"Keith G" wrote in message
news

Me too, but what puzzles me is that instead of *demanding* that people
concede 'CD is better' for any particular reason (??) none of the digital
bigots ever seem to want to know why anyone might *prefer* to play vinyl?
(Outside this ng, in the real world, plenty of people do it seems....??)

Almost within touching distance of where I'm sitting, there are two CD
racks full of the sort stuff I like to (and do) play. It is though they do
not exist - I *never* think to play them! I just looked, there is even a
'boxed set' called 'Smooth Classics FM, do not disturb' and it hasn't
been - it's still sealed in a cellophane wrapper!!

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/cellophane.jpg

It must have been there some years now and one of the *few* things I like
on Carsick FM is the 'Smooth Classics at Seven' prog..!!??

In fact, I suspect over half of them have never been played even once
since they were bought - why is that...??

(I think it's a 'natural selection' based on a genuine preference that has
bugger-all to do with technical differences!)

I grew up in the 80's, so I'm of the Walkman generation. The first thing I
did to any album (record or CD) was to transfer it to cassette tape so I
could take it with me in my Walkman clone and in my car. It's awfully hard
to play an LP in a car. So portability became an issue early on with me
even if it did result in some loss of quality. Besides, there is so much
outside noise in a car or when "walking" that it didn't matter anyway.

Today, it's a hell of a lot easier to buy a CD, rip it and send it to my
NetMD or convert it into an MP3 for portability than it is to record an LP
on the PC and then send that to my NetMD or MP3 player.

Beyond that, while snap, crackle, and pop might be o.k. as a cereal, I
really don't want to hear it in my music. It's also *far* more annoying to
me than analog audio tape hiss, which I don't really like in my music
either. Getting away from tape hiss is why I use MD and MP3 for portable
music.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

"Jeff Findley" wrote in
message

I grew up in the 80's, so I'm of the Walkman generation. The first thing I
did to any album (record or CD) was to
transfer it to cassette tape so I could take it with me
in my Walkman clone and in my car. It's awfully hard to
play an LP in a car. So portability became an issue
early on with me even if it did result in some loss of
quality. Besides, there is so much outside noise in a
car or when "walking" that it didn't matter anyway.

Today, it's a hell of a lot easier to buy a CD, rip it
and send it to my NetMD or convert it into an MP3 for
portability than it is to record an LP on the PC and then
send that to my NetMD or MP3 player.

Beyond that, while snap, crackle, and pop might be o.k.
as a cereal, I really don't want to hear it in my music.

If snap crackel and pop were all that the LP format did to music it would be
bad enough, but it isn't.

I don't know how people can mention High Fidelity and LP in the same breath,
given how good our mainstream media formats can be.

It's also *far* more annoying to me than analog audio
tape hiss, which I don't really like in my music either.

Well Dolby and metal tape did a lot for the hiss thing with cassette tape,
but there are a host of other audible artifacts. In the days of cassette
walkmen, I used a Sony WM3 and metal tape.

Getting away from tape hiss is why I use MD and MP3 for
portable music.

Either done right can sonically outperform cassette tape and LP, quite
easily.

Jeff

"Glenn Richards" wrote in
message
. uk
Arny Krueger wrote:

Back in the 1980s when people used to buy the LP and the
CD of the same album, play them both and compare the
results, they weren't really comparing the two media.
Instead, they were comparing the (generally quite
separate) mastering decisions--EQ, limiting,
etc.--behind the two products, plus the particular
characteristics of their LP and CD playback equipment.

So what that posting is basically saying is that CD is
capable of far better quality sound than vinyl, but due
to sloppy mastering (loudness wars anyone?) vinyl
generally sounds better?

Huh?

My position is that CD is easily capable of far better sound quality than
vinyl, even when people work their butts off trying to make vinyl sound
good. Furthermore, since the CD has been the predominant mainstream method
of distributing music, music has in general sounded far better because it
was no longer cursed with the audible artifacts that are inherent in LPs.

Because it hasn't been compressed to within an inch of its life?

Hypercompression is a production technique, not an inherent property of a
distribution medium. However. the LP format has historically been more
likely to use compression, because the basic dynamic range of the LP medium
is less than that of wide dynamic range music. Thing is that even the LP
format didn't need hypercompression.

The reason that so much music is hypercompressed today is because people no
longer predominately listen to music as their sole activity. Music is more
likely than ever to be listened to while the listener is doing something
else that is more important to them. Therefore, dynamic range is a detriment
to many listener's use of music.

In rec.audio.tech Glenn Richards wrote:
Arny Krueger wrote:

Back in the 1980s when people used to buy the LP and the CD of the
same album, play them both and compare the results, they weren't
really comparing the two media. Instead, they were comparing the
(generally quite separate) mastering decisions--EQ, limiting,
etc.--behind the two products, plus the particular characteristics of
their LP and CD playback equipment.

So what that posting is basically saying is that CD is capable of far
better quality sound than vinyl, but due to sloppy mastering (loudness
wars anyone?) vinyl generally sounds better? Because it hasn't been
compressed to within an inch of its life?


Yes, for popular music since about 1993 or so, that *could* be the case,
*if* you find the dynamic range compression used in modern pop CD
mastering (which some find to be 'euphonic', ie good-sounding) more
objectionable than that the 'euphonic' distortions of LP. Of course even
today, not all pop CDs are so compressed, nor are all of them compressed
to the same degree. But all LP systems will display 'euphonic' distortion.

Compared to pop music, digital compression is more rarely applied to jazz
CDs, and more rarely still to classical CDs. It is unlikely you will find
classical LPs that match the dynamic range of the corresponding CD.


___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...
But all LP systems will display 'euphonic' distortion.

Not so. I find much of the distortion on vinyl records anything but
"euphonic"!

MrT.

In rec.audio.tech Mr.T MrT@home wrote:

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...
But all LP systems will display 'euphonic' distortion.

Not so. I find much of the distortion on vinyl records anything but
"euphonic"!


Oh, for the ability to make 'quote fingers' online.


___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason