More backlash against the record industry: Teens like vinyl

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by Achtung, Apr 21, 2006.

  1. Achtung

    Achtung Member

    Jul 19, 2002
    Chicago
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For all the music snobs out there who assume that teenagers have no taste. Plus those of us who are just plain surprised by this.

    More at: http://www.physorg.com/news64807495.html

    Interesting. As someone who only recently bought their first record player (yeah, I know), I have to say that there is a definite charm to the "warmer" sounds and the coolness of finding older albums. I don't know that I'd say the sound is better, but has a certain realism to it, maybe because its imperfect, I don't know. I'm sure that debate has been done here before though.

    Of course for the kids, maybe its just them being retro-cool that is responsible for this trend in vinyl sales. But I'd like to think that a lot of them are genuinely sick of buying copy-protected CDs or 128 kbps MP3s.
     
  2. Chicago1871

    Chicago1871 Member

    Apr 21, 2001
    Chicago
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Damnit! Beat me just by a couple of minutes.
     
  3. Claymore

    Claymore Member

    Jul 9, 2000
    Montgomery Vlg, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Are low-priced turntables even available anymore?
     
  4. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    I'm teaching a college level intro to literature class, and we just got done reading Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. I taught that book in a contemporary fiction class when it was first out in paperback ('97, '98), and everyone dug it. Over half the class had never seen vinyl, and only two had ever actually played one. A couple weeks back, in this I-Pod age, etc., I thought I'd have to even explain things like A-side and b-sides, etc.

    Turns out, almost half out of the 24 students actually buy vinyl for things they really like. I wish I'd seen this article earlier, because I was completely taken by surprise on this one.
     
  5. SirManchester

    SirManchester Member+

    Apr 14, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    That's what I think, not for one minute do I buy that any of this is genuine. This goes hand in hand with all this shit retro fashion that teens got involved in, not because they like it but because it's a new trend. Teens nowadays don't have the balls nor the intelligence, or there aren't enough out there to actually rebel against anything.
     
  6. Achtung

    Achtung Member

    Jul 19, 2002
    Chicago
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Depends on your definition of low-priced, but plenty are around for under $100.
     
  7. Claymore

    Claymore Member

    Jul 9, 2000
    Montgomery Vlg, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Interesting. I assumed the only ones still out there were the $500 and up models for audiophiles.
     
  8. Ghost

    Ghost Member+

    Sep 5, 2001
    Keep in mind there was a bit of a vinyl revival in the early 90s. I own some fairly significant albums from that era on vinyl - Nirvana's In Utero, Bettie Serveert's Lamprey, Pavement's Cut Your Hair single, Liz Phair's Whip Smart. Pearl Jam's Vs. sold 100-some thousand copies on vinyl and entered the top 100 during the week before it was released as a CD.

    But I still refuse to believe that the kids today are anything more than a bunch of American Idol worshippers, no matter what a few Interpol fans do.
     
  9. Kryptonite

    Kryptonite Fancy Title Here

    Apr 10, 1999
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Pearl Jam still releases everything on vinyl. Their newest is due out on May 2nd and i'd be shocked if it's not on vinyl.
     
  10. 655321

    655321 New Member

    Jul 21, 2002
    The Mission, SF
    Wow, there are some jaded old people here.
     
  11. metabelian

    metabelian New Member

    May 14, 2005
    san diego
    The sound quality actually is better (or at least ought to be). LPs are analog, basically meaning that the sound wave of the recording is accuratly reproduced on the LP grove, whereas CDs and other digital music forms discretize the waves into short time segments, so you get an approximation to the actual sound. Of course, that's assuming that the record is in pristine condition and, as to paraphrase one book I read: you're going to need a darn fine sound system ($20k was the example) for the difference to be significant.
     
  12. Achtung

    Achtung Member

    Jul 19, 2002
    Chicago
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well, yes and no. Within the frequency limits of human hearing, as long as digital audio is sampled at the Nyquist rate (twice the highest frequency), the reproduction of the original analog signal is not an approximation--its exact. Now that said, its often believed that for various reasons, vinyl manages to sound more authentic in producing frequencies that are out of that range. It's an argument without a correct answer, and one that really depends on the preference of the person. Plus like you said, it requires a very expensive system to hear the difference, $20k or so. Most of us, myself included, are probably under the $1k range.

    Which is all part of the reason I think kids are getting into vinyl for the coolness factor, at least partially. Of course there is also a benefit in it being a good way to get into older music, or newer music released on small labels that put out vinyl instead of CDs. In fact part of the reason I decided to get a record player is because I was going to shows by smaller bands who weren't selling CDs, only record.
     
  13. CrewDust

    CrewDust Member

    May 6, 1999
    Columbus, Ohio
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    Damn right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
  14. Toon³

    Toon³ Member

    Dec 27, 2002
    Club:
    Newcastle United FC
    There isn't a record player in my car or one that fits in my pocket, so whats the point?
     
