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WeLoveYou
Then I backed everything up as 320kbps MP3 or MP4 files and threw out the CDs.

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FreeBird

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WeLoveYou
Then I backed everything up as 320kbps MP3 or MP4 files and threw out the CDs.

Ouch! You'll never get that lost quality back...

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dcba

Audiophiles are a dying race alas... Nowadays it's more important to have 10000 mp3 files (most of them never played more than once, if ever played) than to have decent equipement.

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dcba
"Anyone who says they can either has bionic ears or they're lying"

Or they've got decent material. Mp3 or cd listened on a portable device with earphones (= sh!tty gear) sound the same indeed.

Audiophiles are a dying race alas... Nowadays it's more important to have 10000 mp3 files (most of them never played more than once, if ever played) than to have decent equipement.

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Spud

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dcba

Audiophiles are a dying race alas... Nowadays it's more important to have 10000 mp3 files (most of them never played more than once, if ever played) than to have decent equipement.

Very true. But you have to ask why.

It's because we no longer have a mass market medium for music reproduction which is good enough to give us the buzz which listening to music can provide.

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bernardanderson
i can't imagine why anyone would want to keep all their cds in a binder. sure it takes up less space but where's the fun in that? i keep my cds on various bookshelves and not only do i enjoy listening to them but i also enjoy looking at them. it's nice to have an actual music library rather than a binder full of music. if the compact disc completely disappears i will be rather sad. i hate invisible music and it bugs the hell out of me when people say "i am a huge stones fan, i've got all their albums on my computer".

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charliesgood
What happens not if but when your hd crashes and burns or you hit that stupid sync button on your ipod and delete your whole library hopefully audiophile sound will always be enough of a market to be worthwhile i mean if the record industry bases itself solely on crappy sound they really get what they deserve

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WeLoveYou
It's near enough impossible to tell the difference between a 320kbps compressed music file and a CD. Anyone who says they can either has bionic ears or they're lying.

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dcba
"Anyone who says they can either has bionic ears or they're lying"

Or they've got decent material. Mp3 or cd listened on a portable device with earphones (= sh!tty gear) sound the same indeed.

Audiophiles are a dying race alas... Nowadays it's more important to have 10000 mp3 files (most of them never played more than once, if ever played) than to have decent equipement.

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WeLoveYou
There is one downside I find with digital music especially MP3s, which is a constant desire to skip and flick between songs. With a vinyl LP, you put it on the turntable and sit back, perhaps gazing at the record sleave, and you actually listen to the whole LP. Perhaps that says more about my attention span than anything else..but still I miss just absorbing the sound of individual LPs. Perhaps I had less music in those days, so you savoured single albums more (or valued them more maybe).

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Spud
Doesn't offend me at all ;^). I can enjoy listening to music on MP3 whilst I'm doing whatever else.

I'm just sad that, with the technology we have today, the industry hasn't seen fit to give us a format of real quality.

Doesn't it say something when vinyl LPs are still potentially the highest quality source of music for domestic listening ?

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stoneswashed77

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Spud
Doesn't offend me at all ;^). I can enjoy listening to music on MP3 whilst I'm doing whatever else.

I'm just sad that, with the technology we have today, the industry hasn't seen fit to give us a format of real quality.

Doesn't it say something when vinyl LPs are still potentially the highest quality source of music for domestic listening ?

if the vinyl lp is mastered from an digital source it´s cheating.

and old vinyls are full of artifacts already from the tape that doesn´t sound like the original instrument sound (how hifi is that) and which gets worse in quality every time you play it during overdubs and mixing. than the transfer to vinyl is also anything but ideal and true to the source. how hifi is that?

vinyl sounds good to some because of listening habits, something that will die out, younger ppl are used to a new format already.

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stoneswashed77
vinyl sounds good to some because of listening habits, something that will die out, younger ppl are used to a new format already.

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StonesTod

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stoneswashed77
vinyl sounds good to some because of listening habits, something that will die out, younger ppl are used to a new format already.

analog sounds better than digital cos it is better and will always be better. end of saga....

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WeLoveYou

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stoneswashed77

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Spud
Doesn't offend me at all ;^). I can enjoy listening to music on MP3 whilst I'm doing whatever else.

I'm just sad that, with the technology we have today, the industry hasn't seen fit to give us a format of real quality.

Doesn't it say something when vinyl LPs are still potentially the highest quality source of music for domestic listening ?

if the vinyl lp is mastered from an digital source it´s cheating.

and old vinyls are full of artifacts already from the tape that doesn´t sound like the original instrument sound (how hifi is that) and which gets worse in quality every time you play it during overdubs and mixing. than the transfer to vinyl is also anything but ideal and true to the source. how hifi is that?

vinyl sounds good to some because of listening habits, something that will die out, younger ppl are used to a new format already.

Agree about vinyl mastered from a digital source being cheating.

But the thing about analogue recording is that it's the imperfections that make it sound good (mostly). At the time they were aiming for perfection, but now in hindsight we appreciate the sound.

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stoneswashed77

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WeLoveYou

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stoneswashed77

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Spud
Doesn't offend me at all ;^). I can enjoy listening to music on MP3 whilst I'm doing whatever else.

I'm just sad that, with the technology we have today, the industry hasn't seen fit to give us a format of real quality.

