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There will always be the debate about sound quality difference and from those that haven't listened to vinyl since the 1980s and probably didn't take care of the media itself it makes a lot of sense for them to harbor "anger" or "resentment" over the format still existing but they do seem to negate the concept that collectors can and will collect whatever they prefer and also vinyl is still heavily used by studio musicians and DJs and other people working in the music industry. It was never going anywhere. For the sake of quality, enough can't be said of hearing the proper sound of those old analog 70s and 80s masters. If it was mixed and mastered on tape originally, I typically don't want a digital re-master. I want the original recorded sound. I want vinyl. Anything after 1988 can be a grey area, because it was probably mastered digitally, anyway. It's honestly a blessing and a luxury to be able to collect any physical media and be able to access digital content on demand in so many manners. At the end of the day, anything between vinyl, CD, digital, etc. is just an approximation of what has been recorded live and mastered by professionals who know their art better than we do. Just be happy in your pursuits and pay no heed to the grouches here! For myself, I will never begrudge anyone what format they prefer for music listening. My only issues come in when some make unsubstantiated claims about the audible superiority of one format over another, especially if they are trying to sell you something. I do disagree with what you say above regarding how one goes about trying to recreate the original recorded sound, especially regarding 70s and 80s analog masters. As you note, those masters exist on tape originally, not on LP. And there is quite a process involved with taking those master tapes and RE-mastering them for LP. Dynamics are compressed and the RIAA curve is applied in order to try and compensate for all the limitations that are part of the vinyl format itself. On the other hand, a high resolution digital capture of the original analog tapes *is audibly indistinguishable* from the original analog master. So if one plays the original analog master back to back with the digital capture of it, people are unable to reliably tell which is which. In the high rez capture process, every nuance of the original analog recording is captured. So here you can correctly surmise that a high rez capture of an analpg recording is giving you exactly what you say you want - "the original recorded sound." And the fact that no one has been able to reliably hear differences between the high rez masters and high quality CD down-samples is even more good news - a CD quality version of the high rez master is also likely to be audibly indistinguishable from the original analog master tape, or the high rez master itself . There are other complications, as in the fact that those 70s and 80s recordings were often mastered on the pretty horrible Yamaha studio monitors that existed back on those days (the infamous Yamaha NS10M), and what you are actually hearing is mastering engineers making EQ and processing choices based on how the recordings sounded on rather bad speakers. For this reason, modern remasters using far more transparent mix chains and monitors can sound considerably BETTER than the original master tapes, analog or otherwise. After all, stereo recordings are nothing but artificially created approximations of the sound heard in the performance venue, all filtered through the mics, recording console, monitor speakers, and ultimately the recording engineer's hearing (which is often shot, due to the fact that recording engineers are often exposed to very high volume levels for extended periods of time). None of this is meant to disparage those incredibly talented people that create some of our favorite recordings. But it's also true they are limited by the tools at their disposal (poor monitor speakers or damaged hearing). Anyhow, enjoy your music anyway you like. Despite what I say above, there is a part of me that still misses the experience of playing an LP end to end
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8-track will have it's day again... ;-)
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Just a cursory memory inventory... Last time I bought a CD: Today, March 15th, 2023 (Schumann: Piano Quintets Op. 44 & 47, Emerson String Quartet) Last time I bought a digital download: March 14th, 2023 Last time I listened directly to a CD: February 28th, 2023 Last time I listened to an entire album on a streaming service: March 14th, 2023 Last time I listened to music from my NAS: right now as I'm typing this (Jean Michel Jarre & Moby: Suns Have Gone from Electronics 1: The Time Machine is blasting through our living room this very moment) Next to last time I listened directly to a CD: December 2017 Last time I bought an LP: April 2022 Next to last time I bought an LP: November 1987 Last time I directly listened to an LP: 2017
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SPECTRE's plan is working. Soon everyone will be getting up from their chairs to flip the record to side 2.
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