Vinyl is sexy. its good Quality (when properly cared for), and its just feels good holding and listening to it. I really don't know how else to explain it. Vinyl is sexy, it feels it and it sounds it. I'm talking the audiophile, the sound tech/engineer with the well trained ears, that can hear how full and rich an old vinyl record sounds and feels. I mean it feels good to hold 11 inches of a big black licorice pizza (record)

Analogue Tape (domestic)... cassette is ok, it lacks quality mainly because it is at such a low speed, the higher the speed the better the quality. Studio reel tape (24 tracks tape machines and such) normally run at 30 IPS (Inches per second) cassette operates at 1 7/8 IPS, which is significantly less. If you get a record, play it, record it to tape and listen to one then the other, you will notice the quality difference.

CD, now we've talked about the anaogue realm, now we dive into the digital with CD. Cd which is 44.1kHz 16bit recording. which is pretty darn good, but its just not the same as a vinyl record. A bit of science, 44.1kHz means you can record upto 22.5 kHz, which is above the human ear, but i think we can feel it, vinyl as having been said to record upto 50kHz. But that's just academic really. There is really no real difference between CD and Vinyl aurally (for most). if we wanted to talk about recording however that would be a different matter, with analogue saturation and the unpleasant tape clipping.

Next MP3, Trading quality for portability. What would you rather, have a full quality CD? or an mp3 at a fraction of the quality, just to be able to listen to it in the park, or while running? What about the artist, there they are spending time and money to produce a song they poured their heart and soul (and normally some cash too) into to make the best they possibly could, then having most people listening to it on iPods with poor quality Mp3s or AACs... at WAV (or CD quality) it is about 5Meg a minute (mono) 10 Meg a minute (stereo) which means for a four minute song its around 40Meg, which gives you full quality or something the 10th of it claiming to be CD quality. No. listen to the songs on myspace, (all the ones i've listened to and downloaded) were at 96kpbs and 22.5kHz, which means you just cut the frequencies above 10kHz out, and anything above it you get that funky sound (kinda like those cymbals in songs that sound like a duck fart underwater courtesy of the poor quality MP3)

To not appear like a whinger (whiner, complainer) I will end on a good note. It looks like people who share files on file sharing networks (limewire frostwire etc) seem to be upping the quality. I can remember when the average quality was around 96kbps, now its 128-160, which these days with encoders and decoders are sounding better. not great but better.

Tape may have gone the way of the dodo (commercially) , but vinyl hasn't, and probably wont for a long time to come. Just go to any music store that isn't owned by a record company subsidary (not sanity, HMV, or Virgin music stores... the ones that sell chart music, those ones that have stacks of CDs new and used) and you'll find vinyl, you'll find some recent releases have been released on vinyl.

Portability Vs. Quality... which would you pick to listen to music,

I will admit on my ipod my music is MP3, but 320kbps, the highest I could set it to, unless it has been downloaded, or not ripped from a Cd

 

 

 

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I reckon Mp3 quality depends more on the device used to play it and the speaker/headphone quality. I've heard headphones where the quality is like a casettes quality. But the same MP3 on a different set can be CD or better. What you said about vinyls is pretty specific. I can't see myself keeping a vinyl in perfect condition just to have CD quality, I get nothing out of holding it or using it. Old technology will always be old.

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to my understanding it doesn't take much to keep your records in good nick, all you need it to wipe it down before playing and making sure your record player is grounded, which then gets rid of all the pops and crackles that records make.

its really not that hard now is it?

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I prefer portability with a little bit of quality. I always listen MP3 at 192kbps-320kbps and that's satisfiying enough, at least for me. I already get used to it.

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