CD, Album, LP, ... or what?

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

TallPaul

Joined
Oct 22, 2003
Messages
13,131
Location
By Detroit
I find the term CD very boring and cold, where as the supposedly passe LP or Album are much livelier words. Maybe it's my age (I still say cut a lot of times rather than track), but I really like the newer cardboard cases, typically called digipak, as they remind me of the old cardboard cases for the 33 rpm vinyl records. Jewel cases suck, they are cheap, tacky, cheezy, and easily crack.

Rant over, but I would love to hear other's opinions, only when you comment, please state whether or not you grew up in the days of 33 rpm records.
 
I prefer the term 'album' as it is rather medium-independent, so it can be on a CD, vinyl, tape, or in electronic form (only available for download, but not on physical medium).

And yeah, I grew up with vinyl, but I mostly used cassette tapes.
 
Vinyl is the only way to go!!!!!! Analog recordings sound light years better than digital. Digital recordings sound sort`ve "tinny" to me. Analog has way more punch! I was born in 69,and I remember when cds came out (early 80s?????). The only thing I like about cds is that I can burn my uber rare lps onto them,so I can play the cds and preserve the original vinyl copies.

Oh,back to topic,the term "album" is much more appropriate imo.
 
Last edited:
An album is the complete work. It can be presented on CD, tape, vinyl, or a bunch of MP3s in a folder, but the complete work as presented by the artist - regardless of form - is album. And that's what I call it.

I prefer FLAC or high quality mp3. Or vinyl. Neil Young just sounds better on vinyl. It's as if he wrote 'Harvest' to be played only on a turntable.
 
Even within the digital music (CDs and mp3s), I swear that I can hear a difference between mp3s and CDs (bought and over the airwaves). The latter has a much richer and fuller sound. The mp3s seem to be missing a lot of sound.
 
Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
I prefer FLAC.
If you rip a CD using Windows Media (wma) "lossless" format, you'll get a file that is way bigger, say about 40,000 KB vs regular wma at about 4000 KB.

Yeah, I like "album" a lot because it is (or should be) n artistic collection or work. LP came from the albums on vinyl that actually said "Long Playing" on them, presumably vs a 45 rpm single. I remember buying albums in the late 60s that actually said "MONO" on them.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
Even within the digital music (CDs and mp3s), I swear that I can hear a difference between mp3s and CDs (bought and over the airwaves). The latter has a much richer and fuller sound. The mp3s seem to be missing a lot of sound.
MP3 format music files should sound about as good as a CD. Wma may not sound as good, but my poor ears can't tell. Also I notice that some music that sounds good on my earbuds does NOT sound good on my car stereo. Shows the limitations of earbuds I guess.

In '70 Johnny Winter put out the album Second Winter. It was a three sided record, where the second disk actually had a blank side. Johnny expained that they didn't want to leave anything out and wanted maximum volume, so they went with the extra disk side. So it seems that packing too much on one piece of vinyl could compromise loudness.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
The mp3s seem to be missing a lot of sound.

Of course. MP3 is a lossy format, which means some information is cut out. The more compressed the MP3, the worse it'll sound. Streaming radio stations typically use highly compressed formats to minimize bandwidth requirements - this of course makes for [censored] audio quality.
 
Originally Posted By: TallPaul
MP3 format music files should sound about as good as a CD.

Depends on the specific bit rate that was selected to encode that MP3 file. For example, a 320 kbps MP3 should sound almost as good as CD, to at least majority of people. On the other hand, a 32 kbps MP3 will sound like khrap.

For me personally, above 192 kbps MP3 is where I typically don't mind the sound quality; however, some really rich musical passages require a bit more to not sound muddy - that's where Variable Bit Rate (VBR) formats come in handy.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Digital recordings sound sort`ve "tinny" to me. Analog has way more punch!

Increasing loudness and decreasing dynamic range is what's been killing the CD sound for years now. Sucks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war



I record music for a living - Most of the microphones I use to record music are worth more than my car, and this impetus to make everything louder than everything else is the bane of my existence. It's ruining everything.

