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Comment by gwbas1c | Hacker News Reader

I really enjoy playing vinyl from time to time; but I'm not going to pretend that they sound better. They don't. Vinyl is all about the touch and the feel, like driving a stick or making bread from scratch.

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There's also the vinyl-only availability of a lot of recordings, especially if you're interested in niche pre-80/90s genres. I collect private press / avant jazz from the 60s and 70s along with some soul/funk, and while there are reissues available for some recordings in a lot of cases your only option for a good quality copy is finding an original copy of the vinyl record.

The 'niche' collecting part of vinyl records is really interesting and I wish someone would do a good story on that instead of the "vinyl's not dead!" approach.

(self plug: I wrote/run https://gripsweat.com which tracks auctions and sales so if you're curious about high-dollar niche records it's a good listening / browsing resource.)

I agree. I'm just getting into it and building out a home stereo system, but I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I enjoy playing vinyl. It's because of junk like, "The reasons cited [for playing vinyl] are usually a fuller, warmer sound from vinyl’s analog grooves." No, no, no, don't associate me with that stupid audiophile nonsense.

Well, it IS a different sound, and that can be measured objectively (I mean that vinyl players "color" the original recording and how much and in what ways they alter the frequency response and such).

So, it's not like $1000 cables scams etc, where the results are identical.

Now, the subjective part is whether this "warmer" sound is better than the more accurate (better fidelity) high quality digital sound.

For a lot of people, it is -- same way as we tend to like "saturated" images more, despite their colors not being true to the original.

(Of course I'm speaking in general -- if you, mr. outlier, doesn't like saturated pictures, this doesn't apply to your statistical noise self. Not everything is about you.).

Then there's the crackle and static that some (fewer) people also like, but I'm sticking to the basic vinyl "color" here.

Vinyl is very heavily processed. The sound that ends up on the groove has the bass cut by up to 20dB, and the treble boosted by the same amount, because the needle can't move fast enough and far enough to reproduce a flat frequency response. (Google "RIAA curve" for details.)

The processing is reversed on playback in the preamp, but there's always a mismatch between the source EQ and the preamp EQ, so there's always some tonal distortion. And because the bass gets boosted so much there's added waveform distortion which increases with bass frequencies and makes the bass thicker.

Many turntables also have pitch instabilities.

Hence "vinyl sound."

So no - it's not even remotely accurate. Add scratches, crackles, and pops, groove deterioration - the needle causes enough friction to melt the plastic in the groove - and other artefacts, and it's really more of a lifestyle/collector thing than anything to do with accuracy.

Personally I have enough physical stuff already, and I want less, not more. So being able to store all my music on a hard drive in FLAC format makes me thankful the industry moved beyond vinyl.

But if you wanted that type of sound, you could record it digitally. There is no reason why that type of sound has to come from a vinyl analog record. Is there ?

And people DO do that: using several compression, old mikes, tube amps, EQing, recording techniques, etc to make digital releases sound like vinyl/low-fi of yore.

In fact one of the hottest selling audio plugin categories are "tape saturation" (which mimic 2-inch tape distortions, not that far from mimicking vinul).

E.g.: https://www.u-he.com/cms/satin

When it comes to vinyl, there's also other factors: the patina (crackle) etc, adds connection to the times you've played the record, the fragility and tactile feel, plus it's a physical, collectible artifact. Plus, at least for now, the fashion factor.

While a audio-file collection will be useless in 20 years (already is with things like Spotify giving access to most music), a good condition LP will mostly increase in price. In 50 years? A current pressing could be worth $200 or more (especially since most bands do small 1000 units or less vinul pressings).

I get that it's fashion. It just surprises me, given there is no reason for it, as far as the actual quality of the signal goes. I mean it's one thing if you are collecting antique vinyl from the 1930s or something. But collecting modern recordings just seems bizarre to me. I am not judging, I am just amused.

Also, Spotify doesn't give you the same quality sound as an audiofile collection of CDs, due to compression

>I get that it's fashion. It just surprises me, given there is no reason for it, as far as the actual quality of the signal goes.

I think one way to see it is that it being in vinyl (with all the romantic, old-music-industry, analog etc ideas it conveys) is also part of the signal.

As in, the signal is not the pure musical signal, but also the cultural one (the vinyl being emotional, nostalgic, romanticized, fashionished, fetishised, etc).

>Also, Spotify doesn't give you the same quality sound as an audiofile collection of CDs, due to compression

That's just a matter of time and better broadband connections. For most people, given their speakers/headphones quality, it's more than enough.

To try and explain....it's like the difference between fake "stressed" furniture which inside is just mashed up Ikea woodchip with a veneer stuck to it and the real deal.

There's also the joy and relaxation of kicking back and watching the vinyl spin on the table whilst playing, it's mesmerizing and hypnotic.

I guess that the world is split between fetishists (who enjoy the things for multiple levels) and functionalists (who enjoy them only for their core utility).

well, I enjoy album art and browsing for music and remembering where I got it - all the reasons cited for buying vinyl. So, it's not just the pure functionality for me, either. But you can get all those same things with CDs as well. So, I do find the vinyl fashion perplexing.

I've been thinking about your question. I suppose one appeal for me is that I understand how vinyl works. Putting a CD in isn't that much different from hitting Play on your MP3 player: you queue up your song, hit play, and music just happens behind the scenes, you can't watch it. But with vinyl, you can see it in action. I occasionally just sit there and watch the needle and cartridge and tone arm move across the surface of the record, imagining how the tiny vibrations of the needle are transformed into electrical amplitude, increased by the amp and played out of speakers. It's fun and, today, novel to be able to understand a whole system like that and observe each part doing its task.

