a) the high-frequency roll-off starts at 15 kHz; b) the needle vibrates which smooths out the sound and provides warmth; c) the needle melts the vinyl at the molecular level which also smooths out the sound and provides warmth; d) the needle picks up feedback from the room; e) not all vinyl is created equal, you get a lot more quality out of a 5-minute 12" 45 rpm than a 30-minute 12" 33 1/3 rpm; f) clicks and pops and burns are part of the charm; g) the runout groove nagging you to get up is part of what vinyl sounds like; h) vinyl is physical and cool and sometimes extremely rare and barring an ABX test your perception of how good something is will be affected by these supposedly irrelevant meta qualities; i) some things are only available on vinyl, so of course it sounds better; j) depending on the type of music, the mastering won't be targeting mp3 players with earbuds but instead big club systems, so if you have good speakers, it might be easier to find the mastering you want on vinyl.
I don't know how many of these I agree with. Honestly the worst thing about vinyl is that it's heavy.
For me, the worst thing about vinyl was feedback. I love subsonics at concert levels, and it's virtually impossible to isolate turntables well enough. Back in the day, it was my practice to copy vinyl to tape, and then just play tapes. That also protected vinyl against wear and crud.
CDs aren't perfect either. Mixing can be tweaked with software, however. Also, for some genres it's possible to get multi-channel WAV that's readily mixable.
But that's a bad thing. I learned to isolate the turntable from the speakers when playing disco. Also, had to walk softly else the needle would skip.
Also, back in the glorious disco era, record companies would release 12" single disks, where the grooves were spaced wide enough that the bass beat could be laid down. What more proof does anyone need that 33 records are inferior?
Edit: /s. Sigh.
Depth = when the grooves are too close together and exceed a certain depth, you can simultaneously time travel both forwards and backwards in the music by about 2 seconds. This quantum "depth" effect is most prized.
The thing that's fun about vinyl is that it feels more like a physical artifact -- each one sounds different, the album art is bigger, it's been around for a few decades, etc... that's why I like it.
Why do you need an entire article for something that everyone already knows?
Even if you especially like the sound of vinyl, you can just play one and record it on a CD.
I watched a video of how they make vinyl. They take a ... wait for it .... CD! And play it into a machine that cuts the grooves.
Here are a few quoting from the article:
- "few people who would tell you that recording classical music to analog tape has any benefit at all," Metcalfe says. But for some artists, he says — particularly in rock — those layers of distortion are preferable.
- [...] recording to analog tape isn't any purer than recording music digitally. But the distortion and pitch variation that analog tape adds to the recording are preferred by some artists and audiences.
- "Because vinyl is a reflection and any digital is a reconstitution; it's not the same thing."
- [...]the distortion and pitch variation that analog tape adds to the recording are preferred by some artists and audiences.
- However, for a less skilled mixing engineer, mixing to analog tape can "'glue' the music together in the most wonderful way,"
Reflection and reconstitution? Those words have no meaning in this context.
And the thing about less skilled magically improving because of analog is just hocus.
Pono is also how he wants his legacy to be "archived". He does have quite the body of work.
