The CD/Vinyl Debate Part 765

[Dan Gould]

Gene's playing is fine but not, I think, the main audio interest.

As my dear departed father used to say, "Speak for yourself, Josephine."

Edited March 27, 2013 by Dan Gould

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

MG

[Scott Dolan]

Oh, I was definitely going to sample it first. With the wealth of info and sound clips on the intertubes, I never buy blind anymore.

[Scott Dolan]

Wow! Just got to preview the album on Emusic. Came away far more impressed than I had anticipated. Aside from the single horn front line, it really strikes me as a poor man's Kind Of Blue.

Excellent recommendation, Dan. Thank you very much!

*edit*

Doesn't look like they have it on the HD site, so I'll end up getting it from Emusic.

Edited March 27, 2013 by Scott Dolan

[six string]

That good, eh?

I'll have to see if they have that on the HD site. I'm willing to give it a go.

Well, just as an FYI, I used to go by the handle "Gene Harris Fanatic" so perhaps you should take my opinion with a grain of salt. But its a deeply soulful recording of mostly slow blues and when I first heard it, the first thing I did was to put on the headphones and turn out the lights and just listen.

So before you drop big bucks, I'd see about sampling online to see if you'll dig the music. There are people here who actually think its a snooze. Some of them even feel the same way about Grant Green's Feelin' the Spirit.

If I may weigh in here, I'm not a big fan of the Three Sounds at all but The Blue Hour is a real fave of mine. Now I am a fan of Stan the Man and he is in his element on this album. The only real thing I would add is stick with the original and don't pay for the 2 disc set. I was disppointed with disc two. They got it right the first time when they chose the cuts for the original album. It's not that the other music is bad but disc one is where the real magic lives. The original lp is pretty great too of course.

Edited April 3, 2013 by six string

[Big Beat Steve]

Now I am a fan of Stan the Man and he is in his element on this album.

Stan Kenton??

(or so George T.Simon sayeth ...)

[Scott Dolan]

I've only listened to it once so far, but I thought the second disc was actually outstanding. But, it's what I started out with.

Either way, Blue Hour has been one of the most pleasant surprises I've encountered in some time.

I owe Mr. Gould big time.

[six string]

Now I am a fan of Stan the Man and he is in his element on this album.

Stan Kenton??

(or so George T.Simon sayeth ...)

Kenton has never been "the Man" in my book but good for Georger Simon.

[ArtSalt]

A very interesting topic and I have enjoyed reading the full seven pages so far!

After having a couple of kids, I stashed the vinyl (for protection reasons) and returned to it early last year. When I set it up again, my immediate conclusion was that analogue had a vibrancy and nuances lacking in digital CD. This was despite having masses of Japanese remastered CDs.

In any event, I went on a vinyl kick for over a year and when I returned to listening to some CD Mosaic box sets I realised that I actually felt the same way about CDs. Each medium had different qualities and subtleties that when you hadn't listened to for quite some time became all too apparent.

I've a lot of stuff replicated on vinyl, CDs included the initial 16bit and later remasters and IMO, the game changer is the quality of the pressing or remaster. I have a Japanese vinyl of Mingus' Pithecanthropus Erectus from the 70s and is absolutely not as a good as 20bit K2 super coding remaster I purchased a couple of years ago. I have a great many Contemporary label stuff that just sounds crap on CD and cannot compare to good early pressings I have.

Ultimately, my conclusion, is that the quality of the pressing and/or the remaster is everything.

I use to fall very much into the Analogue vs Digital debate and as if it was a case of either or. Now I realise its about both!

You can have all mediums delivering the music optimally, which in some cases can be extra tracks not on the original release, a subtlety enhanced during remaster, or the direct sound of a quality first pressing.

[A Lark Ascending]

Big fuss being made in the UK about how vinyl sales topped 1 million this year.

However:

Small Data: Is lots of vinyl being sold?

Interesting to note the years of the drastic drop in vinyl sales were when I bought my last LPs (apart from a couple of those daft vinyl only things). The point when almost everything was coming out on CD?

[sonnymax]

So BPI (The British Recorded Music Industry) and ERA (Entertainment Retailers Association) run the Official Charts Company, the outfit that wants us to believe that the number of records shipped equals how many are sold. Funny how the media just passes this along as fact.

[Big Beat Steve]

The entire article is pointless. Comparing today's vinyl sales with those of the heyday of vinyl is totally irrelevant. Whoever praises the fact that now the 1-million mark is exceeded can and should only refer to the fact that vinyl has been proclaimed as being dead for years and YET the sales figures are on the up. Although only in a very minor way, and vinyl will certainly never become anythign like the #1 medium for selling music again - ever. It will remain a niche product and nothing more, but considering that it is supposed to be dead it is remarkably alive after all. So the whole premise of that article only shows the author has not grasped the essence of the vinyl debate as it is today.

[Scott Dolan]

Thing is, there IS no debate. You have a tiny group of collectors and fetishists, but the other 99% of the world caught up with the end of the 20th century a couple of decades ago.

[jazzbo]

There is no debate for me any longer. Vinyl sounds best on my system, despite the fact that I have about a half of the money in it compared to my digital front. But my cd collection is perhaps 30 times larger and I play digital more than thirty times as much. "Ultimate sound' is not what it's about for me, it's about enjoying the music.

Edited December 2, 2014 by jazzbo

[Scott Dolan]

And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

For me, as I believe I've mentioned before, it's about clutter. Having moved into more of a minimalist bent, I simply no longer care for large physical collections. Hell, I look at my rack of 1,000 CDs with mild contempt at times.

That said, I will still buy box sets and special editions of albums I really like, but simply buying CDs is no longer a viable practice for me.

