friends claim vinly is of higher audio quality than anything else, period. This is provably false, but it seems to be a common opinion.
How often have you seen this and what are your thoughts on it?
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Technically CD quality digital is superior, but the recording and mixing can have a lot to do with it. For example, it could be that an decades old Dark Side Of The Moon on vinyl (played on proper equipment) could sound better than a modern remastered CD with maximized loudness (See the "loudness wars").
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It's not impossible, although the loudness wars are pretty much over nowadays. All major music services and players have volume normalisation, many by default, so there's not much point to it any longer.
Also it's pretty tough to find a decades old record still in mint condition, and the sound quality of vinyl gets worse every time you play it.
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Higher audio quality than CD? No, that is demonstrably false.
More pleasant to listen to than CD or other digital formats? Yes, that I agree with. It's entirely subjective, but I'm definitely not alone in the feeling. The fact it is hard to quantify is why lots of people don't "get" vinyl until they've sat and heard it on a decent system. Something about it is pleasing. As another commenter mentioned, it might just be the imperfections.
So I guess it's a bit of a philosophical question. If CDs technically sound better, but vinyl sounds more pleasing: does the vinyl then sound better? People tend to chase pleasure, and in the time it takes someone to explain how much lower the noise floor is on CD or how we can only perceive so many samples, etc, etc -- you could have been chilling with multiple records and had a great listening experience.
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If it was just about the sound, then you could get the exact same results by recording the vinyl player directly to a lossless format and playing that back, but it wouldn't be quite the same. Big part of it is just the fact that you are using a vinyl player and these huge fragile disks that makes it an enjoyable experience by itself.
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Something about it is pleasing. As another commenter mentioned, it might just be the imperfections.
I think it's the slight hissing sound you hear as the needle drags. That faint, slightly pink noise isn't dissimilar from white noise people use to go to sleep, and I think human brains like that sort of sound.
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I know it's not highest quality.
For me, the imperfect sound is what makes a nicer experience. Slight hum, little pop once in a while, teensy skip, etc.
Not to mention that I'm far more inclined to listen to an entire album because of the need to interact with the vinyl to set the needle and flip sides.
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At the risk of sounding critical of your hobby, to argue the imperfections improve the experience sounds somewhat culty.
I understand there is something akin to "character" which you don't get from something highly polished. I know when things sound too clean it can feel sterile.
I accept vinyl has a collectors value, but anything claims regarding preference come across as either pretentious or deluded (to me, as someone who probably can't tell the difference).
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Vinyl has a slow progression in quality degradation due to friction that creates a certain kind of sound warmth that is pleasing to our ears. This can also be relicated digitally, but the imperfections and feelings associated with the physical ritual actions of loading a record can't.
Vinyl just has more engagement going on despite the sound quality being lower. Kind of like how some people have fondness for fireplaces despite central heating being technically better at maintaining a warm temperature.
Some people confuse the extra engagement with sound quality because a lot of people just don't think things through.
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Vinyl has a slow progression in quality degradation due to friction
With conventional record players with a mechanical head. I suppose that you could probably use an optical one -- I remember reading about that being used by archivists.
google
Yeah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_turntable
The thing I think I remember reading about was apparently this related thing:
The IRENE system uses a high-powered confocal microscope that follows the groove path as the disc or cylinder (i.e. phonograph cylinder) rotates underneath it, thereby obtaining detailed images of the audio information.[9] Depending on whether the groove is cut laterally, vertically, or in a V-shape, the system may make use of tracking lasers or different lighting strategies to make the groove visible to the camera. The resulting images are then processed with software that converts the movement of the groove into a digital audio file.[10]
An advantage of the system over traditional stylus playback is that it is contactless, and so avoids damaging the audio carrier or wearing out the groove during playback.[1] It also allows for the reconstruction of already broken or damaged media such as cracked cylinders or delaminating lacquer discs, which cannot be played with a stylus. Media played on machines which are no longer produced can also be recovered.[6] Many skips or damaged areas can be reconstituted by IRENE without the noises that would be created by stylus playback.[5] However, it can also result in the reproduction of more noise, as imperfections in the groove are also more finely captured than with a stylus.
considers
If you can get multiple physical copies of an analog recording, you could probably scan them and use statistical analysis to combine information from the physical copies, eliminate damage from any one copy.
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The best explanation I've seen is that music is mixed differently for CD/streaming and vinyl.
For mass market, the move has been to mix for louder bass and similar things. The idea being that it makes the music more popular. But it also makes it difficult to appreciate anything but the bass.
