@gregm then I guess I should put you in the "Both" category? |
As many as it takes. Hi Res digital may be the last stop, at least for me.
Women? They don't like loud music and you can't teach em how to downshift. |
I think if your records are that bad that you need to decrackle them then you'd best stick to digital.:-) |
I can not tally results if I do not have your age. If you do not feel like leaving your age for what ever reason please abstain from this discussion. Please answer for yourself not your kids. As a kid I got loads of stuff the fascination for which lasted 10 minutes. They can answer a similar thread 10 years from now. I know loads of young people as a physician and the vast majority of them only listen to their telephones. Out of 1500 patients I know only one other that listens to vinyl besides myself.
I am seeing an interesting trend in older people indicating that the convenience of digital is the main factor that drives their choice. I though that would have been the attitude of younger folks. Go figure. I do let the computer run when I'm in the shop or just don't want to be bothered where as I am usually listening more intently with vinyl. But that does not mean I do not listen seriously to digital programming. |
Now that's more like it (FZ). I would assume that if you are an Agoner that you have at least some passing interest in sound quality. Lewm, I would assume your stats are from the public at large. This is not the public at large. If you do not like answering the question, go elsewhere. There are at least a few who are and there are plenty of other threads to respond to.
What I am seeing so far is a rather profound inversion. It appears that the Older folks prefer digital because of it's convenience and younger Agoners are more into vinyl. I have a few hypotheses as to why this might be. Keep the answers coming!
I got my first dose of COVID vaccine yesterday. All you guys over 65 pay attention. It will be coming to your neighborhood soon! |
Yes a surprising number of us older folks here. Where are the guys in diapers? |
This thread is winding down so here are the results.
There were 52 meaningful responses. Of the 52 75% were over 60 and 25% under 60.
Both groups had almost identical distributions 40% preferred digital, 40% analog and 20% both. The analog people were more likely to say they preferred it because of the sound, the digital because of convenience although some felt digital sounded better. Some felt analog was too expensive. Make of this what you will as it is biased in many ways. As an example, what were digital fans doing on an analog thread? What would I have gotten if I posted this as a Digital thread. The were no respondents in their 20's. All respondents were male. Why is that? I know women like music but having a high quality music system is not one of their priorities.
I'm proud to say my mother had an NAD based system and worked in a Music/Book store. She also drove a manual Honda. |
Sorry about that Chakster. I just lost mine.
The age grouping here shouldn't be a surprise. Very young people can't afford it and middle aged people are trying to raise children. During those decades I only spent a drop on audio when something broke or my house got hit by lightening. Now with the kids on their own I finally have some money to burn. Thankfully I'm not completely deaf yet.
I realized last night, when talking to the fellow who is buying my old Sota that it is the ritual of playing a record that is special. Loading a file is not.
Coming home with three or four new records and playing them hoping to hear something special. It is tradition, nostalgia, special. Younger people playing vinyl is wonderful. Some think they are joining a special club. In our day everyone played vinyl. Only R2R offered competitive sound quality and the selection of software was limited. I recorded my records thinking I could limit their wear and I thought I was going to leave the records and turntable home instead of schlepping them to collage. Did not turn out that way. 8 track was a bad joke and cassettes did not get reasonable until the late 70's. The only reason I had one was to record cassettes for the car (and other people.) Personally, I think this argument over sound quality is silly as it is frightfully subjective. Do we argue about food preferences? I play records because I like to play records. My new table will not be built until April as Sota is overloaded with orders. I'm going through withdrawal just thinking about it. I take the Schroder out of it's box once in a while to just stare at it. My right arm is in a frigging cast and I'm getting fat because I can't exercise. This is going to be a very depressing Winter.
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Shoot Mahgister, I have to get up and pee every 25 minutes. I might as well turn the record over.
