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Have to agree with what Steve and Herandu have said. There is more music on vinyl than there will ever any other physical media.

If you like any music recorded before the late 1980s early 1990s , vinyl was the mass media it was mastered for and is the closest you can get to that master unless you listen to open reel.

Since the early 1980s all the most cutting edge music made has usually been pressed on 12" vinyl first as this is the favoured media of DJ's. Reggae, Hip Hop, R&B, House, Techno, Garage, Drum and Bass and all the various offshoots of these exsist primarily on vinyl. Mainstream Rock and pop continue to be pressed on vinyl, with much more care taken in the mastering as a rule because you have to know what you're doing to make a record.

In fact if you want a record label to take your band seriously then send them a 7" because it shows you're more serious about your music than just hitting burn on your CD writer.

The current UK independent rock scene is completely based on 7" records to the degree where bands like the Arctic Monkeys can get into the top 10 on vinyl sales alone, and these are growing in a declining music market.

Apart from recent classical performances such as the Emerson Quartet and perhaps Country and Western ( now where did I put that 8-track ) you'd be hard pressed to find any type of music which isn't available on vinyl.

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The main thing about vinyl is that we have always been better at encoding it than decoding it so to speak and the playback equipment is still being perfected to this day. So different stylus profiles can usually find undamaged areas even if there is considerable surface wear. Vacuum cleaning machines are also amazing at cleaning up noisy old records.

You don't need to spend 2500 USD to get a decent vinyl playback system as an entry level deck like the Rega P3 will outperform most cd players at any price. You need to throw serious money at digital to acheive the things which a half decent record player is capable of. Conversly though the more you spend on a vinyl front end the closer you will get to basic CD-like levels of quiet and detail.

What vinyl has in spades even on a humble sub 100 dollar vintage deck is infectious musicality which, coupled with the fact that it's so cheap and plentiful 2nd hand, is why everyone who is seriously into music should really try it.

^ what he said. a very significant amount of CURRENT good music is released on vinyl (along with their CD counterpart...and often includes the release on CD, too, for your convenience).

I'm not denying the wear might be pretty small, but its still quite significant. A record played 1000-times in a year would be massively worn down compared to the same CD played 1000 times.

I will bow my head about vinyl availability, I've pretty much zero experience with it, I've just not seen a lot. Vinyl kind of conjures up old music in my mind, also my tastes are fair from mainstream and I doubt they'd be on vinyl?

the "underground" heavily embraces vinyl. name a few bands you're into and see if their albums are released on vinyl

Modern LP releases are always at least twice as expensive as the CD release.

And a portable vinyl rig?

For anyone with a very large CD collection, although vinyl will probably be a step up, it's a major investment financially.

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Ignorance is curable. You should look into the history of music. The advances made in music between 1930 and 1970 dwarf anything since. Popular music during that period represented the greatest artistic achievement of modern times. There's a LOT to know about music that you and your friends don't even have an inkling of yet.

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With a properly aligned turntable, you would get tired of the record LONG before it wore out. I have records that are nearly 100 years old that have been played thousands of times and still sound like the day they were pressed. With reasonably good equipment and proper care, record wear just isn't an issue.

See ya
Steve

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Why would anyone buy current LP releases? Modern recordings are recorded digitally anyway. They would gain nothing from being pressed on vinyl. And what's the point of spending a lot of money on reissues when the original pressings sell for a dollar or two at swap meets?

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Here's a photo of my chihuahua with my portable SHELLAC rig!



See ya
Steve

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Neither would have any significant impact. Turntables are *designed* to play records without damaging them. The photo of the phonograph above is a record player that uses steel needles... they look like nails and you replace them with every play. Even that doesn't wear out the records designed to be played on phonographs like that.

This is something that you have to be a phono fan to understand. It's not the way you think it is.

See ya
Steve

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PM me your mailing address, and I will send you a CD of some records of mine recorded in Vienna in 1938 that will change your mind.

See ya
Steve

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There's a TON of great country on LP and even more on shellac. Capitol Records didn't just press Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, they had a thriving country division under the supervision of Cliffie Stone... Merle Travis, T E Ford, Tex Ritter, Hank Thompson, Buck Owens, etc.

See ya
Steve

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Sweet!

Well, that settles the vinyl question for me, personally.
From the mouth of 'bigshot' himself, I would gain nothing by going to vinyl.


Thanks, I've saved a few thousand...
EK

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Wrong. Again. One of my local hi-fi dealers has a set of LPs he likes to pull out every time someone makes this ignorant claim. As a dealer, some of his records will be played many hundreds of times every year in the course of demonstrating equipment for potential buyers. Invariably, someone will bring up the topic of record wear, and that's when he takes his heavily played record and compares it with a fresh copy. The differences are minimal, if any, and this is on a very well setup high-resolution system.

As long as the records and needles are kept clean and the turntable is properly setup, you will grow old before you notice any degradation in your records.

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A ***huge*** x2! Especially egregious is the false information regarding record wear.

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Awwww....poochie poochie poochie....

now...

Let's say you're correct and all music recorded today is in the digital realm. (There may be counter-examples, but I'm too busy with other things to do the research. And, yea, I know you're in the industry. ) Which has the greater fidelity potential (defined any way you want): digital master to redbook or digital master to vinyl?

EDIT: never mind--I read your opinion above.

BTW, when I got back into audio...err...active-listening to music about eight years ago (after taking over ten years off), one of the signs I was doing it right was my craving of stuff that I would have never gotten into before: jazz (all types/eras), classical, even opera; frank sanatra for heaven's sake! Could be increased maturity (very doubtful), but I think I was ready to appreciate the human beings performing. Whatever...

my compile is done...must go debug now...

A few clarifications. If a college student (like my brother) wants to listen to vinyl, and gets by with a $150 rig, that's cool! A lot of younger people are into it, for their own reasons. It may sound "nice" but it won't be high-rez. I was talking about hardcore audiophiles. You won't convince me it can be done for less than $2K. At $1K you will obtain okay-to-pretty-decent sound, depending how lucky you get with used deals. I'm including tonearm, cartridge, stepup/preamp, record cleaners and a cleaning machine, plus various accesories. High-rez for 1000 bucks, no.

As far as software, someone said most new music isn't issued on vinyl anymore, only CD. Well, the reverse is also true for older music. As far as new music, many rock/pop artists are commited to releasing their stuff on vinyl-- people like Wilco, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Beck, Bob Dylan and many others. Often the vinyl releases sound better than CD, though they do tend to be pricey.

Record wear: the Library Of Congress holds the world's largest vinyl collection. LoC officially estimates that vinyl LP's in typical use and correct storage will have a life expectancy between 100 years and infinity. It's a very durable format (though somewhat prone to defects).