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Trent Hoyt

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I just got a high-end system. Bought some sealed Williams LP's. Superman, Raiders, Empire, both Jaws, and E.T. I feel bad for those of you who think it's not better than CDs. You should hear Empire, Superman, and Raiders. You would cry.

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LPs were really before my time, but I nevertheless grew up with the Star Wars OST LP, and I don't find the sound to be unequivocally better. It's...different. There's something very nice and "warm" about it, cliche as that is, but I've heard some really stunning sound on CDs. Really depends on what you're going for.

For me, the biggest turnoffs are not the sound quality, but the fragility, physical bulk, immutability, and sheer contemporary rareness of the medium. Do those things make you tend to value and treasure and relish the experience in a more focused way? Sure, yeah. But I can't ignore the more practical disadvantages.

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I've been thinking about starting a record collection. If you shop smartly, you can find records dirt cheap. Currently I own about 10 records but I don't have a record player.

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I just got a high-end system. Bought some sealed Williams LP's. Superman, Raiders, Empire, both Jaws, and E.T. I feel bad for those of you who think it's not better than CDs. You should hear Empire, Superman, and Raiders. You would cry.

Did you also get a woodburning stove, and mullioned windows? Maybe that thatched roof will appeal to you.

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I just got a high-end system. Bought some sealed Williams LP's. Superman, Raiders, Empire, both Jaws, and E.T. I feel bad for those of you who think it's not better than CDs. You should hear Empire, Superman, and Raiders. You would cry.

What's a CD?

I thought audiophiles all got lossless FLACs these days, shouldn't we have a thread on those, not antiques?

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Not realising at first that this is an old thread, I'm replying to some ancient posts, too:

I'm a vinylphile. It's all about sound quality. Music on vinyl is far less compressed and has more dynamic range than music on CD (generally). It really just sounds a lot better in most cases, provided the vinyl is clean, and your system doesn't suck. Those are two big provisos, however.

This really only effects pop and rock, though. Classical music and scores generally sound just as great (or better) on CD as on vinyl.

I thought dynamic range is the one thing everyone agreed was improved with the CD, even when it was new and digital recordings weren't what they are today. My understanding was that for LP mastering, dynamic compression was necessary, and one of the big advantages of CDs, especially for classical music, was the extended dynamic range.

Plus I don't see how that would make an improvement for pop and rock and none for orchestral music. It's the latter that typically has the highest dynamic requirements.

The reason for the comeback of vinyl is not an audiophile one but a psychological one. Deejays love vinyl. Deejays are the new music heroes (of the proletarian culture). And so LPs are giving people the feeling that they too are a little bit deejay.

Plus a lot of people like the noise of a typical non-high end turntable. They prefer to buy a product for its inferiorities instead of its strenghts.

Otherwise I guess it wouldn't have been LPs that got a revival, but SACDs.

I won't invest into SACD because A: I don't want to have to buy a separate player for that and B: the investment isn't worth it.

Your first point makes no sense. When CDs came out, people had to buy a separate player for that. When DVDs came out, people had to buy a separate player for that. Both were - and still are - highly successful formats, and their successors (Blu and SACD) are actually somewhat compatible in that their players still allow you to play the media you bought earlier. You couldn't put LPs/cassettes in a CD player, nor VHS tapes in a DVD player.

Your second point of course is what it's all about. The format never caught on. In the beginning, it depends on how many people buy it regardless of point B, to reach critical mass. That worked with CDs and DVDs, and apparently BDs, but not with DVD-A and SACD.

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I just got a high-end system. Bought some sealed Williams LP's. Superman, Raiders, Empire, both Jaws, and E.T. I feel bad for those of you who think it's not better than CDs. You should hear Empire, Superman, and Raiders. You would cry.

Did you also get a woodburning stove, and mullioned windows? Maybe that thatched roof will appeal to you.

Not yet. I just finished installing the outhouse. First things first.

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For me, what makes the CD the winner over LPs is this: each time you play that vinyl, it wears out a little bit more. Every time you play that CD, it pretty much sounds exactly like it did the last time you played it.

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Did anyone pick up any of the record store exclusives yesterday? I went to my local independent record store and the crowds were pretty nuts. I didnt pick up any records though just cds.

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I thought dynamic range is the one thing everyone agreed was improved with the CD, even when it was new and digital recordings weren't what they are today. My understanding was that for LP mastering, dynamic compression was necessary, and one of the big advantages of CDs, especially for classical music, was the extended dynamic range.