On vinyl, you can't max out bass like that, it won't work on the format. So they have to give it a normal mix instead, making it sound better. In theory CDs should sound better than vinyl, but because of the music production trends, it doesn't currently.
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I like this take. it's probably also why I'm gravitating towards cassettes now, you don't need a special mix but you also can't just max the volume because magnetic media saturates and distorts quite quickly.
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CD sound is better. But I like how big the pictures of the albums are with vinyl. Vinyl is more about the ritual though. With all the pop sounds and stuff I wouldn't prefer it over CD.
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I like to buy older albums that were mastered for vinyl, like Steely Dan, some prog rock like Yes or Pink Floyd. It gets a lot closer to listening to how the artists would have been hearing their product
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A new record sounds pretty good when played on a good turntable with a good cartridge, but it's not as good as a properly mixed CD or lossless audio file. A worn or dirty record sounds like crap. A cheap turntable will also sound like crap and a ceramic cartridge wears out records fairly quickly.
With a CD, there is very little difference in sound quality between the cheapest player you can find and a high end player. The CD will always sound the same until it's too worn out to play at all.
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Either 0 difference from digital or worse due to skipping/bad record quality. Rap records are especially bad and I stopped buying them.
Personally, I buy them because my internet is unreliable, it makes for some nice decoration and it's nice to actually own something in 2024 (especially since Spotify keeps deleting random artists/songs from my playlists).
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I enjoy the warmer sound of vinyl but I buy the albums I love on it because of the lack o convenience. I can't shuffle and I have to actually interact with it every 20ish minutes to flip or change discs. It makes me actually listen to music, track order, mix, and properly enjoy the work that went into the whole album making process.
So I use streaming when I just want something on in the background and vinyl when I want to properly listen to an album.
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Vinyl is worse quality, the vinyl disk's height is a physical constraint that CDs / DVDs do not have.
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Define quality.
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Not an audiophile, but had experience with vinyl and CDs while growing up in the 90s and imo vinyl COULD sound better if you spent a lot of money on high end equipment. But with the equipment us normies had, the cds sounded much better. It had a much lower barrier if you didn't have a large amount of time and money to invest. I'd suspect things are similar now.
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First problem would be defining what "quality" means. On one hand vynil just has a continuous grove which needle follows. For this reason it's infinitely precise, as there's no interpolation or sample frequency. But on the other hand if master was digital and of shit quality, then benefits of analog mean nothing. Also widely used 44KHz sample rate is no accident, it's exactly double of what human hearing can perceive. So even if you go higher, average listener wouldn't be able to hear the difference.
Music is also mastered differently for vynil. Base is centered and audio is processed to reduce chances of skipping tracks. This is why decent phono amplifier is needed to revert those changes. Digital stays good or shitty no matter how many times you copy the file.
Overall sound quality is good, in both digital world and analogue. I have both high quality FLACs and some really great records which people would struggle to figure out if the sound they are hearing is digital or not. Personally I prefer vynil because the centered base. It makes other instruments more pronounced and you get to experience same music in a bit of a different way. Vynil being manual as it is also forces you to listen to entire side since it's not easy to change tracks and authors by clicking next.
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Vinyl sounds good, but has too much noise to be the best. Although that could just be my cat's fault, realistically - i spend a lot time removing hair from records.
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I read somewhere that about 50% of vinyl owners don't have a player. Presumably that 50% only have very few records and bought them for the looks, but still.
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Vinyl records sounds great despite their technical inferiority to CDs and streaming (with the right equipment of course, but that applies to all formats). They do not necessarily sound better, but there is an element of customisation with them which you can't get with CDs or streaming. Most importantly the cartridge on your turntable. Different cartridges have different soundscapes. There is of course an element of quality connected to price of cartridge, but over a certain price you are not necessarily buying a better sound but a different sound. Many vinyl record listeners, especially audiophiles, have different cartridges which they can switch out on their turntable, based on which kind of sound you want coming out of your system.
I know it may be difficult to comprehend for people who haven't personally listened to such differences themselves, but I assure you it is not audiophile snake oil, it is a very noticeable phenomenon. That is a pretty unique capability of vinyl which I can't really compare to anything with other formats.
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people are idiots, possibly from inhaling the toxic fumes of unregulated PVC
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Excellent point!
As Ben Jordan says, it really is well past the time when we should be making records from stuff that's regulated.
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Its worse in the best way IMO.
The main reason I buy vinyl is for the other reasons you mentioned, but the imperfections of vinyl gives it a less robotic and sterile feel. It’s like listening to digital drums vs acoustic drums.
