I have all sorts of records and no record player. I buy records for the album art and liner notes. I listen to my music digitally.

It would be interesting to know how many of those long players, will be traded for profit sooner or later.

CD’s > vinyl anyways

I buy records and don't even open them

same i bought no dream at a jeff rosenstock show and thought the stickers on the plastic wrap were too cool to take it off

Philistines

records are meant to be played, not serve as dust collectors

yeah no shit lol. go to anyplace that sells used records and check out some of the posers shoppin

Lol you’re supposed to play them, kids

But I mean hey if you wanna spend 20-50 bucks times however many on something that just sits there, more power to ya lol

you wanna talk to true music fans? head to the CD section

Preserving vinyl in good condition needs work, so maybe that’s a counter incentive for people to play LPs.

On another note, LPs can be hanged on a wall as paintings, especially if the art supersedes the whole package.

yeah the half dozen vinyl records i own are 5(ish) albums with particularly nice artwork i bought at shows. purely to support the artist and have some nice wall decor

could literally give a fuck less about playing them... most new presses are just the mp3 rip printed to vinyl anyways lmao

I do find it strange that people buy vinyl without having a record player but at least they are supporting the bands which is generally a great thing.

vinyl makes a comeback and then it turns out half of em aren't even being listened to lmao

i dont mind at all if people are buying records with no intention of actual listening to them. as long as they aren't buying the records i want. especially low volume release, fk u

I definitely get why someone may want to buy records even without having a record player, given that most of us listen to music digitally. That being said, I'd love to have a room just for listening to music with a great sound system.

Also, love the embed.

-- I'd love to have a room just for listening to music with a great sound system

Amen to that

headphones sound way too good nowadays to ever listen to vinyl

CDs are superior. Cheaper, easier to take care of.

I just started collecting records and it's burning a huge hole in my pocket, probably just gonna collect my absolute favorites among favorites and call it a day.

mmm my sweet digital compression, vinyl could never compare to thee

"headphones sound way too good nowadays to ever listen to vinyl"

try combining the two

"CDs are superior. Cheaper, easier to take care of."

when is the cheaper thing ever superior?

The only problem with vinyl is that most the ones I want are either hard to find, bloody expensive or both.

I have an old quality record player from the 80's that I use. I couldn't imagine buying records and not listening to them. But to each their own.

"when is the cheaper thing ever superior?"

Ask my wallet that question

Not surprising at all. I own a vintage turntable and only buy vinyl when I want to purchase physical music, but I still do 99% of my listening digitally

cassettes >

"Ask my wallet that question"

yeah i get it, it's "superior" because it's cheaper. like how a used Honda is superior to a Lamborghini

-- cassettes >

^^Took the format out of my finger tips

I think so too, especially in view of the worldwide housing crisis, it is easier to collect cassettes than even CDs, plus their sound quality can be superior, with the proper due diligence in terms of raw materials and sound work.

"headphones sound way too good nowadays to ever listen to vinyl"

i used to lie down on the floor of my room and listen to bloom spin with my sexy focal cans all the time. as long as you keep your stylus and records super clean and well cared-for it's absolutely wonderful

"cassettes >"

in terms of portability and convenience, sure. in terms of sound quality? not even close

I nail my unopened grailz to the wall above my bed as a sort of sex catcher. I have the full Target collection of childish gambino and Tyler the creator records (WITH Target hype stickers intact!) currently on display to lure in sexy time partners. Currently do not own a record player (or a bed frame) but I’m thinking of picking up a crobsley from urban outfitters.

“mmm my sweet digital compression, vinyl could never compare to thee”

has 0% to do with the format and everything to do with how it was mixed and mastered. uncompressed 44.1 kHz / 24-bit WAV files are objectively the highest quality sound reproduction technology we have access to.

all sounds coming from a needle scratching through a lacquer groove are inherently distorted, reducing sound quality. sure, your 70’s sabbath original prints probably sound great, but that’s 90% to do with how they were mastered. take the same master tapes and put them on a CD and it will objectively be a higher quality reproduction.

i wish vinyl dudes would just admit they like vinyl for it’s flaws and stop trying to convince anyone it’s actually better sound quality. it objectively is not. hence, CD > FLAC > vinyl.

yep

got about 200 LPs, 300 tapes, 700 or so CDs

"uncompressed 44.1 kHz / 24-bit WAV files are objectively the highest quality sound reproduction technology we have access to."

key word: uncompressed

"all sounds coming from a needle scratching through a lacquer groove are inherently distorted, reducing sound quality. "

not if you take care of your equipment

vinyl is more faithful to the sound of the original recording. it also sounds bigger and warmer. that's why folks prefer it

That’s all technically true enough but you have to take into account the flaws of CD’s too if you’re going to weigh the flaws of vinyl so heavily. They might be the highest sound quality but they are also the worst physical medium. It’s not an issue now but most of my life skipping was a huge problem. they are prone to scratches, jewel cases are fugly and become brittle with age. vintage analog equipment paired with vinyl is just so much more novel and comforting and bright than any modern I’ve ever listened to.