Really puts a crumbling economy in perspective, doesn't it!
33.gif


---

I prefer *good* vinyl pressings to CD, although it is much harder to get a properly mastered and pressed vinyl, and much much more expensive (to get a good stylus, a good drive motor on the turntable, etc.). CD's are just so darned convenient, and really cheap ones sound almost as good as really good ones. It's hard, though, to listen to your favourite albums on both CD and proper vinyl, as once you're able to hear the differences that make vinyl fell better to listen to, you'll never be able to listen to a CD without knowing what you're *not* hearing!

The format for CD audio itself is not optimal, and it has been only in the last 10 years or so that the analog-to-digital converters used to make the audio digital have stopped sucking. Ironically, these improvements in digital audio come just in time for an era where music is a distorted shrilly mess with no dynamic range.

---

I usually refer to a collection of songs, put out as one work, as an "album".

---

I much prefer the FLAC format to anything else when the need to compress audio (sending tracks to someone or archiving projects) presents itself. First off, unlike the horrid .mp3 format, FLAC is lossless, meaning that the bitstream, once decoded, is identical to the input file. Apple and Microsoft both make lossless codecs as well, but they are patent encumbered and closed source, and I know that the FLAC format will be around tomorrow and the next day because the source code is floating around out there.

If file space is an issue enough that you want to use lossy compression, the OGG Vorbis encoder apparently sounds less sucky than .mp3 for a given bit rate. again, it is open source and free, but most of your iPlayers won't play nice with it.
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more

If file space is an issue enough that you want to use lossy compression, the OGG Vorbis encoder apparently sounds less sucky than .mp3 for a given bit rate.

To expand on that, OGG Vorbis is really good at really low bit rates, and so is AACPlus. At bit rates as low as 32-48 Kbps they still sound pretty good, and hence are often used for streaming over internet. By comparison, a 32-48 Kbps MP3 stream sounds terrible.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more

If file space is an issue enough that you want to use lossy compression, the OGG Vorbis encoder apparently sounds less sucky than .mp3 for a given bit rate.

To expand on that, OGG Vorbis is really good at really low bit rates, and so is AACPlus. At bit rates as low as 32-48 Kbps they still sound pretty good, and hence are often used for streaming over internet. By comparison, a 32-48 Kbps MP3 stream sounds terrible.


Yeah, I've got to admit that Apple's codecs in any given area - H264, AAC (both lossless and lossy), and the proprietary ones they use for video editing in Final Cut are better than anything else I've seen or heard. Corporate codecs just scare the heck out of me...
 
It's sad to me that the younger gen will never know what a nice turntable and tube amp sounds like, I can barely remember myself. What kind of progress is [censored] sounding music???

I play guitar abit and that old glass (tubes) is highly sought after for the sound and reliability that new production tubes don't have.

I have tubes in my guitar amp that are 40+ years old and they sound better/last longer than any of the new stuff.
 
Originally Posted By: Pablo
8-trak
banana2.gif
I love it! I actually bought an 8-track cartridge at a garage sale so I could show my kids what I had to deal with as a teen. What I liked was if you didn't like a song you had 3 other tracks to switch to. Seems with Humble Pie, Rocking the Filmore, I played only one track (Hallelujha I Love Her So, I Don't Need No Doctor, and Stone Cold Fever). The rest of it didn't excite me much as I discovered when I 30 years later bought the CD.

Well my ears must be worthless as I enjoy wam format files at 128 kbps on a cheap mp3 fed into a 30 year old 100 watt Radio Shack amp that the right channel occasionally goes out on and I have to thump the amp to get it back in.

BTW, anybody know of a decent 100 watt amp (budget wise I don't want to spend over say $30) that would mount under the dash and would include volume and tone controls?
 
Also,you need a really good cartridge/stylus,and a vacuum tube amp/pre-amp. No digital recording on this planet will come close to the intense sound you`ll get.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

U
  • Locked
BOO! Happy Halloween! New Iggles album
Replies
0
Views
309
UncleS2
Back
Top Bottom