Analog a dying breed

Onhwy61,

Yeah, I can agree somewhat. The difference is that when using ProTools the sampling rate is off the chart. Now, if they could place that information on a shiny little disk they would have something. But no, they must have multiple layers/channels rather than offering a single higher resolution two channel format. Steely Dan, being as highly produced as they are, is one group that benefits from the exactness of digital editing. Neil Young abandoned using digital editing because it allowed the process to be taken too far (in his opinion) and therefore sucking the life out of the end result. Don't get mad at me. It's his opinion.

Lugnut, there are many versions and configurations of ProTools and they can run at sampling rates from 44kHz up to 192kHz. The earlier systems were 16 bit and generally were considered quite poor sounding. Newer systems are 24 bit and sound somewhat better. Still there has been a lively debate among engineers as to whether the internal PtoTools mix channels squash the sound quality of audio run through it. Many people actually edit within ProTools and then output to an analog desk for the actual mixing. Even with the added conversion stage(s) these people think the final mixes sound better than those done internally within ProTools.

Here's a link to a discussion forum hosted by George Massenburg about the negative effects of ProTools style manipulation on the quality of music prodction.

Sorry if I've gotten off topic.

For people who are into listening music in its most natural form especially for classical music. Vinyl playback offers much more long term satisfaction. I don't have a CD player and I don't intend to get one. I have listened to and auditioned numerous CD players without making the jump. The way I look at it is that a lot of people made a lot of money in creating a new product for people who wants conveniences and new technology. It is right for some people at sometime but not for all people at all time. That's what makes the world spins. The industy needed something to sell and it worked.

Eventually everyone's LP's will wear out (disregarding the very few new issues).

"Do you think this dealer is correct?" No, but he's not totally wrong either. Vinyl intrinsically will continue to have collectability and archival value to an extent not shared by other formats, regardless of whether its audiophile worth becomes completely passe. The fact is that for the formative and golden ages of this era's defining musics, vinyl was the format of record (you can't buy puns that bad yet that appropriate!), and it's still anybody's guess when those musics might eventually be supplanted by something newer *and* more popular, if at all.

(The same kind of suspension of obsolesence may occur to a lesser degree with CD, since the current post-modern age of pop music [alterna-rock, rap, techno] has the CD as its format of record, and also because digital disk-readers of the near future will be able to handle all such formats right up until the entire breed quickly goes the way of the dinosaur in favor of data-by-wire. Since that will likely entail some kind of pay-to-play however, I can see many listeners continuing holding onto their silver disks for a good while afterwards.)

For his business of the high end though, I can certainly forsee the day when the current audiophile fad for re-acquiring or first-time-acquiring vinyl rigs and software cools back off considerably as digital distribution and storage really come of age - considerably, but not totally. When that time arrives, he may no longer want to be in the game, but others assuredly will, including those catering to collectors and DJ's rather than fetishistic audiophiles. I think that, on a less epochal scale, asking if records will completely go away is a little like asking if paper books will completely go away...