michael123;529998 Wrote: > That's not exact. > The market of vinyl is booming. Records go for 30$, 50$, 100$, ... > I see more audiophiles that switched to CD 10-15 years ago and now go > back to turntable. Because of a sound. If there will be more material > to buy, these guys will. > > There is no point to own 100,000$ stereo system and feed it with CD > mastered with 'loudness wars' in mind. > > For me, turntable is simply impractical. I took a "strategic decision" > to go media-less. I do not have any room to store these "pancakes".
My reply addresses points from a couple of different posts, but the above is as good a place to start as any. 1. Sure, LP sales are up, but compared to what? Vinyl record sale are estimated at 2,8 million for 2009. That's less than 1% of album sales. I can also spend a lot on a horse saddle, but that doesn't mean horses are on track to replace cars in the next couple of years. 2. Sound quality - I've converted well over 2,000 LPs and open reels in my personal collection to digital for my server. (That's been an 8 year project that is still underway.) As such, I've compared a lot of vinyl directly to digital. The other day I converted a 1979 Nancy Wilson LP to CD for a friend. One track on the LP was damaged so I downloaded the track from Amazon so she could have a complete album. The difference was dramatic so I downloaded a copy of one of the undamaged tracks. While both the LP and the download were from the original 1979 master tape, the (proudly declared) "remastered" download had been overprocessed and sounded aggressive and hot compared to the LP. Note that my digital conversion sounded just fine. The point is it wasn't the format! It was what the producers and engineers had intentionally chosen to do in their "remastering." I've got any number of CDs that are well recorded and a delight to listen to. I've got a bunch of LPs that are downright nasty sounding. Forget the storage format - I like recordings that are good music and that have been handled by producers and engineers who care about sound. That doesn't require a return to analog open reel masters and LPs or everyone switching to a 192K sample rate. It takes artists, producers and engineers who are willing to buck the current fads and fashions of recording. As far as sample rates, where does one stop? If 192K is better, why not 1,028K, or 2,056K? I know I spoke of Dan Lavry before, but he makes a very strong case that super high bit rates are little more than a novelty in many ways, and may well be solving a problem that is a non-issue and creating other problems. In multi-track mixing there is the issue of noise levels when mixing tracks with disparate volume levels, but that is not an issue in playback of a released recording with a set mix. Personally, I've heard enough music on "ordinary" formats to know the results can be outstanding. For me, I'd just as soon have them forget chasing 192K sample rates and just have them learn to reuse the old equipment! Far too many audiophile recordings are an excuse for an examination of a pop singer's tonsils or a too-bright classical recording with highlight mikes balanced in a way one would never hear at a concert. Sorry for the rant, but in light of the prevailing fads in music recording these days, worrying about 192K sample rate is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. -- mlsstl ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=76496 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
