# Why do Vinyl LPs Still Have A Market? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 25, 2013, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285 "2013-01-25T02:48:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/41 "2013-01-25T19:36:33Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Oh, anywhere from $50 to $20,000 I’d say. > > Do you have an amplifier? Hm…there may or may not be a receiver to connect it to. What if I don’t? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/42 "2013-01-25T19:50:08Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You’re not the only one I’ve heard say this. As someone who started buying vinyl in the mid-1960s and still has the vast majority of those records, let me say this in the nicest possible way. Are you freaking insane? I hate pops. I hate scratches. I hate skips. I listen for the music, and these are not music. They do not enhance the experience in any way, shape, or form. The best things about CDs and cassettes were a) portability and b) lack of pops. > > Pop music is great! Music with pops isn’t! Seconded, many times over. If clicks and pops are so great, why don’t they introduce them to live music? > [@FrankJBN](#): > > CDs will fail evetually even if never used. Got a cite for that? I have some CDs that are 30 years old. They play just fine. Since they haven’t been around for much longer than that, I wonder where your assertion comes from. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/43 "2013-01-25T19:50:22Z")
> [@kaoticharmony](#): > > When Cds first started they were too clean…I missed the pops… I have the same view of movies. I tried scratching the DVDs because I missed the scratch marks on film but it didn’t have quite the same effect. So I took a fork to my TV screen. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/44 "2013-01-25T20:00:02Z")
Edit: Quoted wrong post. This is for CD shelf life. I’ve heard this too. have a [peek](http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4.html) here. > [@](#): > > Among the manufacturers that have done testing, there is consensus that, under recommended storage conditions, CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R discs should have a life expectancy of 100 to 200 years or more; CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM discs should have a life expectancy of 25 years or more. Little information is available for CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs (including audio and video), resulting in an increased level of uncertainty for their life expectancy. Expectations vary from 20 to 100 years for these discs. > > Few, if any, life expectancy reports for these discs have been published by independent laboratories. An accelerated aging study at NIST estimated the life expectancy of one type of DVD-R for authoring disc to be 30 years if stored at 25°C (77°F) and 50% relative humidity. This testing for R discs is in the preliminary stages, and much more needs to be done. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/45 "2013-01-25T20:21:05Z")
I hope physical CDs do not disappear and we only have digital downloads. I can, and I’ll bet most others can, tell the difference in sound quality between the AIFF file on a CD and the low- to moderate level of digital encoding used to encode music files made available on iTunes and Amazon. I buy CDs, rip them into digital files at the highest possible level (320 bps, I think), and put those files on my iPhone and iPod. Save the CDs to listen to in my car. At this high level of digitizing, the music sounds good. Not so for the stuff I’ve had to download, which is encoded at about half or less of the 320 bps rate that I use. The stuff you download from commercial sites sounds very tinny to me, and that’s the worst. ---
**Author:** ![EdwardLost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@EdwardLost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwardLost)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/46 "2013-01-25T21:52:15Z")
Seems like you could pass digital recordings through a filter to give them that warm, vinyl sound. There’s probably an app for that. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/47 "2013-01-25T23:11:27Z")
> [@kaoticharmony](#): > > When Cds first started they were too clean…I missed the pops… > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You’re not the only one I’ve heard say this. As someone who started buying vinyl in the mid-1960s and still has the vast majority of those records, let me say this in the nicest possible way. Are you freaking insane? I hate pops. I hate scratches. I hate skips. I listen for the music, and these are not music. > [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I have the same view of movies. I tried scratching the DVDs because I missed the scratch marks on film but it didn’t have quite the same effect. So I took a fork to my TV screen. Yet various kinds of audio and video noise, distortion, and limitations _are_ deliberately introduced to otherwise pristine modern productions for aesthetic effect. I have a few albums on CD, created in the digital age, that did add pops and record-player sounds. There have been a few B&W movies made lately, and at least one silent. The point is, recordings (in whatever media) are artistic products in themselves, distinct from their source material, and the values of their production and enjoyment can vary widely. Clearest-window reproduction of a live performance (“listen for the music”) can be great, but valuing that exclusively is a choice. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/48 "2013-01-25T23:36:50Z")
