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312 Comments
- wukillabee, on 04/18/2009, -8/+109flac
- palmer, on 04/18/2009, -0/+89This is a waste, because the record companies are destroying the MASTERS with dynamic compression, the same masters that'll undoubtedly be used to press these records. Their idiotic pursuit of "loudness" has destroyed all popular music since the late '90s, and they're busily destroying the last hundred years of recordings by "remastering" them. Why, exactly, would you need to "remaster" Brothers in Arms, by Dire Straits, a full-digital recording that was once used as a demonstration of CD's dynamic range? Oh, right: to destroy that dynamic range.
Record companies have left no avenue for self-destruction unexplored. They've actively fought every avenue of new-music exposure, utterly failed to promote a piracy-resistant format they already have (DVD-Audio, which would have been great when supported with surround systems in cars), tried to shut down the few ways we have to FIND music (lyric-search sites and Internet radio), and worst of all they've destroyed the music itself by turning it into a wall of noise that assaults your ears with full amplitude every millisecond. It's bad for listerners, bad for DJs (because it makes decent mixing impossible), bad for data-compression algorithms because those algorithms depended on the subtleties in music that were essentially inaudible but that now are maxed out.
So now they're going to press this travesty of noise into vinyl to capitalize on a trend. TOO LATE. THE CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED. - KielKilla, on 04/18/2009, -7/+92It's those damn hipster and indie kids.
- willster580, on 04/18/2009, -6/+74Vinyl has been back for a while now.
- flidge, on 04/17/2009, -10/+67this one pops up every now and then. always gonna be a certain element who crave the elitist buzz they get from crowing about vinyl.
- outoforder, on 04/18/2009, -6/+55Vinyl never went away.
- CalcProgrammer1, on 04/18/2009, -0/+40"Yeah but FLAC is not the best format, Id prefer WAV's..."
FLAC = WAV, they are identical. FLAC is like WAV inside a zip archive but smaller. When decompressed (decoded), FLAC is identical to WAV on a binary level, bit for bit exact. It also happens to be bit for bit identical with CD-DA, as CD-DA is just WAV and FLAC is also just WAV...
...that's why it's called lossless, it's identical to the original CD, and it's the best digital format you can get. You can also convert between lossless formats without losing any quality, that's why they call them lossless. Identical to the CD in WMA is the same as identical to the CD in FLAC is the same as identical to the CD in Apple Lossless is the same as identical to the CD in WAV is the same as identical to the CD in Wavpack is the same as...you get the point! - decapitor, on 04/18/2009, -4/+40OK let's just get this all straight before too many arguments pop up. If the source recording was recorded digitally, then the highest quality medium for storing it is digital. Any downconversion for the sake of saving space will degrade the quality. Pretty much everything available to the public has been exported from the original music production software with some loss of quality because if you've ever recorded music you know that the original recordings are many many gigabytes in size per track and not at all practical. If your source recording was done on analog recording gear with no digital intermediaries, then vinyl will indeed be the best quality medium possible because it is analog and can keep the smooth waveforms completely without digitizing them, though it is certainly possible to maintain a very high digital bitrate conversion and lose very very little. For me, viynl is not worth the trouble as it degrades in quality with every listening and is very inconvenient. There are some people who have really nice stereos and can appreciate the quality that comes from an analog recording pressed to vinyl, and those are the ones who have kept vinyl alive over all these years. However, the ones responsible for its resurgence are just hipsters who probably have $100 stereos tops. Bottom line: for 99% of people vinyl is not worth your time.
- hamishcduncan, on 04/18/2009, -5/+39There's only one problem with this: Douchey little teenage retards who after spending ten minutes on the internet decide they know everything there is to know about the loudness war and vinyl vs. CD and EVERYTHING related to it, then use that 'knowledge' to boost their own sense of self-righteousness while talking down to strangers on the internet. Wow, you bought Becks entire catalogue on vinyl? Awesome! Oh... you don't own a turntable?
- digitul, on 04/18/2009, -8/+37yeah every generation will have its hipsters that proclaim how theyre sooo retro and love vinyl
- hotsoda, on 04/18/2009, -0/+29You clearly don't know how FLAC works.
- squatz, on 04/18/2009, -2/+26This same "story" gets rolled out by a different news agency about once per week.
- CalcProgrammer1, on 04/18/2009, -1/+25...no it doesn't...Digital can be copied infinitely many times and never degrade. The filesystem can become corrupted or fragmented, but the files themselves (as long as the filesystem is maintained) never lose quality. I can take a CD, rip it to FLAC, copy it to an SD card, send that over a WiFi connection to a laptop, beam it via IR to another laptop, e-mail it to my friend, have him put it on an external HDD and mail it to another friend, have him print out the entire contents of the file as 1's and 0's on a huge stack of paper, have someone else spend years typing those numbers back in, and then burn it to a CD and the two CD's will be exactly the same (provided a CUE file was included with the FLAC files).
