Vinyl

Gagaryn

When did it stop being called "records". 

And don't get me started on "vinyls".

CHRISB50

When it was adopted by the hipsteratti.

I personally don't mind it referred to as vinyl as such. It is what it is.

What winds me up is that it seems  to have become a trendy thing that people get snobby about. I also hate the way people seem to fawn over it.

It's a tool to play music. I don't understand why people seem to make a big thing out of using it.

ToneControl

I've heard people being so keen about it over the last few years, like "that album is crying out to be played on vinyl"
Surely someone can develop a plugin for itunes that adds the distortion and compression supplied by playing on vinyl, for those who prefer it?

thecolourbox

What's wrong with calling it vinyl? Calling then "records" comes from a generation that called Reading Writing and Arithmetic "The Three R's"

BigLicks67

Records is just a contraction of recordings, so could refer to any format, vinyl is more specific in an era when you have a choice of different formats. After all no one gets called a hipster for calling something a compact disc. 

darthed1981

You know what the problem with EVERYTHING is?

People, especially ones who do and say things I don't like

...

...

Anyhow...

I call them vinyl, got a couple of boxes of them love them, all big and bright coloured.  It's just part of my physical connection to music.

Philly_Q

I've got lots of old records, but since it's become popular again I haven't really bought any vinyl.

Mainly because I've got no way of playing them any more.  And I've got no storage space.  But also because I can't get over the fact that it's now a more expensive medium than CDs, which were three times the price of records when they first came in.

The term vinyl does rankle a little because it's a new name for something old which already had a name, but times change...

Gagaryn

I can understand records being more expensive than cd - the record costs much more to produce as does the cover as does transportation. 

What i I couldn’t understand is why cds were more expensive than records when they were introduced. It was a massive con. 

The more I think about this I’m actually reasonably comfortable to referring to vinyl. Vinyls still rankles though. 

boogieman

Gagaryn said:

What i I couldn’t understand is why cds were more expensive than records when they were introduced. 

Because somebody had to pay back all the R&D costs. Most new technology is the same. Early adopters pay a lot, once it takes off then the costs drop. 

I don't mind the term vinyl. I still think of mine as records though. 

Matt_McG

Vinyls plural drives me a bit nuts. But I'm fine with the singular term, to distinguish from records/recordings which might be on any medium.

Personally, I still listen to a fair bit of music on vinyl. I'd say at home, it's 80% of my listening, whereas on the move it, it's always digital (not CD, but Flac, MP3 or streaming). LPs work for me for a few reasons:

1) I had quite a lot of LPs that I've had since I was a teenager, and when I was skint in my 20s I tended to buy a mix of CDs (all ripped to disc now) or second hand LPs which were cheap, and it was often a good way to get cool/interesting stuff that wasn't always available on CD, or which was only available as expensive US imports or reissues.* So, I don't have thousands of LPs, but I have a few hundred, and those few hundred contain a pretty high chunk of my all time favourite music.
2) Playing an LP is actually quite convenient. It's about as quick for me to go to the shelf where the LPs are, pull one out and put it on a turntable as it is to open the app on my phone, browse through the albums I have on disc, and tell the streamer (in my case a Pi with a DAC) to play it.
3) Modern LPs often come with a download code for lossless audio, so if I buy an LP I get both formats, which is nice.
4) If I play records, I'm basically forced to listen to an entire side, rather than being tempted to skip around or play random tracks. I find that's better for me in terms of getting immersed in the music. I _could_ do that with digital stuff, but I tend not to.

In terms of sound quality, it's a bit mixed. I have a nice turntable and a good phono pre. Not crazy expensive, just decent mid to high end stuff that I bought second hand years ago, when it was cheap. So a good well looked after LP sounds excellent. A really good lossless digital version can sound better, but sometimes modern remasterings of recordings I like are not, to my ears, as good as the original version. So I have some things where I prefer the digital version (whether ripped from CD or bought as lossless audio) and some things where I prefer the LP version. I'm not dogmatic about it.