> [@EdwardLost](#): > > Seems like you could pass digital recordings through a filter to give them that warm, vinyl sound. There’s probably an app for that. They do get passed through a smoothing filter as part of the decoding process, which is why I have a hard time thinking anyone but Superman or Steve Austin could actually tell the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/49 "2013-01-25T23:40:11Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Yet various kinds of audio and video noise, distortion, and limitations _are_ deliberately introduced to otherwise pristine modern productions for aesthetic effect. I have a few albums on CD, created in the digital age, that did add pops and record-player sounds. There have been a few B&W movies made lately, and at least one silent. > > The point is, recordings (in whatever media) are artistic products in themselves, distinct from their source material, and the values of their production and enjoyment can vary widely. Clearest-window reproduction of a live performance (“listen for the music”) can be great, but valuing that exclusively is a choice. Exactly, a tiny percentage of anything still exists for effect. It might be fun to listen to a few seconds of crackle in a movie to simulate the period. But 99.99% of people 99.99% of the time don’t want their music ruined for an effect. If you want pops in all your music all of the time you are freaking insane. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/50 "2013-01-26T00:09:24Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > They do get passed through a smoothing filter as part of the decoding process, which is why I have a hard time thinking anyone but Superman or Steve Austin could actually tell the difference. This is the reconstruction filter - it isn’t a smoothing filter - it provides bandwidth limiting of the output, and is the exact mirror of the bandwidth limiting that must occur on the input to the digitalisation process. There is a very interesting subtlety here. When we talk about Shannon’s theorem and sampled audio, something that is often missed is that the theory and the process is not limited to bands that start at DC and extend to a maximum frequency (half that of the sample rate, as defined by the Nyquist limit). The band that can be coded can be at _any_ frequency, it is the _width_ that is determined by the sample rate. CD rate audio is sampled at 44.1kHz, and that gives a maximum bandwidth of 22kHz. However that bandwidth could be placed at 1MHz to 1.022MHz. You would still only need to sample at 44.1kHz. In order to make this work you would need to bandwidth limit the input signal to only the selected band, and on output a similar filter is needed to ensure the output only appears in the same band. If you don’t use an input filter, frequencies outside the required band create energy in the band, the input filter is usually termed the anti-alias filter, because it prevents these out of band frequencies appearing as “aliases” of frequencies in the band. Audio is simply a special case, one where the lower frequency of the band is 0Hz, and thus no low frequency part of the reconstruction filter is needed to define the band. The high frequency band defining part of the reconstruction filter is still needed. It is this filter that is often confused as a “smoothing filter” or a filter that “joins the dots”, or other misunderstandings of the process. For a comprehensive overview of what the heck is going on with your digital audio, Dan Lavry wrote the most often cited guide. [Here](http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf), (PDF) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/51 "2013-01-26T00:26:10Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > I can, and I’ll bet most others can, tell the difference in sound quality between the AIFF file on a CD and the low- to moderate level of digital encoding used to encode music files made available on iTunes and Amazon. Meh. Bands have released high-quality digital masters before, there’s no inherent reason they can’t do it again. FLAC is reasonably popular these days and it’s lossless: There is no information lost going from a WAV (or other raw fresh-off-the-mixer format) to a FLAC, so the music will sound as good as your DACs, speakers, and ears will allow it to. And if all a band will release is shitty badly-encoded MP3s, well, all some bands in the past released were shitty badly-mastered CDs, or shitty badly-mastered vinyl, and so on. (Just feel lucky you aren’t listening to an old-time radio track, where the staticky gravelly mess _is_ the lossless high-fidelity version.) ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/52 "2013-01-26T00:58:14Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > Vinyl is cool and all, but I get all my music on Edison cylinders. But I have to admit I miss the warmth of when I used to collect wandering minstrels. My friend Reverend Peyton released [his tribute to Charley Patton on 78](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_damn_band#Peyton_on_Patton). But it came with a code to download the digital files, if the buyer wanted to actually, you know, listen to it. ---
**Author:** ![busterpickle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@busterpickle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/busterpickle)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/53 "2013-01-26T02:10:52Z")
> [@sangfroid](#): > > This is one of the coolest things I’ve heard on this board in a long time, **electronbee**. Thanks. > > I always thought I was one of those very few oddballs who occasionally listened to dated vintage music (in private, of course). I agree it’s like a time warp. Just curious: Where did you get your old radios? Craigslist and antique malls. They are the best source for a vintage radio that is not working. I know how to fix them so I can get them for cheap. 🙂 I avoid eBay and estate sales as they have a tendency to go for more than I am willing to buy them for. But, eBay does have the occasional item I must have. > [@Colibri](#): > > More interestingly, how do you receive old broadcasts? Via the Twilight Zone?