Vinyl records outsell CDs for the second year running
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/26/24112369/riaa-2023-music-revenue-streaming-vinyl-cds-physical-mediaOpen linkView original on lemmy.world697
Comments375https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/26/24112369/riaa-2023-music-revenue-streaming-vinyl-cds-physical-mediaOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
CDs are just digital files plus waste. Vinyl is a musical ritual.
CD is still the only way to buy a digital popular music in most countries.
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.
Bandcamp was bought by Epic Games, who fired half the staff and sold off the remainder to some kind of nebulous music licencing platform. I wouldn't cheer them on much longer, I see dark days ahead.
Seriously? Fucking hell, that's depressing.
It isn't owned by epic games anymore, it was bought by Songtradr. https://www.songtradr.com/blog/posts/songtradr-bandcamp-acquisition/
Yup that's the "nebulous music licencing platform" I was referring to
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.
You don’t own the music you license through iTunes though.
Pretty sure it's DRM-free.
Only since 2007…
EMI was the first domino to fall after Job’s famous Thoughts on Music open letter.
The other labels followed suit shortly after.
That open letter will be old enough to vote in less than ten months.
No, I'm certain 2007 was just six or seven years ago, right? Right?
You don't own the music you buy on a CD either. You are buying a license to the music and physical storage of it. If you want you can burn your iTunes songs on a CD and you're in the same situation.
You own a copy of a copyrighted material. The copy is yours. No DRM, no remotely removing your ability to use it.
You own your own hard drive. That copy of an iTunes song is yours. No DRM, no remotely removing your ability to use it.
Yet.
How is that different from iTunes?
You do know that the content in the iTunes Store isn't the same in each country?
I am aware, but unless you're saying iTunes doesn't sell pop music in most markets, it's not really relevant.
Many people don't listen to local music or pop music. It's very relevant if you can only get real music on a physical medium.
And out of everything available iTunes is your first choice too?
Soms people here on Lemmy are even more insufferable than any other social media.
Don't you dare buy a cd with the music you like. BUY FROM ITUNES, while in the next thread they say FUCK APPLE.
You completely missed the point of what you are replying to. The point isn't that you SHOULD buy music from online sources instead of CDs. The point is that CDs aren't "the only way to buy a digital popular music in most countries." They are directly contradicting a point someone else made by saying CDs are not the only way to buy digital popular music in most countries. They even specifically said popular music, not whatever niche music some random person is into. They also mentioned iTunes because it services 119 markets, which directly counterpoints the statement about being available in most countries. They never advocated for iTunes like you imply.
It's almost like you lack reading comprehension. "Soms people here on Lemmy are even more insufferable than any other social media."
I was responded to a comment about the availability of pop music.
Yes, the largest digital music store is, naturally, the first one I searched for availability numbers for (119 markets).
I don't really understand the rest of your rant.
I think you can use iTunes as a catch all for sales of digital files, including bandcamp. As opposed to a physical disc or a subscription. FWIW I was just looking this up on the RIAA website and you can run reports by year or year over year comparing media options. It’s really interesting to see which year each format peaked. Eg 8track 1978, cassette 1989, CD 2000, digital file 2012. It doesn’t include limewire /napster (non-revenue) so the unit counts are a bit depressed. I wish it included pre-iPod mp3 players and blank CD sales.
https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/
Internet access and existing devices would also play a role, but I don't know a region like that to comment further
The music on iTunes is compressed and doesn’t sound as good as a CD does.
Not to mention they can revoke your access to your music on iTunes. No one can take away your CD unless they break into your house!
Even a human with very good hearing and knowledge of how a song is supposed to sound cannot tell the difference between CD quality audio and 256k AAC like iTunes uses.
Don't believe all the nonsense audiophiles keep spewing out. Human ears suck. If we hadn't had our giant brains to compensate, we'd be practically deaf.
This. People assume that because it's "compressed" it must sound flatter, less dynamic, or just vaguely worse than uncompressed audio, despite the fact that audio compression specifically uses psychoacoustic models to remove the bits of data that our human ears and brains cannot hear to begin with.
Expectation bias is a helluva drug.
Even FLAC is compressed. Which is how I procure my music because I have the storage space.
FLAC is compressed, but unlike lossy codecs like AAC and MP3, FLAC is fully lossless. Lossy codecs delete information the authors believe you won’t notice, lossless compression keeps all the data and just tries to fit it in a smaller space. The original recording can be perfectly reproduced (taking into account sample rate and depth).
