Author Topic: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.  (Read 1598 times)

Offline Nick B

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Offline steve

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2022, 10:02:57 PM »
Nick, do you think in general that the recording quality is equal or better than yesteryear?

cheers

steve
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Offline malloy

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2022, 11:31:41 PM »
Interesting. I don't know about the recording quality, as I've yet to listen to any new vinyl since I don't have a turntable right now, but I believe it.

The last two times I was at Rasputin in the Bay Area, young people where there buying vinyl albums - 20 somethings, and probably late teens were browsing through the 'new releases' section.

"Hipster-types" and millennials mostly.  It's a lifestyle thing mostly. I seriously doubt they know how good the stuff sounds. Probably an in thing among younger people - like needing a mechanical keyboard for gaming or using Lomo cameras with real film.

All the [ahem] older folks like myself were of course in the bargain bin section of the jazz, rock, and classical sections for compact disc :lol:

Paul

Offline Nick B

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2022, 12:30:49 AM »
Nick, do you think in general that the recording quality is equal or better than yesteryear?

cheers

steve

Steve,

I just don’t have the knowledge or the experience to answer that question. My brother-in-law Mike was a recording engineer for many years, but he’s traveling to Europe and then in the US in his motorhome for five weeks. Otherwise, I would ask him. I think Dave and a few other guys will chime in and I’ll be curious what they think.

Nick
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Offline S Clark

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2022, 05:37:57 AM »
I'm mostly a vinyl listener.  My experience is that the newly released vinyl is extremely quiet compared to older stuff.  But just about every new lp I've bought is a remaster, but that takes us to a different topic.  There are a few releases that were around on cd and just recently released on vinyl... James Taylor's Hourglass is a good example.  Excellent vinyl in that it's perfectly quiet, but clearly a different beast from the demo quality cd... better in some ways, not as good in others.  The new music/new release is something I have no experience with.

I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised by the quality of what I've heard over the past couple of years.  The plants are cranking out records as fast as they possibly can.  I'd expect to run across more flaws, things like bubbles due to too fast and too hot pressing... but not so so far.   Seems like the 70's and early 80's were the dark times for record quality... and then again during the late 90's and early 2000's during the initial wild west of re-released jazz that had come out from under copyright protection.  Some of that crap was mastered from cd's.  I bought a vinyl Patricia Barber that was truly unlistenably  noisy... the only new record I've ever taken back. 
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Offline steve

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2022, 09:35:24 AM »
Thanks Gents.

Nick, thank you for your reply. I/we have plenty of time and from others as well. Looks like a
really good string.

Scott, thanks for the history, great info for us. Thinking about it, I have an Opus 3 and Sheffield Labs,
and they could not sound more different to me. Not sure of the time period for the two.

I have a $20.00 gift certificate for BN and was just wondering. One thing that is difficult for me is to figure out
is if a particular Lp I am interested in is of excellent quality.

Cheers

steve



 
« Last Edit: June 29, 2022, 09:37:45 AM by steve »
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Offline malloy

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2022, 09:59:09 PM »
I bought a vinyl Patricia Barber that was truly unlistenably  noisy... the only new record I've ever taken back.

Interesting. How was it noisy? Surface noise, clicks and pops? A shame for such a great artist to be taken down by inferior sound.

Offline tmazz

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2022, 10:37:54 PM »
Nick, do you think in general that the recording quality is equal or better than yesteryear?

cheers

steve

Steve are you talking about the quality of records of yesteryear vs today, as in, for example, a six eye Columbia Kind of Blue vs as 2022 pressed copy of the same recording  or are you talking about the recording of Kind of Blue vs a new studio recording done today?

If you are talking about the discs themselves I would say that given the new vinyl formulations and the pressing procedures and profiles used in premium pressing plants like QRP and Pallas, the physical LPs produced today can sound better and definitely quieter than those of yesteryear. . However if you are looking at a remastered release in total there are several variables that affect the quality of the final product and we earlier this week had a discussion about them in the Listening thread so I will not repeat them here.

If you are talking about the recordings themselves I have some idea on that front that I would love to get some feedback on. The late 50s/earliy 60s is often called the golden age of classical and jazz recording and it did indeed provide us with many excellent recordings, but is also put out a lot of mediocre and downright poor sounding albums. However when I look at the albums from that era that are often held out as sonic gems they for the most part seem to come from a small group of production teams.And IMO the talent of those people was a larger driver of those album's SQ and any other factor.

Fast forward to more modern times and one only needs to listen to some of the recordings David Wilson did for his label or the work that Keith Johnson has done for Reference Recordings and again., IMO, you will find that they both did recording with SQ that I believe rivals, if not surpasses, anything from the "golden age. Unfortunately most record companies today do not value SQ in and of itself. A large percentage of today's music consumers do most of their listening through earbuds and portable devices which A0 are not high fidelity devices to begin with and b0 because of the way they are used and the environments they are generally used in,  actually benefit from the high levels of compression that we are now seeing in so many modern release. And while this compression makes the iPod sound better, it makes music played on a high quality system sound worse. But since there are way many iPod users than audiophiles, the record companies do what any rational business would do and cater to the market segment that generates the most money for them.

