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The invasion of unwanted vinyl records ....

  • 04-11-2022 7:25pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 936 ✭✭✭


    Everywhere I go to shop ... I am confronted with 50%+ of the store taken up with unwanted and ridiculously expensive vinyl LPs ... Golden Disks and local stores alike .... it is the same story .... CDs and DVDs get less space ... on TV shows they show these vinyls every time the musical guest is on ...

    To me these yokes are the most useless antiquated overrated pieces of junk revived by the industry for some reason unknown to me ... I see no one buying them and the staff in Golden Disks blaming Covid Brexit Ukraine etc when I ask for something on DVD or CD they don't have in stock ... it is all forcing these stupid vinyl records on us .... but I am having none of it and will not buy anything on these stupid outdated idiotic yokes ... meanwhile you can get exactly what you want on Amazon ... no wonder everyone's shopping online ......



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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,659 ✭✭✭SuperBowserWorld


    Can't you make flower pots out of vinal records ?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,276 ✭✭✭Ubbquittious


    Wait till they revive the wax cylinder. You'll be driven demented altogether by their outdatedness



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,465 ✭✭✭Anesthetize


    The vinyl revival made sense 10 years ago. Music was becoming increasingly less tangible and emphasis on sound quality was becoming less and less. It started with mp3s and the advent of streaming services such as Spotify accelerated it. The vinyl revival was the counter-reaction.

    It made vinyl more attractive to music collectors, who wanted something more interesting than CDs. They were still relatively affordable at the time, I remember getting quite a few records from Tower for well under 20 euro.

    But then it became a victim of it's own revival. Pressure on record-pressing factories meant supply not meeting demand, and driving up prices. Now a few years later, we still have overly-expense vinyl sitting on the shelves of Golden Discs and Tower Records.

    CDs will always be the best format for music in terms of trade-off between sound quality and convenience. Long live the Compact Disc.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    Too expensive, too much effort involved… skipping tracks, changing sides etc, need way more room for storage…

    i bought some of my favourite albums on vinyl about 8 years ago to put in frames as a sort of wall art decorative collage collection that worked out rather well… a few older ones appreciated nicely and I’ve others in boxes which are worth a few bob.

    ive an aunt who was a singer back in the day and rubbed shoulders with the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Shirley Bassey… her children wernt interested in that genre of music beyond in a general sense … so the aunt was keeping vinyl of theirs, all that stuff for me until my American cousin got wind and managed to wangle most of it…she’d my uncle wrapped around her finger… knowing her, and how flighty she was / is …years later it probably ended up on eBay.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 70,172 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    I have quite a lot of vinyl. However, the move for everything to be on vinyl first is very annoying

    There are very few decent mastering engineers left, so lots of new vinyl releases are absolutely bloody awful - worse than listing on youtube on a phone.

    This, for instance, was so badly mastered I bought it on CD. Maybe that's the point - get two sales!



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,285 ✭✭✭✭EmmetSpiceland


    Golden Discs is not the shop I would be going to for buying vinyl. It’s the sort of place where people who don’t really have a clue about music would go.

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,842 ✭✭✭Don't Chute!


    Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Gang of Four, The La’s. Just some records I’ve bought in Golden Discs, is that not music?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭Count Dracula


    Vinyl encompasses a deeper more textured sound, which synthesizes harmoniously with production techniques from a contrasting respective of musical genres.

    It can record and expel greater quantities of sound at every percentile of its' relative decibel. I think the ratio is 37/29 in favor of vinyl over digital. It always wins.

    Digital sound cannot replicate its authenticity. Real music lovers prefer the depth in sound a vinyl recording can reproduce. It really is that straight forward.... or devilishly encountered if played backwards.

    Musical preference and entertainment garnered from it is entirely subjective to its listener, however the quality and science of its' amplification is entirely standardized. You simply will hear a better sound on vinyl, cackles and all.