🙂 Two ways to do it. I use a FM adapter, like one would for a car. This obviously only works on radios which have FM. A lot do though. Some consoles have a turntable, which has a phono pre-amp. I usually bypass the pre-amp and do a line-in. The kinda odd-ball part is, and I laugh as I say this, that I typically listen to Pandora through them. Has the best selection unless I have it already. Aside from the old “talkies” which the local library has and I bought some awhile back. Another thing that was mentioned once here, was the discontinued albums. When ever there is a technology change, stuff gets “lost”. You can see this with VHS to DVD and now DVD to BluRay. Some of the classics will be retained but there is still a lot of cool stuff out there. And, some snarky stuff that some individuals would like. 🙂 I hope the studios digitize it all and put it up. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/54 "2013-01-26T04:01:19Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > I can, and I’ll bet most others can, tell the difference in sound quality between the AIFF file on a CD and the low- to moderate level of digital encoding used to encode music files made available on iTunes and Amazon. The acid test would be blinded listening (the subject not knowing how the music was being reproduced). > [@](#): > > I buy CDs, rip them into digital files at the highest possible level (320 bps, I think), and put those files on my iPhone and iPod. > > Save the CDs to listen to in my car. > > At this high level of digitizing, the music sounds good. Not so for the stuff I’ve had to download, which is encoded at about half or less of the 320 bps rate that I use. Most digital downloads these days seem to be at around 256 bps. I was reading an article this past week about the Vinyl Renaissance, in which someone was rhapsodizing about the sound on an old Rickie Lee Jones master tape and how it could be largely reproduced on vinyl. Face it people, some music isn’t palatable no matter how glorious the sound. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/55 "2013-01-26T04:28:43Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > The acid test would be blinded listening (the subject not knowing how the music was being reproduced).Most digital downloads these days seem to be at around 256 bps. When the compression algorithms were designed a lot of blind testing was done. Which is part of the reason why the results are as good as they are. But the nature of compression does of course mean that something must intrinsically be lost. A big part of the compression design is to work out what bits of the lost information the ear can’t perceive - and tricks like looking for where masking effects occur are used. However some things really don’t compress easily, and noise is the most obvious. If you know what to listen for, sounds that carry a lot of noise components - which can include a lot of percussion, have noticeable artefacts. This is where tests can get into trouble. People who don’t know what the artefacts are may easily miss them, but like a lot of things - once you know they are there, and what they sound like, your brain has an annoying habit always hearing them. > [@](#): > > I was reading an article this past week about the Vinyl Renaissance, in which someone was rhapsodizing about the sound on an old Rickie Lee Jones master tape and how it could be largely reproduced on vinyl. Face it people, some music isn’t palatable no matter how glorious the sound. 🙂 As I pointed out earlier, that master tape will have been mixed with the intention that it could be reproduced on vinyl. This is a chicken and egg question. A master tape, was, by definition, the tape from which the pressing masters were cut. It doesn’t have some other magic properties of fidelity. If you wanted to get back to the ultimate, the answer would be to go back to the original multi-track session tapes and to remix them. Finding those tapes, using one of the modern high resolution tape recovery systems in the digital domain, and then remixing in the digital domain, would produce a result that would be noticeably superior. Of course for many albums this simply isn’t possible - either the tapes are long gone, or nature of the creation process of the music makes it impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/56 "2013-01-26T04:31:11Z")
Since this is more about aesthetics than technology, let’s move it over to Cafe Society. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/57 "2013-01-26T06:42:39Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > What genre of music are they? Are the covers in decent condition? Is there a Beatles Butcher cover in the lot? Give eBay a quick check to see if any had sold for over a couple of bucks recently. 60s and 70s rock and hippie stuff, some Beatles, Queen, Zepplin, Woodstock, etc. Most covers are well used. There’s a ridiculous quantity lol. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/58 "2013-01-26T13:14:35Z")
> [@kaoticharmony](#): > > One thing that really bothered me about cds was how it was pushed on the public. I didn’t want a CD player right then. Pushed? Music CDs were first released to the public in 1982. Per Wikipedia, it took until 1991 for the CD to supplant records and cassettes. Nearly a decade doesn’t seem “too fast” to me. ---
**Author:** ![janis\_and\_c0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janis_and_c0/32/21_2.png) [@janis\_and\_c0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janis_and_c0)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/59 "2013-01-26T15:26:50Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > 60s and 70s rock and hippie stuff, some Beatles, Queen, Zepplin, Woodstock, etc. Most covers are well used. There’s a ridiculous quantity lol. _drool_😛 ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285/60 "2013-01-26T15:32:28Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > I can’t imagine why anyone would pick an LP over a CD! But, vinyl still has a following! Can anyone explain why this is? Hipsters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-vinyl-lps-still-have-a-market/648285.md?page=4)