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DandelionPowderman

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GasLightStreet

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DandelionPowderman

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frankotero
Still pretty cool records are out selling downloads. Didn't think that would happen these days.

I wonder if streaming services are included in these numbers, as there really is no point in buying downloads anymore. You can get everything with the same quality on Spotify etc.

If you don't have a subscription to Spotify then, bizarrely, on a phone you can not listen to what you want to listen to, it's only shuffle. On a PC it's different.

So maybe a download would make sense in that aspect. How many people store music on their device? I don't.

Of course you can. I have many gigabytes of music on my phone of songs and albums that are not on Spotify.

You'll have to store them as albums and playlists, though.

Or did you mean a free Spotify-subscription on your phone? If so, you mean that the controls (shuffle etc.) won't display?

I know I can store music on my phone. I choose not to. Besides, it's pointless these days with internet being available almost everywhere.

The free Spotify on the phone does show the controls display, it's just always on shuffle. So, for example, if you wanted to listen to BLUE & LONESOME on your phone you'll hear some of it probably, regardless of having a playlist, but you'll hear other Stones songs too.

The only way around that is to have a subscription.

I am glad that vinyl is making a comeback. I love the sound, and the visual look of the album cover. Treat a vinyl album with care and it will provide countless hours of listening pleasure (I was one of those people that never took my albums to parties!). I later bought CDs, an iPod for convenience and travel, but in the last few years I did dig out the turntable, acquired a new cartridge, and hooked it up. Still sounds great.

Used/new vinyl record stores are great to visit. Coming out with a vinyl album purchase is a bit like going back in (to a pleasurable) time. Supporting the indie new/used vinyl dealers is a must in my book these days.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-12-07 08:22 by KingmanBarstow.

When you hold a vinyl record in your hands you make an emotional connection with the band and the music. Opening A vinyl record is like opening a present. There is something graceful in removing the record, settling on a turntable and putting the needle down. I cannot make that same kind of association with a download or with streaming. Music I've downloaded without holding the 'gift' of a vinyl record means nothing eventually. It's just 'product'....a disposable, easily forgotten product. A CD is almost, but not quite, as unrewarding. Same with a book...I'll never buy an e-reader...No connection unless I'm turning real pages...

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palerider22
When you hold a vinyl record in your hands you make an emotional connection with the band and the music. Opening A vinyl record is like opening a present. There is something graceful in removing the record, settling on a turntable and putting the needle down. I cannot make that same kind of association with a download or with streaming. Music I've downloaded without holding the 'gift' of a vinyl record means nothing eventually. It's just 'product'....a disposable, easily forgotten product. A CD is almost, but not quite, as unrewarding. Same with a book...I'll never buy an e-reader...No connection unless I'm turning real pages...

They call folks like us dinosaurs or Ludites...but I don't care



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-12-07 13:36 by Spud.

Just my six-penn'orth:

Vinyl: Feels and looks the best of course. Can sound fantastic but clicks, pops and maybe minor scratches are inevitable and eventually they degrade.
I play my "legacy vinyl" which mostly sounds great and occasionally buy secondhand stuff for fun. New vinyl and most secondhand vinyl appears very expensive to me though.

CD: Secondhand (and often new) CDs are the biggest bargain out there at the moment IMO. I can rip bit-perfect lossless FLACs from even quite scratched charity shop CDs, and then stream at home through my best hifi. Best solution for everyday listening IMO.

MP3: I went through a phase of buying MP3 downloads but CD-->FLAC option gives you better quality and is usually cheaper. I just convert my FLACs to MP3s now and put them on a memory stick to listen in the car or on my old hard-disk iPod. Not surprised that MP3 sales are declining.

Streaming: 320kbps Spotify is pretty good quality and great for discovering new music (try before you buy). Also good enough for background listening through a good hifi while I work, or download to phone to listen on the train. Getting a family subscription has made me very popular at home.

Anyway as a mix of technophile and Luddite it's great to have so many options. In real terms CDs at least are a lot cheaper than 20-30 years ago and streaming and web-sales of physical media man that the range of music available is staggering.

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HankM

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Hairball
Good to hear.
I've never owned an mp3 player, and have never paid for a digital download.

Me either!
And I have never sent a text yet.. and if I die without ever sending or receiving a text it will be fine with me.

...and, lemme guess... you're both fàxing these posts of yours to bv, who inserts them into the respective threads - right?

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RoughJusticeOnYa

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HankM

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Hairball
Good to hear.
I've never owned an mp3 player, and have never paid for a digital download.

Me either!
And I have never sent a text yet.. and if I die without ever sending or receiving a text it will be fine with me.

...and, lemme guess... you're both fàxing these posts of yours to bv, who inserts them into the respective threads - right?

Fax? I aint never goona use no new fangled fax, I only trust my carrier pigeons... and from there what ever magic is used to have it show up here is... well... I dont know.

Digital audio is only a storage for analog sound. The output from DAC is analog.

