Pet peeves with the vinyl resurgence
Vinyl accounts for less than 1 percent of overall music sales, but it's been making a bit of a comeback: sales almost doubled between 2007 and 2008 and grew another 33 percent in 2009, according to Nielsen. That's only 2.5 million records out of a total of more than 370 million albums sold in all formats, but record companies don't see many growing business areas, so they're suddenly jumping aboard.
New vinyl hasn't been this abundant since the mid-1980s--you can even find it in Best Buy and Wal-Mart. I give particular props to independent labels like Merge and SubPop, which issue codes for downloadable MP3s with new vinyl, so I can get them to my iPod almost immediately. Vinyl reissues also seem to be at a 20-year-high--in the last couple of months I've picked up new records from bands I haven't heard since college, like Galaxie 500, Mazzy Star, and the Cocteau Twins.
Maybe the instructions to play this record at 45 rpm are subliminally encoded in the psychedelic target design.
(Credit: Caribou)Unfortunately, as the record industry rediscovers this glorious old format, they're not always getting the details right. For example:
Slow motion. Twice in the last couple of months, I've placed a new record on my turntable and thought that it sounded a little funny. Only when the underwater-sounding vocals kicked in did I realize that I was playing it at the wrong speed. It turns out that these double LPs--Grizzly Bear's "Yellow House" and Caribou's "Swim"--were supposed to be played at 45 rpm, the speed usually designated for 7-inch singles and 12-inch dance remixes. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem--45 rpm albums supposedly offer higher fidelity--but neither of these albums had "45 rpm" marked anywhere on the record or packaging. How was I supposed to guess?
Which side are we on? The term "record label" came from the physical paper label in the center of old records, which invariably had a company logo on them, usually alongside song titles. Physical labels tend to be much more artistic these days, with cryptic graphic designs or illustrations. Unfortunately, most of them don't have any number or letter designating the side. There used to be a rule of thumb for these kinds of labels--side A was the one with the picture, and side B had song titles for the entire album. But that custom seems to have been abandoned. To figure out which side to play first, I often have to squint at the tiny etching at the inner edge of the vinyl, right next to the label, and look for a tiny "A" or "B." If it's a double album, I also have to look for "1" or "2" to figure out which record comes first.
But I just turned it over! Albums with as few as 10 songs are now routinely split into double LPs, sometimes with less than 10 minutes of music per side (I'm looking at you, Sup Pop.) It's one thing for early '60s LPs and punk records to run short--they usually only had 25 minutes of music total. But taking a long album and purposely splitting it up so I have to stand up and walk to the turntable every two or three songs is strange. This isn't a physical limitation: side one of Neil Young's 1990 record "Ragged Glory" runs more than 30 minutes.
Coupon complexity. I greatly appreciate record companies that go to the trouble of offering coupons for free MP3 downloads with vinyl records. But do they really have to make me enter both the UPC code from the back of the record and the alphanumeric code from the coupon itself? I know piracy is a problem, but using two-factor authentication for free MP3s seems like overkill.
Quality control. Vinyl is a lot fussier than CDs--it warps if it gets too warm and can bend from being stacked or stored improperly. This was a real problem three or four years ago--about one out of every 10 LPs I purchased had physical deformities that fouled up the playback. The local record shops were generally pretty nice about taking them back, but one clerk confided that it was common--for instance, every copy of the Sigur Ros box set "In a Frozen Sea" that they sold was almost immediately returned because the records were warped. Quality control seems to have improved dramatically since then, but this store still finds it to be enough of a problem that they've posted a sign explaining that vinyl returns won't be accepted unless the record is broken or unplayably scratched.
Don't get me wrong: I love my vinyl, and don't want to return to the dark days of the early 1990s, when I was forced to buy new releases on CD or (gasp) cassette. I'm just hoping for a little more usability testing.
Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattrosoff. 
I got a good laugh out of the "10 minutes per side" (I'm assuming on a 33RPM LP?) Hell, for a moment I thought the band put their album out on a 72 RPM 1920's era Columbia platter.
(...don't laugh, either. :) I have a stack of those for a fully operational-but-ancient Trav-Ler radio/record-player that I keep around the house. It's cool as Hell to hear music and voices that are, in some cases, nearly a century old).
Anyhoo...who remembers Styx' Paradise Theater record?
:-)
If you want vinyl sound, get a CD and pass it through some "vinyliser" software, to add distortion, noise, clicks. Enjoy!
I have a fairly extensive record collection that I started about 10 years ago, Pro-Ject turntable (highly recommend), and a pretty nice amp (best stereo/2-channel Yamaha sells) hooked up to my Mac and and record player driving Energy 3-way loadspeakers pointed at my chair. I'm a bit of a music nut and I work a lot so I didn't skimp too much since I work at home, a lot.
Records you pickup for 50 cents at garage sales or used shops or those played through the record player you inherited from grandma when she passed 10 years ago are not going to sound so good (most of the time) and the folks that harsh on vinyl when they see my collection or we talk music usually have no experience with an enthusiasts setup, and are blown away when they hear what it sounds like done right.
Another thing to note is that all vinyl is not created equal. Many cuts are simply low quality digital transfers that lack any more depth than a CD. I don't bother buying a new record unless I can be reasonable sure it was mastered from the best possible source (you get to know the labels that do it right). 180 gram records run smoother and sound better as well.
If you get into vinyl read up on caring for your records. Keep the lid on your player closed, clean your needle frequently, buy plastic sleeves and always store upright, etc... It's a bit laborious and I don't listen to them as much as I like because I'm more focused on working (and my Mac is easier to operate) but digital cannot compare.
As for the turning the record over - there was only so much you can squeeze onto a 45 RPM records - that's why most songs prior to the 1980's were around three minutes long - so they could fit on the 45 single.
