Why? Why this habit of making double vinyl of new recordings on vinyl? To satisfy the hi fi enthusiasts? The Stones do it, Deep Purple do it, and now Greta van Fleet do it. Now yer often left with only 2 songs per side. What about the pleasure of hearing 5 or 6 songs in a row?

There are potential benefits for sound quality...but I'm not convinced that's why they do it .

[It could potentially allow a higher dynamic range and low end bandwidth..

...but the reality is that we just get an overall louder brick wall limited mastering .].



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-09-27 14:43 by Spud.

More vinyl = more money.

I'm not sure if today's re-pressed Stones albums sound better even than the ultra-thin re-presses of the late 70s and 80s.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-09-27 15:01 by DandelionPowderman.

I'm more puzzled about the latest Stones superdeluxe box-set (Voodoo Lounge Uncut, released in Japan), which comes with 2 identical sets of 3 records each (black and red).

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Cristiano Radtke
I'm more puzzled about the latest Stones superdeluxe box-set (Voodoo Lounge Uncut, released in Japan), which comes with 2 identical sets of 3 records each (black and red).

New Jersey on the other three? Would have been typical...

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DandelionPowderman
More vinyl = more money.

I'm not sure if today's re-pressed Stones albums sound better even than the ultra-thin re-presses of the late 70s and 80s.

Most sound much poorer than the originals...but the reasons for that are many fold and and perhaps constitute a different topic.

[ Despite my luddite views, I never learn .
A couple of weeks ago I bought the currently available SG on vinyl...essentially because my original day of release pressing has a few more clicks & pops than I would like .

The new one sounds boring. No real dynamic range, no natural timbre to voices or instruments and no sense of space around anything.
Typical soul-less digital remaster.
I doubt that I'll ever play it again.
The original still sounds fantastic and my record player is, thankfully, very forgiving of surface noise .]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2018-09-27 15:49 by Spud.

Speaking of the new Greta double album...price just dropped to $19 canadian:

[www.amazon.ca]

I was told that almost all vinyl pressings are from digital sources. Therefore no difference from CDs. Anyhow I suppose they are nice to look at and the large sleeves are more appealing. About the Japanese VL issue I too was curious why black and red apparently with identical content.

Nearly all modern remasters will be from digital sources...but I don't think that's the real problem.


Digital these days is potentially very good but I think somewhere along the way we've lost the skills and judgement required to produce a great sounding vinyl record.

[Current digital standards are far, far better than CD !.
CD was terrible ...and , for my money, almost killed music ! ]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-09-27 17:12 by Spud.

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frankotero
I was told that almost all vinyl pressings are from digital sources. Therefore no difference from CDs. Anyhow I suppose they are nice to look at and the large sleeves are more appealing. About the Japanese VL issue I too was curious why black and red apparently with identical content.

There is a difference from cds. The mastering for vinyl is different.

As far as I know and I'm not a audio professional or authority of any type, but my friend visited a record plant where he was told they use the same digital files as CD. He went on to say that almost all records are made this way. On the other hand I have also heard that they can't make the record as loud as the CD, therfore making it seem softer on our ears. Personally I can't tell much difference as my hearing is fairly bad. Again, I'm not knocking records, I love them but I don't expect them to be like yesteryear. Also it's a matter of personal opinion. If people love today's records then I'm happy they're happy.

Not all new records are made from digital files (see Neil Young's ones for example). Also made from digital source does'nt mean it's the same as CD. Usually the original digital master is in higher resolution.

….. double vinyl to help jack-up the Postal Service of countries ….$$$$$$$$



ROCKMAN

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noughties
Why? Why this habit of making double vinyl of new recordings on vinyl? To satisfy the hi fi enthusiasts? The Stones do it, Deep Purple do it, and now Greta van Fleet do it. Now yer often left with only 2 songs per side. What about the pleasure of hearing 5 or 6 songs in a row?

This drives me nuts also... I think they do it because of financial reasons and because hipster @#$%& who wouldn’t know their let it bleed from let it be, can waffle on about their stereo systems and how much everything cost and bollocks about 2 songs per side giving better audio. I’m sure it does, but my ya yas sounds great the way it is. I don’t want to change sides every 10 minutes.

My Ya Yas sounds great on vinyl too ...always did.

But my Flashpoint doesn't

Performances aside [that's a different matter ], the reason is partly because Flashpoint was from the CD age and has too long a run time to fit easily on a single LP without a lot of extra compression .

[Those two additionally included Studio bonus tracks don't help in this case.]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-09-28 10:18 by Spud.

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Spud
My Ya Yas sounds great on vinyl too ...always did.

But my Flashpoint doesn't

Performances aside [that's a different matter , the reason is partly because Flashpoint was from the CD age and has too long a run time to fit easily on a single LP without a lot of compression .

[Those two additionally included Studio bonus tracks don't help in this case.]

The exception that proves the rule is Aftermath

The album is ridiculously long for a single vinyl disc. But it sounds pretty good.

It may be that the sparseness of the simple mix and the relatively low bass content has helped with this much older recording.

Yeah, good point. And some songs sound way better than others. UMT, for instance, sounds excellent. MLH not so good.. But I guess that's more due to the recording itself, than the mix or mastering.