There’s so many factors at play that it really just comes down to personal preference

"i wish vinyl dudes would just admit they like vinyl for it’s flaws and stop trying to convince anyone it’s actually better sound quality."

some masters just only exist on vinyl pressings esp productions before the 90s. also the distortion introduced by the stylus doesn't make the sound objectively worse lol, do distorted guitar tracks sound worse because the preamp introduces clipping into the signal. i've spent hours switching back and forth between analog and digital and analog always sounds less grating because the stylus doesn't pick up a chunk of the higher register. what you're trying to say is digital is more reliable for accurate sound reproduction.

all of what you guys are saying about masters and accessing the good ones on the vinyl are true, im not arguing that. it’s just that, apples to apples, if done correctly, CD’s and digital files are better in **most** ways.

and all this is coming from someone who owns a bunch of vinyl, tapes, and CD’s.

“Jewel cases are fugly” lol no way, is true CD appreciators know the aesthetic power that is that side spine window thing matching the cover art

ya no doubt there are fair reasons to opt for either format

i do think the people who say "vinyl is literally pointless and a waste of money" are as annoying and misguided as the people who say "vinyl is always better than digital"

Holy shit Supercoolguy. I thought it was just me.

When the band name/album title fits the cover art aesthetic it's so satisfying. Spine art is underappreciated.

does anyone really say vinyls have better sound quality? I thought it was just kinda like how some people like the look of a slightly grainy photo compared to a crystal clear 4k photo, just cause of aesthetic preferences. like I'm rewatching The Wire right now and it has this really nice, 2000s style look to it that I love but I wouldn't say it's actually technically superior to stuff they make nowadays

go on any audiophile forum and make a post about how digital is superior to analog and you might get actual death threats.

Ill be right there

audiophile communities are just generally a couple steps removed from full on flat earther insanity so you better believe i'm not bothering with those forums lol. I PAID $3000 FOR MY DAC AND IT SOUNDS EVEN BETTER AFTER 200 HOURS OF ELECTRIC BURN IN

lol

Jay knows whats up. CD foldouts are eye candy.

"I thought it was just kinda like how some people like the look of a slightly grainy photo compared to a crystal clear 4k photo"

great analogy. film is also superior to digital when it comes to photography because it's a more faithful reproduction of the image. no matter how many pixels a digital photo is made up of, you're still losing parts of the image by the fact that it's being translated into pixels. as opposed to film, which captures the entire image directly. it isn't just aesthetic preferences

that’s not how it works though. film does have a resolution, and it’s based on the grains in the film stock. there is no such thing as “captures the entire image directly”.

you're right, "captures the entire image directly" is a bit of an exaggeration. it's still superior to digital though when it comes to how much of the actual image it's capturing.

and that's by its nature. yes, film is going to have its own inherent resolution, but the way that it works - that it captures directly instead of translating - is more faithful to the image than digital.

I also agree with the general idea of that analogy

I also think about it in terms of production choices. I don’t like overproduced music. It just sounds sterile. It may be from a technical standpoint the cleanest, most polished album you can find but that removes a lot of the flavour and charm. Music sounds more “human” with imperfections. 90’s boom bap for instance wouldn’t be what it is without the layer of “dust” to it. Shoegaze wouldn’t be the same without the dense wall of sound.

That’s also why I think vinyl sounds better for some genres than others, because the nuances of the format enhance certain qualities that might be seen as “imperfections” but to me are critical features to my enjoyment. And to the extreme end of the spectrum, with some things like old hip hop, the sources for these samples and such are already so lofi that being an audiophile about it just seems silly.

Album releases constantly getting delayed for physical versions that collectors don't even listen to

The worst part about vinyl is getting up to turn it over cos im a lazy bastard

oh and falling asleep and having your needing running off paper for 20 minutes

"key word: uncompressed"

you know that the audio on CDs is uncompressed unless you deliberately rip them to a lossy format right

Hyperion is 100% right, CDs are objectively the closest to the original studio master that you're going to get out of a physical format. it's fair to prefer vinyl because of its unique sound, but ultimately that's entirely subjective taste.