    I might remark that this may change in the future, I assume that musical recording techniques will evolve, but as things stand the best sound is vinyl.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Two lads playing vinyl. It goes off the rails a bit, but some of the tracks are amazing.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    Absolute tosh. A CD can encompass a greater dynamic range than vinyl because there isn't the limitation of the physical room for the groove to move side to side. In order to make a vinyl pressing you have to compress the dynamic range to reduce the amount of groove excursion just so you can get the length of a musical piece onto the disc. It's called the RIAA bias curve, where trebble is boosted and bass is compressed as it takes up the most space in terms of groove wiggle. The phono stage of a preamplifier has a reverse bias built into it's circuitry to uncompress the audio. I have to laugh when people talk of a'natural' or 'pure' vinyl sound when it's been messed with, a lot.

    A preference for vinyl sound is simply a preference for it's technical limitations that lead to a technically more compromised sound. This was shown when recoding engineers took vinyl recordings, recorded them and burned audio CDs from the recordings. They then set up a blind listening test where the original vinyl and burned CD were played back on the same reference quality system and people, including vinyphiles, were asked to distinguish between the two. They couldn't. I have direct experience of this as I used to record my vinyl to a DAT deck and then listen to them. One benefit of this was doing a time consuming 'master clean' to get as much dust off the LP as possible, not to mention skipping tracks I didn't like and making tape mixes of different LPs.

    A CD can therefore sound exactly the same as vinyl, so it's not a limitation if that sound profile is preferred. Digital audio is like a superbly made transparent glass bottle. It doesn't sound like anything. What you get out of it is wholy dependent on what you fill it with - fill it with a vinyl recording and that's what you will get back out, fill it with a well mastered recording with headroom and no compression, and that's what you get back out; fill it with a hugely copressed track for maximum playback volume and no headroom and that's what you get back out.

    The supposed criticisms and sound preferences that are used by some to criticise CDs are in fact misplaced criticisms of the quality of the mastering of the content stored on it.

    You don't get people blaming the inadequacies of wine bottles for how the wine tastes, it goes without question that if you put Penfolds Grange Hermitage into a bottle, then what you pour out of it is going to taste rather nice, but put rubbish into it and that's what you are going to get out again.

    I for one do not miss one bit, squeezing the trigger of a zero-stat gun repeatedly over a spinning LP to flood it with negative ions to dampen the ststic charge so the several minutes of carfully sweeping a carbon fibre brush across the surface would actually be able to shift some of the dust out of the grooves, loosened of their static charged attraction. And then of course, carefully positioning the stylus of the moving coil cartridge that cost more than a CD player, only to hear the dust such a process sometimes couldn't shift.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭Count Dracula


    You could have stated everything you educated me with above, with far more distinction... and it may have been a more comfortable read, if you had managed to exclude the first two words of your diatribe.

    Vinyl not only has a deeper sound, it also exudes more resonance which adds to a greater listening experience. That's a fact.

    Modern digital sounds forced. You cannot reciprocate the immense intensity of a bass boomer in a crowded skank house with a digital format, vinyl is built to flow through a bass boomer, all grooves aside.

    Furthermore all the best music has been made in an era when vinyl was both necessary and relevant. A 70's rock band should be heard full blast on vinyl, remastered digital is pure gimick, just my humble opinion.

    Music is a beautiful form of artistic expression, enjoy it anyway you can. Preferences are everywhere.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,382 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    Not sure mastering genius of any level could rescue source material provided by Ash...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,415 ✭✭✭Former Former Former


    I'm not sure if this is a joke, I really hope so.

    I bought an album on vinyl in Golden Discs this week. I wanted this album. Golden Discs is the nearest record shop to me. They had it in stock. I bought the album in Golden Discs.

    What am I doing wrong?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,893 ✭✭✭Allinall


    Shops called Golden Discs and Tower Records selling records?

    Well I never.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,537 ✭✭✭✭blade1


    Some people look down on others because of where they shop or whether or not the music they listen to is "real music".

    There's a name for these people.

    Dickheads.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,527 ✭✭✭✭AMKC
    Ms


    Music is a beautiful form of artistic expression, enjoy it anyway you can. Preferences are everywhere.


    It certainly used to be but it's a dieing bred now. Honestly does anyone even care or know what artists are in the so called charts these days? I know I for one do not have a clue as far as I am concerned the real charts died when Apple came and destroyed music with there devices.

    There was a time when I could easily tell you every artist in the the top 20 and if they were any good or not.

