Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Compact Disc celebrates 25th anniversary
Associated Press ^ | 08/16/2007 | Toby Sterling

Posted on 08/16/2007 3:06:06 PM PDT by abt87

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-105 next last
To: dangerdoc
I converted about 50 albums to digital before actually sitting down and listening to the CDs for an evening. I found that although the vinyl sounded normal to me when using a phonograph, they were somehow harsh and not pleasant when played the digital transfers.

Did your equipment apply the RIAA equalization? LPs are recorded with weak bass and strong treble. Amplifiers are supposed to reverse this on their LP input (but newer ones may not have that anymore). If you just ran the LP to the computer, you probably didn't correct for this unless your software was expecting input from vinyl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization

81 posted on 08/17/2007 9:37:56 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (May the heirs of Charles Martel and Jan Sobieski rise up again to defend Europe.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: Gondring
UR GR8T American!

82 posted on 08/17/2007 9:44:24 AM PDT by evets (beer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: dangerdoc

Back when everone and their mother were downoading ‘free’ music off of Napster, I heard some transfers from vinyl that sounded absolutely terrible. It pretty much ended my thoughts about investing in the equipment to convert my 800 + LP’s to a digital format.

A bottle of Windex and soft towel do wonders for those older LP’s that are found in the bargain bin and have alot of surface grime and dust. Even with a few scratches, some of these gems sound wonderful if you have a semi-decent turntable hooked up to a semi-decent sound system.

(Sorry, I love the sound of vinyl!)


83 posted on 08/17/2007 9:49:05 AM PDT by dave k (Unplug the spin machine...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: dave k
Not sure what you mean.

It is a 78rpm record, it is molded in pink, it has a picture of a woman in a big flowing skirt from that period of dress.

84 posted on 08/17/2007 10:02:18 AM PDT by Jersey Republican Biker Chick (RIP Eric Medlen. You will be missed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies]

To: KarlInOhio

No, Phono to amp then RCA to computer. It’s sounds like the LP when you listen for awhile but becomes tiring after awhile, it’s hard to explain.


85 posted on 08/17/2007 11:22:16 AM PDT by dangerdoc (dangerdoc (not actually dangerous any more))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]

To: dave k

I didn’t invest any money except for some software. That may be the problem, my sound card may not have had good AD hardware.

Anyway, my newer music is on CD which sounds fine to me and when I want to listen to the older stuff, I pull out the turntable. I have a spare turntable and stylus just in case.

I now have a stack of CD’s that I made that I never listen to.


86 posted on 08/17/2007 11:26:25 AM PDT by dangerdoc (dangerdoc (not actually dangerous any more))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies]

To: abt87

Well, I’m just too old and set in my ways to understand what all this talk means, and I’ve got my fingers in my ears and my eyes shut and yammering gibberish, for anyone who would like to enlighten me any futher...What I’d just like to know how is you deal with scratched CD’s. Should I throw them out? I might learn IPOD however, my daughter has one. She thinks I’m hilariously hopeless though


87 posted on 08/17/2007 11:44:35 AM PDT by SaintDismas (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: tarheelswamprat
The machine I have is a different sort of critter, however. It doesn't play 78 RPM discs - it simply records them on 78 blanks off of the wire recorder.

I dimly recall encountering a vending machine that would cut a 78 rpm (or was it 45?) disc. It was a booth with a microphone. You put in some change, and it started up and recorded what you said on the disc and then spit it out, along with a mailing envelope. Voice mail, 1950's vintage.

88 posted on 08/17/2007 12:01:38 PM PDT by cynwoody
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]

To: CHEE
What ever happened to the good old days where you would spend hours writing FORTRAN or COBOL programs on a coding form, desk check it until your eyes fall out then send it to the key punch department. Twenty-four hours later you would receive the error report along with the card deck.

Where I worked, we did our own keypunching.

We started with the IBM 029 Printing Card Punch. Hit a key, and the machine punched the character code and advanced to the next column. Wrong key, and you hit 'eject' and grabbed the defective card out of the output stack.

Then we upgraded to the IBM 129. It had a buffer that could store a card's worth of characters. As you keyed, your keystrokes went into the buffer, and a two-digit column number display advanced. There was no character display, however, so you had to remember what your fingers keyed. But it was still a great advance over the 029, because if you made an error and realized it (the more common case), you could backspace in the buffer. When you were done, you pressed the 'eject' key, and the machine punched out the contents of the buffer onto the card and transferred it to the output stack.


IBM 129. Input on the right, card transport from right to left, output stack on the left. That drawer below the keyboard is where the chads landed. I can vouch that the 129 had no problem with hanging chads.

89 posted on 08/17/2007 12:28:06 PM PDT by cynwoody
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Jersey Republican Biker Chick

Oh please.


90 posted on 08/17/2007 12:34:15 PM PDT by gathersnomoss (If General Patton was alive, he would slap many faces!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Jersey Republican Biker Chick

I recieved my first CD player as a Christmas gift in 1985. I carried it onboard a flight from TN to AZ. The screeners did not know what it was (nor did I), as it was still gift-wrapped, and it stayed that way until Christmas morning. LOL


91 posted on 08/17/2007 12:37:05 PM PDT by eyedigress
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: eyedigress
I recieved my first CD player as a Christmas gift in 1985. I carried it onboard a flight from TN to AZ. The screeners did not know what it was (nor did I)

Tape was still king back then. The bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 in December 1988 was concealed in a Toshiba radio-cassette player.