Even today, if you visit iTunes or another music site, and look at the length of songs - take "Plastic Jesus" for instance - they all vary from artist and album, if only by a few seconds.
Also, for you trivia fans, the shorter a song, the wider the track pitch, (distance between each groove) and thus the louder the modulation. Because there was a specified signal to noise ratio, short songs could be pressed onto cheaper vinyl (ground up vinyl added to the mix.) In some LP's, track pitch was varied according to the loudness of a particular part of the music.
You'd think that the record companies would know this, and thus the quality of the records should be equal to or higher than the vinyl of the past.
I think you are a bit confused. CD'S were manufactured and caught on because of their portability, durability and longevity.
I could debate CD vs. vinyl all day. But cd's aren't the ultimate in sound quality. Both platforms have their merits. And if you think any older music, beatles, doors, etc sounds better on cd, you are sadly mistaken. It breaks down to digital to digital, analog to analog. Mix those together and you have some awful sounding junk.
Clicks and distortion are due to avoidable physical damage to a record. I have 30-year-old records that have been properly maintained by myself and the previous owner(s) that sound far superior to my digital copies.
and i have some songs that are only available (AFAIK) on vinyl. and how cool are shaped picture discs, huh?
You'll notice a new listening experience right away.
Specifically to your point on Quality issues - it's disappointing that labels and artists don't put enough importance on where and how their records are pressed. After putting in so much work to actually record songs, it's a shame to put out a poor quality vinyl record. Not all vinyl is created equal and it's worth paying a little more to get a great vinyl record. Otherwise, many first time buyers of vinyl are going to get turned off and give up on the format. For growth to continue in this format, not only does it need the support of labels, but also of new customers discovering vinyl for the first time - and that first experience really needs to be a good one!
It will behoove everyone when buying new records to look for where the records are pressed and find those plants that are known for quality. They may cost a dollar or two more but you won't be disappointed in the sound!
So sorry to hear that new vinyl is similar to the later years. It sounds as if the one constant over the years is this - the record company is not your friend. For them, it's still all about the money and how to get it out of your pocket. For now, I'll stick with ripping discs borrowed from friends and the library and spinning my old vinyl when I'm jonesing for that really warm sound!
Thanks for the great article.
The larger issue here is that there are always tradeoffs. The comment that CDs were created primarily for packaging is simply not true. Even the best LP can't match the dynamic range of a CD and as a lifelong audiophile and sometimes audio professional, I can tell you that the first CDs were a revelation in this respect. The tradeoff was that, as others have mentioned, there is a loss of high-frequency resolution with any digital medium's representation of an analog signal. The good news is that higher-resolution formats (DVD-Audio, SACD) go a very long way in minimizing this problem. A much better understanding of how to minimize the CDs limitations (oversampling, better filters, better management of jitter, etc.) have also helped greatly.
One major issue with vinyl is that the quality of your turntable, cartridge and phono preamp makes a big difference in sound quality. It's devilishly difficult to extract all of the information from vinyl without introducing any one of a number of artifacts to the signal chain. Low-frequency feedback, RIAA curve errors, capacitance/impedance mismatches between the cartridge and the phono preamp are just some examples. When done well, the vinly experience can be really stunning, but to get to that level of performance requires some serious equipment and dedication. This is one of the reasons that the CD became so popular with people early on, given the tradeoffs at the time, it offered a level of sound quality that had been previously unavailable.
Another important issue is that no matter how good the distribution medium (LP, CD, etc.) the sound quality can never be better than what was originally recorded and mastered. The newly-release remastered Beatles CDs show just how good the crew at Abbey Road were. At the same time I can think of a whole lot of recordings through the years that will never sound that good no matter how good the playback chain is.
Finally, as some others have mentioned, you have to have good speakers. There is no more important part of a sound system than speakers and, frankly, most mass-market speakers are awful. You don't have to spend huge amounts of money, there are some very dedicated people making speakers that are no more expensive than what you can spend in a big-box store, but you have to do your homework here.
I would put my consumer level 70's era turntable, amp and half way decent speakers up against almost any hight end digital consumer system you might come up with in a listening test. I have no doubt that if we put 100 people in a room blindfolded, have them listen to Dark Side of the Moon or just about any vinyl record from the 70's on my analog system against your digital system, they would say the analog system sounded better.
As I stated in my post, there are tradeoffs. On that point I agree with you. However, as a former recording engineer and long-time speaker designer, I have to say that one of the major advances in speaker technology in the time since the 1970s has been the improvement in the dynamic-range capability of speakers. Your 1970s system is well-matched to the 70s era music you are using for comparison. But I guarantee you that if you were to compare your 1970s system against my Oppo CD player with my modern transmission-line loudspeakers on the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's recording of Stravinsky's Firerbird suite, that the dynamic-range limitations of your system would be very apparent.
Finally, perhaps you missed my slam at consumer speakers, and by extension, the crap they sell with them at big box stores. It has become very difficult to buy quality home audio gear. By that token, your 1970s system is probably better than the typical Best Buy junk. But that does not mean that it is state of the art.
Also, LP's suffer from the problem of warped or off-center discs, which can cause substantial distortion problems, too.
Pity there was a fight between Sony's SACD and the DVD-Audio formats, otherwise we would have ended up with a modern disc format that would blow even LP's away (all the advantages of Compact Discs, like no physical contact that can cause distortion, plus very high audio sampling rates for extremely clear sound even with higher octave notes on a piano and cymbals).
- by toezoo June 21, 2010 9:04 AM PDT
- Great article! I was afraid you were going to 'poo-poo' vinyl and it's lovers, but your frustrations are legit :)
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(38 Comments)Now read about why Vinyl Is Great!
http://toezoo.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/record-store-daze/