# Abandoned formats making a significant comeback **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 2, 2021, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535 "2021-01-02T18:58:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/62 "2021-01-04T16:40:09Z")
I’ve never bought a turntable for myself but my folks still have one. My millennial nieces, who grew up on iPods, think that vinyl is magical. How could a spinning disc result on such a good sound? I’m sure there is a fascination with mechanical sound for many of the vinyl buyers. I also wonder if there’s something about owning a physical copy of the music that appeals. I don’t mind having everything in digital form; I’m a software guy so it’s pretty normal but I can imagine a lot of people want to buy something they can touch and look at. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/63 "2021-01-04T19:23:52Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > I’ve never bought a turntable for myself but my folks still have one. My millennial nieces, who grew up on iPods, think that vinyl is magical. How could a spinning disc result on such a good sound? I’m sure there is a fascination with mechanical sound for many of the vinyl buyers. It’s not a _bad_ format, and, I think I mentioned this before, but to the extent that you get some “lo-fi” effects because of the reality of having to play records back through less-than-ideal equipment, many people, if not “fascinated”, at least don’t find it unpleasant. E.g., near the beginning of [“Digital Done Wrong”](http://www.iar-80.com/page170.html) he claims > [@](#): > > And the artificial boosting of space and ambience can be magnified yet even further by the addition of reverberation, which introduces not only time delay, but also introduces yet more complex random incoherent phase interference patterns. Indeed, reverb boxes have been used for decades to artificially create a seeming large room or hall around performers who in fact were close miked - a huge time domain distortion of the signal, and of its space and ambience from the actual recording signal as the mike heard it. This deliberate signal manipulation and distortion crudely mimics what a concert hall does acoustically, creating lots of random incoherent phase interference with long delay paths (hence down to low spectral frequencies), coming at you from all directions, due to multiple reflections from the distant plural hall walls. This is what tells the listener’s ear/brain that the concert hall is a large space and is rich in ambience, both live and also when playing back a recording. > > It’s worth noting that, for the 60 year life of the stereo vinyl disc since 1958, all stereo phono cartridges have committed this same kind of time domain error (to a milder degree), artificially boosting their portrayal of a recording’s space and ambience beyond the accurate signal on the master tape. How and why do they do this? All stereo phono cartridges have pretty bad inter-channel crosstalk, which begins in the midranges and gets very bad in the trebles. We discovered many years ago that this bad crosstalk had a peculiar property that no one else seems to have noticed (even to this resurgent heyday of vinyl): the crossfeed signal that channel A badly leaks to channel B is actually an inverted polarity version of channel A’s signal (and of course vice versa). Thus, all stereo cartridges actually act as a Carver holography processor, crossfeeding inverted polarity signals, which also artificially creates complex random incoherent phase interference patterns, hence more artificially boosted space and ambience. > > We designed a circuit to cancel this cartridge crosstalk, and the sonic results were both stunning and educational. With the cartridge crosstalk canceled, the cartridge was now delivering spatial imaging much closer to our copy of the master tape (which has excellent channel separation, hence by definition is the reference standard for what accurate spatial imaging should sound like from this recording). True, the corrected phono cartridge’s portrayal of space and ambience was not as boosted, thus not as large and rich. But the portrayal was now more accurate. > > And the nicest surprise was that, in this more accurate portrayal of space and ambience, the vague bloat was gone, and in its place was much better localization specificity. We could now hear where the hall walls were, and how far away they were, and even better hear where the performers were, in relationship to each and to the stage and the hall. In short, the entire portrayed spatial image jelled into reality, instead of being a vague amorphous bloated blob. Don’t know if it is related to the format wars, but while distortion and noise have been deliberately used as a musical tool for ages, general “lo-fi aesthetics” are popular enough to merit a Wikipedia article as a distinct musical style: > **[Lo-fi music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo-fi_music)** > > Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The standards of sound quality (fidelity) and music production have evolved throughout the decades, meaning that some older examples of lo-fi may not have been originally recognized as such. Lo-fi began to be recognized as a style of popular music in the 1990... ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/64 "2021-01-04T19:46:25Z")