* I have oddities like Soviet era Russian pressings of 1930s and 1940s jazz, for example. And also lots of classical box sets which are really high quality, but which are massively more expensive to buy on CD than to pick up a second hand vinyl box set. Also, lots of basically crap 80s metal and hard rock which I have a soft spot for, but which, if I'm honest, I'd never want to buy again on CD or digital.

beed84

The mind boggles at the fluctuating costs of vinyl and CDs. Queens Greatest Hits, for example, is £29.99 on vinyl and £7.99 on CD at HMV. Yet if you went to a car boot, you could probably find both for 50p each - I know I have, they're ten a penny.

Although a lot of people think it's cool to have vinyl, and I guess in some ways it is, the whole resurgence is consumerism gone utterly mad. When I see people bring less than a handful of records to the till, classic ones that everyone has, it stuns me that they willing to pay in excess of £100. Over a £100 for four albums? Really, is that cool?

darthed1981

beed84 said:

The mind boggles at the fluctuating costs of vinyl and CDs. Queens Greatest Hits, for example, is £29.99 on vinyl and £7.99 on CD at HMV. Yet if you went to a car boot, you could probably find both for 50p each - I know I have, they're ten a penny.

Although a lot of people think it's cool to have vinyl, and I guess in some ways it is, the whole resurgence is consumerism gone utterly mad. When I see people bring less than a handful of records to the till, classic ones that everyone has, it stuns me that they willing to pay in excess of £100. Over a £100 for four albums? Really, is that cool?

You've made me think of this now...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vWHNwmzf1o

Matt_McG

My niece wanted a record player for Christmas last year. My sister asked me for recommendations. I gave some that would have given her a decent player, for not a lot of money. But it rapidly became clear that getting decent sound from the LPs was not the requirement. So yeah. 

darthed1981

Matt_McG said:

 But it rapidly became clear that getting decent sound from the LPs was not the requirement. So yeah. 

What was the requirement?

thecolourbox

beed84 said:

The mind boggles at the fluctuating costs of vinyl and CDs. Queens Greatest Hits, for example, is £29.99 on vinyl and £7.99 on CD at HMV. Yet if you went to a car boot, you could probably find both for 50p each - I know I have, they're ten a penny.

Although a lot of people think it's cool to have vinyl, and I guess in some ways it is, the whole resurgence is consumerism gone utterly mad. When I see people bring less than a handful of records to the till, classic ones that everyone has, it stuns me that they willing to pay in excess of £100. Over a £100 for four albums? Really, is that cool?

They would probably say the same about us spending loads on different overdrives and guitars! It's all part of the journey. You don't just get interested in it one day and have your entire hobby set up the next day

Matt_McG

@darthed1981 it had to play vinyl, but she'd rather have some new terrible crappy new thing from HMV with a P-mount cartridge and quality in line with a bottom of the line 'catalogue' bought record player (like the one my sister had in 1985). Bluetooth connectivity was also preferred (which I guess I can see the justification for).

But in all of the discussions we had, sound quality was always dismissed as irrelevant. She wasn't buying it to play old records, or to buy into the sound of vinyl -- we can argue whether or not that's something we should care about, but it's a reason that codgers like us buy records -- it was purely about being the kind of person that plays vinyl LPs. Even if it sounds like crap.

Matt_McG

Also, to be fair, my sister didn't want anything which involved much in the way of wiring, because she didn't want to add a load of clutter for something which might be a fad. But the net result would definitely not be something that would sound very good.

fields5069

Matt_McG said:

My niece wanted a record player for Christmas last year. My sister asked me for recommendations. I gave some that would have given her a decent player, for not a lot of money. But it rapidly became clear that getting decent sound from the LPs was not the requirement. So yeah. 

Yeah, my very-well-off mate bought one of those all-in-one dansette type objects. Absolutely awful sound!

lasermonkey

I seem to remember people referring to records as vinyl as far back as the 90s. Vinyls does make me cringe though......

ToneControl

I'm off to play my shellacs at 78 rpm

Gagaryn

boogieman said:

Gagaryn said:

What i I couldn’t understand is why cds were more expensive than records when they were introduced. 

Because somebody had to pay back all the R&D costs. Most new technology is the same. Early adopters pay a lot, once it takes off then the costs drop. 

Don't think it's that simple. The upcharge on the costs of CDs was way more than the R&D costs - huge profits were made in the late 80s and 90s simply due to the introduction of CDs.


Those Crosby decks annoy me too, my brother bought one then "upgraded" to an Ion thing. Sound shite yet he constantly posts on facebook about how gret it is to listen to his dozen vinyls.