There’s also the ritual of playing vinyl that’s real satisfying
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It’s good.
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And I bet horse carriages outsold the Ford Model-T this year too
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i wouldnt say vinyl is comparable to horse drawn carriages.
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Because CD is a medium for data shrinking in popularity and vinyl is a token of being cool growing in popularity, of course it does.
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I think of this clip every single time Chris Pirillo pops up in pop culture somewhere.
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Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Just waiting for wax cylinders to come back
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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I want to know what “other” is that is also clobbering CDs. Can’t say it’s streaming because it’s physical media. The article mentions that half a million cassettes were sold, but that doesn’t really answer the question. That “other” takes up a lot of space relative to CDs so I’m pretty curious.
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I dug into the RIAA Source PDF the article references for what "other" means:
"Includes CD Singles, Cassettes, Vinyl Singles, DVD Audio, SACD"
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Not something I follow, but I recall reading that SACD is favored as being the highest-fidelity format generally available today (well, physical format...if you get something online, could be at whatever resolution you want).
I also recall reading -- probably a more-meaningful factor than the actual physical constraints -- that because the people who were buying them were rabid about audio quality and were annoyed by dynamic range compression, that the people mastering didn't make hot recordings, so the media format avoided the "loudness war".
googles
Hmm. Apparently not any more, at least not always:
At least for a little while SACD/DSD/24bit 96k releases were immune to loudness wars. However over the last 5 years or so I'm noticing a lot of high res releases, either remasters, remixes or new releases in high res have become victims of the loudness wars. The latest release of Electric Lady land is a prime example, horrible clipping and single digit DR ratings.
Why? These releases are not meant for portable headphone consumption why are they doing this? Why are supposedly trained audio engineers going along with this? Clipping and low DR ranges is a quantifineable error. People that buy high res releases will want full DR to play on their home audio system.
Why has this horrible practice infected what should be audiophile class recordings?
Honestly, digital music vendors should just include a dynamic range metric. Hell, let artists sell different versions of a song if they want. MP3 and I think all other popular formats have ReplayGain or equivalent, so one should be able to optimize the recording for reproduction accuracy rather than to just achieve a desired volume.
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I knew piracy was eating into music sales but poor artists and distributors only generating less than $2 of revenue in the US per year? That’s like 1 CD in a clearance sale. They should start a charity.
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If you’re curious, nearly half a million cassettes sold last year, too, according to Billboard.
I'm more curious about who's still selling music on cassette and who's willing to buy it.
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I've seen a few bands release a limited number of cassettes recently. For example, Rancid is selling Honor Is All We Know on cassette.
https://rancid.store/product/17864/honor-is-all-we-know-cassette
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I guess it's just a promotional thing then. That makes sense.
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I think there was a 99% invisible podcast episode about that, it's prison inmates. For some never-changed rule they are only allowed music on cassettes, so they are probably the target audience mainly.
Just a few years ago I had an old car with a cassette player/radio, and from time to time I enjoyed the cassette player with some leftover stuff, but in most cases I just used an FM transmitter
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The prison system sucks in so many ways. Legal slavery with archaic rules that would be considered hate crimes or human rights violations if they happened to people in the U.S. who aren't incarcerated.
As far as old cars with cassette players. Like you said, you can use an FM transmitter, but I also remember having a fake cassette with an aux cable so you could plug it into a CD player headphone jack. I would bet they have a bluetooth version these days, so you don't have to listen to cassettes even in those cars.
That reminds me of something though. When I was a kid, we had a Toyota Corona station wagon with an 8-track player. My father had this converter device that you plugged into the 8-track and it had a little tray that you laid a cassette into so you could play it. I don't remember if the sound quality was worse than playing a cassette in a player designed for it.
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some bands, and their fans. you can make a cassette look pretty dope.
and i've heard prisoners often only have access to cassettes.
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Wow. What is that ‘other’ physical medium? Is MiniDisc also coming back and beating CDs?
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Some artists in the punk scene are putting out cassettes.
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Vinyl, which tends to be pricier than the newer format, also far outstripped CDs in actual money made, raking in $1.4 billion compared to $537 million from CDs.
Vinyl is definitely overpriced these days. I do love all the art and care that artists seem to put into their vinyl releases, but typically I'm spending $30-$50 on a new vinyl release. But what am I going to do? Not buy that limited edition colored vinyl gatefold with art and lyric pages?
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I buy mine from the merch stand at the artist's show, they usually go for 20€-30€, even the limited edition ones.
