Why vinyl?


I understand the thoughts of a lot of you that digital is harsh and bright and has an edge. I know that analog has a warmer fuller sound, otherwise why would so many people put up with the inconvenience of records, cartridges, cleaners, tone-arm adjustments, etc. I used to be there. Of course all I had was a Garrard direct drive turntable. If the idea is to get as close as possible to the original source, why has not open-reel tape made a huge comeback. After all that's how most of the stuff was recorded in the first place. Very few were direct to disk recordings. Why would dragging a stylus through a groove be better than the original? There used to be a company out there called In-Synch that used the original masters and sold cassettes of them, dubbed at 1:1 ratio. I was the happiest person in the world when CD's came out and I could throw out my disk-washer and everything else that went with it, including the surface noise and the TICKS and POPS. Just something I've wondered about.
elmuncy

Showing 1 response by kthomas

That's an interesting point about "why not tape?". Another question I've asked myself a few times about vinyl is whether the more limited selection of new releases is another form of audiophile I-only-listen-to-certain-recordings. This, of course, is a non-issue for somebody who listens to largely older music, but I like to listen to a lot of new releases.

I not only really like the convenience in terms of playback of CD, I also like the more limited storage space req's as well as the ability to have a complete system with fewer components / space. I also agree that while CD's are not perfect sound, now or forever, that digital is where the focus is going to be going forward, and there's some really neat stuff happening there. With storage becoming cheaper by the second, there will be more cool stuff.

None of this is said to suggest that vinyl isn't what those who have vinyl setups say it is, and certainly not to say they're wrong. I like convenience and efficiency, and to be honest, I never sit here and think, "man that CD playback is full of glare and harshness." In fact, I'm usually sitting here with a big smile on my face. I accept that I quite possibly don't realize what I'm missing, and someday I might explore that, but I learned a long time ago that sometimes you just ride happiness without asking a lot of questions.