Yup, although that doesn't stop some weirdos out there claiming that CDs sound better than FLAC.
Sometimes they mess up. Actually only ever noticed it once and that was years ago CD vs. ogg vorbis at full quality level, this track. Youtube version is even worse, it seems (from memory): The guitars kicking in around 30 seconds should be harsh and noisy as fuck like nothing you've ever heard, they're merely distorted on youtube.
Then lossy codecs are a bad idea for archival reasons as you can't recode them without incurring additive losses -- each codec has a different psychoacoustic model, each deletes different stuff. Thus, FLAC definitely has a place.
Killer samples do happen, sure but vorbis at Q9? I'm highly dubious. That track in particular just sounds badly recorded to begin with. If you have that same version in FLAC i would be interested to see some ABX test results or test it myself.
For archival purposes, though, I agree FLAC is the way to go.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
this track
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I would guess that the fact that people aren't all using some kind of standard-response reference headphones is probably going to have a considerably-larger impact on the human-perceivable fidelity of the audio reproduction than any other factor.
This is true. That said, I've seen people claim that nobody can tell the difference between lossless and 128kbps mp3, but that's complete bullshit.
Though once you get above 192, it's pretty indistinguishable.
Would really depend on the version of MP3. The first versions had some major issues with artifacts being introduced. People probably listened to that and concluded all compressed music must be shit. Later versions were much better, even though I would think 128k is probably too low and would be noticeable with some effort. I agree, starting at 192k and people can't tell anymore.
Does anybody use MP3 anymore? I don't really know to be honest.
iTunes got rid of DRM a decade and a half ago.
Sure but if you don’t have the song downloaded on your PC and they remove it from your library you can’t redownload it.
Most people aren’t backing up the songs they buy on iTunes.
Thank goodness they’ll let you redownload your CD if it gets damaged…
I don’t agree. It depends how the song was ripped and how the original was mastered. I did so much A/B testing at the time and found I couldn’t tell the difference between VBR 256 AAC and the CD. 128k mp3 sounded worse, 320k mp3 is pretty safe, but there were a lot of improvements to LAME over the years so newer files sound better. The biggest difference is the mastering. Generally 1980s reissues of 1970s analog masters sound worst, 1990s is best, 2000s everything got remastered to make it loud and crush dynamic range. The only real innovation since is Dolby Atmos on Apple Music which really brings alive the promise of 1970s quadraphonic.
iTunes music store is not available in mainland China, which is 1/5 of the world's population
Yes, but this is about what is available in most countries, not what is available in all countries. That still leaves 119 markets and 80% of the world's population being available. Pretty sure that counts as "most."
Also, the point isn't about iTunes, it's about alternatives to CDs for digital music. China likely has some online store to buy music, but I have no idea.
To make the claim 80% of population has it you have to have the numbers, since South Korea doesn't have it, a lot of African countries (just going down the list, Algeria, Angola, Benin, etc) don't have it
It looks like half of the world doesn't have iTunes music purchases
They do, maybe, but the streaming services often can't get the original master so they play rerecordings of the songs
I just pirate it
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.
Capitalism: "Oh, yes, you are."
the thing that capitism doesnt understand about me, is that i don't care about money.
If you're going for quality, you'd just buy the flac file though
Audio CDs are also lossless, often cheaper than buying the FLAC files, and can be extracted to FLAC files. Only reason to buy FLAC is if you want the convenience of not buying a physical product and the quality of said physical product.
Maybe I should have written a longer comment to elaborate on what I meant. What I meant to say is that if your primary concern is sound quality rather than the experience physical media gives you, I would assume a flac file would be a more popular option due to its convenience.
CDs often ship WAV audio to my knowledge. Doesnt really make sense to encode anything down anyway. Unless you're shipping a box set in a CD maybe? Even then 320kb MP3 is basically imperceptible to even the most astute listeners.
I didn't mean to imply CD stores sounds files of worse quality, only that if you aren't after the experience vinyl provides, digital files is a more convenient form of media.
i mean yeah. But if you're buying an album already. CDs are really easy to find used for like 10 bucks or so. You can buy them new for only a few bucks more than the digital price. It's a great option if you want something physical.
You can still rip CDs straight to wav and dump em to a media player in like 12 minutes though. It's basically free.