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I view vinyls as collectors items, not something you actually listen to. I still buy CDs because I hate the idea of subscription services.
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Depends really. Seller am buying from has for example AC/DC records for 26$ a piece or 16$ a piece for CD. You simply can't compare the two and the difference is 10$. They of course have 50th anniversary edition for 42$, but that's up to you.
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I'd buy the vinyl as a collectors item, but the CD to upload on to my phone.
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A whole $1.91!! Wow!
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Vinyls are great, but I can't copy them to my phone so I still have to buy a CD with it.
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As someone who used to be a member of what.cd, and still has a bunch of incredible sounding FLAC vinyl rips of albums, this definitely is not true.
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Such an amazing resource that was, not only did it have the albums available, but several different pressings, source media, and versions of each one. Something no commercial entity can come close to offering at any price.
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I own a USB turntable with an ADC in it. It's got a USB cable sticking out the back. I can rip vinyl to whatever digital format you want.
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you could get the vinyl rip, and listen them on your phone. idk whether it might sound the same like the exact vinyl but it's better than Spotify if you have a decent headphones.
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Ahh, I see. Setting sail to get something I've legitimately paid for IS an option. I'd still rather do it myself now that I'm finding out it's an option with the right equipment
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I don't really buy vinyl to listen to it, but for the larger cover art and liner notes
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The only vinyls I buy are from charity shops or because I love an album so much that I want it as a collection (I'd also buy the CD to actually listen to)
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Yeah, I haven't bought a new record in a long time, and one of my most prized albums is a 1970 radio-played copy of The Kinks "Lola vs. Powerman and the MoneygoRound" complete with the dates and times they played Lola."
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That is definitely something I loved about LPs. I used to have a big book of album cover art. I have no idea what happened to it unfortunately, but I used to pore over it. Liner notes are less of an issue with the internet, but the shrinking of art was a very unfortunate result of CDs.
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One of my favorite things about vinyl is having to flip the record over. I think it demands more active and respectful listening.
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Many albums, especially comedy albums, relied on you flipping over the record. They would have jokes that talked about things on the other side. There's a Firesign Theater album where one of the characters says, "wait a minute, didn't I say that on the other side of the record?" There's a Monty Python album with a locked groove that says, "oh sorry, squire. I scratched the record." Which is brilliant.
Edit: There's another Monty Python album that has two sets of grooves and what you hear depends on which groove the needle hits first. Again, absolutely brilliant.
More famously, the end of the Beatles' peak album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band contains a locked groove which was snippets of recordings mashed-up in a bit of short multi-track recording experimentation. The CD only repeats it 2 or 3 times. The record was designed to play indefinitely.
So yeah, CDs took that away from recordings, but on the other hand, it's a lot harder to damage a CD and get an unintentional looping segment.
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I love that on the CD version of Full Moon Fever they added a bit to the end of Running Down a Dream telling CD listeners they're going to take a break so that people on vinyl and cassette can switch to the other side.
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That's because it's getting harder to find CD's plus the majority of people buy digital
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I was thinking about investing in a vinyl player recently and was really sad to learn Vinyl is actually worse for audio quality. The standard thickness of the disk is a physical limitation for frequencies which means the sound gets "squished."
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There's nothing stopping you still! I find the ritual of placing the disc and needle and turning it over halfway through is quite satisfying. It really makes me feel as though the music is more valuable and I'll be more likely to actively listen rather than if I just put it on my phone with the tap of a button
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Yeah, vinyl is more about the haptic experience of putting that giant black disc onto the player and watching the needle slowly scrape away that 30-40 dollar item. It's not about the sound quality. I think with listening to vinyl listening to music becomes more of an experience, because of all the manual steps involved. And with albums these days artists seem to put more effort into them then at the time the CD came around.
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Investing? You want to sell it again?
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I measure returns in satisfaction not money. What you put in you should get back out on a relative metric, my baseline is tacos and pizza.
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It is true that vinyl records have a smaller dynamic range than CDs and digital streaming, but it can also be a blessing in disguise on account of the loudness wars. A lot of modern digital music since the 90s have been brickwall mixed so they can be played on devices with inferior speakers or headphones and still sound loud and punchy, but that same music will sound awful and distorted on proper hifi systems.
Because vinyl records have a (slightly) smaller dynamic range they have to be mixed and mastered separately from CDs and streaming, and some times that means the vinyl edition has the only properly mixed sound. And even if the vinyl version gets a brickwalled mix, then it is still slightly better than the brickwalled CD or stream versions simply because the dynamic range capability is lower, so the brickwall is smaller so to speak.
