Can you imagine a world without vinyl?

This is just an exercise in masochism. Just stick red-hop pokers in my eyes and be done with it. Fortunately the Truth will out, and the LP is making a comeback! Off to the growing number of record shops in my area! CDs, DVDs, SACDs and various other waterproof discs make great coasters.

Let's consider the various responses written in response to this "love-fest". First we have Jyprez, who writes: "While 99% of my listening is vinyl because of its sonic superiority (particularly for the 50's and 60's Jazz that I listen to), I would switch in a nanosecond to an alternative digital format that provided analog quality sound without the many disadvantages of vinyl like surface noise, inner groove and other tracking distortions etc. What's amazing to me is that vinyl, as primitive as it is, has not been bettered in over 50 years. It's time we move on." This is an admission that vinyl IS the superior medium, and that the only real problem with vinyl, which again remains the superior format, is noise. Noise was made an issue by the Digital Brigade, who inflated the issue out of all proportion to a Neurosis/borderline psychosis as a means of promoting digital formats. So, lets throw the baby (music) out with the bathwater (noise). Plus, parallel-tracking tonearms eliminate end-of-side and tracing distortion if it is so bothersome (isn't to me, in all properly set-up pivoted tonearms/cartridge combos it is either inaudible or barely worth mentioning), and quality turntables eliminate or reduce noise drastically, and more if one chooses cartridges which are quite in the groove, seeing as it's such a problem.

Tgrisham writes that the cost of vinyl is too high. Again this is entirely misleading. I rarely if ever buy expensive vinyl, and again, a turntable of sufficient quality (and I'm talking a starting point of only a Rega P3) makes of used vinyl in good condition at a few bucks a pop - MUCH cheaper than digital formate, even used - very listenable and quiet. The trick is to buy used vinyl in decent condition, it's not all hacked-up Sally Ann disasters. He admits that we can only aproach vinyl. Lack of frequency response?!? Since when? Get a better turntable and tonearm. Digital cheaper?!? If it means that you have to use "tube output stages, reclocking, CD treatments, plus tube amplification" to achieve ONLY "most of what LPs offer" - and where are the compromises made, perhaps musicality? - then where are the savings, where are the advantages?

All of these objections are also admissions the LP is superior, and misleading in all kinds of ways - exaggeration of noise and distortions, exaggerations of cost, and deliberate diminution of abilities (frequency). Get over the noise fellow neurotics, and concentrate on the music. Back in the days of gramophones people listened ecstatic at the music emanating - with FAR more noise and distortions - from their lacquers on a steel needle through a horn. Why and how? Because the Digital Brigade has not yet raised noise to the level of a neurosis (same as various industries built on creating previously unrecognized problems in order to sell their solutions), and so they simply heard the music and were glad, in fact, ecstatic.

Me, I've decided to stop throwing good money after bad, trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, a computer's approximation of music. There is a way of improving the sound of vinyl: try alternate solutions with what we already have: better tonearms (need not be more expensive, consider the MG-1) better cartridges (need not be more expensive), better turntables (need not be more expensive). Address your various individual problems, keep the baby, clean up the bathwater, don't let yourselves be manipulated by a cynical industry (cynicism DEFINES current industry, Big Business). For the Here and Now, vinyl IS the superior medium. Let's improve IT, there are many ways which already exist.

A more accurate advertising scenario is this: Man (of any physical type) holds a deed to swampland in Florida. Face it digitophiles, you've been sold a Bill of Goods, a Dud, a Failure.

While digitization is a great idea for storing information, music is more than just information, and in the conversion of music to digital quanta, the playback gives us just more information: the music has been filtered out, it's gone, in its place dead and sterile information.

Now, this information might sound impressive, might even sound fluid if you throw enough bucks at it, or like the fellow up above inject as many tubes as you can between the source of the information and the speakers, but it never, ever, sounds like music. What digital media does is convey (in the absence of an analog reproduction) the information about a certain artist’s latest creation, and if this information suggests something good, you go and look for it on vinyl. That’s what I do, and I’m certain, many others.

So here I have to disagree with Albert, and some others: A lowly Thorens TD-160 is superior to ever digital player of whatever sort ever manufactured, up into the stratosphere of price. That is, if you do indeed have an ear for music, instead of an ear for information. Given this, it is not true that digital is cheaper. A Rega P3 mounted with a Denon DL-103 ($150) into a Denon transformer ($300) will destroy any digital player on the planet, when it comes to making music. A restored idler-wheel drive will do this in spades, AND extract more information than any digital source in existence, again with a humble RB-300/Denon DL-103. There are alternatives, though they are to be discussed in hushed whispers. Perhaps a megabuck digital source will retrieve and deliver more INFORMATION than a P3 (but is not air, resonances, decay, gestalt, and PRaT a form of information?), but the stimulus of emotional and physical responses just ain't there. And since this is the Prime Directive of all audio equipment, then the P3 or Thorens TD-160 is superior to every digital system on the planet. Why? Because music is more than information, and in the process of digitization, something is lost, something NOT lost to either TD-160 or P3, something FUNDAMENTAL: the Music. Its loss is inexcusable in a piece of equipment intended to reproduce music. Like ordering a steak at a fine restaurant, and being served a dish of butter and spices: Sorry, we have no steak, and so offer you the spices, here's your bill. Inexcusable.