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.
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.
No one can take the music on your CD's from you. I bought loads if sings and albums from Google Music and they are all gone now
This is a reason to avoid DRM, not digital files in general.
(My condolences for being bitten, though.)
Google Music had DRM free downloads, so the DRM wasn’t the problem - it was that they didn’t download them before Google Music was shuttered.
No one can take my flacs either. 🐷🧇
RIP
😢
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
CDs are digital files plus ownership.
Once you download a music file, nobody is taking it away from you.
And CDs can have DRM just like any other digital media.
No, a CD that carries the actual CD logo cannot have DRM. It is true that the music industry has often pushed 'enhanced' formats that look like CDs that do; SACD, for example.
Ownership is different to possession, and I want to actually own my music, not just possess the files.
Is this true? If so, I'm guessing it's purely due to limitations in the hardware, rather than lack of will? I can't imagine CDs coming out these days and not having some sort of DRM.
Nintendo was able to figure it out with GameCube games...
You can definitely put DRM-protected content onto the physical CD media - that is exactly what SACD is. But then it isn't an audio CD, even if it will play on a regular CD player. Search for "nonstandard or corrupted" on the Wikipedia page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio .
It's my understanding that only conforming CDs can carry the CD logo. It's usually on the case, not the disc itself, and it isn't always there, particularly when the case isn't a jewel case. All the same, I think that most things that look like CDs are conformant.
Yeah, but I imagine that CD logo is a "stamp of quality" of sorts that tells you that the disc inside fits an agreed upon, unified set of standards. And one of those standards is "no DRM."
Point was, if that standard was created or updated today, there's no shot that they wouldn't require DRM.
Maybe I'm wrong though and that's not at all what the CD logo means.
That's true, but they did already try it and it didn't catch on. There's a section about it on the Wikipedia page ("Copy protection").
That section also mentions that Philips stated that these discs couldn't have the CD logo on them. Since Philips was behind SACD, together with Sony, you'd think they wouldn't have imposed that restriction on themselves if they had the choice.
I download my MP3 and FLAC files and then I own them and play them on any device I want.
There certainly are some services where you can legally download MP3 and FLAC files. Bandcamp, for example. If you download your music like that then, yes, you do own it.
But I'm not aware of anywhere you can get music from the major music labels nowadays (Amazon used to sell MP3s and so did Google Play Music, but neither does any more). If you do, I'd love to know.
On the other hand, you can still - although it's getting harder - buy CDs for major label artists and then you own the music (that copy of it).
True, CDs are the most reliable way to get the digital file.
7digital is a site where I've bought major label music and get the files. If it's not on bandcamp it's often on 7digital. They don't have everything though.
Thanks for the tip - they do seem to have a lot. I had assumed that the labels had made it unprofitable for that type of service to exist. I guess maybe it's simply that there is more money to be made from streaming.
Amazon does still sell digital music files, you just need to find the "digital music" section in Movies, Music and Games if that link doesn't work for you.
But you're right about google music, it got turned into youtube music and I'm pretty sure it doesn't allow purchasing and downloads. I'd imagine apple also still lets you buy music, but I've never actually used them before and don't plan to start now.
While I agree with you, I still want to be able to buy CDs.
I do miss caring about my CD collection. I still have them but I have nothing to play them on.
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?
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").
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.
If you handle them correctly, it will not happen to any noticeable degree in any of our lifetimes or the following generations. It is durable material.
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.
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.
Yes, totally agree. Vinyl rips still lack something. A lot of it is about practice, which makes it harder to quantify.
Of course. There is no doubt that the ritual of handling the record and playing it on the turntable is a huge part of it. Personally it makes me appreciate the music more because it is kind of an effort to get it playing in the first place, and you just want to listen to the record in a session, instead of just having it as a backdrop which so much streamed music is.
IMO is just placebo effect. In a blind experiment, all else being equal, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between a vinyl and a CD. That's my two cents
I know for a fact I would hear the difference -- but primarily because of the imperfections in the vinyl, as well as the different bass response. I can rule out placebo.
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.
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.
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).
I don't proclaim that vinyl is superior or something everyone should listen to.
Just trying to convey how I hear it.
98% of my listening is my MP3 playing from my phone's Bluetooth.
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.
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:
IRENE
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.
Yes, I was referring to the most common way of playing vinyl records with a physical needle.