Anyway, even compared to non-brickwalled CDs or streaming, vinyl still holds it own on proper hifi systems, there is nothing wrong with the sound experience under the right circumstances, and it is that combined with the physicality which is the draw for most vinyl collectors I think. It is inconvenient, expensive and often times inferior (especially if you find scratched up used copies), but that is exactly the attraction. It makes listening to the music an event.
Most vinyl record collectors still listens to other formats, because of course in the car or some other place you are forced to, so it is not an either/or situation either.
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I expect artists to record the media as they intended it to be heard, idgaf if you think it sounds better after you cut the limbs off of it.
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This is only new vinyl, right? In my town, used records are king, by far. In fact, I probably buy 10+ used records for every new record.
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I wish this was true for me, but I only have one record shop within 45-minute drive of my house (and their prices and selection are far from competitive), so I wind up buying pretty much all my records online through Discogs. Frequently, the new represses are just flat-out cheaper than the vintage vinyl, especially for a lot of the more esoteric albums I buy. For instance, even though they're not really hard to find, for Black Sabbath's first four albums I paid just as much for mediocre, water-damaged copies of Sabbath and Volume 4 as I did for brand-new represses of Paranoid and Master of Reality. If you actually buy your vinyl to listen to, buying used online can be a pretty big gamble as far as quality, so for the same price, I frequently wind up consciously choosing the new vinyl over the used copy.
Even though I do frequently manage to package one or two cheap used albums with each new album purchased to take advantage of that sweet "media mail" shipping, it's not even close to a 10:1 used:new ratio.
Edit: I suppose now that I think about it, I'm starting from a pretty decent used vinyl collection from my days in the early 2000's as a hipster music snob before used vinyl got nearly so expensive, so my collection overall has much more used vinyl than my current buying habits would indicate (I probably have 200 albums, of which 30-40 were purchased new in the past 3-4 years)
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I wanna go even further than retro. Gimme the hottest new single on wax cylinder for my phonograph..
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I could get back into cassette tapes.
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Not me, I don't miss rewinding them shits. CDs are still good though, I still buy those because you can't go wrong by having it on the most highly-detailed and durable medium.
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A few of the artists I follow put their new releases on cassette.
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I'm fairly certain most people who likes vinyl is because of the collection aspect. The leaflets and photos are nice to look at while you're listening.
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That's something with vinyl records is that they come in big sleeves with nice big prints of the album art and such. That's great stuff for a music buff to enjoy.
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When my dad died, I told my brother, who is very difficult to deal with, to just take whatever he wanted from my dad's vast collection of things and I'd deal with the rest. One of the things he took was an original Edison cylinder phonograph with a bunch of cylinders. I was okay with him taking it since I gave him permission, but what annoys me is that the phonograph was missing the stylus and he has never replaced it. It's inside a wooden case with a lid, which he keeps closed, and the cylinders and the horn just sit next to it.
Why the fuck did he take it?
I don't even have room for it, but if he's not going to even display it properly, let alone get a single part that is needed for it to work, what's the point? Just sell it if you're not going to do anything with it.
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Only a few more years now till the retro sound of CDs comes back into style. I realize vinyl is a great and unique user experience with a specific timber, and more enjoyable to collect.
It's kind of funny when you hear about the "analog warmth" when albums were being digitally mastered as early as the late 70s... And pretty much all re-releases are digitally remastered.
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Only a few more years now till the retro sound of CDs comes back into style.
I liked the artwork on the disks themselves, and the feeling of opening a box, taking the disk out with that cracking sound, pushing a button on the drive and seeing and hearing it open, and then the sound of spinning when it's being read.
Every bit as "warm" as vinyl in my opinion (born in 1996, so of course it is).
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the retro sound of CDs
Your mistake is equivocating digital with analog. There is nothing "retro sounding" about CDs, you can download lossless digital versions of albums that are identical to what you'll find on a CD.
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I'm a professional audio engineer for a living, with a masters in the subject, it was sarcasm lol...
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Exactly, although CD isn't so much "retro" as it is a high frequency, high dynamic range audio recording. The only reason vinyl sounds "warm" is because their dynamic range & frequency is compressed so the needle doesn't bounce out of its groove.
While it's possible for a CD to receive a terrible master, if the mastering across formats is the same and other biases are eliminated (i.e. proper A/B testing) then CD will be objectively better sounding every single time.
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Retro sound of a CD?
