Old vinyl records

Discussion in 'New Roundtable' started by shane0911, Feb 26, 2014.

  1. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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    The biggest problem with cassettes was that the cassette players tended to eat them. They were undependable for lasting power. However I still have a few hundred cassettes that I haven't listened to in years.
     
  2. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    I do play vinyl today, just not as much. I have upgraded many albums I own to digital for the convenience of listening to them on a computer/iPod, etc. But many, many records I own have never been available on CD or digital download.

    If the disk is pristine there is almost no surface noise. There is some audible tape hiss on old recordings but that is there ion the digital versions, too. New all-digital recording have no tape hiss. The ultimate analog recording is reel-to-reel tape which has no surface noise and none of the compression that they used on records to keep loud passages from making the needle jump out of the groove.

    Much depends on the quality of the sound system. Most people nowadays don't have a sophisticated home stereo system that audiophiles have. The listen on small speakers or earbuds. Even the "home theatre" systems can't approach the sound of a good tube-amp "Hi-fi" with horn-loded speakers. A really good audio system will expose the flaws of digital recording as well as analog ones. It is important to remember that a digital signal is a sampling of the original analog musical sound that has to be made analog again to hear it. That means only pieces of the sound are kept and then an analog signal it must be synthesized from fragments of the original. There is loss of sound quality during all of this. If you ever listen to a Super-Audio CD (SACD) you can tell what I'm talking about. Those are sampled at a MUCH higher rate than ordinary CD's and you can hear the difference.

    [​IMG]
     
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