92 posted on 08/17/2007 12:49:40 PM PDT by cynwoody
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 91 | View Replies]

To: RepublitarianRoger
****Heh, I still have my 45 of "Day By Day."****

I remember seeing them in concert in Columbus, Ohio on Super Bowl night 1990. I wore my Flyers sweatshirt and then high 5'ed me.

93 posted on 08/17/2007 6:48:18 PM PDT by fkabuckeyesrule
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: TrueKnightGalahad
While LP records sound great you have to deal with two issues:

1) Setting up a record player is a very finicky proposition. Do people remember about aligning cartridges, adjusting tracking force and adjusting anti-skate force?
2) Because playing LP's involve actual physical contact, both the record and phonograph needle will wear out.

That's why Compact Discs are such a huge leap forward, by not having to deal with setting up the player and with no physical contact to wear out the playback medium. Pity that we have a split between SACD and DVD-Audio, because a unified audio format based on DVD technology would eventually have replaced CD's (if you've heard an SACD or DVD-Audio disc, the vastly higher sampling rate compared to Compact Discs meant that musical instruments such as cymbals and violins play back with astonishing clarity).

94 posted on 08/18/2007 6:19:34 AM PDT by RayChuang88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: dangerdoc
I converted about 50 albums to digital before actually sitting down and listening to the CDs for an evening. I found that although the vinyl sounded normal to me when using a phonograph, they were somehow harsh and not pleasant when played the digital transfers.

I have a record player that can transfer audio directly to a computer to encode in either .WAV, .MP3 or .OGG audio formats. I found out that the best balance between sound quality and file size is 256 kbps data rate when encoding in .MP3 format with the LAME MP3 encoder.

95 posted on 08/18/2007 6:25:50 AM PDT by RayChuang88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: dangerdoc

I used to use Aunt Jemima, but they use DRM and a low bit rate. Log Cabin is much better.


96 posted on 08/18/2007 7:32:17 AM PDT by Cymbaline (I repeat myself when under stress I repeat myself when under stress I repeat myself when under stres)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: dangerdoc

I used to use Aunt Jemima, but they use DRM and a low bit rate. Log Cabin is much better.


97 posted on 08/18/2007 9:48:49 AM PDT by Cymbaline (I repeat myself when under stress I repeat myself when under stress I repeat myself when under stres)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: RayChuang88

1) If some people are uncomfortable setting up a turntable or unsure of the process, it can be done for them either as part of the sale of a new TT or for a reasonable fee afterward, and many turntables today are virtually plug’n’play systems that don’t require skilled set-up. Once it’s set up, it’s generally no more finicky to use than a toaster; and

2) In a modern system, the wear to vinyl is minimal even over hundreds of plays (or are you still thinking of a cheap plastic turntable with a penny on the headshell? We’re WAY beyond that today) — and what would you rather have, mediocre digital sound forever (or until CD rot sets in), or great analogue that wears, after many plays, to merely excellent and still simply beats the pants off digital?

As for SACD and DVD-A, the former has problems with frequency-dependent distortion (much of that supposed added “clarity” is distortion, especially on cymbals and violins; Robert E. Greene has written extensively about this), while the latter is a dead in the water format; neither appear to have the legs to achieve consumer acceptance in the marketplace, particularly in their multichannel iterations, and Sony has all but abandoned their own SACD format. Decades hence SACDs and DVD-As will be, at best, drinks coasters, while LPs will still be playing beautiful tunes....

Whatever form it takes...enjoy the music...there’s tons of it out there!


98 posted on 08/18/2007 10:08:12 AM PDT by TrueKnightGalahad (Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Viking Kitties!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies]

To: RayChuang88

I was recording wave files. Full data rate for CD, no compression. I think combining the weakness of vinyl, my player, the AD chip on my computer, and CD sample and bit rate lead to poor results, My conclusion, either listen to the vinyl or replace it with a professionaly created CD.

YMMV


99 posted on 08/18/2007 12:39:30 PM PDT by dangerdoc (dangerdoc (not actually dangerous any more))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies]

To: TrueKnightGalahad
My first cousin has a old Thorens TD126 Mk. III with an SME Series V tonearm and Shure V15 Mk V cartridge. Setting it up was a bit of a pain (the SME tonearm has lots of finicky adjustments) but the result was excellent using about 1.25 grams tracking force. (I'm not a fan of moving coil cartridges. They require quirky amplifiers, tend to pick up RF interference, and often need 2 grams of tracking force.)

By the way, I think DVD-A will continue to survive because unlike SACD, DVD-A's can be played back on many computers with DVD burner drives if you have the right sound card and software. My computer can play back DVD-A's and the recent Beatles Love album on DVD-A sounds really good.

100 posted on 08/18/2007 9:28:01 PM PDT by RayChuang88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 98 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-105 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson