[thecodont]

Some of us are analog people in a digital world. :-)

[library user]

If anyone’s seen vinyl go for a higher price than this on eBay, let me know.

http://www.popsike.com/Devy-ERLIH-autograph-BACH-violin-solo-3-LP-Ads/4074069134.html

[NavyCanDo]

I remember hearing George Harrison interviewed not long before he died, and saying he would never switch to CD’s. Said the sound is just too clean and crisp. Just doesn't sound the same as listening to an LP which he much preferred listening to, even with the occasional pops and hisses.

[period end of story]

Vinyl, and 8-track: what could be better?

[Island Girl]

My favorite Sarah Vaughan vinyl, Sarah Vaughan w/ Michel Legrand, isn’t even available on CD. I have converted it, but I’m afraid to play my original. Young people today have no comprehension of how real music is supposed to sound. You tell them that compressed music sounds like s*^t and they give you that funny, vacant look.....

[colinhester]

....and some of us still use tube amplification to listen to the vinyl. I’ve got 25 or so valves in the chain and about 15,000 albums; life is good......C

[SIDENET]

Combine vinyl records with new, high-end vacuum tube electronics for a really nice, rich sound.

You can spend some big bucks doing it, too.

[RegulatorCountry]

Vinyl albums have a life and a physical presence that other formats don’t seem to be able to replicate. Analog sound is warm and, what, buttery? Lacking the correct vocabulary, here. Placing a favorite album on a turntable, the care and the sheer reality of it, is almost like a ritual. Not surprised that people are returning to it. When everything’s electronic, the whole tactile sensory thing looks for reward. I was in a business recently, that had it’s offices in a restored, old department store, with the vacuum tube message delivery system ... ffsssssst-pop, like a bank drive-through writ large. It worked, and it was just fascinating. Brass tubes running everywhere, some sections exposed, looking like some wild pipe organ that took off and grew like vines.

[Welsh Rabbit]

I am a die-hard vinyl enthusiast, and always hated the over produced soullessness of CDs, and also the clutter they caused in my car. But I must admit, I’m really enjoying MP3s. It’s really cool to be able to carry around hundreds of albums and thousands of songs in your pocket. I almost have every song I’ve ever owned on my MP3 player. But still, vinyl sounds better and there will always be those very special records that will never make the conversion to a digital format. Good riddance, CDs.

[Caesar Soze]

Vinyls predating the loudness war may sound better than digital counterparts. But given the same master, ceteris paribus, digital is superior in practically every way. There are people who grew up on vinyl and consider its characteristic distortion to be euphonic, and more power to them, but Red Book provides higher fidelity sound. In addition to the better fidelity, digital is durable. It doesn't get dirty, it doesn't fall apart as you use it, and you can copy it N times without any degradation in quality. It's also self-correcting when there are minor errors, checksummable, and fairly player-agnostic.

And 99% of people who complain about MP3s are performing sighted tests and suffering from the placebo effect or parroting what they read in a magazine--usually an interview with an aging rocker, who lost much of his hearing years ago. With the exception of a few cases like cymbals or harpsichords, LAME's output is indistinguishable from its input for most people. Newer codecs are even better.

Lurk at Hydrogen Audio and free yourself from the big, black disks! Keep the sleeves, though. LP artwork rocks.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

This all appears to be a search for a time long passed and a civilization “Gone With the Wind.”