I see. Does that account though for the dramatic growth in LP sales. I mean is that why most people buy LPs nowadays?

I think you need to find someone who has a decent vinyl collection with a nice listening setup and go visit them for an evening, have a few glasses of wine or a beer and listen, handle and chill with the records...then you might understand.

If you still don't get it then you probably also don't get why people run vintage/classic cars (why bother when - to paraphrase - you can get the same things as running a modern compact saloon as well - both get you from A to B, the modern compact probably more reliably so) or operate steam engines or collect stamps.

In my home office I have a fully working refurbished GPO model 746 rotary dial telephone [0][1], I use it all the time if I'm sitting at my desk. Sure I have a DECT and VOIP handsets that do many more and very clever things but I enjoy using that old phone. I like "dialing" numbers on the rotary dialer, I like the sound of its ring, I like the clunk as I replace the handset, I like the faint click it makes when you lift the handset. It's also ergonomically better than most modern phones because the handset part fits better around my neck and chin so I can talk away and have both hands on my keyboard.

I'm mostly a functionalist (to quote coldtea) but there are little things in life I enjoy for their aesthetic (as I perceive it) and nostalgic pleasures, in particular electronics and audio kit from the 70's (I was born in the late 60's :) )

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPO_telephones#Type_746

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPO_telephones#/media/File:GPO...

No, I totally get why people would collect vintage cars, or vintage LPs. I don't get why people buy newly released LPs that are not vintage.

You've answered your own question: because you get to remember where/when you got it, you get to search for it in a store, you get to carry it home, you get to physically feel/remove/examine/play it, you get to see the 12x12 art (not some 300x300 png), you might even get a cool colored record. There's way more to record buying and collecting than just vintage

You can do all those things you mentioned with a CD, no? So why use an inferior format like Vinyl ? I am not talking about vintage vinyl. I am talking about buying brand new vinyl.

CDs can be nicely packaged, but LPs are larger and seem to get more interesting and elaborate packaging. For example, a gatefold 2xLP is just a nicer object to me than the standard 2xCD case (and many double LPs are single CDs to boot). So on average, a nicer object. They usually come with a download card nowadays so you get the digital version too.

Another reason for me at least is that a lot of the vinyl I buy is directly from bands at their shows. In that case I'm getting the souvenir and I'm giving back something directly to the artists. It might just be gas money to get to the next town, but it's more than they'll ever see from Spotify.

> functionalists (who enjoy them only for their core utility)

What is art's core utility?

>So no - it's not even remotely accurate.

No, but it can still be quite pleasant. Same way we like saturated constrasty pics or even distorted guitars.

>Personally I have enough physical stuff already, and I want less, not more.

OTOH, a vinyl collection makes for a nice rustic touch to a mostly empty, mostly-digital, minimalist house.

but why not a CD collection?

Because CD is banal -- not as romantic/collectible/historical as vinyl, and not as conventient as mp3.

this is exactly what I don't get. Why is a CD made in 2015 less romantic than an LP made in 2015 ?

Vinyl's awkwardness and the rituals around it are a way of expressing dedication to music and expression dedication to music is a way of differentiating yourself.

Vinyl use (or often just purchase and displat) has become the mark of someone who takes music seriously / passionately. My experience is that many people, especially the young like to signal that way.

What do you all think about Neil Young's take?

So you're taking the time to build out a more cumbersome audio system but don't want anyone to think you are putting forth the effort because you might enjoy how it sounds better?

It's the glorification of vinyl as a superior format for audio storage and reproduction that I take issue with. It is mathematically inferior to modern audio recording techniques. If you're concerned about quality and want a "warmer" sound, that should be achieved by some equalizer or other post-processing stage after retrieving the audio from a high quality storage format. It shouldn't be achieved by ignoring the last 50 years of audio recording improvements.

Vinyl is fun for lots of reasons, but it is not a superior format for storing audio, just like $10,000 HDMI cables and magic audiophile crystals are not improvements.

I've lost countless audio recordings due to hard drive malfunctions, bad data storage practices - misplacing them and overwriting the hd, importing cds and forgetting to name the resulting audio files then later accidentally deleting them and all sorts of stuff that you can definitely call user error, but user error with a record needs to involve power tools to be serious. For the most part all my old records are still around and playable. In that sense, it's proven itself a superior format for storing audio in my life.

I agree as far as the physical format goes, but the loudness war is somewhat less entrenched in vinyl. Nearly all CDs and digital download versions of songs are released with mastering that has heavily compressed the audio to make it louder and heavily reduced the dynamic range - this isn't a digital format issue, this is actually lost information about the audio of the song because the volume has been uniformly boosted to the point there is not much difference in dynamics

A lot of the smaller labels, and some of the larger ones, will do a vinyl specific master that hasn't gone through this compression process and has the full dynamics of the original recording. Even with the coloration, I find these almost always sound better than the lower dynamic range versions. So, basically, despite vinyl being an inferior format, humans have managed to fuck things up enough that it can sound better in spite of being a bad physical medium for audio.

There is the case where its nearly impossible to find the original master digitally, which I'd argue the the original vinyl pressing sounds "better" for some albums.

Totally unrelated to the format itself though, but just a thought as to why I buy some of my favorite older records on vinyl because they "sound better".

Look up the "Loudness Wars" if you haven't heard of it yet. The TL;DR of it is that, yes, CD's are technically waaaay better than vinyls, with a much higher dynamic range, but very often (especially with mainstream music) they are mixed much worse than vinyls.

film is probably the better analogue, no pun intended.

(OP and avid film shooter/Apple Music listener)

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