But if I listen to it on vinyl how will it count towards my spotify wrapped?

Funniest news I’ve read in a while

The worst part about vinyl is getting up to turn it over cos im a lazy bastard. [2]

And it gets even worse when it's a double album of only 52 mts or so, like Marillion's Afraid of Sunlight. Awful experience of an otherwise excellent album.

I'm sticking with cds till they're no longer available.

Yeah I got about 30 records I've bought to collect. At about 25 bucks a piece you do the math.. about 700-800 bucks it's not cheap especially for something I don't even listen to but that's what the headphones are for. But a nice colored vinyl is awesome to collect I like buying them plus its always cool to have the physical copy of a album you regularly jam

“ Album releases constantly getting delayed for physical versions that collectors don't even listen to”

As gatekeepey and elitist as it unavoidably sounds, casual record hobbyists who buy records to hang on their wall and don’t even own a record player and buy all 47 colour ways of the new Taylor Swift record really do make things a lot worse for people who are more passionate about the hobby. Prices are at an all time high, flippers are having an absolute field day, every pressing plant is backed up with shit like adele delaying things by MONTHS, and it’s all just self perpetuating. It’s nice that records have made such a huge come back but I kind of miss the beginning of the revitalization of interest when things were reasonable and accessible.

Everybody has their vice that they put money into.

"Yeah I got about 30 records I've bought to collect. At about 25 bucks a piece you do the math.. about 700-800 bucks it's not cheap especially for something I don't even listen to but that's what the headphones are for."

i paid 440 euros for one record once

luckily the adele record completely flopping is gonna be a bit of a reality check for major labels that you can't just convert radio play and spotify listens directly to vinyl sales - whereas taylor's shit actually does sell as much as it brings everything else to a standstill

“yeah i get it, it's "superior" because it's cheaper. like how a used Honda is superior to a Lamborghini”

Gas mileage

cassettes make my ADHD brain happy when they go *click* whizz and then the music starts all out-of-tune because the player hasn't fully woken up yet but it sorts itself out by the end of the obligatory ambient intro, that's why black metal albums always have those

tapes are the dumbest way to play music and also my favourite

i love tapes too, synth drones and arpeggios sound great with that tape saturation.

they are absolutely stupid though. basically only good for music that benefits from sounding lofi.

I'd have a record player and record collection


IF IT WASNT SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE


so many articles are like "millennials are ruining this industry, gen Z are ruining that industry" but how many of them are saying we should be paid more? like damn

Like I'd rather use my spare money to see concerts, buy cool clothes, go to museums, or eat out

Tapes are sick

I have one but cds are better. And I'm still pissed about that whole laquor plant catching on fire and Taylor swift booking like millions of records to be made, my wax vessel sawtoothgrin orders projected to be over a year wait.

And yeah any music made past 95 sounds better digitally, old records of old music sound good if they haven't been scratched to shit/played with a rock on top of a worn stylus

giving bands money is cool

are we... not suppose to play these things?

I mean, they do degrade every time they're played.

I would love to get into vinyl but it is not conducive to playing music at work or on walks where I listen to 90% of my music

Restarted my vinyl collection last July (had to sell my original collection a few years back) and now I'm about quality over quantity. Only buy original pressings with the rare occasional reissue. Live in America and have a decent record player. It's all about the needle and speakers anyway. Currently listening to Warren Zevon's self-titled album.

vinyl is for when you chillin at home turn off the lights put on some candles pour a glass of cahors and sink into a comfy chair infront of your shmexy bookshelf speakers

which is the proper way to consume music ofc

Is 805 beer ok instead?

The whole vinyl degradation per play thing is a bit of a fear mongering tactic if your buying records new, they do require more care than the other formats and are overall less durable buuut just listening to them won't effect much unless you analyze frequencies that are beyond human capacity. I'd rec getting into it more for picking up random old records for cheap, grown fond of a lotta 70s soul/synthpop stuff I otherwise wouldntve found. Buut you will run into a few that have been worn to the point where silence turns into distorted noise, usually because the previous owner wouldn't replace their needles.

Newwise I've bought many reissues of stuff I torrented decades ago

as long as it is not an IPA

I, as a man of culture, have a record player but never use it

IPA to me is like sucking on a lemon. Plus I don't have a beard. Are you allowed to drink IPAs if you don't have a beard?