If numerical information degraded, the whole idea of software would be dead, as all the programs on your computer (which are just REALLY LONG NUMBERS) would "wear out" and change, making your software corrupt. That doesn't happen.
Yes, I do realize that the hard drive itself wears out, but the data on it does not. If I back up my data on two HDD's, and one dies, the other is a perfect copy of the original and can be made as many more times as necessary, the medium that stores the data can wear out and die but the data itself never dies as long as there is a backup. Making a backup of an analog medium, however, always induces at least a very slight degradation or imperfection, and multiple "remasterings" will lose the original signal. - Janinco, on 04/17/2009, -0/+23FTA "Vinyl records are again appearing everywhere from retail chains like Best Buy and Target to smaller independent record stores."
Could this be true? I haven't seen this yet!
I don't see my kids giving up their ipods for records, but I still have all my albums from the 80's! - palmer, on 04/18/2009, -5/+25apostrophe + S = POSSESSIVE
- videodroner, on 04/18/2009, -6/+26Simply because they are trendy now.
Just like acid washed jeans. Last week they were horrendous. This week, they are trendy and everyone has a pair. - 007brendan, on 04/18/2009, -0/+19I'm not a hipster. I grew up with cassettes and cds. I don't think that vinyl sounds better. But I will say that listening to records with friends is entirely different than listening to cds, or an mp3 collection with friends. No one is going to jump in and suddenly stick on some lame song from the 90s. You won't be constantly switching halfway through a song. You'll be listening to a group of songs, and you'll at least have some context, because the beautiful sleeve is right there. I think most people are missing the entire point. You don't have to choose one or the other. It's like going to a baseball game, or watching it from home. It's an entirely different experience, but both can be fun.
- CalcProgrammer1, on 04/18/2009, -4/+23The main problem with vinyl (a problem that my 80GB of FLAC doesn't have) is that it degrades over time. Same happens with tape (though tape is awful), the more you play the record, the more wear the needle puts on the surface, wearing down the ridges and reducing the sound quality. Digital is immune to this as you can make perfect copies, even if your HDD goes out you can have identical quality backups.
- CalcProgrammer1, on 04/18/2009, -0/+18The devices is a fair point, but you clearly said "and In my opinion a whole lot better sounding". That in itself disproves "I know how FLAC works" and leaves you in a comment paradox. Just don't divide by zero next time and we'll be fine.
- jolt459, on 04/18/2009, -4/+21Uh... Yeah. FLAC. So? It's digital.
Vinyl = Analog. Really no comparison - tgc1, on 04/18/2009, -0/+17Back? It never went anywhere.
- guinpen, on 04/18/2009, -1/+17Why are you comparing vinyl to heavily compressed mp3?
- Scrooged, on 04/18/2009, -1/+16You know, you really shouldn't stack you vinyl in piles like that.
- xParker, on 04/18/2009, -2/+17I have definitely noticed this. Most of the bands I'm listening to release the album or singles on vinyl.
- tgc1, on 04/18/2009, -8/+23Oh please... not another god damned vinyl vs. CD's *****. For the love of god man... just listen to the music and be quiet. Who gives a ***** if you can't hear the last n'th of the damned thing. The point is to hear it. Listen to it. Just enjoy it. You can hear just as much soul out of a ***** cassette tape or an 8 track, as a CD or Vinyl. It's all the same when you get down to it. The MUSIC is what matters. Why are people so quick to forget that? Do people really have such frail egos that they need to base their ego stroking purely on what platform they listen to music on?
WHO GIVES A *****. - gluesniffined, on 04/18/2009, -1/+15My god, how I wish I could digg you up 1,000 times.
It's very funny that you mentioned Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms. A friend of mine once, several years ago did not get what I was explaining to him about the horrible audio compression on all of the new music. It just so happens that I played him "Your Latest Trick" in all of its full range dynamic glory and then played him the same track after I normalized and compressed the thing to a pretty much steady state of mush like all of the newer recordings. Needless to say, he called me a couple days later to sarcastically thank me for ruining all of his new music for him; he now knew what music sounded like with dynamic range and all of the subtleties that are lost in making everything continuously loud. - twiztidsinz, on 04/18/2009, -0/+14Best Buy's been selling turntables as far back as I remember.
They weren't hugely popular, but they've been there. - mithrasinvictus, on 04/18/2009, -1/+14If you want to make an honest comparison compare bad mp3's to heavily scratched vinyl.
- guinpen, on 04/18/2009, -0/+12You lose at computar mashines
- MillionsLivio, on 04/18/2009, -0/+12" I shouldn't need to convert it to play on all my devices it should just work."
FLAC is not to fault there, it's the companies making the devices that don't want to support it because they want to force their own filetypes instead, such as Apple Lossless and WMA Lossless. - inactive, on 04/18/2009, -1/+13but but the "warm tube sound!"
- Schmidtopolis, on 04/18/2009, -3/+14Or, you know.. some people are just DJ's.