Combining multiple records could give you an average, but it would both lose the things that make vinyl and experience like pops from dust specs and imperfections. Plus a cleaner copy could be had from the masters used to press the vinyl records. You know, the same master that is used to make exact duplicates for CDs.
Recreating an approximation of a lost master recording from multiple vinyl records with voice reduction on the imperfections would be an interesting idea, so my guess is someone has already done that 😉
that engagement materially impacts sound quality because you're actively listening.
It impacts the perception of sound quality, not the actual sound quality.
You could get engagement through digital audio files too, though.
But I'd argue that it doesn't affect the sound quality, but the enjoyment of the sound. The sound waves themselves don't actually change because we're actively engaging.
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.
This is correct, although it's not the bass that is limited on vinyl; it's the dynamic range compression (or 'loudness') in general.
Published 1989, posted on YouTube 17 yards ago:
https://youtu.be/3Gmex_4hreQ
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So you have to fiddle with the volume less on vinyl?
That's the one good selling point I've heard for vinyl so far.
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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
Vinyl is worse quality, the vinyl disk's height is a physical constraint that CDs / DVDs do not have.
Define quality.
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.
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.
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.
Too much noise? Older records sure. But new stuff? On mine you can't tell the difference. There's no hum, no crackling, no noise. It is recommended to brush your records before playing though. Perhaps that's the problem?
The records are new, and I brush them before each use. I've used different carts so that's probably not the issue either. Maybe I just got all bad records.. Maybe I could hear a difference on yours. Who knows at this point
Odd. But yeah, many factors.
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.
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.
people are idiots, possibly from inhaling the toxic fumes of unregulated PVC
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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
It’s good.
And I bet horse carriages outsold the Ford Model-T this year too
i wouldnt say vinyl is comparable to horse drawn carriages.
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.
Just waiting for wax cylinders to come back
Hello Internet tried it out once.
I think of this clip every single time Chris Pirillo pops up in pop culture somewhere.
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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.
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.
I dug into the RIAA Source PDF the article references for what "other" means:
"Includes CD Singles, Cassettes, Vinyl Singles, DVD Audio, SACD"
Ahh, perfect, thanks, I genuinely appreciate it. I should have done that myself, shouldn’t I?
Eh, I have a lot of questions after articles, few are worth going down the rabbit hole for unless others show interest, no worries!
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:
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/why-have-the-loudness-wars-creeped-into-high-res-releases.865982/
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.
I'd assume it is for digital downloads.
If I am not purchasing LPs, I try to purchase MP3s/FLAC that I can copy and move around as I please.
Hm, digital downloads count as physical media? I might? be able to see the merit in that classification but I’m not entirely convinced.
I should comment AFTER I read the article.
If it is for physical sales only I would have to guess we are looking at things like cassette, USB drives and limited releases on other obscure formats like minidisk.
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.
I'm more curious about who's still selling music on cassette and who's willing to buy it.
Wow. What is that ‘other’ physical medium? Is MiniDisc also coming back and beating CDs?
Some artists in the punk scene are putting out cassettes.
There are things like Super Audio CDs and MACDs etc... I believe there may even be some blue ray audio releases.
Those are kind of rare, though; can they really be outselling CDs by so much? Or maybe the author mislabeled the key and ‘other’ is supposed to be the sliver on top?
I don't know how widespread it is outside of metal, but I've been seeing more and more bands offering tapes. Sometimes a release is only on tape, other times the tape might be $6, the CD $15 and the LP $25, so there are different ties available for those who want a physical copy. I probably got 10 tapes or so within the last year.
Tape makes a lot of sense audio-quality wise especially for people who insist on analogue for some silly reason, the prices don't make sense, though: Tapes are expensive to manufacture. CDs and vinyl are pressed whole while tapes need to be run through a machine, centimetre by centimetre. Though maybe for small runs it does make sense as you don't need a physical master.
You hit the nail on the head. Even ten years ago people would use national audio and get the shortest run possible (50 units).
I never got below $2 unit cost, but there’s good money to be made selling short runs of tapes after a set.
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-$50 on a new vinyl release. But what am I going to do? Not buy that limited edition colored vinyl gatefold with art and lyric pages?
Well, you could always just download the music, art and lyrics from the internet, since it is the year of our lord 2024
Yeah, at this point you're paying because it's a collector item, or to support the artist, not for the actual content of the package.