The biggest downside being the larger album art isn't in the equation. But, I've learned to live without. Mostly because as Lon perfectly stated, it's all about enjoying the music.

[A Lark Ascending]

The entire article is pointless. Comparing today's vinyl sales with those of the heyday of vinyl is totally irrelevant. Whoever praises the fact that now the 1-million mark is exceeded can and should only refer to the fact that vinyl has been proclaimed as being dead for years and YET the sales figures are on the up. Although only in a very minor way, and vinyl will certainly never become anythign like the #1 medium for selling music again - ever. It will remain a niche product and nothing more, but considering that it is supposed to be dead it is remarkably alive after all. So the whole premise of that article only shows the author has not grasped the essence of the vinyl debate as it is today.

I thinks it's just a corrective. You don't read many articles about vinyl being dead. Every few months in the British press, however, you get a 'Vinyl (like the Big Bands) is Back' flurry.

Most of us with a substantial interest in music know that the upswing is just in a niche market of enthusiasts. Might help put things in perspective for the general reader (if they are interested!).

Not that it matters much. The 'Vinyl is Back' storyline is always going to make a better headline than 'Vinyl is doing a bit better after a long and traumatic illness'.

[Scott Dolan]

Vinyl will never die, nor should it. It's a thoroughly enjoyable medium.

It's kind of akin to American muscle cars from the 60's and 70's. They'll never go away, and many people still thoroughly enjoy owning them. They are beautiful, rare, and make a sound unlike anything else on the road. But, most folks just don't want the hassle and upkeep that comes with them.

Same way with LPs. Beautiful to look at, and with a sound all their own (which could be described as muscular, to a certain extent). But, most folks don't want the hassle of maintaining them (dusting them, keeping them scratch free, that kind of thing), flipping from one side to the other, etc...

Both have their admirers, and both have a place in this world. Neither will ever challenge the new guard/technology for convenience, nor should they be concerned about it.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Scott Dolan

[JSngry]

So BPI (The British Recorded Music Industry) and ERA (Entertainment Retailers Association) run the Official Charts Company, the outfit that wants us to believe that the number of records shipped equals how many are sold. Funny how the media just passes this along as fact.

Well, back when they REALLY sold records, that's how it was calculated, I believe. So, fact relative to back in the day, medium and measurement alike, each in their own way, and alone together, hello, new day in the morning..

[AllenLowe]

I've transferred about 600 LPs to CDR since April, and in an A/B with the vinyl the CDRs are identical.

[Scott Dolan]

It's all in the master. Cannot be said enough.

[Homefromtheforest]

I agree! I have great sounding CDs and LPs; I also have crappy sounding CDs and LPs. As for transferring to CDR, well, I agree they sound practically the same but my biggest fear is for the CD to scratch or not play for whatever reason. Also if your music is all on your hard drive, what happens if the hard drive fails or gets corrupted?

[Scott Dolan]

As far as a CD getting a scratch making it unplayable, out of the +/- 1,000 CDs I own, that happened to exactly one of them (this is a collection dating back to around '91 or '92). And it only made one track unable to play all the way through. So, if that's truly your biggest fear, then you're in pretty darned good shape.

As for the hard drive, the simplest fix is to have a redundant copy on an external hard drive. My entire hard drive backs up to an external hard drive every hour. So, if my iMac takes a dump (and as we know as computer owners can happen at any given moment) then I use the backup/external hard drive to load everything back onto my new computer.

Also, if you have the money and don't mind spending it, there's always cloud storage/backup. And if you're an iTunes user, everything you buy is yours, and already residing quietly in the cloud. I just started purchasing albums from the iTunes store, and they only make up less than 5% of my overall collection. But, and this is actually pretty cool, let's say I'm away from home and suddenly want to hear an album that I purchased from iTunes, but I don't have it on my iPhone/Pod/Pad. Super simple, just pull up the album on your device and you'll see a little cloud with a downward pointing arrow. Tap that icon and that entire album will download to your device. You don't even need Wi-Fi, though it would be preferable. Even on 4G it will download to your device within a minute or two. You could also stream it if you don't have the free space needed for it. You can also do the same with individual songs, in case you're not looking to listen to the entire album.

Now, try sitting in a hotel room and listening to an LP that you left at home.

[JSngry]

Now, try sitting in a hotel room and listening to an LP that you left at home.

Been there done that, for real. Back in the road days, traveled with a turntable, a Sony reel-to-reel deck with phono inputs and detachable speakers, and a trunk (eventually two trunks) of selected LPs., mostly the fun-rare stuff (of which there was more of back then before CD Reissue Revolution), almost nothing "common". And of course, sometimes the urge would come on to listen to a "common" old favorite.

Well, you know how it is, you get the urge for something and it ain't there, you go looking for it, right? I don't care what it is, you go looking for it. Y'all know what I mean.

End result, getting out of the hotel room, venturing off into all sorts of places (planned and unplanned), meeting all kinds of people, and often enough finding/not finding the original quest was insignificant compared to the time spent venturing out, the money spent to stimulate local economies, and, especially, the delight of not finding what I left to go looking for, but finding something I never thought to look for, record or otherwise.

Try driving through rural Mississippi or suburban Chicago or ANYWHERE in Calgary trying to find a pawnshop or junk shop in search of an MP3. Why, I never!

[Scott Dolan]

Well, perhaps you shoulda!

[JSngry]

Nah, I mostly stay inside these days. It's easier, safer, and more technology-appropriate!

Nevertheless, when I get that bug up my ass to just get out and go looking for stuff...I go. But there's not too much left. Glad I did it when I did