Anyone who's talked to me in the last six months would be surprised to hear that, given my nonstop cheering for vinyl. I have amassed about 1,200 records, but also have about 1,100 CD's. After years of saying I would get my vinyl collection inventoried, organized, cleaned, and getting played, something happened, a switch flipped, and I jumped in with both feet. This beautiful disease ("if there's a cure for it, we don't want it, we don't need it, we'll just eat it") makes me feel like a more rounded person, and takes the edge off when I'm fried from it all.
I've done a fair amount of reading, and one particularly memorable article had the caption "Everyone agrees that vinyl sounds better than digital, except for audio engineers, and the people who invented the Compact Disc".
http://www.laweekly.com/music/why-cds-may-actually-sound-better-than-vinyl-5352162
Most of the other articles I've read either pointed out the vinyl revival is enjoying double-digital growth year-over-year for the sixth year running (2009 was the beginning of the shot in the arm, shall we say), and that it just sounds and feels better, which I also believe, provided the vinyl is in good shape and it's played on a nice setup. Something uncared for, full of scratches, is not anyone's idea of a good time. Something clean, well mastered and mixed, and better yet, old, on the other hand, is really special. Getting back to the major uptick in vinyl, the growth in the format isn't just catalog sales (older, established titles) for artists but also new releases from modern artists (more than you might think unless you've been to a big record store lately).
Which leads me to the hook; how much of this is in my head? Should I care why I feel the way I do when I play vinyl vs. any other format, CD, HDCD, SACD, DVD-Audio, Blu-ray, what-not? The end result is the same. Could it be the pageantry of the whole thing with vinyl pre-stages my mind for optimal appreciation? You take an inner sleeve out of a beautiful jacket, full of artwork, pull out that 12" vinyl, look it over, carefully set it on the platter, maybe blow a little dust off with your handy can of air, make sure the stylus is clean too, gently drop the needle in the groove, and more often than with any other format (for me at least) play it through from start to finish (at least one one side) as it was intended. This therapy is best achieved I believe with the "ugly lights" off, and some task/mood lights on. I have a little task light for the turntable, a lava lamp (gotta have one for the old stuff), and a small lamp in the opposite side of the room. Warm, mellow, and soothing. You know what I'm sayin'?
CD's of course, you can take in the car. Vinyl, not so much (although I will say there were some cars back in the day you could play 45's on - could you imagine?) MP3's (I know, I know...) even more so. In the car, I lower my expectations. The fact I can take 2,000 songs at the drop of a hat with my iPod Nano 16GB is a miracle in itself. This gets me through a couple months of driving around for business without having to think about restocking whatever car I'm in with new music. This simple fact begs the question (and industry professionals all over ask themselves the same question): Is Convenience the New Quality?
I don't mind to diss the almighty CD. The technical achievement of Sony and Phillips, particularly given this happened over 30 years ago, is still incredible. It's convenient, portable, and as a format still high quality. Once mastering, mixing, and studio equipment got where it belonged for the digital domain, there was no looking back. Think of it, the form factor of the CD is what we are still using to this day for Blu-ray (which is the same as you know for the DVD before it), and as far as I know won't change when the next generation Blu-ray discs start shipping in time for Christmas (with UltraHD resolution). CD's got a bad rap when some of the initial decks produced had less than stellar digital to analog circuitry, and albums weren't remastered from original studio tapes for the CD run. CD's made today are a big cut above where they were in the 80's and 90's (when manufacturing issues also existed to top everything else).
Thoughts on the matter, and the question at large, is convenience the new quality?
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