    As for which format is best for me it's CDs. I grew up on CDs. I still remember my Brother bringing home his Philips multi CD player it could load 7 CDs at a time and the sound was amazing some years after that he got one that could do 3 or 4 times as many CDs but sadly it did not last.

    As for the Philips one well I have that now it still works at least it did a few years ago as I have not used it in years sadly as its quiet bulky. I must take it out and see is it still working.

    Live long and Prosper

    Peace and long life.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,338 ✭✭✭Bit cynical


    With streaming and downloadable music, sellers of physical media have to provide a contrasting product. Small formats like CDs don't really cut it in that and hence the move to vinyl. I don't purchase vinyl records myself but I can see the attraction. You are buying a piece of visual art as well as a sound format of moderately good quality.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,537 ✭✭✭✭blade1


    Stuff like this doesn't come cheap but as a package it's stunning imo.




  • Registered Users Posts: 815 ✭✭✭kazamo


    Vinyl is back because they make more money out of it.

    Just looked at the Golden Discs website. Dermot Kennedy on CD is €14 and on vinyl it’s €30. Beyonce on vinyl is €75 which is truly staggering. The CD version is €15.

    Record Labels are harping back to the good old days when they had a captive market pre streaming and on line shopping when they could charge whatever they liked. They want their cash cow back.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,698 ✭✭✭✭For Forks Sake




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 277 ✭✭newirishman


    That is quite some funny waffle, and of course by and large incorrect.

    Here’s some good starting point: https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Myths_(Vinyl)

    The only thing that vinyl has is that the cover and booklet is bigger, and the tactile difference.

    Anything you stated about the sound being ‘better’ is wrong.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 70,172 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    You know that any music made in the past, oh, 40 years will have been stored as linear PCM - the format on a CD - at some stage (of not all stages) between production and pressing?

    Vinyl needs specific mastering to make it sound at its best, which is only going to be as good as a CD sounds. If its not done right, it sounds like absolute crap

    People are buying it again for the experiential elements - not for the sound quality. Lots are listening on mono speaker, circular stylus, ceramic cartridge suitcase systems too - so they're not even getting close to the pressed quality. Have heard those systems that have clearly had no working RIAA equalization too.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,321 ✭✭✭✭NIMAN


    I blame hipsters.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,479 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    Music was good though when you had to pay for an album.

    Free access has ruined innovation and progress.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,698 ✭✭✭✭For Forks Sake




  • Posts: 2,725 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Fancy yourself as a bit of a BP Fallon sort do you, Emmet?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,285 ✭✭✭✭EmmetSpiceland


    God no, Doc. I wouldn’t dare compare myself to the great BP.

    A lovely, knowledgable, man. Have met him on a few “occasions”, always has some great stories.

    Did you know he penned the lyrics for the song ‘Flight of the Ibis’ on the album by ex-King Crimson members Ian McDonald and Michael Giles?

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭Count Dracula


    Its the same with getting to eyeball a bit of pornography.

    Years ago procuring porn was a public exercise. Entering Your local dirty movie store, with your hood on as you walked to the door and rang the bell like a creepy outcast.... then selecting your sexual preference and banking on that particular human on the front cover doing the trick for you back home. Finally the cringey purchase with the smiling video shop attendant, looking you up and down like you were some sort of degenerate pervert not fit to see the light of day.... with a smile and thankyou. I used to hate the awkward polite auvrevoir to the fucker as you pan faced your way back out the shop as if nothing happened.

    Then the exciting journey home....

    Modern music lovers could not possibly appreciate decent music these days. Especially considering the snorgasbord buffet of Scat, Clusterphuck , anal pegging , deep throating collage of shear sleaze available on their laptops today. They don"t even have to leave the room. I don't know how the youth of today handle their guilt.

    If I wanted to listen to the new Clash album I had to establish where it was being released and then, when it was?I needed the cash and more importantly i probably needed to order it.

    That meant something whilst pulling off the outer sleeve and quickly gawking at the inside cover art before gently placing a sporless needle on your groove of choice, full blast of course, none of your surround sound shight either, i used to love fiddling with the direction of speakers to develop the biggest wuff off the phuckers.