They sound exactly the same as the digital releases. Only audiophiles up there own arses believe that they can hear a difference. Vinyls sound different but for obvious reasons.
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I think you missed my sarcasm...
Edited to add: most CDs sound the same as their digital releases (assuming they had the same master which I've found isn't always true), but occasionally you can actually get higher resolution, up to 96k/24 bit, which do sound different depending on your playback device.
Most of the difference is likely due to the nature of the DA filter being applied during playback, as I certainly won't notice the noise floor between 16-24 bit, and any frequency difference is far far behind my range of hearing.
If you aren't familiar with what I'm referring too, different DA implementations use varying filtering techniques, some have a slight roll off in the upper frequency range to improve the accuracy of transient response, while others use a flatter frequency response sacrificing the transient. Newer DAs from some manufacturers allow you to select which option you prefer. At double and quad sample rates this can largely become a moot point as any sacrifice to the frequency response is far out of the range of human hearing.
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CDs are already showing signs of a comeback! https://www.axios.com/2024/01/06/gen-z-cds-buying-collection
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Lol, knew it was coming!
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Vynil is mixed differently. Base is much more centered to help prevent skipping tracks. This makes music sound a bit differently. Also, it's not easy to change track or author, so you usually end up listening to entire side or record. Overall it's a different experience.
I personally never liked CDs. They never lasted for me. Either the case breaks on the first wrong glance of it or the disk starts flaking or being scratched.
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I think the mixing being different is likely dependent upon how good the engineer and mastering engineers are/were. I'd wager a fair number of bands releasing their albums to vinyl these days simply send over a very similar final master (maybe slightly less loud if you are lucky) to the vinyl cutting without much thought, because it's the hip thing to do.
You are accurate, that they should ensure that low frequencies are mono compatible, but it is likely less of an issue for the style of music most associated with vinyl releases (indi etc), as stylistically they don't tend to use stereo widening on low frequency instruments. Generally they have kick and bass down the center channel, or I suppose going mono style out of L/R if they are trying to be really old school, but that would likely take a completely different mix adding to production budget as I can't imagine if would work to well on phones etc, which a lof of music is mix for unfortunately.
None of the artists I produce or mix for have requested it yet, but if they did I would send them to Fuller Sound Mastering as Michael has been around for ages and knows how to handle masters for vinyl.
Vinyl cutting also has an EQ curve offset that is printed into the vinyl itself, cutting the bass and boosting the high frequency, which is then re-applied by the players preamp circuitry, I believe it's referred to as pre and de-emphasis. Funny enough my mastering DAC actually has this feature for some kind of old early CD technology for some lower resolution digital formats that had issues with noise and filtering and used a similar technology, I had never heard of this until I purchased this particular unit haha.
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I agree that some cases are brittle but I've not seen a disc get fucked since I was a kid, when I couldn't be bothered to put them back in the case.
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I'm a music collector and saw this coming. "Music" went from a product you buy, into a service you pay to gain access to. You don't pay for music, you pay daddy Spotify for access to HIS music.
Vinyl has turned back into the only form of physical music collection.
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Depends what you're into. CD sales are more than alive and well in the kpop/jpop circles and there isn't a lot of vinyl to find there.
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I don't buy vinyl, but I do buy CDs for albums I want. I have (what I believe are well-founded) trust issues with services supplying digital copies.
I will say I have bought some nice, normal mp3s in the past from Amazon. Those are fine. But generally I want the discs. I'm going to rip them immediately to mp3, and store the discs away, but I still want them.
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I hate subscription services, for the cost of a Spotify subscription I can but one or two CD albums a month.
I buy a vinyl here or there but just to collect. I listen to my CDs.
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Ever since the RIAA went after consumers with hefty lawsuits in the early 2000s, I didn't buy music ever again.
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This is dumb. Just going to be used for collectors editions with different songs and shit.
To each their own I guess.
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Hm. "do you want 2 vinyl nuts" doesn't have the same ring to it.
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Okay, is it just me or is the total global revenue for physical media music less than $2 USD a year? I must be reading it wrong.
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It’s probably in billions.
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Nah, that's about right, I paid like maybe 20 cents for a cd collection on graigslist, don't know who bought all those vinyls though
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Something something piracy doesnt matter, something something make a good product at a fair price, something something provide convenience. What was i talking about again?
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Poeple jerking off CDs here dont understand down sampling and the average quality of CDS. they think that just because it is digitally mastered that it therefore must be the master that is put on CDS, its not.
