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Interesting Washington Post article on Vinyl

RobRoy

RobRoy

It's just stuff - but fun
I found this article to be interesting, but troubling. For starters, it's not about the music at all. It's about comparing pressings and, frankly, getting wrapped around the axle regarding minutiae.

It actually gets more interesting at the point where the title becomes "A Journey Back to Vinyl", which is about someone rediscovering vinyl.

Article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts...ive/2022/perfect-sound-quality-vinyl-records/

Note: as usual, to get past the paywall, just get ready to hit the "stop" button on the page loading icon on your browser as soon as you see any content come up. It may take more than one try. If you do it to early, nothing loads, If you wait too long, the "overlay message" has already kicked in. And once that happens, you have to use a different browser to try again. That last part is a new thing.
 
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It's interesting, the 'getting lost in minutiae' aspect of phono. I love both the music-listening of vinyl but also the gear-fetish aspects, but at times need to get away from the gear 'rabbit hole' aspects of the hobby for my own sanity (and health of my wallet). I've noticed that I'm not the only AKer who comes and goes when it comes to posting on the forums. There are times when it becomes a bit much, and yet I find myself back in it a few weeks/months later. So many little things that can make significant changes in the sound, it's great and (can be) awful at the same time.
 
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Thanks for the heads-up on this article! Very interesting - and the comments are quite entertaining. Lots of sacred cows badly wounded here.

Love the quote in the article from Tony Stott at Cambridge Audio: “What can sometimes happen is that some of the joy of the music is overtaken by the joy of building a system." This is certainly true in my experience. And much of the article could be exactly the same if you replace all the equipment and music references with terms from the worlds of high-end wine or coffee or cars or bicycling or any other field with obsessed enthusiasts and huge price ranges for participation/enjoyment.

Also like this quote from Stott: “But listening to good-quality audio is a bit like owning a Formula One team. It will cost you a million pounds to get around the track in two minutes. It will cost you 10 million pounds to get around the track in a second under two minutes.”
 
Bone Yard said:
Haven't read the article yet, didn't know about how to get around the paywall, Thanks!!! Learned something new today.
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Be careful. If you wait too long and the "login" screen comes up, you have to get creative to try to do it again - delete cookies or something. Or use a different brouser. Better too fast than too slow.
 
Interesting, without revealing which is which for those who haven't compared them, I preferred the LP for both Miles and Neil Young tracks. I actually guessed only one of them correctly as LP, because I thought the "better" sounding version of one of that track would have been be CD (it wasn't).

If the question was "which sounds best?" -- I would have picked both LP tracks while listening blind.
 
It’s just one stop on my year-long search for the perfect sound
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Then vinyl is a dead end on your journey.
Port believes that records are like snowflakes — no two are the same.
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One more reason to use digital.
Speaker wires hang from the ceiling like renegade strands of linguine so as not to cross and cause feedback.
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AFAIK, crossing is ok. It is when they run alongside, the interference occurs.
There was no noise or tape hiss. That’s the way we deemed [digital source] was best. I don’t have to apologize for it. It’s a great recording.
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Well, duh. This is why I switched to digital the moment I was able to. Although for me, as a cassette user, more important was the absence of W&F.

It was easy to recognize LP for Miles Davis as there are noticeable pops six seconds in. Which is why I prefer the other version - I can adjust bass to taste, but I cannot easily get rid of clicks and pops.
Joseph McLellan said:
CDs sound excellent on the average home system, and they continue to sound good, unlike LPs and even tapes no matter how many times you play them.
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He was right.
 
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"So Port and his staff at Better Records sit for hours in a windowless room"

[Beep beep beep]

That's my commercial BS-ometer going off. "buy our hand-selected records - they're great!"

"The digital file was streamed through an iFi nano iOne home DAC, which has a Bluetooth codec maxing out at 16bit_48kHz."

Uh, yeah, great way to compare digital vs vinyl...
 
I made it to "Tom Port" the infamous HOT STAMPER guy. Who sells Fleetwood Mac ~Rumours~ early reissues for $450. He's a real Kassem (Analogue Productions) hater, says everything he's mastered is utter garbage.
 
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My sister-in-law sent me the article earlier today from a different media outlet. Like others have mentioned, it's this kinda crap that scares away newbies and infuriates 99% of the people involved in the hobby. There's some truths scattered about but it paints vinyl collectors as people without a life outside of the quest for the best vinyl.
 
The whole vinyl thing is pretty daunting. Think about all the variables along the way. Between pressings and surface condition, source material is idiosyncratic as all get out. Then there's the needle, cartridge and set up with cables that actually matter leading to a phono preamp and it's concerns. Each area a moving target that needs to be copacetic with each other and then integrated within the larger system. What could go wrong and how can digital possibly keep up?
 
I didn’t read the article at all and just went straight to evaluating the audio clips without any editorial influence.

If the audio clips are legitimately captured, I think there is value in experiencing them regardless of how the article is written. I will go back and read it when I have time, though I’m mostly interested in the how the recordings were done.
 
AC50 said:
The whole vinyl thing is pretty daunting. Think about all the variables along the way. Between pressings and surface condition, source material is idiosyncratic as all get out. Then there's the needle, cartridge and set up with cables that actually matter leading to a phono preamp and it's concerns. Each area a moving target that needs to be copacetic with each other and then integrated within the larger system.
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It really doesn't have to be this daunting or complicated. At whatever price level for which you buy a new turntable (used could be a different story), it will almost certainly come pre-adjusted from the factory and sound about the best it could. Also, if you're interested in going somewhat higher in price level, you can buy from a dedicated audio shop, and they'll adjust the settings and make sure you have a compatible cartridge and needle before you take it home. The main thing to be concerned with is to be sure to plug it into either a phono preamp or an integrated amp with phono inputs, not line inputs. Then ... just enjoy! The sound of the music will almost certainly be very good (depending on condition of the record, of course). Now, if you're a tweaker type who's not satisfied with the simple, direct approach that most people take, well then you're on your own. You'll probably be doing a lot of endless experimentation trying to squeeze out that last 1% or so. But if that's your thing, who am I to say it's wrong?
 
intro6 said:
It really doesn't have to be this daunting or complicated. At whatever price level for which you buy a new turntable (used could be a different story), it will almost certainly come pre-adjusted from the factory and sound about the best it could. Also, if you're interested in going somewhat higher in price level, you can buy from a dedicated audio shop, and they'll adjust the settings and make sure you have a compatible cartridge and needle before you take it home. The main thing to be concerned with is to be sure to plug it into either a phono preamp or an integrated amp with phono inputs, not line inputs. Then ... just enjoy! The sound of the music will almost certainly be very good (depending on condition of the record, of course).
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Thanks for that encouragement. I'll have to drag the old Dual out of mothballs and give it a go!
 
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