  15. NUFCBayern

    NUFCBayern Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 9, 2004
    Columbus, OH
    Club:
    FC Bayern München
    Don't you want to be super cool and show off your gigantic and wholly inefficient records to your friends??
     
  16. metabelian

    metabelian New Member

    May 14, 2005
    san diego
    Sampling at or above the Nyquist rate eliminates aliasing, a distortion or 'confusion' of two frequencies, so to speak, it doesn't make the signal identical to the original signal. It doesn't account for the problems associated with discretization (see the graph at http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm). For example it would be impossible, considering the method of digital conversion, to recreate exactly legato or vibrato.
     
  17. sch2383

    sch2383 New Member

    Feb 14, 2003
    Northern Virginia
    Hell, I bought a new vinyl copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea a few weeks back for a friend as a birthday gift and it was $15 or so, including shipping.

    Many bands are relasing their albums in both CD and vinyl format. All of the New Pornographers' albums can be orderd in vinyl off their website. Same with Ted Leo and Arcade Fire.
     
  18. Achtung

    Achtung Member

    Jul 19, 2002
    Chicago
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Again, not to turn this into a debate over vinyl vs. CD, but sampling at above the Nyquist rate does allow an exact recreation of the original (bandlimited) signal. This can be shown mathematically by taking the Fourier transform, if you really want to go there. I'm not even sure what the graph which you linked is supposed to suggest, to be honest. I assume it shows a "sampling" in the time domain, but it seems to be based on the false belief that digital signal reconstruction is a "connect the dots" style exercise. Of course in practice, a D/A converter with a lowpass filter is used, along with some oversampling, generally.

    Anyone still with me? :)

    Anyways, the point of this thread wasn't to dredge up that old debate. Believe me, as interesting as vinyl may be, any possible sound benefits are overweighed by the fact that its a hell of a lot harder to take with me in the car or while jogging. At best, it remains a novelty from a practical standpoint. My point was to hopefully give people some hope that "the kids are alright", and that they're not going to roll over for the recording industry which wants to control how and when they listen to music, and really that's good news for all of us who despise copy protection and the like. Hopefully it also speaks a little bit better for their tastes and respect of musical history if they're going out there to check out music from the 80s and before on vinyl as well.
     
  19. nancyb

    nancyb Member

    Jun 30, 2000
    Falls Church, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For me, I like vinyl for the covers and artwork. My hearing is too bad to be able to distinguish a difference between the sound. I've got a 25 yo Bang and Olufsen turntable that, I'm afraid, seems to be on its way to dying. I'll definitely buy a new one, but I don't think it will be of the same quality as the old B&O one.
     
  20. Nanbawan

    Nanbawan Member

    Jun 11, 2004
    Haute Bretagne
    Club:
    Stade Rennais FC
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    I do remember that some artists actually did a LP-ROM reader for computers. If someone has more info.

    [​IMG]
     
  21. metabelian

    metabelian New Member

    May 14, 2005
    san diego
    My bad, I think I linked to the wrong graph check out http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/analog-digital3.htm . Sampling at a high enough rate will recreate perfectly the original only if the sampling is exact (and as you mentioned we assume it is bandlimited), whereas in CDs that isn't the case. I've had my DE couses and also some actual coursework in digital music, so I think I can keep up w/ the technical aspect if that's required.
     
  22. musicl

    musicl New Member

    Jan 9, 2004
    I have some vinyl records and they suck. Poor sound and alot of hassel. Really annoying. CD's all the way.
     
  23. Cascarino's Pizzeria

    Apr 29, 2001
    New Jersey, USA
    But to be really cool ya gotta have a 300+ cassettes still in your basement, collecting dust, hearing "when are you going to finally throw them out, dear?"
     
  24. Garcia

    Garcia Member

    Dec 14, 1999
    Castro Castro
    Well, I threw out my LPs for some stupid reason. I am still kicking myself.

    I do have a million tapes, and my wife actually like ti play them when she is doing house work.

    I like how people like to buy things for the iPod or CD from original recordings which is "remastered" from the tapes and LPs. :p It is a way to preserve the imperfect technology while it preserves the actual moment, the jam sessions newly found, etc. No doubt that records are cool, but we have also have the library of Congress needing to save our history by digital means.
     
  25. Unorthodox Yank

    Feb 27, 2001
    Constant Flux
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I am 20, and have bought vinyl almost exclusively since I was 16 or so.

    Personally, I don't understand why everyone is trying to limit this to a "one or the other" kind of deal. It is perfectly possible to have the good sound and supreme aesthetic value of vinyl, as well as the portability and convenience of a CD.

    This has been my policy: use limewire or other p2p program to download the CD. Then, support the artist and buy the vinyl. For the longest time I thought that record companies should sell vinyl with a special password that would allow the buyer to download all the tracks from the label webpage.

    Too bad Merge beat me to it. I can't remeber which releases they did this with, but two merge releases pretty recently were done in that same fashion. If Vinyl is realy catching on with my generations like that article says it is, then this may be a way for labels to tap into that.
     

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