A real treasure is The Beatles Mono box. AAA vinyl from original master tapes. The majority of it sounds even better and more dynamic than original pressings.
Seldom has a collection of vinyl records been so properly cared for. Of course it’s pretty hard to get now and it goes for crazy prices on Dicogs...

We do have to be thankful for any good digital masters we may have today because many of the original analogue master tapes for older material are either unusable already or well on the way to being so.

...and that's when they have been well looked after, which isn't always the case.

That said, when the original tapes are still viable, I wish they'd use them for the mastering to vinyl.

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Blueranger
A real treasure is The Beatles Mono box. AAA vinyl from original master tapes. The majority of it sounds even better and more dynamic than original pressings.
Seldom has a collection of vinyl records been so properly cared for. Of course it’s pretty hard to get now and it goes for crazy prices on Dicogs...

Wasn't there a lot of fuss when it came out, because of the use of digital masters?

I recall Giles Martin saying that the tapes were transferred to tweak/improve the sound quality. Apparently this couldn't be done otherwise. The debate between analogue and digital will probably go on a long time. Personally I stand by analogue because I grew up with it and I'm loyal. At the same time I can't deny the importance of the digital age. Maybe we're lucky to have both?

I too remain an analogue man in an increasingly digital world .

That said, digital today is much improved and, just maybe, now good enough .

The problem was that digital was foisted on us as the medium for recording and listening to music long before it was good enough.

That's why we endured CD and all those horrible early digital transfers to vinyl in the 80s .

[A few artists did raise issue with it.
Some remarked that it was difficult to sing or play in tune with digitally recorded tracks....so there was obviously a lot wrong with it musically .

It still is harder to harmonise with a digital track...but with today's higher resolution its easier than it used to be . ]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-09-28 18:04 by Spud.

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DandelionPowderman

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Blueranger
A real treasure is The Beatles Mono box. AAA vinyl from original master tapes. The majority of it sounds even better and more dynamic than original pressings.
Seldom has a collection of vinyl records been so properly cared for. Of course it’s pretty hard to get now and it goes for crazy prices on Dicogs...

Wasn't there a lot of fuss when it came out, because of the use of digital masters?

Yes, for the Stereo box set, which were created from digital masters. But for the Mono box, which is what I’m talking about, all the fuss from fans was positive responses, as all of it were 100% analogue created.

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Spud
I too remain an analogue man in an increasingly digital world .

That said, digital today is much improved and, just maybe, now good enough .

The problem was that digital was foisted on us as the medium for recording and listening to music long before it was good enough.

That's why we endured CD and all those horrible early digital transfers to vinyl in the 80s .

[A few artists did raise issue with it.
Some remarked that it was difficult to sing or play in tune with digitally recorded tracks....so there was obviously a lot wrong with it musically .

It still is harder to harmonise with a digital track...but with today's higher resolution its easier than it used to be . ]

Now hold on.. a lot of cd's from the eighties and nineties have actually a great sound! It's mostly in the mastering! Really. Now, most releases are mastered with an avarage under 8-10 dr range. THAT is the problem! And this mastering choice for cd is the record companies choice. They want this for a cd right now. I certainly don't. I am listening to a q magazine cd from 1994 [I think) It's called 'Really Free' with amongst others : Galliano - Long Time Gone and this cd sounds great on the stereo.

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barbabang

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Spud
I too remain an analogue man in an increasingly digital world .

That said, digital today is much improved and, just maybe, now good enough .

The problem was that digital was foisted on us as the medium for recording and listening to music long before it was good enough.

That's why we endured CD and all those horrible early digital transfers to vinyl in the 80s .

[A few artists did raise issue with it.
Some remarked that it was difficult to sing or play in tune with digitally recorded tracks....so there was obviously a lot wrong with it musically .

It still is harder to harmonise with a digital track...but with today's higher resolution its easier than it used to be . ]

Now hold on.. a lot of cd's from the eighties and nineties have actually a great sound! It's mostly in the mastering! Really. Now, most releases are mastered with an avarage under 8-10 dr range. THAT is the problem! And this mastering choice for cd is the record companies choice. They want this for a cd right now. I certainly don't. I am listening to a q magazine cd from 1994 [I think) It's called 'Really Free' with amongst others : Galliano - Long Time Gone and this cd sounds great on the stereo.

The records from the late 70s and a good part of the 80s were super-thin because of oil shortage. That allegedly affected the sound.

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Rockman
….. double vinyl to help jack-up the Postal Service of countries ….$$$$$$$$

and middle eastern oil countries (oh, and I guess US shale oil and of course Russian oil).

How the hell did we get through 2 energy crises and wafer thin records in the 70s and now almost 50 years later we're getting an album's worth of music on two records?!

YEAH!!! Treacle … every time I whack some Stone's vinyl on I feel like pumpin' ……



ROCKMAN

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Rockman


YEAH!!! Treacle … every time I whack some Stone's vinyl on I feel like pumpin' ……

as the early 21st century philosopher Sarah Palin once said..."drill baby drill!"

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treaclefingers
as the early 21st century philosopher Sarah Palin once said..."drill baby drill!"

In her day "she was hot". Pun intended