    Graphic equalizers are for knobends.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,058 ✭✭✭✭Dial Hard


    I saw an interesting Twitter thread recently by a recording engineer explaining why CD is the closest you'll get to what they want you to hear. I'll see if I can find it.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭Count Dracula


    I have thought that through. I reckon that modern generations are suffering from acute audio deficit ( AAD).

    They are the victims of their own modern lifestyle ,whereby they have been cajoled by tech execs into believing that digi tech is better because it is newer. They embellish this via other media like online reviews, or a mock ad spread in GQ by Steinhauser. Some sexy couple lounging half naked in a trendy living room leaming their arses against an oak finishef Bang and Olafffffffson.

    Gobshights altogether.

    Their ears are spoiled on contemporary hogwashed handout. They have never queued outside for tickets or smoked in a bar, like actually inside one. The modern ear is deprived stimulation via lack of effort, you can't even tune a distorted radip any more.

    Older listeners have better ears. That is why they appreciate the stronger sound that vinyl delivers.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    Definite preference for vinyl over CD. I always hated CD, I hated their poxy fragile cases, their poxy fragile surfaces that make the whole record die on it's arse if damaged, how easily they break. I can remember when they were introduced, they were claimed to be the kryptonite of audio formats, almost impossible to damage, in reality they're fragile as ****. They suck balls.

    Give me vinyl any day, expecially for albums that were made before the 2000s.

    Only problem with vinyl now is the price has been driven up by demand and collectors. I buy the damn things to play them, not store them



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,285 ✭✭✭✭EmmetSpiceland


    Neil Young was complaining, years ago, that you only got a small percentage of the sound he wanted on CD. His beef was all about compression, I think. Really hated MP3 and streaming services.

    I’ve always preferred vinyl but unless you’re playing it on a top sound system you may as well be listening to a CD or download.

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,465 ✭✭✭Anesthetize


    Unless you're throwing them about like a frisbee, CDs don't damage that easily. It's easy to look after them once you store them correctly, and transfer them straight from case to CD tray.

    I've built up a sizable CD collection over the years and never had one badly scratched or damaged.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 70,172 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Neil Young is nearly deaf, so his comments on this can be thrown away as nonsense.

    He then released a digital music player, using 192kHz sampling which is known to have worse results than the 44.1kHz of CD; to just compound the bullshit from him.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,537 ✭✭✭✭blade1


    Everything lasts if taken care of.

    I've the whole day to myself at home just listening to vinyl.

    I bought this lp (iirc) in comet records in cork when it came out, probably early 1990.

    It's still sounds fantastic and better than a lot of the newer stuff which I find can be hit and miss.




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,947 ✭✭✭Greyfox


    The Vinyl revival is for people who like to throw money away



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,537 ✭✭✭✭blade1


    You mean spend money.

    That's what's it's for ya tight b*stard! 😆



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,465 ✭✭✭Anesthetize




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭Count Dracula


    You won't find me headbangun to Crazy Horse in my living room on Digital either.

    Vinyl all the way , in fact anyone experiencing psychadelic rock on a CD need to take a minute and have a good hard look at themselves and whatever they are up to.

    I listen to crazyvHorse on my decks with the earth off, the feedback, singe and subliminal electric twang gives me the horn. That sound is impodsible to reciprocate. Digitally.

    Its sad really. Digicells have never really heard rock n roll properly before. Never felt the wind of basekick in the middle of Layla or the Guns of Brixton.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,947 ✭✭✭Greyfox


    Na, it's common sense. Paying for things that are free is a bit silly, I'd rather keep my money for beer



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,554 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    If you are listening to psychedelic rock in the "right state of mind" looking in a mirror can be a scary experience.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,537 ✭✭✭✭blade1


    Some people would think buying beer is throwing money away.

    How 'bout you spend your money how you like and everybody else spend it how they like.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭Count Dracula


    Not as scary as being locked from dawn to dusk in a medieval coffin for the last 937 years. You should try it sometime buddy? I have suffered from acute paranoia resulting from advanced Claustrophobia since the 1440's. That's a long time pal, Henry VIII hadn't even been born then., smartass.

    Some people just don't get it, do they?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,000 ✭✭✭✭astrofool


    The vinyl revival is literally record execs taking advantage of gullible purchasers. It'll die off in a few years ago along with the remnants of the high street record shops (or they'll have to morph into something else).