IPAs are for people who are dead in the inside and need that little bitter kick to remind them that they haven’t quite kicked it yet

like me

everybody hates on IPAs but things like Mango Dreamsicle fruity tooty booty beers are infinitely worse

I hate IPAs and don't mind fruity beers/ciders so idk

been kinda getting into sours tbh

Ipa’s are complete shit

Beer in general is shit tho it’s just that IPA’s are the shittest

my friend made me drink something called “electric unicorn”

that is the drink he chooses to drink

I’m so glad the culture of pretending IPA’s are good is finally coming to an end. More and more people admitting they suck every day

never known what an IPA is and refuse to learn

I just go for cider. Downeast for the win.

Electric unicorn is a white ipa

It’s shit

Here's the realest hot-take: alcohol is at its best when the taste of alcohol is disguised really well

Actual "alcohol flavor" actually just tastes like poison and you drink it for the side effects, not the flavor

That's why drinks that mix it with ike like fruit juice, soda, coffee whatever else are the only good drinks

So uh take that dark beer "connoisseurs" and "whiskey neats only" snobs

oh and those weird dry wine people who pretend to taste hints of mahogany or cherry skin in their dark red poison glasses

really good wine and belgian beer taste legitimately good

Lambics are an amazing Belgian beer because they taste like sour cherries or sweet peaches

Legit only reason

Being charitable with that take I think what you are trying to describe is the unfavourable “heat” of ethanol. A lot of liquors are unfavourably described as “hot” when you can “taste” or “feel” the unpleasant hit of ethanol. That’s often one of the big differences between bottom shelf and higher quality liquor. If you need to mask that flavour, it’s because the alcohol is probably shit. Good liquor should enhance a cocktail, not need to be masked. If you can’t drink it straight it’s probably shit.

never liked beer either, although i did have a really good one in croatia

didn't use to like cider but its grown on me, i've always been a spirits or wine person though

Actually yeah Belgian beers are an exception to beer being shit

lambics arent what we mean when we say belgian style woops

There are some really good ciders

I also used to like sours but they really all taste pretty much the same except for the defunct cool hand cuke cucumber sour which was iconic as fuck

How tops-shelf does it need to be before it stops being poison that needs to be disguised?

I've had Patron, Unicum, and like some fancy French dry red wines and they all taste like poison to me

operator error

I wouldn’t sip patron. Patron is like… what Americans ~think~ good tequila tastes like. But if you go to Mexico and go on a tequila and mezcal tasting tour it’s pretty eye opening.

There is also a matter of preference tho of course, if you just can’t stand the profile of gin for instance you probably aren’t going to like really good gin either.

people who really like the effect of alcohol come to enjoy the poison taste because your brain makes a connection between that taste and the feeling you like. same with smoking. nobody enjoys their first time inhaling a bunch of burning shit but eventually you start to like it

last night I had something called a blueberry french toast and bagel sour and I legitimately enjoyed it and part of me hates what I have turned into :sadcowboy:

alcohol probably hit different back in the 1500s when it was the only distraction you had from dysentery and your indulgences being denied by the catholic church

wtf would make an alcohol bagel flavored? Does it taste of sesame seeds? cream cheese? just like really nice think bread?

They just say things it doesn’t actually taste anything like that

they put a hole in it

Had a fucking matcha wheat beer once

It tasted like wheat beer

"people who really like the effect of alcohol come to enjoy the poison taste because your brain makes a connection between that taste and the feeling you like. same with smoking. nobody enjoys their first time inhaling a bunch of burning shit but eventually you start to like it

i bet there is a whole lot of that going on but it's definitely not the only thing going on

All I'm saying is that it's okay to drown your alcohol in like ginger ale, or lemonade or like orange juice

Just make a good cocktail at that point, it’s not hard, and infinitely better than making boozy tasting soda or juice

Like rum and coke and screwdrivers are disgusting af I’d rather just take shots and get it over with if we going down that path

If I’m gonna be lazy like that it’s either gin and ton, vodka soda, or mezcal ginger beer

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/202/656/

drink it ars u bitch DRINK IT

I got my first record player at a garage sale when I was 10 or 11. They also had records from Queen, Aerosmith, Moody Blues and Ted Nugent. I used it a ton when I was younger and eventually had a huge collection especially of 7" splits. I ended up buying a more modern turntable around 10th grade that had an iPod dock and could RIP records to mp3.
I'm just recently getting back into buying records and even though I sold off my collection in the past I've stacked up a few dozen probably. Out of everything I own now I maybe only have two that I haven't actually spun yet. Typically if I buy a record I listen to it right when I get home if I'm not busy. It's not my main method of listening to music but I throw a record on a couple times a month normally