I also just really like the physical media. Putting on a record is ritualistic at this point.
I buy mine from the merch stand at the artist's show, they usually go for 20€-30€, even the limited edition ones.
I view vinyls as collectors items, not something you actually listen to. I still buy CDs because I hate the idea of subscription services.
Depends really. Seller am buying from has for example AC/DC records for 26$ 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.
I'd buy the vinyl as a collectors item, but the CD to upload on to my phone.
A whole $1.91!! Wow!
Vinyls are great, but I can't copy them to my phone so I still have to buy a CD with it.
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.
I still reminisce about my Oink ratio. Seeded Rosetta Stone on a university connection. Access to the school's radio station's library.
Probably the closest I'll come to generational wealth, my grandchildren could have leeched music on my account and I'd still be positive.
What used to have staff picks where the download amount wouldn't count negatively towards your ratio, but the upload amount would. When the Beatles remasters came out in 2008 or 2009, they put the entire collection on there, including the FLAC version. It was like 9+ gb I think, all of which was free in terms download amount. All it took was uploading for a few hours and I got my ratio into double digits. Basically made it so I never had to worry about it ever again.
It's not true that I cannot copy my vinyls to my computer? Okay how do I do that then? It just has the red and white left and right cables going to an amp, and then my receiver. Kinda new to vinyls over here
Maybe try Google? As I said, I downloaded them I didn't rip them myself. There was this person with the username "PBTHAL" that always had to best lossless vinyl rips, if you do a search that includes that name, you might find alternate download sources for them. I think they ran their own site where they posted all of their rips outside of what, but don't know if it's still there. They were also very thorough while explaining the process, equipment, cables, etc. for each and every rip. This person was really a perfectionist, and boy did it show. There were albums that they ripped and then refused to upload because they didn't feel their rip was perfect enough.
Absolute fucking legend.
I even have FLACs of reel-to-reel versions of all Zeppelin albums, as well as, Bowie, Dylan, et. al. and they sound fantastic. Don't ask me how it's done. And given the pedigree of that website, these people took the ripping process incredibly seriously.
Haha nice, that's an area of music collection as a hobby that I've never explored., and I can really appreciate that level of dedicstion. Thanks for letting me know, I'll see if I can even find my type of metal on there
You might be able to find some dedicated metalheads ripping vinyl, but my experience was that it seemed to be done more with albums that were released prior to the rise of digital music. I feel like it makes more sense when the album was written and recorded with vinyl in mind, otherwise you're taking a digital recording and putting it on a record so I'm not sure you're going to get anything that sounds better by ripping the vinyl over just ripping the CD. If that makes sense.
I could be wrong though...
Yeah, and with the style of the few albums I do have on vinyl, the vinyl rexord sound kinda goes with the sound of their subgenre so I do enjoy the vinyl listening experience there, and they do sound different than on Spotify.
But when I own my own copy of an album, I want to remove it from Spotify and have my own copy of it on my own device. So if I'm just doing it to be able to listen to music that I paid for on vinyl on my phone when I'm not home in front of the turntable, then that's good enough.
I notice now, some new vinyls on Bandcamp come with digital download, which is cool, but not if I bought it at a show.
There are usb turntables that let you rip your vinyl, but theyre usually not the highest quality turn tables. I like vintage tables because it adds to the atmosphere and there were fewer corners cut. You could probably get some separate equipment that would let your turn table talk to your computer.
TIL, thanks for pointing out the thing about quality. The table I've currently got sounds pretty nice (for never really having used anything else), so maybe I'll check out ones with USB and at least keep it around for copying!
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Basics-Adapter-Subwoofer-Gold-Plated/dp/B01D5H8JW0/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_ffob_sspa?crid=2HSIHFN4VC1TB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.eVe91o4SjbqJOWJWNzj2sI1JvEVmrGD-8HQuGvUliKh7WkT7ktE76Qa4nOizEjKs4_TzIpL51iDrLnYSIVzuJJZfE2zC9tM5Kv2CergZNtvQ0ElZ40VLcpl2YZLBNilIEzpmXX7VD5-X9UsXPtP0BFjyePVMEMJmBQhw26jEMigj-QC_WdwITKHFGEED-hJEkKMx47IV1jAAwfJl_25oag.OGp_undiEYaYOnZ65PztJ1WUHvIbiHEt1l-VCrrQcyY&dib_tag=se&keywords=rca+to+stereo+adapter&qid=1711624657&sprefix=rca+to+ster%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1
Man do I miss what cd. I love RED. But what will always have a special place. I still have tons of merch I bought from what. T-shirts, coffee mug, koozie and so many rippy stickers. I still wear the shirts in my regular rotation
I've got a what.cd hoodie lying around somewhere. Wore that thing out for years, so it's falling apart at this point.