Theoretically, yes, dynamic range can technically be better on CD. And most classical and movie score CDs are indeed superior in digital formats. But with popular music like rock, CDs are only sounding worse and worse as time goes on. See

and
.

(That said, if you want some soundtrack vinyl that'll knock your socks off, find the DCC LP of Raiders. It's completely awesome. Other soundtracks sound pretty lousy, though. The original Star Wars LP is REALLY compressed.)

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But with popular music like rock, CDs are only sounding worse and worse as time goes on. See

and
.

That's a matter of mastering though, not of CD technology. Someone who over-compresses music for a CD release would surely do the same thing for an LP release. Unless the whole point was to fake an LP advantage where there wasn't one.

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Dynamic range is overrated. Obviously, you need enough range for the music to sound natural and not totally exhaust you, and obviously clipping is bad, but I'd rather not have to be constantly adjusting the volume while I listen. Maybe my ears just have a strange sensitivity curve or something, but I find that the range of volume levels in which I'm comfortable is fairly narrow. Although I do listen mostly with headphones, so perhaps I'd be more comfortable with a wider dynamic range on speakers. EDIT: But take, for example, the HP:SS recording sessions. Very wide dynamic range. If I were to listen straight through, I'd have to be constantly fiddling with the volume in order to be able to hear the music but not blow my eardrums out. So I went through and tweaked every cue to make them listenable.

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Did anyone pick up any of the record store exclusives yesterday? I went to my local independent record store and the crowds were pretty nuts. I didnt pick up any records though just cds.

I went to the Newbury Comics in North Attleboro and picked up a live dream theater CD I didn't have. My girlfriend picked up a bunch of stuff from a table of free stuff - a free sampler EP, an Iron and Wine button, and some flavored water

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  • 4 years later...

I'd certainly buy one of those, but not for $15,000.

It doesn't seem to be anything new, though:

In late 1989 Finial's investors finally cut their losses and liquidated the firm, selling the patents to Japanese turntable maker BSR, which became CTI Japan which in turn created ELP Japan for continued development of the "super-audiophile" turntable. After eight more years of development the laser turntable was finally put on sale in 1997 as the ELP LT-1XA Laser Turntable, with a list price of US$20,500 (in 2003 the price was lowered to US$10,500).

Apparently ELP are just trying to promote their more recent models through a couple of websites.

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Hipsters don't care about that, Steef. They want a solution to the non-ritual process that goes with USB sticks or streaming.

However, I can understand that this device splits the hipsters into two groups.

Why not just buy a CD player?


Why not just get CDs then?
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  • 3 months later...

Of course it can! Vinyl adds warmth to the recording!

Yes I know what vinyls lovers means when they talk about "warmth", in fact they speak about "distortion". ;)

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Of course it can! Vinyl adds warmth to the recording!

Yes I know what vinyls lovers means when they talk about "warmth", in fact they speak about "distortion". ;)

What distortion? What saturation? You guys are talking about "tape". It's clear you're no hipsters!

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  • 3 weeks later...

For vinyl and Rosenman lovers (and for those who don't visit the LOTR subforum):

Leonard Rosenman's score for the Bakshi adaptation gets the deluxe treatment!

Fantasy Records presents the classic score to the 1978 animated feature J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, from Academy Award-winning composer Leonard Rosenman (East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Barry Lyndon). This highly collectable, vinyl box set will be a must-have for fans of the landmark film and audiophiles alike. Inside the box, there is a wealth of ephemera to discover: the two-disc, 180-gram vinyl LP in a reproduction of the original gatefold jacket; an alternate movie poster, featuring Gandalf, reproduced from the film s original marketing materials; a map of Middle Earth; a lobby card, reproduced from the original theatrical release; plus a sticker, a reproduced production cel, suitable for framing, as well as a 16-page illustrated booklet, featuring behind-the-scenes photos, liner notes by Tolkien Enterprises Laurie Battle, and a new Leonard Rosenman appreciation by Jon Burlingame, the nation's leading writer on the subject of music for films and television. Also in the booklet is a backstage look at the making of the film by music historian and reissue producer Bill Belmont.

Sticker for the win!

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  • 1 year later...
4 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Hipsters who buy this have no appreciation for gravity.

Gravity is a hipster film though!

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Wouldn't you like to impress your friends by playing Gravity (of all records!) on a vertical turntable? It's not about sound. It's about how cool you are.

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