So while IMO they quality of recordings in general has gone down, the work done by a small group of folks who are still dedicated to providing the highest possible SQ proves that while it is done all  that often, making good recordings can be done in modern times if somebody wants to put in the time and effort.

I hope this helps, and please chime in, I am very interested to hear what others think of these ideas. (I have thick skin and will not be insulted if anyone disagrees with me, this is not you know where.)

Tom

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Offline Nick B

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2022, 12:24:14 AM »
Thanks Gents.

Nick, thank you for your reply. I/we have plenty of time and from others as well. Looks like a
really good string.

Scott, thanks for the history, great info for us. Thinking about it, I have an Opus 3 and Sheffield Labs,
and they could not sound more different to me. Not sure of the time period for the two.

I have a $20.00 gift certificate for BN and was just wondering. One thing that is difficult for me is to figure out
is if a particular Lp I am interested in is of excellent quality.

Cheers

steve

Steve,

I used to have a web page bookmarked that rated recordings and re-issues. I looked for it today, but just haven’t been able to find it yet. It might be very useful to you if my recollection on it is correct. This goes back at least 4 to 5 years when I was at an upscale audio video shop in Las Vegas and they provided our audio club that link.

Nick
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Offline steve

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Re: an article about the resurgence of vinyl.
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2022, 10:08:55 PM »
Nick, do you think in general that the recording quality is equal or better than yesteryear?

cheers

steve

Steve are you talking about the quality of records of yesteryear vs today, as in, for example, a six eye Columbia Kind of Blue vs as 2022 pressed copy of the same recording  or are you talking about the recording of Kind of Blue vs a new studio recording done today?

If you are talking about the discs themselves I would say that given the new vinyl formulations and the pressing procedures and profiles used in premium pressing plants like QRP and Pallas, the physical LPs produced today can sound better and definitely quieter than those of yesteryear. . However if you are looking at a remastered release in total there are several variables that affect the quality of the final product and we earlier this week had a discussion about them in the Listening thread so I will not repeat them here.

If you are talking about the recordings themselves I have some idea on that front that I would love to get some feedback on. The late 50s/earliy 60s is often called the golden age of classical and jazz recording and it did indeed provide us with many excellent recordings, but is also put out a lot of mediocre and downright poor sounding albums. However when I look at the albums from that era that are often held out as sonic gems they for the most part seem to come from a small group of production teams.And IMO the talent of those people was a larger driver of those album's SQ and any other factor.

Fast forward to more modern times and one only needs to listen to some of the recordings David Wilson did for his label or the work that Keith Johnson has done for Reference Recordings and again., IMO, you will find that they both did recording with SQ that I believe rivals, if not surpasses, anything from the "golden age. Unfortunately most record companies today do not value SQ in and of itself. A large percentage of today's music consumers do most of their listening through earbuds and portable devices which A0 are not high fidelity devices to begin with and b0 because of the way they are used and the environments they are generally used in,  actually benefit from the high levels of compression that we are now seeing in so many modern release. And while this compression makes the iPod sound better, it makes music played on a high quality system sound worse. But since there are way many iPod users than audiophiles, the record companies do what any rational business would do and cater to the market segment that generates the most money for them.

So while IMO they quality of recordings in general has gone down, the work done by a small group of folks who are still dedicated to providing the highest possible SQ proves that while it is done all  that often, making good recordings can be done in modern times if somebody wants to put in the time and effort.

I hope this helps, and please chime in, I am very interested to hear what others think of these ideas. (I have thick skin and will not be insulted if anyone disagrees with me, this is not you know where.)

Tom

Hi Gents,

I was initially referring to the actual quality of the LP pressings themselves, then vs now.

However, you bring up a great point Tom, of the actual recordings themselves from yesteryear vs these days
as well.

I did not know the "ratio" of great recording quality (in the studio) back then vs these days.
I also did not know the "ratio" of great LPs pressings vs the pressing quality today.
But your reply to both questions gave me that information, or at least a great indication.
Much appreciated.

I know I am finding great recordings via Tidal, and also from YouTube to some extent.
I just wish I could obtain higher quality streaming from YT. If YT would allow streaming full quality
(I have read uploading of redbook or even higher is often done.), that would be great.

-----

Nick, no worries here. If you happen to come with some more info later, that would be a +.

-----

Mallory, yes, it is a shame. There are some old songs that I love but the quality is so so poor.

cheers

steve

« Last Edit: July 02, 2022, 09:04:30 PM by steve »
Steve Sammet (Owner, Electron Eng, SAS Audio Labs, Ret)
SAS "V" 39pf/m 6N copper ICs,
SAS Test Phono Stage
Acutex 320 STR Mov Iron Cart
SAS 11A Perfect Tube Preamp
SAS 25 W Ref Triode/UL Monoblocks
2 way Floor Standing Test Speakers