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For archiving analogue tape is a pretty robust format tried and trusted for 60+ years so long as it's stored properly as is the case with any magnetic media.
The machines are so well built that they last indefinitely again so long as they are maintained and they are far less complex to maintain than digital formats like DAT for instance where things like 20 year old chips are often no longer available.

Many studios find themselves in the position where they have large libraries on DAT and the machines are becomming harder and harder to maintain if you are lucky enough to have one that still works. At least with Open Reel they were in use for so long that the machines are very common and they are pretty cheap 2nd hand if you need to strip one for parts. DAT machines were not as well made on the whole apart from a few top models and haven't lasted as well. I know studios that are sitting on dozens of partially working machines not really knowing what to do with them.

Put it all on HD? or Blu-Ray? or whatever this years hype format is?

Absolutely you can afford to keep all your back catalogue on RAID arrays as hard drives are so cheap these days but life expectancy is 2-5 years so this means you have to spend many more man hours maintaining them.

Optical Discs like DVD are far from bullet proof as the life expectancy is again thought to be around 5 years. Digital tape streamers? same problems as DAT.
and then some as with all digital media you either have a perfect archive or you have a bunch of corrupted machine code which can't be resurrected so easily if at all.

So for serious archiving analogue tape has many benefits, you can put it in a box in a warehouse and forget about it for 50 years.

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The figures quoted are true believe it or not and the market has changed beyond all recognition since the heyday of the 7". The market for singles has fragmented greatly since peaking in the early 80s' as you would then have to sell a million singles a week in the UK to get to number 1 whereas these days it's a few hundred thousand if you're lucky.

But only a tiny minority of the singles that are made get radio support and actually sell enough in a week to make it into the charts at all. Thousands more are on small independent labels mainly making electronic music from bedroom studios for the dancefloor and these recieve hardly any promotion but can sell hundreds of thousands over a period of years being repressed many many times.

The resurrection of the 7" single has been going on quietly for the last 5 or 6 years here but in the last year a few bands have actually got to no.1 in the charts on the basis of 7" singles sales alone as CD singles are effectively now dead, surplanted by downloads. But only one single this year reached number 1 on downloads alone which was 'Crazy' by 'Gnarls Barkley' and it was the first to ever do so, more noteworthy still because it wasn't backed by a major label but promoted through internet sites like myspace.

Frankly I am quite surprised that CD album sales in the US are so weak. Only 700m in 2005 compared to 1/3 of that in the UK, when the US has 5 times the population.

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Gotta give ya that one...heard any cd singles or new cd's lately...darnit, if you start the first song the sound is sooo hard i almost get deaf...

What happened to the fine soft HQ recordings...

Why are they crancking the output so high?! is it beacuse the studio equipment is less good to hide any weakness or do they all think we are listening through 50 dollar sets???

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The only wurlitzer i see for sale at online shops is the cd single wurlitzer... that thing is about 5000 euro's...i bet the original 50-60 jukeboxes wich take singles are even much more expensive...

There isn't that much sales in second hand jukeboxes? Some are quite expensive...

I don't think it's jukeboxes...i think more and more dj's are using singles again...every dj i see on tele is using vinyl...only vinyl gives you something to scratch with, wich still often used by bands...

Originally Posted by drarthurwells:

Anyone who says ICs can't make a big difference in sound quality, and who make similar statements denying sound quality differences between sources, amps, etc., should be aware that their false misconceptions are being laughed at by others who know better (from more experience and discriminating tastes).


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Art: That's funny - like I said originally.

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There is a market in second hand jukeboxes, and you can get one for a couple of thousand dollars, but jukeboxes for the home isn't what I'm talking about. There are a lot of jukeboxes already in bars and restaurants. There's a market for limited runs of 7 inch single copies of current hits to supply them. I know a fella who does that for a living.

See ya
Steve

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This is exactly what happens.

My best sounding CD is from a straight vinyl transfer. No idiot mastering engineer boosting levels, using compression, or brick wall filtering.