Vinyl is totally marketing-hype today supported by the CD format limitations.

If industry standardizes on 24/48 FLAC there wont be any need for vinyl.

16/44.1 is very good, but 24/48 is perfect.

Not true. I have a high end system with a great DAC, and a fantastic turntable. A lot of my vinyl sounds much better than their digital cousin. Not all, but many. Far less hiss, more mid-range, and more clarity with subtle soundscapes (which are not easily converted via a bianary mode), and far less distortion. For example my Beatles USB with 24bit flac files sound much better with headphones than through speakers, and the vinyl verions much better on speakers than headphones. So like any good buffet, it is good to have choices.
Additionally, vinly brings you back to truely listening to the entire "album" as a statement, which has been lost the new generation of music fans.

In my own experience, I feel vinyl manages to bring back recorded music to life, where CD or mp3 or even HD music just conveys music to your amp and your speakers in the most perfect way but with not even a sparkle of life.

CD is fine (if well mastered) but whatever they try to improve it, it will always sound harsh (16 bit) and limited, with no depth. That remains my main source for music though. Why? Because it's so cheap nowadays - even cheaper than a mp3 album sometimes.

MP3 has nothing to do with music (IMO). It removes every breath of life off of a recording and adds distorsion instead. Maybe it's good enough to discover a new album or for streaming (like listening to the radio) but other that it shouldn't be the main medium for music. I still don't get how someone can pay for a mp3 download... Like radio, it should be free.

HD downloads are great, they sound like real music. But like any other format of digital music and whatever the sample rate, they miss that sparkle the vinyl adds. And like mp3 they just pile up on your hard drive with no sense of owning something and the feeling of building a collection through the years (like with CD or vinyl). I buy HD music from time to time but it doesn't feel like holding a vinyl (or even a CD for that matter).

Speaking of all this vinyl talk, I listen to mp3's 99.99% of the time now.

However, I have an extensive vinyl record collection and a turntable.

My "stereo" now is my laptop which is connected to high quality powered speakers through a digital to analog converter (Audioengine D1 DAC).

What I would like to do is connect the turntable to the laptop and play the records through the powered speakers using the DAC.

I know I need a pre-amp which I can get, which is made by Pyle, and very reasonable, and it even ships to my remote location from the USA.

It is at that point that I am lost. I need step by step detailed instructions on how to wire up the turntable to the computer with the DAC, and the powered speakers, AND, I need detailed instructions for the Windows 7 settings to accomplish this.

So far, I am having a very hard time researching this on the internet because nobody wants to LISTEN to records the way I have described above. All they want to do is save vinyl records to their computer hard drives. Therefore I am not finding any instructions pertinent to what I want to do. Very frustrating.

If any tech people here could help, or provide a link that would help, it would be much appreciated.

Yes main problem with CD digital is 16 bit. 24/48 is (near) perfect.

Vinyl might sound better to some ears, because it has/can have nice distortions for some type of music.

But in terms of fidelity vinyl is worse even than properly mastered CD.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-12-08 10:05 by jumpingjackflash5.

Digitize your vinyl to 24/48 FLAC and play from HDD/NAS. You will get the same sound quality as by playing from vinyl directly. And you will save your vinyl from repeated playback



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-12-08 10:03 by jumpingjackflash5.

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whitem8
Not true. I have a high end system with a great DAC, and a fantastic turntable. A lot of my vinyl sounds much better than their digital cousin. Not all, but many. Far less hiss, more mid-range, and more clarity with subtle soundscapes (which are not easily converted via a bianary mode), and far less distortion. For example my Beatles USB with 24bit flac files sound much better with headphones than through speakers, and the vinyl verions much better on speakers than headphones. So like any good buffet, it is good to have choices.
Additionally, vinly brings you back to truely listening to the entire "album" as a statement, which has been lost the new generation of music fans.

I agree with all of this.

In addition to the sound, album artwork is another major pleasure.

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whitem8
Not true. I have a high end system with a great DAC, and a fantastic turntable. A lot of my vinyl sounds much better than their digital cousin. Not all, but many. Far less hiss, more mid-range, and more clarity with subtle soundscapes (which are not easily converted via a bianary mode), and far less distortion. For example my Beatles USB with 24bit flac files sound much better with headphones than through speakers, and the vinyl verions much better on speakers than headphones. So like any good buffet, it is good to have choices.
Additionally, vinly brings you back to truely listening to the entire "album" as a statement, which has been lost the new generation of music fans.

Because of RIAA curve and stylus/vinyl track interaction. Sometimes also different/better mastering is used for vinyl. This is not a failure of digital audio.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-12-08 10:26 by jumpingjackflash5.

Digital is probably now good enough.

The remaining problem is that the industry hasn't as yet settled on a good enough mass market standard format in terms of resolution.
With storage capacity these days, there's no reason for master quality not to be the standard

CD & subsequently MP3 have a lot to answer for.
Both rubbish and responsible over 30 years for lowering the customer's expectations of what rercorded music can & should sound like.