Although Spotify is amazing and Google and Amazon have done interesting and useful things with books, I _like_ having physical copies of books and compact discs. The popularity of things is cyclical, but an innate love of beautiful objects is not. Vinyl is more trouble than it’s worth to me. My father had a record player and as kids we used it more than he did (at that time). ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/65 "2021-01-04T20:39:21Z")
Someone mentioned fountain pens earlier. They are indeed making a (small) comeback in the last decade or so. > **[Let the Fountain Pens Flow! (Published 2018)](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/style/fountain-pens.html)** > > In this coldly pixelated age, old-fashioned writing implements make a small but meaningful comeback. > **[Why are fountain pen sales rising?](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18071830)** > > Is the fountain pen a curious example of an old-fashioned object surviving the winds of change? I tend to exclusively handwrite with fountain pens (I have a Lamy 2000 and TWBSI Eco as my main pens these days). And part of that is because I write with a pen so infrequently I like having something that feels good to write with (and Fountain pens tend to write smoother than ballpoints - and have far more interesting inks). Yes, there is the greater mess with refilling but I like it. That’s probably a similar thing to those preferring vinyl, cassettes, etc. It’s just an interesting old tech. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/66 "2021-01-04T21:20:48Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I tend to exclusively handwrite with fountain pens (I have a Lamy 2000 and TWBSI Eco as my main pens these days). And part of that is because I write with a pen so infrequently I like having something that feels good to write with (and Fountain pens tend to write smoother than ballpoints - and have far more interesting inks). Yes, there is the greater mess with refilling but I like it. I mentioned it at one point. That’s an interesting point: today, if one is going to bother writing (especially a lot), why not use a good pen that is comfortable to write with? (Of course there are crappy fountain pens, too, but this is not a comprehensive discussion of fountain pens.) Now, if you are going to bother collecting physical albums instead of high-res digital files, why not go for the cool, beautiful vinyl release? OTOH digital formats have certain advantages. But, rather than speculate, since at least one person reading this works in a record store, what do the young, non-hipsters [if someone is easily identifiable as a “hipster”, doesn’t that mean that they are carefully conforming their tastes? At least the “weirdos” know what they like] who choose vinyl over CD say about it? Both formats are non-streaming and you get an actual disc. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/67 "2021-01-04T22:09:48Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > if you are going to bother collecting physical albums instead of high-res digital files, why not go for the cool, beautiful vinyl release? I get my high-res digital files by buying CDs, as it is the easiest, most affordable way to get them these days. I buy CDs instead of LPs because they cost less, and are more durable as backups and much handier to convert into those digital files than the vinyl. As another poster said upthread, vinyl is way more trouble than it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/68 "2021-01-04T22:52:35Z")
I do not necessarily disagree, but, remember, CD sales are dropping precipitously while vinyl sales are still rising. So, no matter what you or I may think, the fact is that people walking into record stores are spurning CDs and it does not seem to be hipster-driven. @Lavender_Pebble maybe you know the underlying reasons? ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/69 "2021-01-04T23:01:05Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Speedometers with only numeric digital displays were used only briefly in a small number of cars, based on the ridiculous rationalization “because we can”. I always assumed that handful of 1980s cars that used digital speedometers used them because in that era it made them appear “modern” and “high tech”. But continuing the hijack, the discussion of vehicles with digital displays that still display an analog looking gauge reminded me of this story. Back in the early 1980s when Boeing introduced the 737-300 they offered a glass cockpit as an option, however Southwest ordered theirs with the old-school analog avionics in order to maintain commonality with their older 737-200s. Now fast-forward to the 1990s, when Boeing was designing the 737NG. On the 737NG the glass cockpit was now mandatory, but Southwest still wanted to maintain as much commonality with the analog cockpits on the older 737s. So they got Boeing to program the displays on theirs to emulate the appearance of the analog instruments on the older planes. [Here, for example](https://www.airliners.net/photo/Southwest-Airlines/Boeing-737-7H4/6232575/L?qsp=eJwljMEKgzAQBf/lnb2o1EJuth/QHvoDS7JoIDVhs4eK%2BO8m6W2YgTlg46b808%2BeGAaZSeyKDomEvhnmAHkJfqvxNoz3vrY1anyS8hJlh5k65Cj6KAhX7GwtJ2WHv3%2BJY6mJs23jpbz6Aizvxhin4p3PKVB7sJIPOM8LF4EzUQ%3D%3D), you can see the displays in a Southwest 737-700 showing analog style gauges. In essence, the digital displays that are becoming common in new cars are like glass cockpits for cars. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/70 "2021-01-05T02:34:29Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I tend to exclusively handwrite with fountain pens… > It’s just an interesting old tech. AND it’s more tactile than a ball point, and (here’s where it’s like the Vinyl vs CD question), much more immediate, more authentic, than typing on a computer. In fact, after I teach (college design) students to use all the Adobe stuff, I work with them on developing their handwriting style. And a couple of them have gone on to do [hand-drawn type](https://www.behance.net/gallery/73000985/LETTERING-365) for branding, packaging and signage. And even doing [“Calligraffiti”](https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/10-contemporary-graffiti-calligraphers/chaz-bojorquez-cholo-style-graffiti), using handwriting and classical calligraphy… large. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/71 "2021-01-05T04:05:00Z")
Not sure what you mean by “tactile”, but a _good_ fountain pen will [not skip/dry up and] write with zero pressure, thus making it extremely comfortable to use. As for something vaguely analogous to having a different sound and a different preference for “analogue” versus “digital” sound, last time I checked many fountain pens came with a rigid nib, but depending on your preference you might favour an extremely flexible nib— certainly it is more expressive. In this analogy, the “weirdos” would be the ones using a dip pen. The whole process of writing now becomes much more deliberate as you have to really mean it, sit down at a desk, fill up an inkwell, pause after every few lines to dip your pen, etc. It really necessitates a different approach and is much less convenient. But I imagine anyone bothering to do this would (or would like to!) produce beautiful calligraphy, or it sets them in mind to create beautiful prose, or something. Maybe such people would enjoy setting up a turntable or reel-to-reel tape more than asking the robot assistant to shuffle some top-40 hits. The fundamental format war would be paper vs electronic books, also digital art vs hand-drawn art, but as someone said above paper was never close to being abandoned, nor traditional art for illustration, comics, animation. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/72 "2021-01-05T04:31:20Z")
Come to think of it, as long as we are talking about music and abandoned formats, one format for music that has been pretty much abandoned is anything _not_ in equal temperament. Equal temperament is certainly convenient for a lot of 20th century Western atonal music, jazz, rock, pop, etc. Not necessarily so much for folk music, a cappella music, classical music both Western and non-Western, etc. But for sure each of us hears it all the time, enough to get really used to the sound, even if you also like bagpipes and Indian classical music. Different tuning may be making a little tiny bit of a comeback, but it is still safe to say not a significant comeback as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/73 "2021-01-05T04:35:47Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > today they outsell CDs (and of course are wildly more popular than they were 10-15 years ago). [US sales figures: “Vinyl records accounted for $232.1 million of music sales in the first half of the year, compared to CDs, which brought in only $129.9 million, according to a report from the Recording Industry Association of America.”] That’s not saying much, though: [![](https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/17244.jpeg) ](https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/17244.jpeg) In 1999, CDs sold $20 _billion_. And yeah, you can see the tiniest uptick of vinyl from 2010 to 2019, but compared to streaming it’s negligible. And the whole music sales industry has collapsed compared to 20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/74 "2021-01-05T06:25:21Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > On the 737NG the glass cockpit was now mandatory, In a similar rule, NASCAR racers have to have a “glass cockpit”, too. I guess it is for data collection. Anyway, some drivers program it for digital display, somie use bar graphs, and some have digitally-recreated analog gages displayed. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/75 "2021-01-05T10:21:01Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > That’s not saying much, though: **Dr.Strangelove** said just what I was going to. Pointing out how vinyl sales are soaring is misleading, when the sales of physical copies of music total have crashed. Anecdotally, of the people I know, those who aren’t heavily into music have moved 100 % onto streaming. They don’t buy CD’s, but they sure as hell don’t buy LP’s, either. They also don’t visit the struggling music stores that these days have more space for LP’s than CD’s. Buying either is a pretty fringe activity. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/76 "2021-01-05T10:38:55Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Not sure what you mean by “tactile”, but a _good_ fountain pen will [not skip/dry up and] write with zero pressure, thus making it extremely comfortable to use. As for something vaguely analogous to having a different sound and a different preference for “analogue” versus “digital” sound, last time I checked many fountain pens came with a rigid nib, but depending on your preference you might favour an extremely flexible nib— certainly it is more expressive. I imagine the flexible nib is what gives you the ability to create lines of varying width, which adds to the aesthetic of writing. I don’t use fountain pens myself but I have no criticism of those who like them. This is one area where I’ve gone modern. I do very little handwriting, but when I do, my instrument of choice is the Pilot G-2 gel-ink ballpoint pen. The rubber grip and extremely smooth feel of the gel ink makes it probably the most comfortable writing utensil I’ve ever used. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/77 "2021-01-05T11:06:57Z")
One thing to say of the CD, which is looking like a dead format here, is that it is highly effective for small bands to sell their music. Streaming gives them insignificant reward. They gig to small audiences who then make it worth it buying their music and merch. CD’s are durable, small, easily lugged to the venue and make the gig worthwhile rather than close to working for free. Every band who’s filling big enough venues to make it pay, have played a hundred gigs before and would be bankrupt through petrol costs alone without the likes of CDs. Cassettes, when those were sold at gigs, just weren’t good value though. That’s why I bought about 200 odd cds in 2019 (2020 doesn’t count, only got about 5 in). ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/78 "2021-01-05T12:22:46Z")
I’m not going to say something from the 2000s is abandoned but during lockdown I purchased a USB MP3 stick which I remember using 15 years ago as the cool on the go device for listening to downloaded songs. The reason is while having a smartphone with music apps and podcast apps is streamlined as a process rather than having to download then burn onto an MP3, I just got irritated of going for a run in the park or whatever and feeling my big sized phone shift inside my pocket. And no way was I going to buy one of those arm pouches to carry a phone I see others use. So I just bought a very small clip on MP3 that I am now totally oblivious to its presence while I’m moving. It uses a 32GB storage card and has a horizontal screen to see what is on a playlist. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/79 "2021-01-05T12:27:54Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Probably not too many; the whole vinyl thing isn’t driven by any actual measurable performance difference, but rather some kind of weird nostalgia-like phenomenon by people too young to have really experienced vinyl records in any significant fashion. (hint: they weren’t that good, but they were the best we had) Exactly. The system’s fatal flaw is friction. It degrades the record and the needle. ---
**Author:** ![Lavender\_Pebble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lavender_pebble/32/6290_2.png) [@Lavender\_Pebble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lavender_Pebble)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/80 "2021-01-05T13:54:52Z")
I wish I had a better answer. My guess is that “aesthetic” is really important to kids these days. And I think vinyl reads cooler than a CD (your dad had CDs) and is also easier to photograph, maybe because it reminds these non-hipsters of what they thought was cool when they were in grade school - a type of hipster nostalgia? That was probably created by Urban Outfitters carrying vinyl and marketing it to these kids. So if you want to impress your Instagram crowd, you hold up some vinyl next to your candy-colored Crosley and a monstera and BAM. Cool points. And they do actually seem to listen to it and have good insights about music, at least the ones that talk to me (which is probably a skewed sample if they are getting records in person rather than online). But we get A LOT of people that come into our store just for photoshoots too (especially marriage shots? Very weird), and they don’t buy anything. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535/81 "2021-01-05T14:34:11Z")
> [@Toxylon](#): > > Anecdotally, of the people I know, those who aren’t heavily into music have moved 100 % onto streaming. They don’t buy CD’s, but they sure as hell don’t buy LP’s, either. They also don’t visit the struggling music stores that these days have more space for LP’s than CD’s. Buying either is a pretty fringe activity. Heck, even those who are very into music seem to be happy with Tidal’s Hi-Fi tier (yes, Tidal has been ridiculed a bit, but those who are more audiophile (the most audiophile will use a DAC and physical music) swear by it for wifi streaming. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abandoned-formats-making-a-significant-comeback/929535.md?page=5)