[45longcolt]

All this talk about wax cylinders has me thinking, and there isn't a weakness of LPs that couldn't be alleviated by going to cylinders. Not wax cylinders, but vinyl cylinders.
Many LPs aren't all that flat, and any can warp. Cylinders are strong and stable. Vinyl is flexible, but if a liner was used that weakness could be eliminated. Years ago, it might have been magnesium; today carbon fiber would be the obvious choice.
Tracking errors across the side? A cylinder would of necessity use a tangential arm, like some house-priced disc spinners. Cartridge set-up would be simple.
End-of-side distortions caused by smaller, close-crowded grooves would be eliminated.
Time capacity is the big stumbling block. Two ways to solve that - make the cylinders longer and larger in diameter. Also, rotation speed would be a factor. But hey, we already have 33.3 vs. 45 rpm LPs.
Turntable design would have to change - literally turned on its side - though pretty much any industrial lathe could be easily adapted. Given the popularity of hyper-precision CNC machinery, most of the engineering has been done. Of course it would have to be dressed up in all the audiophile finery, and made "buzzword compliant." But I wouldn't be surprised if this could be done at a very competitive price point.
Would this be practical? Geez, are you serial? An average album might well require a cylinder two feet long and six inches in diameter. Imagine collecting a couple of thousand of those! But, really, how practical is reel-to-reel tape? We're talkin' audiophiles here, not rational people.
If nothing else, this would tweak the tails of the digital-only crowd. Worth doing just for that.
Oh, and you could store great big cover art and booklets in the cylinder. Great sound and great aesthetics!

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Oh, and you could store great big cover art and booklets in the cylinder.

,,,and maybe wrap some toilet paper around the outside?



JC

 

[alpovs]

Cylinders sound quality it's worst, Vinyl sound quality was not improved by digital. Simple.

I am not that old and can't provide my impressions but can find some historical records. Wikipedia. Here you go. "In the era before World War I, phonograph cylinders and disc records competed with each other for public favor. The audio fidelity of a sound groove is debatably better if it is engraved on a cylinder due to better linear tracking. This was not resolved until the advent of RIAA standards in the early 1940s—by which time it had already been rendered academic, as cylinder production stopped with Edison's last efforts in October 1929."

The next paragraph describes the advantages of cylinders that are in line with @45longcolt thoughts. So, cylinders may be better than disks. Why not use them? And further in the same Wikipedia article:

"Small numbers of cylinders have been manufactured in the 21st century out of modern long-lasting materials." "In 2010 the British steampunk band The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing released the track "Sewer", from their debut album, Now That's What I Call Steampunk! Volume 1 on a wax cylinder in a limited edition of 40, of which only 30 were put on sale. The box set came with instructions on how to make your own cylinder player for less than £20. The BBC covered the release on Television on BBC Click, on BBC Online and on Radio 5 Live."

"In August 2010, Ash International and PARC released the first commercially available glow in the dark phonograph cylinder, a work by Michael Esposito and Carl Michael von Hausswolff, entitled The Ghosts Of Effingham. The cylinder was released in a limited edition of 150 copies, and was produced by Vulcan Records in Sheffield, England."

And here is how to hold cylinders properly.

I didn't expect vinyl disks to come back to life. Since that happened I am expecting cylinders.

 

[alpovs]

If I understand you correctly, the question is why discs and not cylinders...

IIRC, the cylinders, when standardised by Edison, spun at 160rpm, and had a track density of 100 tracks per inch. That yielded a playback time of up to a whopping 2.5 minutes, and as such, they were marketed as 2-minute cylinders.

I’d say that’s why we didn’t return to cylinders.

The first disks had about the same characteristics. They evolved. As @45longcolt surmised above cylinders can be made as good if not better as disks nowadays.
It seems that cylinders died in competition with disks for commercial reasons, not because they were worse. Like HD DVD died in competition with Blu-ray.

 

[rkw]

All this talk about wax cylinders has me thinking, and there isn't a weakness of LPs that couldn't be alleviated by going to cylinders. Not wax cylinders, but vinyl cylinders.

Do cylinders have to be cut individually? They can't be easy stamped out in quantity like LPs.

 

[alpovs]

Do cylinders have to be cut individually? They can't be easy stamped out in quantity like LPs.

"In 1900, Thomas B Lambert was granted a patent that described a process for mass-producing cylinders made from celluloid..."

In the same link: "Such "indestructible" style cylinders are arguably the most durable form of sound recording produced in the entire era of analog audio media; they can withstand a greater number of playbacks before wearing out than later media such as the vinyl record or audio tape."

 

[RCBinTN]

I for one enjoy my digitally-recorded Redbook music as presented to my ears via Schiit Audio's extraordinary multi-bit DAC technology.
Have no idea what else is being discussed here

 

[alpovs]

Vinyl sound quality was not improved by digital.

I see a problem with this statement. Vinyl is analog, digital is... well... digital. While the quality of sound (fidelity) of vinyl mostly depends on the vinyl record itself, the fidelity of a digital record mostly depends on the converter from digital to analog, a.k.a. DAC. When crappy cheap delta-sigma DAC's are so abundant I can see why people make such statements, but those statement reflect the quality of DAC's, not (digital) records. If we take a modern, well-mastered master record and put on a vinyl disk, and play it on a very good turntable, and digitize the same record and play it on the Yggdrasil with, say, the same amp and speakers/headphones as the vinyl record I am not sure which will sound better.

The problem with many older records is that they were not mastered well because they were not expected to be played on very good equipment. Even some modern records are not mastered well and sound poor even on the Yggdrasil.

 

[Miguel Barone]

Well, VHS was really better than Betamax?
I remember DAT and mini disc. They doesn't sound better than Vinyl but also doesn't have the classic "hisssss" of the cassettes in the tweeters.

I'm expecting the new HD Vinyl cutted with láser. Can be a revolution on analog sound.

 

[rkw]

"In 1900, Thomas B Lambert was granted a patent that described a process for mass-producing cylinders made from celluloid..."

In the same link: "Such "indestructible" style cylinders are arguably the most durable form of sound recording produced in the entire era of analog audio media; they can withstand a greater number of playbacks before wearing out than later media such as the vinyl record or audio tape."

More information here, and sound samples: http://www.centuryoldsounds.com/Indestructible.html
Celluloid is not without its own problems, such as shrinkage. I don't think his celluloid production method can be used the same way using vinyl.

 

[Miguel Barone]

The problem with many older records is that they were not mastered well because they were not expected to be played on very good equipment. Even some modern records are not mastered well and sound poor even on the Yggdrasil.

Some people says the opposite with the loudness war. Older mastering have all the dynamic range and the new másters are Made to sound good on crappy portable devices and sound horrible on real HiFi systems.

 

[liamo]

I for one enjoy my digitally-recorded Redbook music as presented to my ears via Schiit Audio's extraordinary multi-bit DAC technology.
Have no idea what else is being discussed here

You young whipper snappers just don’t appreciate what come before.

 

[Ableza]

The only cylinders I want in my audio system are tubes.

 

[RCBinTN]

You young whipper snappers just don’t appreciate what come before.

Oh, I certainly do appreciate the history! I had my share of vinyl (flat, not cylindrical) discs back in the 1970's.
Loved 'em all. Danced, dazed & confused, hallucinated and rocked out!
The main challenge was to keep 'em dusted and not scratched. LOL.

But, for me, those days are long gone. I've moved on to the new platform, the best as of 2019. Schiit MB + Redbook.
YMMV, friends

 

[liamo]

As long as you’re still a cool young whipper snapper you’ve still got it.