Yanks

'"people who really like the effect of alcohol come to enjoy the poison taste because your brain makes a connection between that taste and the feeling you like. same with smoking. nobody enjoys their first time inhaling a bunch of burning shit but eventually you start to like it'

most every dessert tastes better with alcohol involved somehow so nah, not agreeing with that, and no one gets drunk eating a dessert - inebriation effects are non existent

gravy imo tastes boring and/or shit without alcohol added as an ingredient too

You're arguing I could still enjoy that spicy curry without the spice, flavour wise sure it wouldn't be all that different...but the spice is actually what makes the dish, gives the flavour a kick. That's alcoholic drinks.

fk yes baba au rhum unfffffff

good choice

there's hundreds of classic mildly alcoholic desserts, too many to list, case closed

true [10]

"vinyl is for when you chillin at home turn off the lights put on some candles pour a glass of cahors and sink into a comfy chair infront of your shmexy bookshelf speakers

which is the proper way to consume music ofc"

Fair enough, but it's damn hard getting out of that comfy chair to handle the LPs

I mostly stopped buying vinyl almost a year ago now. Between the rising costs and having to pack to move them 3 times in 2 years I think I'm good for now

“ most every dessert tastes better with alcohol involved somehow so nah, not agreeing with that, and no one gets drunk eating a dessert - inebriation effects are non existent”

quite possibly the dumbest argument i have ever heard thank you doof

Boggles my mind that people still buy physical records

all that melted wax from house fires

The official Sputnik alcohol is a cool sparkly Riesling.

I, as a man of culture, have a record player but never use it [2]
Also have a fancy USB record player to digitize all my albums, which will happen any day now.

"Beer in general is shit tho it’s just that IPA’s are the shittest"

blasphemy. good craft beer is fucking delicious, especially IPAs

alcohol is for degenerates

"you know that the audio on CDs is uncompressed unless you deliberately rip them to a lossy format right"

I didn't know this. I guess I assumed it would have to be at least a little compressed to be turned into a digital file, in order to put it on the CD? Either way, I wasn't certain, so my bad there. Thank you for the factoid, sir.

I'd buy CDs+Digital Code on Vinyl packaging.

I need lossless CD quality so i can rip them to my macbook and listen to them with my $250 sennheiser headphones plugged into the headphone jack, that way i can certainly tell the difference compared to 320kbps mp3s

CD > Vinyl
Jewel Case > Digipak

'quite possibly the dumbest argument i have ever heard thank you doof'

I dunno - think it answers both 'can alcohol genuinely taste nice' and 'is there a use for alcohol outside of getting bladdered' pretty well

but you be Colton

digipaks are fun at first but they fall apart and aren't standard-sized so they always stick out awkwardly

"I didn't know this. I guess I assumed it would have to be at least a little compressed to be turned into a digital file, in order to put it on the CD? Either way, I wasn't certain, so my bad there. Thank you for the factoid, sir."

the spirit of your argument was correct, though, there is absolutely information lost when the signal is transformed into digital and when it returns back to analog the signal is rebuilt and restored information is estimated within a certain error. the argument eventually is whether or not the estimation is accurate enough that there is no perceptible difference to the original unviolated signal. i don't think there's a certain answer here, i am taking a class which covers this material a bit and i'm pretty convinced that nobody has any idea what they're actually talking about, i would only trust the opinion of someone who has a postgrad in electrical engineering tbh

also as touched upon earlier audiophile opinions are pretty batshit in general so it's a good rule of thumb to just assume everyone's positions aren't terribly substantive (to put it nicely)

"the spirit of your argument was correct, though, there is absolutely information lost when the signal is transformed into digital"

thank you for confirming this. i've tried to make this point in similar conversations before and people look at me like i'm crazy. you're right though that only a seasoned expert would be able to give us the real and final answer, if there is one.

what class is that you're taking?

at my uni it's called system dynamics but more generally the classes are called some variation of control systems engineering I, II, III., etc. if you want to look at the literature check out the "system analysis in frequency-domain" chapter of palm's system dynamics textbook or the fourier chapter of kreyszig's advanced engineering mathematics textbook. the first textbook also has some sections where you mathematically model a speaker-cone mechanical system actually it's pretty interesting

doof there is a difference between adding tiny bits of alcohol while cooking vs drinking it straight up. but you are correct that eating desserts does not intoxicate you 👍

those classes sound very interesting, budgie. thanks for the text reccs, i may very well take a look at those. i have always wondered how this stuff really works haha

Vinyl > cassettes > cds

Vinyl is by far the most fun to collect

what a collossal waste of resources

some of us got lucky to ''inherit'' record players bc we had metalhead parents.

"Vinyl > cassettes > cds"

Consumate hipster talk.