Well, there's still RED and it has almost has vinyl rip for every famous album. I wasn't a what cd member but RED has a huge collection. If you aren't in music trackers anymore you should checkout RED
Yeah but it's members only right? Frankly, I'm just too old and lazy and don't care enough about that stuff anymore to go through a whole interview process and shit.
Do they have PBTHAL vinyl rips? Those were my favorite by far. That person really knew WTF they were doing.
Yes, there is a collage of 578 pbthal rips
🤤
Yeah but what cd was a private tracker too right?
Well, considering you were a what cd user, I think you can easily clear that, the wait for the interview is ridiculously annoying though. I had to wait for weeks for that.
I don't know, have to check. I am just tired of the grind these days and just visit it when my friend asks for an album's flac, or if I get freeleech tokens.
Yeah but I would need to "prove" I was a member, and it's not like I still have any kind of evidence. In fact, I got super lucky to get into what in the first place as I just happened to have a screenshot of my OiNK title bar/ratio because I was messing with different CSS themes months/years prior. So when OiNK died, I was able to get into what pretty easily by showing that screenshot.
I have no such thing for what.
Idt you need to prove that unless they ask you specifically or you say it by yourself.
They don't care what private trackers you are/were in as long as you pass the interview.
Right. I was able to skip the interview process for What because I was a member of OiNK and got lucky enough to find someone on reddit to send me an invite. The whole idea of interviewing to join a torrent site rubs me the wrong way and as I said above, I don't really care about that stuff enough anymore to go through the hassle.
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.
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.
ION TT-USB master race!
My record player has a USB port...
Oh , mine doesn't . I'm new to vinyl, and have less than 10 in my collection. My turntable was given to me by a friend.
So yours can copy to a computer via USB?
In theory, yes. I've never actually plugged it into a computer. It's a Sony PS-LX300USB. Looks like you can pick one up used for less than $100. Might be worth it if you're currently buying everything twice.
Sweet, thanks for the info! I'll check it out
I have a audio technica AT-LP120-USB and it shows up in Audacity as an input source. my good speakers are hooked up to my livingroom PC + TV anyway, so playing back \ recording through audacity is the only way I've ever used the player.
Shiiiiit, okay I like that setup. My computer is connected to my tv which has ARC to th receiver, so I could totally do that too
Aux cable from the out port to input on PC. Open recorder app and hit record. Save files. Upload to phone.
Why though? Just rip a CD or download the file. It's better quality and less effort.
Well ya, but I thought the we were talking about ripping vinyl
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.
Vylin is mixed differently.
BaseBass is usually centered instead of leaning on any channel at a time. This is to reduce chances of skipping. I personally prefer my music that way because drums and bass always feel in the middle leaving room for other instruments to expand on the side.Bass*
And vinyl*
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
I don't really buy vinyl to listen to it, but for the larger cover art and liner notes
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)
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."
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.
I remember getting a copy of Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" that came with a whole-ass newspaper they made folded into the liner with lyrics and pictures. That's something you can only do with vinyl.
Definitely. Similarly, Negativland's album Escape From Noise came with both a bumper sticker and a booklet all about the history of Negativland.
One of my favorite things about vinyl is having to flip the record over. I think it demands more active and respectful listening.
That's because it's getting harder to find CD's plus the majority of people buy digital
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."
Not only that, but all the "better sound" arguments are just about all the mistakes in the audio, like scratches and bumps.
Digital has no mistakes, it will always sound the way it is intended.
But of course some times "the way it is intended" is not the preferable way (see my other comment to OP).
There's Audacity & co. for that.
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
STFU shill bot, I came here to shit on Vinyl not listen to you rant.
you seem to be a toxic moron
Sometimes you have to be very direct in order to shut down conversations with lemmings.
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.
Woah. Weren't they, what, 2$ a piece before CD?
They were definitely cheaper than they are now. But most of them also were produced much cheaper than they are now.
And they were also sold at incredible volume back in the day, for a couple of generations just about every household had a record player or two and shelves of record collections to play on them.