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I can't hear anything above 20 kHz, and neither can most people. CD audio is passed through a 20 kHz lowpass filter. It is then sampled at 44 kHz. Due to the Nyquist Shannon Spamling Theorum, when sound is digitally sampled at just above twice the rate of the source audio, converting it back to analog perfectly reproduces the original waveform. And I do mean perfectly. The exact same waveform. (The extra 4 kHz is to prevent artifacts in frequencies very close to 20 kHz.)
Therefore CD audio is perfect unless you think you can hear above 20 kHz. (Spoiler: you can't) There are a few good YouTube videos on this topic, and the best ones are very mathy.
Is there something I'm missing? Do I need to educate myself some more?
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I don't know shit about fuck, but you explanation seems correct.
I do remember hearing that precisely because of the limitations of vinyl compared to CD, music is mastered differently for each medium. So the CD master of a certain song might be more compressed (dynamic compression, not digital compression) to make it sound "louder", while the vinyl release has a wider dynamic range. So some people might prefer the vinyl version because it actually does sound different to the CD version.
Keep in mind tho, I might be spreading misinformation here.
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Keep kidding yourself that you can hear the difference.
Vinyls have their appeal but they get dusty, scratched, they skip etc. Only snobs truly think that they sound better.
Digital music can be taken as easily as it can be given.
CDs are the best compromise. They have sound quality as good as digital but you also get the lyrics and artwork that come with a vinyl, they're also much easier to store. The best thing though, is that if I get bored of a CD, I can sell it or even just give it away for free, you can't do that with digital music.
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I'm a (former) audio engineer and I can't tell the difference. My professors used to laugh at audiophiles who spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars for stereo equipment because we were taught to mix things so that they sound good in a car as well as a perfectly quiet room. In fact, we were told that after we finished a master, we should test it by putting it in our car and driving around to make sure the mix was audible in the ways you and the band wanted.
I still really like vinyl because I like the ritual of the whole thing, but I don't spend money on it because it's way too expensive and everything you hear is almost certainly mastered digitally and likely recorded and mixed digitally, negating the whole "warmth" factor.
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Digital music can be taken as easily as it can be given.
Digital does not always mean DRM. You can pry my bandcamp FLACs from my cold dead hands. Physical media nowadays is more about the experience than functionality. Maybe there are snobs who claim that vinyls are somehow functionally superior, but generally the people who use vinyls or CDs or tapes instead of digital are really just looking for that physical experience in a highly digitalized world.
They have sound quality as good as digital
CD quality is actually superior to streaming services like spotify (I personally can't tell the difference tho).
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It's why I use a dedicated music tracker for my music. I own it. I get the exact quality and version I want, and no one can take it from me.
I've had a lot of physical media stolen from me, and I would never try replacing it with more purchased media, because of the he cost and potential for damage and chance it might get stolen again.
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also the CDs dynamic range is far greater then that present in most music, so it makes little impact in practice. unless you intentionally utilize it.
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Hipsters paying 2-3x as much for a vinyl LP which objectively has worse audio quality than a CD.
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Most of the records I buy come with bandcamp codes. I can play the flac files if I want digital audio, physical media for me is about the thing itself. Often get full sized posters and patches. Shit I'll buy a tape over the cd too
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Most CDs pressed after the mid-90's are audiological garbage not worth paying for.
If the waveform looks like this, I ain't buying it:
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They usually have a higher bitrate than you can get from streaming. There's not one CD I have that I immediately tell the difference in quality of I switch between streaming (or even a standard mp3 actually) and a CD. CD wins every time.
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So you have a crap master. Compare the same master between compact disc and vinyl when making your judgments.
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alot of people dont work with audio, but i actually have, you may be downvoted, but you are correct.
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Have you ever listened to records? "Objectively worse audio quality" is not what I'd call the experience. In fact I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference.
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Absolutely you would for the reasons I mentioned. Vinyl is typically made from digital and the first step of mastering is altering it to remove sibilance, loudness and other things that either waste space, cause distortion or cause the needle to jump. It's already lossy and then as it is printed and played, more loss and distortion happens. Even playing the record causes it to wear and for dust to accumulate. While it is completely possible for a badly mastered CD to sound worse than a well mastered LP, the reality is if they are from the same master and other biases are eliminated (i.e. A/B testing) then the CD is going to win out since it has a higher dynamic range and frequency.
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They're absolutely objectively worse from an audio stand point.
I agree that they give you a different listening experience, which is subjective.
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It's to bad there's no good record players made anymore. Or cassette decks. It's all the cheap bottom of the barrel mechanisms now. No quality Japanese equipment like there used to be.