I am all in for digital. I stream from my own 6 TB hard drive. I'm doing it right now. But it still does not have the panache of handling a record. It has no history, no memories of youth and invincibility. It is still wonderful music and sounds great but, as FZ would say, It just smells funny. |
There are several reasons I dislike streaming. The only time I do it is in the office and I stream a radio station. As far as old music I know exactly what I like. With new music I use my kids as a barometer. They rarely lead me wrong. Who ever new I would like Gorillaz. Whether or not I buy the vinyl vs the Hi Res file depends more on what is available and what I have already. Generally if the file is available I'll buy it. Nothing like instant gratification. If the file is not available then I'll buy the vinyl and if that is not available I might buy the CD which will downloaded to the hard drive. Once I have 10 or more CDs I'll trade them in at Bullmoose Records for store credit and spend the money on vinyl the old fashioned way (which I love) by thumbing through stacks of records. Digital and vinyl both sound great with little pluses and minuses. What I hate most about streaming online is the drop outs. I hate it as much as a needle getting stuck and it happens much more frequently. Most of it is low res anyway. The only time I listen to MP3 files is when I'm mowing the lawn. |
tuberculin, a man of my own heart. That is exactly what I did. I burned all the CDs to a hard drive and traded them in for vinyl, about 3 thousand of them. What fun.
Hobbitinablender, I can understand how you got that username. My response is, who cares. There is plenty in this thread to chew on. These are all people who love to listen to music. So, it really matters to them in comparison to the general population. I chose 60 for a reason. I probably should have split the group at 50, but here we are. Everyone over 60 grew up with vinyl. By the time the younger group turned 20 digital started to take over. Their experience with vinyl would have been much more limited.
Older people seem to prefer digital because it is more convenient. Many of us run both but very few older people do Vinyl only. The vinyl only population is the younger guys! The group with unquestionably the better hearing as we all decline with age. My hypothesis was 180 degrees backwards. Live and learn. |
I have noticed a bunch of comments mentioning vinyl as "a scratchy sound." For most records that are well cared for and played with a good stylus well set up this is just not true. Vinyl can be very quiet. Yes, there is the occasional bad pressing and bad scratch, maybe even a skip but these are few and far between. Why do I keep listening to vinyl in spite of having a great collection of digital files. Well, I have a lot of records certainly in the thousands. I use to spend hours flipping through vinyl at the store and still love to. Flipping through CDs is just not the same. I use to buy records just because I loved the cover. I am always amazed at how good dragging a rock through a trench can sound. Digital sounds great also. When I'm busy there is no competition even though I have an end of record lift. I can totally understand some of use migrating to digital.
That's more records for the rest of us:-) |
Thank you Coltrane. That comment might be seen as a bit insulting. Now, I do not stream So I can not comment there. I am also sure my hearing is not the worst and I can attest to the fact that there are many Hi Res digital files that are every bit as good as vinyl if not better. You can hide in your corner with your tubes and your turntable but that would be a shame as you will be missing a lot. |
1++ @speakermaster and @gakertyd It is where the music is but I will tolerate a bad recording if the music is good. There are painfully few great recordings of Charlie Parker. We just have to live with the mediocre ones. Analog is a lot more fun until you get into digital signal processing.
You can do almost anything and it is like digital photography. No wasted film, you just erase your mistakes :-) |
Chakster, it is just not so black and white. There are some really great digital recordings that sound wonderful in digital. I buy files like I buy records except the files do not take up any room (in space). I like records better but sometimes the digital is better or that is the only version available. It is all about the music or should be. If just having a pile of records to look at is your only connection to the music then you are missing out on a lot of great music. |
@chakster , hey. It is not like that at all, at least not with me. I have been collecting records all my life and do not intend on stopping. But, I use digital processing to improve the performance of my system. Even my phono stage is digitized. Used correctly digital processing is a huge benefit. It is hard to get some people to understand that. Yes, I also collect digital files The music is great but I must say staring at my hard drive does not give me the pleasure of staring at my record collection. |
I'll do that Larsman on occasion. If I'm in the shop and don't want to be bothered I'll put my whole hard drive (run by iTunes) in shuffle play. It will go anywhere from Brahms to Metallica. |
@lalitk, I ran a tally a while ago when I thought the thread was dying but I guess it got a life of it's own. I'll do it again when it has not seen any action for 24 hours. |
@unreceivedogma, should we put you in the vinyl camp or "both"? |
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