CDs are one of the greatest formats ever produced. Hence the reason why something that was created in the early 1980s is still unironically used and seen as viable and a digital standard.

Cassettes were bullshit... only good for making copies of things and playing in the car. Has no actual purpose in today's world and is only venerated by those who fetishise the past.

Cassettes are sick in DIY scenes, cheap to make and and limited runs up the collectibility.

^ They undoubtedly had their place, and yes, great for that. But the notion of getting a band's new studio release on that format (which is now seen again in some places,, as a genuine option) is laughable.

*have

And no it’s not. Records are my go too but I would actually buy a cassette where I would not buy a cd under any circumstance. they are cheap and novel and collectable and I got a cassette deck in the whip.

If you asked me if I wanted to see your record or tape collection I’d say fuck ya. If you asked me if I wanted to see your cd collection? Now that’s laughable

^ I find CDs collectable... and practical. Later car setups dealt with the skipping problem too. If the format were erased, there would be CD revivalists; it's the nature of people that a lack of ubiquity makes something tantalising.

only buy records these days if I happen to get merch towards the end of a show

cassettes are interesting. cds are cool when yuo put them in the microwave and they light up

isis let's be real it's already at that point, CDs are pretty much antiquated and there are loads of people scouring discogs for older productions paying 100s of USD for fookin CDs

and would you believe it? vinyl has a LARGER MARKET SHARE THAN CD'S since 2022. lol i'm just finding that out now and that is some funny shit

vinyl is some funnyass shit yeah

my bad since 2019 * according to record industry association of america

"headphones sound way too good nowadays to ever listen to vinyl"

try combining the two [2]

@budgie: I'm not arguing that point... as I said, I've always loved the format, and basically all physical formats are on the decline. And something physical, that is rare/limited, is going to attract collectors.

i'm just surprised because i only thought that CD was on the way out, i didn't realize it was already out

the only way out is to sail the seven seas

I buy them and play them occasionally. But it's not like you can play that in your car lol. FLAC is the way to go

https://youtu.be/XJJy6VJvSCk

"https://youtu.be/XJJy6VJvSCk"

ya i think this is mental illness territory

"[Cassettes] undoubtedly had their place, and yes, great for that. But the notion of getting a band's new studio release on that format (which is now seen again in some places,, as a genuine option) is laughable."

cassettes are fun, Spock. that's literally all there is to it.

vinyl is the only medium i really buy music on anymore just because i wanted to narrow my collection down to one medium and honestly i've found that's kind of the way to go, like picking one medium you particularly like and running with it. i'm not gonna pretend records sound better than CDs or anything like that, i just like the analog distortion and the fact that it's a big activity sometimes to put on a record. in a lot of ways, it helps me with my depression for that reason; the activity aspect of it, like it forces me to commit to something that's otherwise really convenient.

tl;dr most of what you hear about vinyl is bullshit, just trust your own preferences

^ agreed with all above. theyre both for collectors at this point and for me vinyl is just way more fun to collect. nice big artwork compared to shitty jewel cases, and throwing on a record is fun, it gives you an appreciation for the music you love that imo gets lost when you're just clicking play on an album digitally

"cassettes are fun, Spock. that's literally all there is to it."

That's fine, Kirk, have at it. But if you're hankering for other obsolete portable physical formats, that I believe should be revived WAY ahead of it, I'd go for for MiniDiscs and iPods.

“find CDs collectable... and practical. Later car setups dealt with the skipping problem too. If the format were erased, there would be CD revivalists; it's the nature of people that a lack of ubiquity makes something tantalising.”

Then why are you talking down cassettes as if the same exact ideas don’t apply to each format

Cassettes are practical if you have a cassette player in your car

CDs are practical if you have a cd player in your car

Most new cars have neither

Neither are really very practical in the digital era

CDs will increase in collectivity as they decrease in ubiquity just like tapes and vinyl

So what’s laughable about buying tapes that isn’t just 100% a preference thing

Records are fun to flip through and admire

CDs are fun to smash on the ground and throw in the trash where they belong

love CDs theyre great

IPAs suck glad we all agree

@Pots: Personal preference is personal preference. That's fine from a purely collecting standpoint (which ultimately, this is, as physical media is being slowly phased out--don't like that notion, but is what is). My personal collecting mindset is that which gets towards a good approximation of the definitive version of something. I'm very much of the opinion that CDs are superior for this to cassette, and are more real-world practical than vinyl as space is limited anyway.