Analog, though - and vinyl IS analog - being an analog of the original signal (and hoping the original is of analog origin as well) - PRESERVES the original music by, as one definition (on a computer website) puts it: "Representing data in continuously variable physical quantities, in contrast to the digital representation of data in discrete units (the binary digits 1 and 0). Analog systems handle information which is represented by continuous change and flow, such as voltage or current. Analog devices have dials and sliding mechanisms. Digital information, in contrast, is either on or off. An analog is a representation of a pattern by a similar pattern; for example, an analog clock represents the sun circling around the earth. An analog device converts a pattern such as light, temperature, or sound into an analogous pattern. An example is a video recorder, which converts light and sound patterns into electrical signals with the same patterns. An analog signal such as a sound wave is converted to digital by sampling at regular intervals; the more frequent the samples and the more data recorded, the more closely the digital representation resembles the analog signal. Converting analog signals into digital makes it possible to preserve the data indefinitely and make many copies without deterioration of quality."

Even here, on a computer website, it is admitted digital can only APPROACH the analog signal. It is this Analogy, Analog Representation, which is the key. Break it down into the bits and bytes of digital information storage, and the original signal, which IS analog (soundwaves), is destroyed, the chain is broken.

Why do so many digitophiles feel it necessary to crash the Vinyl Party whenever they can and try to force by various means their point of view on analog-philes? Because they've been sold a Bill of Goods, a Dud, a Bad Idea; they've sunk money into it, they've sunk their egos into it, and they can't admit they've been taken; made a mistake; been had; been duped; fell hook, line and sinker; for a Fraud.

Not all ideas are good ideas, most things the majority believe in or support are in fact bad ideas (take Celine Dion, or "Reality" television for instance). And, unfortunately, many of those who do buy audio equipment are not blessed with a sense of rhythm (admit it, you ALL know people who are either tone-deaf or unable to dance because they are unable to follow a beat), or an ear for music, though it may be politically-correct to pretend we are all equal in our capacity to appreciate music. Should we be taking the impressions of the colour blind in an art gallery as Good Information (or do we pretend there are no colour blind?)? These handicapped (and in a world of MUSIC they ARE handicapped) are impressed and fascinated by sounds, and their contributions muddy the waters for those who are sensitive to musicality, gestalt, rhythm, timing. How can we tell who's who on a print forum, or indeed, even in person? While these musically-deaf folk are the first to cry "subjective!", it is because they cannot understand the objective reality of those who DO indeed hear these qualities, these differences. Since they cannot hear it, it cannot exist, and they are "objective" while those who are sensitive are to be dismissed by making "subjective" statements. It's like Chinese attempting a coversation with Russians, these two don’t speak the same language, though, to continue the “analogy,” they think they do.

Why do Analogophiles not crash Digital Parties and try to force their world-view on them? Because they're happy with their choice, and looking forward to more. As to why vinyl and analog source are not more prevalent, it's because the industry, which is driven by Profit, tried their damnedest to kill off Analog by, for instance, amplifying the noise issue into a Bona Fide neurosis, and by promising Perfect Sound Forever, which digitophiles bought hook, line and sinker. Also, indeed, because socially-dysfunctional computer addicts (the nerds referred to above) were in love with the technology, and just won't let this avenue go and continue to foist it on us. What a crock! And I've heard they are at it again, with the latest digital video systems (how many speakers does it take to make a bad movie good? Answer: 7, and if that doesn't work, let's pump it up to 9) being marketed as, once again, perfect. Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

Vinyl, despite a determined effort by the press and industry to kill it off, is making a comeback. THIS is the reality. Why? Because the quality (of musicality) can be heard. It won't die, the Truth will Out, out out damned spot! Those who want quality should go vinyl; the foolish should continue to throw money at the conversion of music into information and stay away from vinyl forums. But they just can't stop picking at the scab.

Stop trying to be “reasonable” by granting this and that advantage to the digitophiles fellow vinyl lovers, drop the pretense of political correctness (which demands, simply because music IS being sold in digital formats, that digital software EXISTS, it MUST be respected as equal), it won’t work, you’re fooling yourselves, trying to fit in, submitting to peer pressure. They won’t be satisfied until vinyl is stamped out once and for all, you’ve eaten your words, conceded defeat (i.e. accepted a Lie).

Tell it like it is, follow your ears, which tell you this: vinyl is THE superior medium today (all forms of analog tape no longer being produced, live broadcasts rare, and soon as well to be digitized if Industry has its way), the ONLY medium (with the odd live broadcast thrown in) which obeys the Prime Directive of a home audio system: Make Music. All this talk of eulogy is, like the “horrendous cost” claims and the noise claims, misleading. Vinyl is growing, analog playback equipment companies multiplying by leaps and bounds, sales of analog equipment and LPs undergoing a Renaissance, reviews of analog equipment growing in number. Rejoice, and let the digitophiles stampede towards the next source of Perfect Sound Forever, with all its attendant required new hardware, and attendant profit for the industry. Me? I’ll continue to revel in the sound of my ca. 1960 Garrard 301 grease-bearing, and my ca. 1970 Lenco L75, and play my used records issued in the ‘50’s, ‘60s’ ‘70, ‘80s into the present. In the absence of the availability a given piece on LP, I'll buy the CD, because I love music. But I'll continue to look for it on LP. Now THAT, my friends, is far closer to Forever than the already outdated various digital formats, and Far Closer to Perfect, as it at least does not violate the Prime Directive of audio equipment for the home: Make Music.

Yes, it's heartbreaking that people go to the trouble to write this sort of tripe, and it's double-heartbreaking they come over to an analogue/vinyl forum to do so. Read this, it may help you develop an ear for music, if such things are the result of Nurture and not Nature: A Man Who Found Music