CD's can sound great, just don't expect it from any pop CD in the last 10 years with the loudness war.

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Not that much over here...in restaurants they often use comon audio systems...

And i bet over here a good nice bubly wurlitzer will set you back way more then a couple of thousand...more like tens of thousands...

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I have to concur...i have a few really old(older) cd's wich sound really good and the rest is crap...especially the newest cd singles and cd's are recorded sooo hard...I have some lectronic music cd's wich are also better then the new ones on the merket now...they completely run music...not to speak of mp3 and the likes...

Some xrcd's also sound better then their normal counterparts, i have one of dire straits...xrcd of brothers in arms and it does sound better...

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Sorry to say but Brickwall filtering is a given with CD, it's not down to any mastering engineer, it's part of the technology.

The loudness thing is coincidently a hangover from Jukeboxes. Motown used to master their recordings as hot as possible in order so that their tracks would sound fuller than everyone else's on a Jukebox.

The problem with modern digital recording and mixing equipment is that you can't overload it in the way you can with analogue equipment because digital clipping sounds like burst of white noise which isn't broadcastable or listenable. Whereas if you overload analogue equipment you just get a slight fuzz (like an overdrive guitar pedal) or if it's tape it just compresses itself gently the harder you push it, none of which sounds unatural to the ear. In fact for anyone who likes rock music these are positive attributes in a mix which are done on purpose!

Moreover most pop music is mastered with the radio in mind and the freqency range on FM is nowhere near what is possible from a CD or Record, plus most people don't listen to the radio on full range speakers so it's all geared towards sounding as good as possible as was the case with jukeboxes.

The problem with compressing CD's in this fashion is that you are discarding the information at the freqency extremes (anything which goes beyond 0db) which sounds unnatural and robbing it of any dynamics so it just sounds headache inducing on a proper full range Hi-Fi.

I find that CD mastering on the whole has got better though. Recent remastered versions Iv'e heard of bands like Duran Duran and Blondie sound much better than the original CD versions from the 80's.

A lot of modern rock sounds as good on CD as it does on vinyl though. The recent Bloc Party Lp wasn't distinguishable from the CD. Lot's of modern rock bands like The White Stripes use completely analogue recording and mastering equipment so still sound better on Vinyl.

Ultimately the mastering usually all depends on the medium it's designed to be played back through.

When I digitize an LP to CD, it sounds *exactly* like the original record. Format isn't the issue.

Also, there was considerable noodling required to get an LP to sound as good as its master tape. The vinyl format isn't responsible for good sound, the quality of the engineering back in the 50s and 60s was. Nowadays, anyone with a computer can record, mix and master a CD. And a lot of engineers just don't have the experience that they had back then.

See ya
Steve

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I don't agree with you;i simply think the equipment gets better and therefor the newer cd's sound better...but the volume....

18 bits sounds better then 16 bits, 20 bits sounds better then 18 bits and 24 bits sounds better then 20 bits, it's that simple...old and dew cd's the older one recorded with older equipment and the new cd with newer equipment, yeah of course i expect the new one to sound better, evolution of recording gear...

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This might be true to a certain degree. But the fact is the formats just sound different. No matter wether the recordings are both(CD or LP) very good or both very bad. Also I have many new recordings that I have on SACD, Redbook, and vinyl. Some of them good in every format. I still prefer the vinyl copies of all the recordings.
My point again being, no matter if its recorded good or bad, new or old,.. ....the formats sound different. In my case the engineering has nothing to do with which format I like better. Its the overall sound and presentation of vinyl that does.
I can see people liking either one over the other.
I just dont understand how anyone could choose CD.

Again, the format can't be the reason it sounds good or bad if you can take an LP and digitize it to CD and not have it sound any different.

The quality difference you are attributing to the format is actually the quality of the engineering and mastering.

See ya
Steve

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I disagree. The formats are miles apart in design, function and software. Even the best recorded (by best engineers) CDs, played on state of the art players sound different than vinyl. They are two different beasts. Apples and oranges.