Inherently, the aim of technology is work towards the the highest spec available at the time. DVDs replaced VHS as the home viewing experience, but since then, the crappy aesthetic, which was an annoyance at the time (the low-def wobble, interference etc.), is actively sought after in a nostalgic sense (e.g. vaporwave, and general '80s revivalism, seen in things like 'Stranger Things' and the like).

The contemporary experience of something is to simply put up with its shortcomings. These same shortcomings become its defining identity. Cassette tapes didn't compare to CD when it came to sound (and they used to get horrendously caught up in the player, requiring a pencil at hand to sort it)... that's what caused its real-time decline, and the MiniDisc format that I referred to above, was a brilliant best of both, but came too late as Apple were developing the iPod.

"i'm not gonna pretend records sound better than CDs or anything like that"

i find this so interesting, as vinyl has always sounded so much larger and warmer than CDs to me. i've always found it so much easier to hear the subtler details in the music when listening to a record as compared to a CD. it's like it stretches out the sound. maybe that's a "distortion" technically, but if it reveals the smaller details, it's a distortion i'm fine with i guess

"IPAs suck glad we all agree"

they're the tastiest kind of beer out there when they're done well

I can’t believe we’re still talking about IPAs in the vinyl thread

IPAs are tasty and yes I have a beard… but no, I don’t own ANY vinyl! PIGEONHOLE ME BITCHES!!!

i am a beardless IPA fanatic

but i'm a weirdo in a lot of ways i guess lol

Yeah idk how anyone could thing king sue is gross

but yeah my mate has thee most vanilla taste in music, collects generic vinyl and always orders an IPA, any IPA. So this still amuses me.

^[whoops been liek 4 posts since i finished writing this, was aimed at cylinder] most old releases were sourced from earlier mastertapes than when they were reissued on cd, so stuff like zeppelin/floyd/etc generally sounds better on record buut when you get into stuff made on final cut pro, or even programmed on an atari st : theres a bit of a diminishing returns interms of clarity. some bands do record will all analog equipment but anything digitals just printing cd audio onto a record which is technically less versatile in terms of frequency response range. regardless : enjoy what you enjoy, listening to music shouldn't be like taking a test. hell fm broadcast radio standard is like 64kb a second and no one really notices[mainly because the equipment to handle broadcasts morphs it back into a more 'quality' sound, similar to how record players handle records uniquely].

but yeah main reason i love cds is they're very cheap, easy to order in the mail without being warped, scratches can be buffed out, and most of the old ass cars i end up driving have a cd player instead of an aux jack.

and i honestly can't stand ipas, much rather have just any cheapo lager

In fact there are a lot of parallels. Many IPAs are complete arse, so is a lot of music you’re ‘force-fed’… you just need to dig slightly deeper and not lap up everything you’re presented with

@isis that’s a lot of words for “yes they all have pros and cons and it’s just a matter of preference”

@bat you’re lucky if you’ve never gotten a shattered jewel case in the mail

Anyway, re the topic at large…

I used to collect CDs, loved it. Then the digital age hit, I didn’t have money regardless and so I lost interest in the physical format. Then supposedly vinyl was the format to have, became trendy and ‘superior’ yet was being sold at 3 x the price. CDs remained cheap. Now I’m thinking I should’ve just kept on collecting CDs. These things come and go in cycles it seems.

I’d literally rather just have a massive FLAC library than collect cd’s. I don’t care if they are the highest sound quality possible if they remove every single joy and novelty of physicality.

oh i've gotten plenty of shattered cases lol, oddly enough i've encountered more problems with dvds being loose in the case/cracked than cds.

and yeah if i was strapped for cash i'd probably just rip all my cds to flac and sell them off

‘if they remove every single joy and novelty of physicality.’

What does this mean?

Dvds also suck, I kind of get collecting steelbooks tho they are actually pretty cool but catch me not having compact discs, the least aesthetic format of all time

“I’d literally rather just have a massive FLAC library than collect cd’s.”

yeah but you can buy a CD for almost the same exact price and rip it to FLAC and have both!

that’s what I do anyways.

blu rays have the shittiest packaging but survive usps/amazon prime pretty well, stilll get cracked cases here and there tho lol. i do have a vhs collection upwards 700 annnd they're nice watching on an old crt but look like shit on modern equipment, pan&scanning also ruins a looooot of movies lol

i'd also like to give bandcamp a shoutout for providing flac rips with record purchases

See catch me lurking on your tapes but like I literally do not care what dvds you have where the netflix at

Tell me you have beastwars the movie on tape

Edit: it was just a season compiled, big ol Dino megatron eye on the cover

technically there is a copy in my house but its because my brother moved in with his stash a few months ago, he's got an even more ridiculous thrift store collection but yeah i remember seeing the clam shell for it when i helped pack it up. had like an ape and purple dude on the cover