Nowadays vinyl is regaining popularity among people who buy physical music, but that is still a small fraction of the general public who have largely moved on to soft formats.
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.
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.
Investing? You want to sell it again?
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.
I wanna go even further than retro. Gimme the hottest new single on wax cylinder for my phonograph..
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.
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)
The only record store I ever go to is actually a front for a weed store lol . Even though weed is legal in Canada the legal stuff is the worst and most expensive.
Give it time. I'm far from a connoisseur, as these days I mostly just partake in edibles 1-2 times per week, but California has some pretty sweet weed prices, at least compared to my college/grad-school days. I saw an ad on a billboard just yesterday for 10 USD Eighths at a pretty reputable shop in my town, and I think I usually pay 35 USD for a pack of 10 2-dose THC:CBD gummies (compared to 40 USD for an eighth of mediocre bud in the early 2000's).
As people get less paranoid about enforcement and local governments ease up on restrictions, the price should come down and the quality should go up (although this probably depends a lot on local government, so who knows, really)
I hope so. Right now I can get 3.5 grams of shatter for the same price as 1 gram at a legal place . And 500 mg of edibles for the same price as 50 mg . It's crazy high prices, mostly only casual users by from a legal source where I live and its been legal since 2018 .
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.
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.
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.
I did recently buy a favorite band's entire back catalog on CD, because I want to own a non-revocable copy of their work. Plus it felt pretty good "I give you money, you give me music on CD" felt way less icky than "I watch commercials for fraudulent products and services chosen by a nakedly hostile algorithm, evil megacorporation optionally pays you."
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.
I tried Spotify but it only has about 70% of the albums in my collection. I used to love google play music because you could upload your media and it would be included in your library.
I liked Google play too. I was not pleased when they moved to YouTube music and made accessing your own music a total pain in the balls.
Plex and plexamp is how I listen to music now.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out
Edit: It needed me to sign up with an email address and I saw it had in app purchases that put me off a bit. But when looking for that app I found Musicolet which looks pretty perfect, just a simple ad free music playing app without all the bollocks!
the in app purchases are mainly if you want to buy PlexPass which unlocks additional features. I bought the lifetime pass years ago when it was on sale for $75 so I can't quite remember which features require plex pass. Its primarily for video but the music section with Plexamp on my phone and laptop is a nice little bonus.
Ever since the RIAA went after consumers with hefty lawsuits in the early 2000s, I didn't buy music ever again.
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.
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).
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.
That's technically true, but it is entirely possible CDs come back as a retro meat-space alternative to the corporate streaming dystopia we're headed towards, or using CDs as a secondary retro proxy to feed nostalgia for production mastering trends of the 1990s-2000s era.
They already are! Some young artists are already doing those 2000s nostalgia CD releases for the kicks of having a physical medium.
However a big part of the marketing for vinyl has historically been "the sound is warm/high definition/whatever audiophile bullshit". Anyone can achieve the same "warmth" with an EQ and some crackle/white noise (it works so well it's a whole genre called lofi...), but the "vinyl sounds better" crowd will make the unfalsifiable claim that "it's not the same".
However, good luck claiming that "CDs sound different from FLACs"!
In the end both vinyl and CD enjoyers are doing the same thing: enjoying music through personal and ritualistic manipulation of physical objects, that also come with nice album art. It's just that some vinyl enjoyers are attributing some of that enjoyment to a largely made-up supposed "superiority" of sound (yes there are edge cases like "bad" remasters of songs originally released on vinyl, but is that really why anyone buys a turntable? Be honest.).
I'm a professional audio engineer for a living, with a masters in the subject, it was sarcasm lol...
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.
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.
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.
Fair play
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.
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.
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.
CDs are already showing signs of a comeback! https://www.axios.com/2024/01/06/gen-z-cds-buying-collection
Lol, knew it was coming!
This is dumb. Just going to be used for collectors editions with different songs and shit.
To each their own I guess.
Hm. "do you want 2 vinyl nuts" doesn't have the same ring to it.
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.
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?
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.
Hipsters paying 2-3x as much for a vinyl LP which objectively has worse audio quality than a CD.
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
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:
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.
So you have a crap master. Compare the same master between compact disc and vinyl when making your judgments.
alot of people dont work with audio, but i actually have, you may be downvoted, but you are correct.
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.
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.