Doesn't it say something when vinyl LPs are still potentially the highest quality source of music for domestic listening ?

if the vinyl lp is mastered from an digital source it´s cheating.

and old vinyls are full of artifacts already from the tape that doesn´t sound like the original instrument sound (how hifi is that) and which gets worse in quality every time you play it during overdubs and mixing. than the transfer to vinyl is also anything but ideal and true to the source. how hifi is that?

vinyl sounds good to some because of listening habits, something that will die out, younger ppl are used to a new format already.

Agree about vinyl mastered from a digital source being cheating.

But the thing about analogue recording is that it's the imperfections that make it sound good (mostly). At the time they were aiming for perfection, but now in hindsight we appreciate the sound.

but isn´t it strange you can only listen to music if the recording format is imperfect and alters the sound. can that be? imagine how the stones really sounded back in the 60´s and 70´s. we´ll probably never know.

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WeLoveYou

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StonesTod

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stoneswashed77
vinyl sounds good to some because of listening habits, something that will die out, younger ppl are used to a new format already.

analog sounds better than digital cos it is better and will always be better. end of saga....

Better at what?

Better at providing a crystal clear and near perfect representation of the original material?

Better at being a more enjoyable and pleasant medium to listen to?

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StonesTod

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WeLoveYou

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StonesTod

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stoneswashed77
vinyl sounds good to some because of listening habits, something that will die out, younger ppl are used to a new format already.

analog sounds better than digital cos it is better and will always be better. end of saga....

Better at what?

Better at providing a crystal clear and near perfect representation of the original material?

Better at being a more enjoyable and pleasant medium to listen to?

yes and more. those who tell you they can't hear the the diff between vinyl and cd haven't really bothered to listen...there's much of the "soundscape" missing from digital....

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WeLoveYou

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stoneswashed77


but isn´t it strange you can only listen to music if the recording format is imperfect and alters the sound. can that be? imagine how the stones really sounded back in the 60´s and 70´s. we´ll probably never know.

I have often thought about this - imagine all their 60s stuff recorded digitally? Would be a whole different thing.

Much of the Stone's 60s music is heavily distorted, I mean heavily...think of Satisfaction, Paint It Black..the list is endless. Yes the guitars were distorted, but so was the recording. We know that some of the production was lacking in those days, and it shows....but I love the sound.

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stoneswashed77

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WeLoveYou

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stoneswashed77


but isn´t it strange you can only listen to music if the recording format is imperfect and alters the sound. can that be? imagine how the stones really sounded back in the 60´s and 70´s. we´ll probably never know.

I have often thought about this - imagine all their 60s stuff recorded digitally? Would be a whole different thing.

Much of the Stone's 60s music is heavily distorted, I mean heavily...think of Satisfaction, Paint It Black..the list is endless. Yes the guitars were distorted, but so was the recording. We know that some of the production was lacking in those days, and it shows....but I love the sound.

i don´love the sound so much. it´s really a pitty that my favourite band has mediocre produced and sounding records. i don´t know why this is. they had all the money to do it right.

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Spud
I have to admit that my anti Digital stance is partially based in the fact that
the creation and perception of sound is an analogue process, and should therfore be left in that domain.
For me, Digital recording destroys the musical performance, turns it into a bunch of numbers and then tries to turn it back into music.
Any direct connection between the air moving in the recording studio and in your listening room is lost. [However compromised that analogue connection may have been, via the various poor electro magnetic & mechanical devices in the middle]

When sound is recorded and played back using analogue transducers and storage media, we introduce a myriad of harmonic distortion artefacts which colour the sound.
We also introduce signficant amounts of noise in the form of tape hiss,vinyl noise etc.
These additive distortions are present to an audible degree, even with the very best equipment at both ends of the signal chain.

However, given a respectable quality of recording and playback equipment, the music signal remains essentially intact.
Our ears and brain are quite good at sorting out the music from the noise and distortions, enabling the music to communicate as it should.
The better the equipment, the less work there is for our hearing faculties to do and the better our listening experience.

Digital systems "distort" in a much more sinister way !

There's no tape hiss, no electro-mechanical resonance, no vinyl roar, no clicks or pops !

so pure, perfect sound then ? Well, no.

Digital systems distort by ommision.
They lose musical information at the point it enters the Digital domain because there are only so many zeros and ones to approximate the signal...and they are never exactly in the right place.

Once that information is lost, it cannot ever be recovered.
The ear and brain cannot identify the problem because there's nothing to hear... but they know something's not right.
We are left with an unrewarding listening experience... and aren't quite sure why !

All that said, I'm not totally anti Digital.

There will be a threshold at which the ear and brain are totally fooled and digital is good enough. Systems will preserve as much of the musical information as we are able to hear and process.
Pro equipment is, I suspect, approaching that point.
My "religious" objections to Digital then become meaningless and Ludite.

My issue is that we have for the last twenty five years been using Digital technology and media formats that clearly aren't good enough !

CD being perhaps the most obvious crime.

[It's also quite sad that the music on those first Digital masters from the early 80's can never now be recovered. Ry Cooder's Bop 'til You Drop will never sound any better than the strerile, tuneless recording which we have. The music was lost at the begining and can never be rescued. ]

Anybody requiring simple proof of my assertions need only try to sing along or harmonise with music recorded and/or played back via digital formats and music recorded and played back purely in the analogue domain.

You'll find it much easier to pitch your voice and nail the timing with analogue.
Give it a try ;^)