"
i'd also like to give bandcamp a shoutout for providing flac rips with record purchases


bandcamp & qobuz are my homies

based

Unfathomably based BAT

Also to the CD enthusiasts that keep bringing up unparalleled uncompressed quality let’s not pretend that for half of when CD’s were actually relevant the process wasn’t “yes new CD can’t wait to bring this home and convert it to mp3 so I can put it on my iPod😩”lmao

althought i bought a marissa nadler record thru her bandcamp page and it came with the digital album. but then she removed the digital album from bandcamp. after i had sold the record

not that her material is interesting enough that i would have been upset about it but it seems lame anyways. even sent her a message or whoever runs her bandcamp page and they were just like "watevz"

'@isis that’s a lot of words for “yes they all have pros and cons and it’s just a matter of preference”'

Absolutely. I pride myself on my ability to make one sentence/point go on forever.

I own a record player but not any records

@isis And I admire you for it brother 👌

@emim dude you know what would be sick is if you displayed it on your wall

Damn thing weighs like 30 pounds

"I'd go for for MiniDiscs and iPods"

you keep my wife's name out of your mouth

CDS are even shitter than IPAs

Honestly

I’d rather have a case of IPA’s than a CD ya

Scratch that. I’d rather have even a single IPA than a CD. At least I know what to do with a fucking IPA.

i only buy CDs now as a physical format its great. record store near me has a treasure trove of used CDs

Nothing like the film of crud you get on your fingers after flipping through a couple hundred used “now 5” jewel cases at Tramps

idk what that is i got camp lo for 2 bucks yesterday tho

It’s before your time

most things are
sounds canadian as well

Tramps or the NOW series?

oh were you talking about "now" lol i know what that is

have collected cd's for years, did a lot of record collecting when i was 18ish and had some money but while at uni i just could not afford it, now i'm gradually replacing all my cd's with vinyl equivalents where possible. cd's are great for being cheap as shit but yeah aesthetically they suck ass and i hate jewelcases which soak up scratches and grime more than the door of a public toilet cubicle. digipaks are nice and way more aesthetically pleasing but just pale in comparison to a nice record. i'll still buy stuff if i find it used for like £3 or less or it's unavailable on vinyl though. one day ill go full hipster and buy cassettes, pick them up very occasionally if i see them super discounted as a fun little keepsake.

although my record players been broken for three years, so i should probably get a new one before i keep picking up more records i can't play lol

Vinyl and tapes are most fun to hunt. Cds are cool too. Listen to all of em so its hard to pick which one sounds the best but cds are not the most fun to track down. Vinyl and tapes on the other hand are a lot more fun. -carol baskin

CDS are even shittier than IPAs

2

I guess because so many people have this cultural boner for making everything a collectible and treating it like an investment they can cash in on later. It's infected every part of physical media distribution and makes things less fun to look for. Regardless, this is fucking dumb and records should be played, not just stored away and looked at like a stock market.

Where are you guys storing your god damn CD cases, In the fucking toilet?

You could store a jewel case in Joe Goldbergs climate controlled book/kidnap cube and it would still find a way to turn into a brittle scratched up shit magnet

Jewel Cases are the black shirt of I own a cat

My dad has a pretty big collection of vinyls he showed me often as a kid, so that's probably why I have this knee jerk tendency to now buy them myself, even though I don't own one at the moment. It's on the bucket list to buy a really good one down the road though.

consumerism vs. art appreciation

Most of the people that buy records without a record player are Taylor Swift fans and the rest are in this thread.

I find Vinyl adds warmth whilst increasing dullness. The high frequencies can often lack punch but the low mids are yummy

‘yeah but you can buy a CD for almost the same exact price and rip it to FLAC and have both!‘ (2)

Yeah, there really is no argument for FLAC / digital files when CDs are literally the same price in most cases. How lazy would you have to be to just download the digital file over ordering a CD?

(unless you live in the arse end of nowhere with ludicrous delivery charges, I guess that could be an argument against ordering CDs)

Buying digital is useful in those rare cases in which a CD is out of print and second hand copies go for dipshit amounts on discogs

my mom had a handful of tapes she'd play on long drives to the beach . . . phantom of the opera, rick Astley whenever you need somebody, once on this island, James Taylor live 93, a Motown collection and others. I was probably 6? I have a record player now

I’m one of those idiots that buys MP3 and burns it to a CD because it’s cheaper than buying the CD + shipping

woah

who needs a record player? you don't need one to enjoy buying more vinyl