    The medium really doesn't matter as alluded to earlier, it's about how it's used.

    Now, the nostalgic days of browsing, listening and buying records, I understand, now, all music is almost immediately accessible anywhere it's wanted and that drives homogeneity of what gets produced.

    (it also concentrates the available revenue into the hands of fewer artists which causes other issues)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,049 ✭✭✭NewbridgeIR


    A bit unfair.

    Here is a Golden Discs chart from 1981. Not exactly mainstream.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,743 ✭✭✭dasdog


    I never liked CD's - still have records I bought in the nineteen eighties I would fight to the death for. Spindizzy and Freebird for the win although I did see some kids pointing at Miles Davis Bitches Brew in Golden Discs earlier which I was well impressed with.

    Saturday afternoon shopping was Charles Mingus, Miles Davis and the great Cathal Coughlan's - Telefís A Dó.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,049 ✭✭✭NewbridgeIR


    I have been buying vinyl since 1981, CDs since 1986. I buy stuff every week without fail.

    Both formats have their advantages & disadvantages.

    CDs work best for jazz, ambient tunes, tracks with quiet passages, long form abstract pieces, live recordings and genre compilations

    60s beat, psych & mod tunes all work best on 7"

    Techno, drum 'n' bass, house, hip hop works best on 12"

    Most rock & indie will hold their own on vinyl, once the pressing isn't compromised by length

    Multi disc box sets & reissues are ideal for the CD format - the vinyl equivalent would be cost prohibitive and wholly impractical - so what often happens is a cut-down vinyl release (usually half the tracks missing) for twice the price.

    LP artwork is obviously superior to scaled-down CD images but a well-annotated CD box is lovely especially with a decent book containing essays, sleevenotes & information that contextualises the recordings.

    So in my opinion, if you are into listening to music on physical media then you need both formats.

    I find that a lot of people who climbed on board the vinyl revival train are now dissing CDs in a rather exaggerated fashion - it's like they're over-compensating for ignoring the format for so long. I know people who stopped buying records in 1991, re-started a few years ago and are constantly telling me how rubbish CDs are.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,743 ✭✭✭dasdog


    eBay around 1998 on dial up modem and posting of physical dollars which had to be exchanged at a bank was the golden age for bargains.

    Nobody wanted records.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭Count Dracula


    Just before this gets out of hand, I just want to state that I own a mulitude of CD's. They are scattered all over the gaff and I do enjoy listening to a CD driving home in the evenings.

    Anything would beat the bland humdrum of drivetime radio, it really is not good for your soul to be sat listening to an avalanche of propaganda and current affairs when you could be bopping along to your favourote tunes, or indeed your collection of illicit audio porn, whatever grabs your bag.

    CD's can deliver in the car, it happens.

    But vinyl still sounds more profound.

    The Rivers of Babylon is a revelation when first experienced on 7 or 12 inch. It brings you right back to the dance floor. What a groove.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,049 ✭✭✭NewbridgeIR


    I remember those days fondly.

    But 1993 was the nadir.

    My local record shop got 502 copies in of U2's Zooropa on release day. 300 CDs, 200 cassettes and 2 LPs.

    I had pre-ordered one LP, someone else the other. A week later, I saw the second copy in the racks. The owner told me that the guy changed his mind so I bought that one as well.

    Similar for Nirvana's In Utero, Neil Young's Unplugged, Kate Bush's The Red Shoes, PJ Harvey's Rid Of Me......

    In Virgin and HMV, nearly every new LP on a major label was discounted after a few months - usually to £3.99 or less. They just couldn't shift them. George Michael's Older being the most notorious example. HMV got in 10 copies. I bought one, a mate bought another and an unknown person the third. They were stuck with seven copies for weeks on end, eventually selling them off for £3.99. Sadly I didn't buy another - and it's become the most sought after LP of the decade, routinely selling for €800+ - albeit was finally reissued in September.

    Whipping Boy's Heartworm - plenty copies of the blue vinyl pressing in Virgin at the time, nearly everybody ignoring it and buying the CD or cassette (now there's a crap format). When it was reissued last year, they all came out of woodwork, all anxious to post photos of them playing it.



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