Canada's online magazine: Politics, entertainment, technology, media, arts, books: backofthebook.ca

Politics, tech, media, culture and more, from a Canadian point-of-view

  • Politics
  • Media
  • Culture
  • Science and Tech
  • Living
  • Arts and Books
  • Features
  • The Video
You are here: Home / Science and Tech / Vinyl resurgent

Vinyl resurgent

09/27/2010 by backofthebook.ca 1 Comment

geishadjBy Eric Pettifor

A little over three years ago, I wrote here about converting vinyl records to digital audio files. I suggested the eBay record section as a source for vinyl, and noted that, at time of writing, there were 151,436 listings. At this time of writing, there are 2,274,791. What gives?

According to Lucas Mearian over at Computer World, sales of vinyl records are on the rise, while CD sales continue to decline. Though that doesn’t mean that people are switching from CD to vinyl — CDs continue to lose ground to online sales of mp3s.

Mearian quotes David Bakula of Nielsen Entertainment, who says that elder audiophiles make up a large part of the market. You know the ones: purists who maintain that vinyl sounds better than digital, thus warranting the outlay of crazy amounts of money for high-end audiophile gear to squeeze the maximum sonic goodness from every groove.

But is that enough to account for the growth in vinyl sales? Especially since this elder demographic is more prone to dying? Will vinyl finally become defunct when the last elder audiophile gasps his terminal breath?

Perhaps not. Mearian identifies another group also getting into vinyl, and not necessarily due to a belief in sonic superiority. Apparently some young folk consider the medium to be cool for its historical significance, and for its larger size, which affords better cover art and includes. Mearian notes that some albums now come with coupons redeemable online for mp3 downloads of music on the album, so the kids don’t even have to rip the vinyl themselves — they can have better art, liner notes, and play the music on their portable music players (or phones, or body piercing plugs, or whatever they’re into these days).

For those albums that don’t come with coupons, there are usb turntables now. Though no audiophile would touch them with a 10-foot pole (and don’t hold your breath waiting for purists to redeem mp3 coupons either), they do make it easier to rip music straight from vinyl. They’re most definitely not aimed at the elder audiophile, and their mass production suggests a strong market for vinyl indeed.

Another factor in vinyl’s favour, one which might appeal to both groups, was brought up in the discussion thread when Mearian’s story was posted to slashdot. Apparently, due to something called the loudness war, vinyl actually does sound better than digital in many instances, and not just in the minds of those who can afford phono cartridges hand crafted in Japan from mammoth ivory featuring titanium cantilevers individually tempered with a geisha’s tears.

There is a maximum recording level which no recording can exceed without distortion, but the impression of loudness can be increased through compression, a kind of selective level where quieter parts can be boosted, while the level for peaks is preserved, effectively reducing the dynamic range (the difference between the quietest parts and the loudest parts).

Vinyl releases are less likely to suffer this, or at least not to the same extreme. Consequently, where the CD version has had the life compressed out of it, and the vinyl version hasn’t, there is no debate — vinyl is better.

Here’s an A/B comparison on YouTube between a a Metallica song on CD, and a version of the same song which was released without compression for the game Guitar Hero. You don’t need great speakers to hear the difference.

Whether it’s for the “warmth” or whatever audiophiles imagine they’re hearing through their elite stereos, or else for the cool album cover art, liner notes, and includes, or else simply for genuinely superior sound which faithfully represents the original dynamic range of the recording, vinyl is likely going to be with us for some time to come.

Filed Under: Science and Tech

Subscribe to BoB by e-mail or RSS

Comments

  1. Zobeid Zuma says

    10/06/2010 at 9:10 pm

    Going vinyl to avoid the loudness war is a hit-or-miss thing. To save money and time, some new LPs are mastered simply by spooling the super-compressed CD audio right into the record cutting machine. The resulting sound quality is hilariously bad — although not so funny if you’ve just shelled out $20 for it.

    Even LPs that are mastered independently from the CD are often more compressed than music from the “good old days” of the 1980s. I suspect a lot of people in the music industry have been listening to super-compression for so long they’ve forgot what music is supposed to sound like.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Google+
  • Living
  • Politics
  • Media
  • Culture
  • Arts and Books
  • Features
  • The Video
Fire sale sign

Fort McMurray: Shopping time!

By Brady Tighe We’re now officially in the aftermath phase of the northern Alberta wildfire crisis. The fire is long gone, and everyone with a home to return to is back in its … [Read More...]

Nathan Cullen

Electoral reform: Hashtag fresh thinking

By Alison@Creekside The most interesting and innovative idea to come out of the first meeting of the all-party Special Committee on Electoral Reform, or ERRE, was Nathan Cullen's suggestion, … [Read More...]

Trudeau on quantum computing

The Trudeau gush fest is getting old

By Jim Henshaw There have been several bewildered as well as angry accounts coming out of the USA lately about how little media time has been spent covering the Democratic Presidential Primary … [Read More...]

Rick Meyers in Nanaimo Pride Parade

My friend, Rick, at the Pride Parade

By Frank Moher On this dreadful day, I don't want to write about the shootings in Orlando. I want to write about my friend, Rick. Rick lives just outside of Nanaimo, a city of about 80,000, … [Read More...]

Stephen Colbert on Late Night set

Triumph of the drama nerds

By Frank Moher Two drama nerds have recently moved into high profile positions. Before I name them (or perhaps you’ve already guessed who they are; or perhaps you’d like to scroll down and look at … [Read More...]

From “Our Rape Blog”: Shooting the Moon

Originally published on Our Rape Blog, the author's account of the aftermath of a violent sexual assault. By Mary Fraughton Have you ever played Hearts? It’s a card game. For our purposes, … [Read More...]

First Nations defending Lelu Island

The video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”

From Creekside: The B.C. provincial government is trying to green light the construction of a massive LNG terminal on Lelu Island in the Skeena Estuary -- Pacific Northwest LNG, backed by Malaysian … [Read More...]

Google

Follow Us!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

RSS CBC News



Recent Posts

  • Fort McMurray: Shopping time!
  • From “Our Rape Blog”: Shooting the Moon
  • Electoral reform: Hashtag fresh thinking
  • The fish hotel
  • Hatred on an Alberta golf course
  • The video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”
  • My friend, Rick, at the Pride Parade
  • Our selective sympathy
  • The Water Bomber, The Frogman and The Great Canadian Novelist
  • Komagata Maru: The story behind the apology

Tags

9/11 Afghanistan Alberta bad behaviour books British Columbia business Canada Canadian military Canadian politics CBC celebrity computers Conservatives crime environment family film G20 Globe and Mail internet Jason Kenney journalism Justin Trudeau law Liberals Maclean's music National Post NDP newspapers oil sands online media Ontario Quebec RCMP religion sports Stephen Harper television theatre Toronto U.S. Vancouver women

Archives

The Video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”

Pages

  • About
  • Privacy

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in