Yes I agree. A pity that industry has not standardized e.g. on 24/48 FLAC for distribution.

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Chacho

What I would like to do is connect the turntable to the laptop and play the records through the powered speakers using the DAC.

Sony has a Turntable with built-in USB, the PS-HX500: [www.sony.com] .

There're similar Turntable-USB solutions also from Pro-Ject, Audio Technica and others.

The Sony PS-HX500 is primarily intended for digitizing the LP's, but there should be a pre-listening function which outputs the signal from USB via the Laptop to the powered Speakers.

There's an included 'Hi-Res Audio Recorder'-App for Windows/Mac, easy to use. File formats of the Sony PS-HX500 are only Direct Stream Digital (DSD) or WAV.

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DandelionPowderman

Still pretty cool records are out selling downloads. Didn't think that would happen these days.

I wonder if streaming services are included in these numbers, as there really is no point in buying downloads anymore. You can get everything with the same quality on Spotify etc.

What about being able to do something as simple as listening to music WITHOUT unnecessarily using / paying for internet bandwidth ??

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Irix


What I would like to do is connect the turntable to the laptop and play the records through the powered speakers using the DAC.

Sony has a Turntable with built-in USB, the PS-HX500: [www.sony.com] .

There're similar Turntable-USB solutions also from Pro-Ject, Audio Technica and others.

The Sony PS-HX500 is primarily intended for digitizing the LP's, but there should be a pre-listening function which outputs the signal from USB via the Laptop to the powered Speakers.

There's an included 'Hi-Res Audio Recorder'-App for Windows/Mac, easy to use. File formats of the Sony PS-HX500 are only Direct Stream Digital (DSD) or WAV.

Maybe something like this could help ?? : * [www.psaudio.com] *

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Winning Ugly VXII


Still pretty cool records are out selling downloads. Didn't think that would happen these days.

I wonder if streaming services are included in these numbers, as there really is no point in buying downloads anymore. You can get everything with the same quality on Spotify etc.

What about being able to do something as simple as listening to music WITHOUT unnecessarily using / paying for internet bandwidth ??

When an album or playlist is downloaded to your device from Spotify, you're not needing internet nor bandwidth to listen to it. You can just turn Spotify offline. I only have it online when I download.

It's practically the same operation as when you buy music from iTunes etc.

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Chacho

However, I have an extensive vinyl record collection and a turntable.

My "stereo" now is my laptop which is connected to high quality powered speakers through a digital to analog converter (Audioengine D1 DAC).

What I would like to do is connect the turntable to the laptop and play the records through the powered speakers using the DAC.

I know I need a pre-amp which I can get, which is made by Pyle, and very reasonable, and it even ships to my remote location from the USA.

Confirmed, you need the preamp. Second, you need an external sound card that has the classic red/white audio in socket. There are lots of them and at reasonable price. At last, you need a software that has an audio in and monitor out solution. The things I use to record the rubbish I play all have this function (i.e. audacity for something freeware). But they are not designed to manage a library of digital music (like itunes for example).

Wouldn't an old fashioned amp with a built in turntable preamp be the easiest solution?

You could connect the DAC to any AUX in of the amp so you can use your PC as the main source/manager of digital music, and let the turntable be your source of analog music.

C






I think that the

I'm more likely to plug my turntable into the washing machine than a bloody computer

THE AUSTRALIAN -- 9 December 2016



ROCKMAN

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Spud
I'm more likely to plug my turntable into the washing machine than a bloody computer

When I was about 17, I wanted to get into vinyl but knew nothing about it, and after long arguments my father agreed to lend me his old but very fine (and expensive) turntable. As I had no room left anywhere else, I just put it on the top of one of my big Technics speakers. The day after the turntable was out of service... Needless to say it was a long time before I would try again to listen to vinyl...

....did it vibrate off and crash to da floor Kowalski??.....^^^^^^^



ROCKMAN

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Spud
I'm more likely to plug my turntable into the washing machine than a bloody computer

Yes, do plug your turntable in to your washing machine, but if you find that it does not work, maybe you can plug it where the sun doesn't shine.

Does anyone really think that a digitally recorded album sounds better on vinly? It's just... a CD on vinyl. Maybe it's mastered better. Seems like a cash grab whereas vinyl LPs from analog recorded albums is about the listening experience.

If someone wants to listen to an LP of their favorite artist just to be able to listen I doubt the format matters.

An article from The Guardian newspaper today.


[www.theguardian.com]

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GasLightStreet
Does anyone really think that a digitally recorded album sounds better on vinly? It's just... a CD on vinyl. Maybe it's mastered better. Seems like a cash grab whereas vinyl LPs from analog recorded albums is about the listening experience.

If someone wants to listen to an LP of their favorite artist just to be able to listen I doubt the format matters.

Something happens with the sound when it's mastered at lower volume. The sound of BAL in different formats makes that particularly evident.

I don't know how much this has to do with the quality of your turntable, though.