They're absolutely objectively worse from an audio stand point.
I agree that they give you a different listening experience, which is subjective.
"Pop..... Crack.... Pop....."
Yeah, that doesn't happen as much you'd think. With old and busted records, yes. New stuff. Not even close.
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.
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.
Reloop/pioneer/insert 100 other brands here: am I a joke to you
concidering walmart doesn't sell normal cd players in store but does sell record players, I'm not surprized.
why have streaming and not radio?
CD fans right now:
Apparently CDs are trending up as a nostalgia format in some demographics! https://www.axios.com/2024/01/06/gen-z-cds-buying-collection
I found this small community just a few days ago: ![email protected] Thought it was interesting, and curious. I did not know that CDs are considered by some as collectible.
Nice find, it is weird that I'm now a collector because I still have all the CDs I've bought, and I still buy one from time to time
Indeed! Apparently I too have unwittingly been growing my collection since 1991. Of course back then we just called it "buying my music".
I would show it off to that community but it's just stacked in cardboard boxes (alphabetically, I'm not an animal), not nicely curated and organized and dusted weekly in pride of place. Also, I've never counted, but it must number in the several hundred; I wouldn't want to overwhelm any fledgling enthusiasts there. ;)
checks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_audio_formats
So, vinyls were 1950.
Before we get to CDs, we gotta have the audio cassette and the 8-track.
I have seen artists putting out cassette releases as well. I personally am happy to leave cassettes in the past
Vinyls are purely treasured for their resell value.
Not really though.
I feel like I am the only person who still buys MP3 files direct.
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.
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.
Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
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.
Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
Oh. Sorry
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.
Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
Bbut CDs have no soul!
Most objects don't.
I don't even know where to start with your comment.
Digital mastering was already a thing when vinyl reigned.
CDs have much more fidelity than vinyl, no matter what vinyl enthusiasts say.
CDs being flat USB drives.... what does that even mean?
Anyone who says vinyl is better is really just enjoying the experience. And you know what? That's fine. The problem is, some of them do a terrible job of explaining that it's not actually about the audio quality. When it is actually about the audio quality, vinyl is worse, but some people enjoy that aspect too.
I picked up a little bit on the "audiophile" hobby in the last few years because I was bored and was tired of listening to crappy sound systems with tinny speakers and wanted something a little more premium.
In the "audiophile" community there is all kinds of stuff being marketed mostly to those with more money than brains trying to eek more quality out of their vinyl setups using $10,000 "cartridges" and "record cleaning machines" and the like. I have no idea what these people are thinking because a much easier path to getting quality music to your speakers is to use a digital source.
However, I don't know who at this point would use CDs either. CDs are obviously better quality than vinyl, 8-track, or cassette, but these days you can get CD quality (or even better, master quality from the mixing boards) digitally and losslessly via the Internet and save yourself the collecting of disks.
So I think CDs are kinda stuck in no man's land. Vinyl enthusiasts are in a few groups: loony tunes buying $10k cartridges for their record players, people who like the "aesthetic" of vinyl and don't really care about the quality, people who sample / mix / DJ from vinyl...and the overlap between those groups....CD enthusiasts are people who....like the quality of a digital format but want to still....collect things? Dislike convenience? I'm not sure.
::: spoiler long tangent I am probably at the exact right age and demographic to be a CD enthusiast (it was my primary listening method in my early to late teens so that should trigger nostalgia, I'm a big music fan, and I was one of the few people dorky / techy enough to make "mix CDs") and I cannot imagine ever wanting to go back to CDs...digital files overtook all other source types for me less than a decade after I started having a substantial CD collection. I ripped all of my CDs to digital files at one point and tried to go get some money for a large CD collection I had and watched as the music store guy went over every single (working) CD with a fine tooth comb and explained why I could get $0 for basically all of them at the farmer's market. I wound up dropping the entire box of CDs in a visible place in the store parking lot so someone else could get them for free and then I drove off. :::
Then there's everyone else...if you are OK with digital formats (like most people) you're probably already on a streaming service. CDs provide quality but little else. They're fussy, they require a physical collection, they're easily damaged, they skip, etc. etc.
I would not be surprised if at some point cassette tape sales rebound and overtake CD sales because I think cassettes sit in similar nostalgic / aesthetic territory to vinyl.
As it is, I don't even know what device I would use to play a CD if I bought one. Maybe my PS5?