vinyl records

I like both but cds are just more convienent to have and use.

I like both equally, I think. I'm not sure.

Since I've grown up with vinyls they are my first choice. Those big gatefold sleeves (some of them real art  works) and warm analog sound are the crucial reasons. Luckily, with the appearance of CD I didn't cast away my record collection of which I'm very proud ( while I'm writing this I'm just listening to Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' LP on first pressing Vertigo 'swirl' label ! ).

Back in the vinyl age I would always record to cassette whenever I got a new one to keep them fresh from damage.  Still, vinyls are too easy to harm.  When the CD age came around I was thrilled.  No more scratch and dust sounds sounds!  I still have all my vinyls and have even transferred some that haven't come out on CD to CD.  But I still have everything I ever bought.  I'd love to find a good home for the ones that I don't need to hang on to for either album cover art or lack of issue on CD as I am running out of room for my CDs and DVDs.

I have about 250 CDs and 50 vinyls.  Both have pros and cons, I slightly prefer CDs because of convenience.  Itt really depends, though, there are certain albums I would much rather own on vinyl than CD for one reason or another.

Surely  when you put on lets say "Close to the edge" or "Thick as a brick" on vinyl and you sit back in your comfortable chair with the big album cover in your hands  you must feel like you are experiencing it as it was meant to be !  even if the sound isn`t as good as CD  its still the real deal rendered the way it was meant to be ... its a bit like driving a classic old car compared to a new car there's that timeless  beauty about history about driving old cars..  they are not as high performance but they have something extra new cars don`t .   To think we can enjoy a prog LP  the same way  those prog hippies did back in the late 60`s early 70`s ...  don`t pass up this opportunity just because of  technology  you could be denying yourself a window into the very  place prog was born.

When you think about some of us prog heads contradict ourselves we winge and moan if a prog band uses digital keyboards  secretly we want to see the names ... Arp .. Moog or Hammond mentioned and not definitely 80`s digital keys like  Yamaha d X 7    .. so we crave the analogue in our prog but many of us  reject vinyl records ... interesting


Edited by Masque - February 23 2007 at 23:57

I voted for about the same.

At this time I am chasing old vinyls at antique shops because I want to submit here some  local bands from the 70s... However I would choose the CD instead of a vinyl disc anytime, anywhere. 

For sound quality, I must say that vinyl records are ages behind CD's  But I agree with those of you who said that art cover is a good reason to keep you old LP's on a shelf.

I have a slight preference to vinyl, but I do love my Cds. 

 I prefer my LPs because they are so beautfiul. haha...well they're big and the art work is so nice to look at usually.  The sound of a record has a personal characteristic that all the digital forms are missing.  The sound captures me, it is warm and cozy, I love the cracks and pops that may effect some vinyls more than others, and there's nothing like the anticipation of waiting to get home to listen to a specific album or record that is a favorite or just hasn't quite hit the ears yet.   There's also the wonderful  time that can be spent staring at all the albums in a record store.  I don't want to spend hours online looking at albums on Itunes, I want to spend a whole day at a record store.  I don't really care about carrying my collection with me because I have my car which plays Cds quite nicely, computers and stereos seem to be near by everywhere, or I'm working or in class and shouldn't be worrying about those things.

With CDs they cleaned everything up.  Everything became crystal clear which is good in some cases, but in others (especially with a bad producer and bad engieer) the sound becomes flat and dull.  The album doesn't come to life.  However, with the good recordings on CD it allows for a very full sound that could easily knock one's ears off.  I'm thinking specifically with drums and bass tracks that are mixed so well they could be in the room or car with you (as could the other instruments, but I tend to listen closely to bass and drums first).   This quality can  be had on  LPs too, but there is still a differenece.  The liner notes became slightly more extensive with CDs than with LPs which I like a lot because I want to know who did what on an album.  I also like to hear stories behind the album (which is why the Rhino releases of the Elvis Costello recording are so awesome.  Costello wrote the notes and they are about 5-6 pages in length).

This Ipod/Itunes age sucks. 

The case with Itunes is that I feel like everything that was so interesting and wonderful about the previous recording medias is gone.  I could pay 5-9 bucks for an album on itunes, where I will have whatever number of recordings on my computer (which I could later burn onto a cheap CD-R) and some .jpeg images, or I could pay between $3-$20 for a new or used  vinyl or CD.  I'll take the vinyl/Cd.    Itunes also bothers me because it tends to promote the downloading of individual songs instead of entire albums, and with this kind of promotion I feel the art of making an album will die (or at least suffer greatly).  The record companies are worried about their business failing because people are illegally downloading albums, but I believe they could help fix the problem by putting out and scouting for artists that are actually good at what they do, instead of putting out another clone of a previous terrible pop star, or new or used.

I was furious to find that Itunes offers the Starsailor album by Tim Buckley.  Not only is it "out of print", the only copies around cost over $150.  If it is available on Itunes why not rerelease it on CD!