Are we finally coming full circle? Resurgence of vinyl...

MartinLogan Audio Owners Forum

Help Support MartinLogan Audio Owners Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
A ressurgence...yes, will it ever be the dominat format again.....no.

As has been stated many times before ALL formats have their place, where the best of Viynl, CD and SACD are superb in their OWN right.

As Dan has said before, we can argue till the cows come in but in the end it's a matter of preference, and I wholeheartly agree.
 
As Dan has said before, we can argue till the cows come in but in the end it's a matter of preference, and I wholeheartly agree.
Dave that is correct. Each format has its own quirks, strengths and weaknesses.

But then we are all at the mercy of the engineers and the labels to hopefully put out quality sounding releases.

Find the format you like best and setup your system to have that format played back, at its best, for the budget you have available. Then sit back and enjoy the music.
 
I couldn't agree more with both Dave and Dan. Decide for yourself where to focus your energy and money, then build the most synergistic system around it as you are able.

That being said, from a software perspective, vinyl was never really dead, you just had to look for it in different places than the mainstream music store. Frankly, after working in a retail record store for a number of years while in college and beyond, I'm certain that the brick and mortar merchandisers are happy to have any product to sell as opposed to loosing that market to on-line downloading and (even worse) those who simply pirate the material without paying for it at all (not picking on anyone here Joey).

I've NEVER stopped buying vinyl myself. There have always been store locally where I could obtain it, and the internet has always had the likes of our dear friends at Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct or Elusive Disc around for me to dispose of my diosposable income.

What suprised me in the article was the focus on 7" sales as opposed to 12" sales. Not that I have any marketing demographics to prove it, but I'm certain that's NOT where most sales are made for the online retailers I mentioned above, nor, from shopping in my local haunts, would it appear to be where people spend their money in the stores. the traditional 12" LP seems MUCH hotter to me than 7" 45's.

I'm just happy to see vinyl enjoying the continued popularity it does...:D
 
DTB300 said:
But then we are all at the mercy of the engineers and the labels to hopefully put out quality sounding releases.
Yes, and :mad:

Sad, if you ask me.

Hopefully it's the younger generations way of telling the recording companies that they no longer want convenience at the cost of compromised sound.
 
But then we are all at the mercy of the engineers and the labels to hopefully put out quality sounding releases.


I couldn't agree with you more.

Case in point:

I recently ( a month or two ago) heard a few tunes from Amy Whitehouse's new album on XM radio, and on my step-daughter's laptop, and thought the tunes sounded very interesting. Interesting enough to buy the CD. (Luckily, when I bought it last weekend, I got it for $9.99 at Target, or else I'd be REALLY ****ed, instead of just moderately miffed...)

So I get it home, load it into iTunes (Apple Lossless) and start streaming it through the Benchmark. I'm waiting for her quirky voice to come through clear and sweet, like I imagined it would sound on my system, after hearing it on my stepdaughter's PC in an admittedly crappy highly compressed MP3.

Well, the sound of this CD can be summed up in one word:

SH!+

It sounded so bad, in fact, that I went back to my iTunes prefs panel to double check that the sampling rate was indeed set to Apple Losselss. It was.

I put the CD into the Oppo, and tried playing it, direct from disc, through the Benchmark. Still sounded like a third-rate garageband recorded on a walkman. Headphones came out (AKG K-701) and it sounded like--you guessed it--absolute crap.

The postproduction team on this album should have their union cards revoked, and then have their stack of effects boxes unceremoniously inserted into every available orifice. Overzealous, self-important, gadget-drunk producers have simply RUINED this woman's wonderful music.

Amy Whitehouse is witty, sarcastic, sexy, and talented as hell. Her music is atchy (though admittedly not terrible innovative) but her lyrics and vocal talents are like drops of curare' on the end of a mass-produced arrow--sure it might not LOOK like it has much style at first, but it gets in your blood and makes your head spin.