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Reloop/pioneer/insert 100 other brands here: am I a joke to you
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Legit didn't know people still bought music. CDs though? How does anyone still have cd players, and why. Vinyl is a hipster fad now so I guess that explains records.
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My car has a CD player. It sounds a lot better than the radio or any streaming service's compressed audio. I used to have a SiriusXM subscription and their audio quality was absolute garbage. I don't pay for any streaming music services now, and have no plans to ever do so.
I buy CDs of every band I like, because I know that music will last in its perfect quality form for decades and nobody but burglars can take it from me. I use my blu-ray burner to rip them to high-bitrate MP3s for phone and Plex library usage.
I also have a pile of records that I don't listen to because I don't have room to set up my record player right now.
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my dad has a huge collection of CDs he started in the 80s. and he's not gonna stop buying every single CD that his favourite bands release.
he rips them onto his ipod and his phone. great way to efficiently own music and get some pretty cool artwork.
so from what i can tell, no one (that i know of) buys CDs to play them out of a playback device, just to own your library.
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Unless you really want them, make sure you let your dad know that you don't want it to be your responsibility to deal with them after he dies. My dad had a huge LP and CD collection. Like a wall of LPs and a wall of CDs. It was mostly things I didn't want and I had a lot of trouble selling them off. A lot of them ended up either with friends or, at last resort, Goodwill.
I agreed to take care of getting rid of it all after he died and it was a huge mistake.
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I don’t think vinyls are hipster. In the age of music digitalization, it is nice to own a physical piece of media, in addition to being able to support your artist more directly. Also it looks nice.
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Vinyls are cool to display. Wouldn't be surprised if lots of people bought them only for display and kept listening the music on Spotify.
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Audiophiles is why. Why CDs? Because the music in a CD is raw uncompressed. So if you got a good amp and speakers, earphones or IEMs you can hear the musicians scratch their beards while playing jazz, or maybe you can hear the sound of dacer's boobies rubbing against the spandex or clapping harmoniously. LOL 😂, the rest of us will tin can and string headphones, we make due with mp3s.
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concidering walmart doesn't sell normal cd players in store but does sell record players, I'm not surprized.
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why have streaming and not radio?
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CD fans right now:
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Apparently CDs are trending up as a nostalgia format in some demographics! https://www.axios.com/2024/01/06/gen-z-cds-buying-collection
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I found this small community just a few days ago: !cd_collectors@lemmy.sdf.org Thought it was interesting, and curious. I did not know that CDs are considered by some as collectible.
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Vinyls are purely treasured for their resell value.
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Not really though.
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I feel like I am the only person who still buys MP3 files direct.
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I get mine from Qobuz as DRM-free flac
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I do, from bandcamp (flac, not mp3)
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CDs are this odd junction between quality, inconvenience, and low cost, one that makes it niche. They are a physical product and thus higher quality, so to speak, than digital music. Yet vinyls are higher quality (in the hand) and more novel due to the design options. Then they are lossless but even personally ripping is far less convenient than digital music, much less inserting the disc with every use. The others combined— a vinyl copy for display and pirating/a lossless streaming service like Qobuz or Apple’s— costs more for what can be seen as a minimal improvement in the other categories.
So I’m not surprised. Vinyls are a neat little souvenir of songs or albums I enjoy, and though I’ve never actually played a single one, they’re still something I like to collect. Can’t say the same for CDs.
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Then they are lossless
Vinyl? No, not at all. Pressing the platter is already the lossy part, playing has less dynamic range. Some just like the mechanical part and scratching noises better.
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Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
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Then they are lossless
LOL, they are lossy after every playback.
Though admittedly music CDs are not that much qualitatively different in practice.
Your comment illustrates well which kind of people affects the market in this area, though.
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Vinyl isn't lossless. First they start with a master - either analogue or digital, then they strip out high/low frequency and compress the dynamic range to make it fit the format, not waste space or jump tracks. Also, the act of pressing discs introduces errors, and the playing equipment can introduce noise like wow, flutter, hisses and pops. I bet some record players, especially ones with USB connections or equalizers probably toss in some adc / dac conversion in there too depending on how they do their thing. There are losses end to end in other words.
CDs are also downsampled from studio tracks, but the format has a higher frequency and dynamic range so providing a CD and vinyl record were from the same master you are going to get a truer, better quality audio from the CD every single time. Also, since it's digital (with error correction) you are getting EXACTLY what was put on the disc. You could rip it to FLAC or some other lossless format and it would be bit for bit identical.
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