Sound quality of new vinyl recordings.


I would like to get back to vinyl. I have not heard any new vinyl yet but I question the sound quality and I hope someone can help as I have not yet found the answer to my question. Are new vinyl recordings from original analog source or are they just copying digital onto vinyl. If there are both out there what do I look for to tell the difference before I buy

128x128randym860

OP,

Don’t be discouraged by the negative comments in reference to "new vinyl" including my own. While in many cases I have preferred the original pressings from my youth I have also purchased many of the repressed and remastered LP’s that are available today on artists from the 60’s and 70’s and also those recording today. As bdp24 stated there are a number of very good manufacturers that are putting out fabulous LP’s. Websites like Acoustic Sounds and Music Direct are a great source for music and new releases from Analog Productions, MFSL and many other manufacturers sound superb even if some do have a digital step in the process. Pressing plants like QRP and RTI are generally very high on quality. And if you want to search for original pressings from years back websites like Discogs is a great source and also great for research.

While I listen to music on LP’s, streaming and CD’s and enjoy them all listening to LP’s for me is an experience.

as i did a little research, new pressings are very rarely purely analog. And then what would be the point, you could just get it much cheaper in a digital source

Wow much more info than I expected. That is a good thing. I can stream from YouTube and sounds better than most cd's. I just want to avoid spending 2-3k on a TT and not use it. Guess I will have to do some homework and decide if I want to take a chance. Being an audiophile I am used to taking chances. LOL.

Yep Rock is another current label releasing new LP’s "cut" from analogue tapes.

The label has a world-class artist roster, including Nick Lowe, Alejandro Escovedo, Amy Helm (Levon’s daughter), Dave Alvin, Fountains Of Wayne, Jim Lauderdale (great songwriter and singer, formerly Lucinda Williams’ band leader & harmony singer), John Doe (of X renown, of course), Robyn Hitchcock, The Fleshtones (Garage Rock), The Rubinoos (a fantastic Power Pop band), Tift Merritt, and many more.

Contrary to those just repeat what they’ve heard someone else say, lots of labels and artists/bands are recording in analogue, and mastering engineers such as Bernie Grundman, Kevin Gray, Robert Ludwig, Ryan Smith, and Steve Hoffman are busier than they’ve ever been, cutting lacquers for LP production, using analogue masters tapes as their source. Go ahead, do the research.

Yes, lots of Rap, Dance, "commercial" (fake) Country, Pop, and other popular-with-the-masses music is recorded on hard drives (with lots of electronic manipulation applied), but who here listens to that sh, uh, stuff?

Do you know how hard Ry Cooder works to get his recorded guitar sound? He heard about the new recording format---early digital---and recorded his Bop Til You Drop album in digital---the first non-Classical digital album. He hated it, and went back to analogue. He eventually heard an LP on Water Lily Acoustics Records and flipped! Water Lily owner/recording engineer Kav Alexander was recording with a tube analogue machine, it’s electronics designed and built by tube expert Tim de Paravicini (who also designed and made his fantastic EAR-Yoshino amps and pre-amps, which most of ya’ll continue to ignore. So did Art Dudley, until he heard the EAR 912 pre-amp.), fitted with tubes from another tube expert (Roger Modjeski, whom you also ignored during his lifetime)---RAM tubes. To hear the best recorded sound you’ve ever (or never) heard, listen to Ry’s album on Water Lily, with V.M Bhatt---A Meeting By The River.

By the way: The Ry Cooder albums that MoFi reissued are pure analogue, not amongst the MoFi’s that include a digital step. The originals sound good (I have all in original Reprise Records pressings), the MoFi’s even better. Ignore Tom Port; he can hold only one thought in his mind at a time.

I have new vinyl that sounds as good or better than any older recording and it seems that digital recordings moved to vinyl can also sound better than a CD. There was an article in a Brit magazine regarding that a few years ago and I forget why that's true, but it seems to be.