I understand the idea that an artist or engineer might want to do ONE or TWO tracks on a disk that have that grainy, "old-school" tube-mike sound, and maybe over-modulate the drums and piano a little to make a song sound like it has that "60's sound", but I just don't understand why ANYONE would want to make that overly-processed, grundged-up, grainy, hollow sound a "trademark". One song, and it's quaint. Two tracks, and OK, it's a sort of "signature sound" and a witty nod to the sound of early 60's Jazz and Motown. But the whole freakin' album? No, after two or three tracks, it is just simply tedious, trite, and irritating.

I bet it sounds really cool on an iPod, Rio, or Zune, through some $20 earbuds, and it even sounds kinda cool on my car stereo (which although factory, IS Chevy's top-of-the-line for my model, and sounds pretty decent for car audio) but on a system like I have, which is pretty revealing and sweet-sounding, this sort of post-production techno-masturbation is akin to 1st-degree aural assault, and should be punishable with Biblical Retribution.

I like Ms. Whitehouse's voice, and she's a VERY clever lyricist. But if she thinks her newest CD is somehow "cutting edge creativity" because every single track has been molested in postproduction to the point of sounding like it was recorded on a 1980's era Radio Shack boombox and THEN sonically raped by a team of psychotic ex-Lexicon and Moog employees, then perhaps she's what we call in the South, "too clever by half", and needs to take her royalties and buy a decent stereo so she can hear how appalling her latest record sounds on good gear...

So what I'm trying to say is that my system, which is by NO means a ultra-high-end rig, but is probably more musical than 75% of the rigs in the general population, this CD actually sounds WORSE than it did in my car, and there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with that.

It should be a legal requirement that recording studios spend at least 10% as much on their "reference listening system" as they do on advertising for their most popular artist. I think if that were the case, a LOT of records would end up sounding a LOT different (and a LOT better!).

--Richard
 
Last edited:
The postproduction team on this album should have their union cards revoked, and then have their stack of effects boxes unceremoniously inserted into every available orifice. Overzealous, self-important, gadget-drunk producers have simply RUINED this woman's wonderful music.

--Richard

Don't hold back on us, Richard. Tell us how you really feel. :p
 
Erik,

Don't buy this disc.

When I finally get around to having my next "Dreamer System Listening Day", I'm going to make a CD of my favorite demo tracks to give to everyone, and I will be sure to include a track from Ms. Whitehouse's CD, just so folks can take it home and see that it sounds like absolute crap on ANY decent system.

When I announce the meeting date, if you PM me with your snail mail addy, I'll post one to you...

--Richard
 
I want to make one of these CDs as well. PM me is you're interested and I'll send them out when I'm done. (Can't promise anything - don't know what they're going to want charge to send these things from Australia to the US)!
 
So what I'm trying to say is that my system, which is by NO means a ultra-high-end rig, but is probably more musical than 75% of the rigs in the general population, this CD actually sounds WORSE than it did in my car, and there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with that.
Not to get too far off topic of this thread about Vinyl....But the new Spryo Gyra CD is also like this. Done by the label Heads Up, the volume is really pushed up. I have had some conversations on another forum about his and other Heads Up discs and they think I am nuts (well yeah I am nuts, but I am right about this release :)). So I compared the Yellow Jackets Altered State 2CH SACD versus the Spryo Gyra Ready Go Go 2CH SACD and found the Spryo Grya release to be at a minimum 10dB hotter than the YG release. Not scientifically done as I used my Rad Shack SPL meter, set my volume level at a point and played both discs getting a reading on both. YG was at mid to high 70's most of the time, peaking up to around 82-83dB's, and the SG disc was at high 80's nearer to 90 and up in the mid 90's a lot of time.

Dear Record Labels: Let us decide the volume levels we want to listen at and quit boosting the levels up on new releases!!!!

BTW, it does sound tolerable in my car.
 
Back
Top