Can you imagine a world without vinyl?


Can you imagine a world without vinyl?
I have been into vinyl for 49 years - since the age of 8 & cannot imagine a world without vinyl.
I started out buying 45's & graduated to 33's (what is now considered LP's).
I have seen 8 tracks come & go, still have a kazillion cassettes, reel to reel & digital cassettes - have both the best redbook player & SACD players available, but must listen to my "LP's" at least 2 hours a day.
I play CD's about 6 hours a day as background music while I'm working, but must get off my butt every now & then & "just listen to real music".
I admit to being a vinyl junkie - wih 7 turntables, 11 cartridges & 8 arms along with 35K albums & 15K 45's.
For all you guys who ask - Is vinyl worth it - the answer is yes!
Just play any CD, cassette, or digital tape with the same version on vinyl & see/hear for yourself.
May take more time & energy (care) to play, but worth it's weight in gold.
Like Mikey says "Try it, you'll like it!"
I love it!
128x128paladin

Showing 4 responses by jyprez

I can easily imagine a world without vinyl. It would be a world in which excellent sound would be achieved without the sonic compromises of digital or the convenience and many other compromises of vinyl. Both formats are clearly seriously flawed and hardly to be lauded as some ultimate achievement as the poster seems to suggest. 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.
Good debate but should we all be venting our anger and expending our energy in a CD vs vinyl debate when neither format has a significant future and both have significant flaws. It's time for the analog and digital audiophiles of the world to unite and imagine a better future where we are not the after toughts (no thought?) of the big music companies.
Apple reinvented music distribution in a way that the likes of Sony and the old school CD distributors could not imagine. They dramatically lowered distribution costs. Perhaps this offers some avenue for a high end digital download alternative (at a whopping $5 per song instead of $1). The marginal costs to apple of creating a super high res digital mastering of the original tapes might be minimal and the distribution costs could be identical to low res. This could be a very profitable niche market.

Perhaps we should stop fighting and move on to a better future for true music lovers
Johnnantais wrote ... vinyl is making a comeback ...

What planet are you living on? While there are (and always have been) a number of people like us who belive in vinyl as the way to go (given the current alternatives) to suggest this might turn into some popular vinyl revival is ludicrious. The number of new issues on vinyl compared to CD is, has been for years and will continue to be almost unmeasurably small. (not to mention the fact that the quality of new issues compared to the 50's and 60's mostly stinks). Be content with the old vinyl you have and can find but don't nurture any delusions of vinyl suddenly returning to its former glory days.
Pray and agitate instead for the music companies to move beyond either vinyl or redbook CD to a better place which is technically feasible if only the economic rationale presented itself.
Zaikesman, Nice Post! You are on to exactly the thing I am thinking about. The production and distribution costs of high end media could become so small relative the premium we are willing to pay for it that it would be commercially viable to create some high end offerings. Your analogies to gas and TV video are right on the mark.

We need to agitate for this rather than expending energy over the debate of CD vs LP