- RickScarf, on 04/18/2009, -1/+12Who cares about vinyl, wax cylinders is where it's really at
- lepetitmousse, on 04/18/2009, -1/+12people have been saying this since tape decks were invented.
- username7410, on 04/18/2009, -6/+17Vinyl will be the ultimate medium for music for a long time. The only problem is you need to invest thousands of dollars in equipment to get the most out of it. You can't just use some ***** faux retro turntable from Urban Outfitters and be able to really appreciate the format. That said, a 12" x 12" sleeve is SOOO much better for album artwork, and that doesn't need any special equipment to appreciate.
- cromulent742, on 04/18/2009, -3/+14Also known as the my-hair-and-clothes-are-weirder-than-yours kids
- stancar200, on 04/18/2009, -0/+10they have a very very limited selection of records, but they're there. Some Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, and NIN for some reason. Good stuff.
- CTK14A, on 04/18/2009, -2/+12Of course they're pushing vinyl, records don't fit in your laptop and can't (easily) be ripped and sent to all your buddies.
- CalcProgrammer1, on 04/18/2009, -1/+11FLAC is the vinyl of the Internets.
It is also large, but since we now have cheap terabyte drives, it isn't too hard to afford a good FLAC library. - HappyScrappy, on 04/18/2009, -4/+13Won't last.
And I don't mean to be a jerk, I have piles of vinyl. It's just that most people listen to music on the go, and even transferring vinyl to digital is done in real time, whereas you can rip a CD in 4 minutes or steal it off the net in less. - roebeet, on 04/18/2009, -0/+9"A lot more compatible" and "It should just work"
If you are a musician, you should already know that FLAC is the defacto lossless music trading standard out there. Even NiN was offering FLAC as an option, with their last release.
Blame the narrow mindedness of Apple, as well as Microsoft, as far as player compatibility is concerned. There is absolutely NO reason why they can't support FLAC in their player - it's completely free and probably very little work to add.
Cowon supports FLAC, Sandisk and Archos as well (and, of course, Rockbox). Get the other two companies on board, and let FLAC finally take it's rightful place on the lossless throne. - evil-doer, on 04/18/2009, -3/+12youre right. there IS no comparison. flac is WAY better sounding than vinyl.
- sneaker98, on 04/18/2009, -12/+20Why does someone have to be elitist to enjoy vinyl?
It just sounds *better*. MP3's are (usually) heavily compressed - anyone can hear the richness from a vinyl sound in comparison, not just some "elitist audiophile". - Hardataq, on 04/18/2009, -3/+11I have no issue with vinyl at all, I actually made a decent living off of the stuff for a couple years. That being said, this isn't the people who grew up with it seeking out their cd's in vinyl form again. It's the coffee shop wrist-cutter brigade sticking up their noses to digital formats because it's "mainstream." Next they'll only buy their indie films on LaserDisc and Betamax.
- acdcfanbill, on 04/18/2009, -0/+8What's lost is imperceptible to the human ear. At 96kHz your far above the Nyquist frequency for anything a human can hear, and 24-bit quantization (144 dB dynamic range) is plenty to store positions to recreate a waveform that, to a human, is indistinguishable from the original analog.
- ConcernedCanuck, on 04/18/2009, -1/+9Agreed, I really think we need to start moving to Digital formats for all media.
It's the greenest most efficient solution for getting information.
thing is you can't charge 17.99 for a digital download now can you? - scubaninja, on 04/18/2009, -1/+9FLAC or WAV files are lossless, when compared to the original CD. This is opposed to mp3s, which use compression to throw out parts of the sound you often may not hear. It's the exact same idea as storing photos using TIFF files (lossless) or JPEGs (lossy). To keep the visual analogy going, vinyl would be like taking pictures on 35mm film. 35mm film and vinyl do not have unlimited resolution. 35mm film has individual grains. I'm sure vinyl has some lowest level element that can't be divided further. Maybe it's the individual molecules the record is made out of. Don't forget about dust and scratches degrading the signal, as well as the needle scraping off a tiny bit of the record every time you play it.
Furthermore, when you master music for vinyl, you have to take special precautions that you don't need to bother with when mastering for digital formats. The low end bass needs to be funneled into mono, because heavy bass on one channel without a similar amount on the other channel can make the needle skip.
Vinyl is neat and lots of fun, but I personally think well mastered uncompressed digital is the way to go for both quality and convenience. There's plenty of room for them to coexist. - maz2331, on 04/18/2009, -1/+8We're talking about bit error rates in the range of 1X10^-20 or so here. Maybe it will degrade, but not for millenia.
- CalcProgrammer1, on 04/18/2009, -2/+9Pretty much everything these days is digitally mastered, so yeah, FLAC is, in a way, more accurate than vinyl, as all they do is "print" the digital waveform onto vinyl, introducing possible distortion, whereas FLAC is the same as the master CD/WAV recording.
- b3astie, on 04/18/2009, -2/+9I just heard a mono version of Sgt. Pepper on FLAC and was blown away.
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