Vinyl records being popular again is very cool and not a comeback I would have ever expected. What’s really interesting to me is how much better quality they are than in previous decades.
Records had been around for a century (vinyl for about 40 years) by the time they were phased out of mainstream music distribution in the late 80’s. Over time, manufacturers used cheaper and thinner vinyl to the point where they were just complete and utter shit.
The ones they put out today are thicker and closer to audiophile grade than their predecessors.
Same thing happened with casette tapes and cassette mechanisms.
Most people think cassette tapes were terrible, because they remember the bargain basement iron tapes and no noise reduction. A top quality chrome casette when recorded well and played back on the right hardware is very difficult to tell apart from the digital original.
Similar story with VHS to be honest.
There’s a “minimum acceptable quality” which people were willing to tolerate, and manufacturers inevietably converge towards it in an effort to shave off a few cents here and there.
Audiophile now is very different, because it’s not a mass market consumer format any longer - it’s a niche hobby, and people are willing to pay top money for their hobbies.
Really? I’ve heard the opposite: that modern cassette players are garbage because they all reuse the same Chinese mechanism with mono playback and no Dolby noise reduction.
If you want a good cassette player, you’re supposed to buy one from the 80s or 90s, preferably a Sony.
The modern hobbyist resurgence is in vinyl, not cassette. I was only mentioning cassette to make the point that the same phenomenon occurs in other media too - of technologies getting worse over time. Especially true in cassette, in fact.
It seems hit or miss. Most of my vinyl is 180 gram, I guess because it isn’t the primary means of consumption for music these days, people expect to pay a little more for better quality. But I definitely have a lot of cheaper, thinner records that I bought brand new in the last few years.
They’re saying that by the late 80s when cassettes and CDs ultimately replaced the record, records had been in use for over a century, and the recognizable 12" disc format had been in use for 40 years prior to their replacement.
Vinyl records being popular again is very cool and not a comeback I would have ever expected. What’s really interesting to me is how much better quality they are than in previous decades.
Records had been around for a century (vinyl for about 40 years) by the time they were phased out of mainstream music distribution in the late 80’s. Over time, manufacturers used cheaper and thinner vinyl to the point where they were just complete and utter shit.
The ones they put out today are thicker and closer to audiophile grade than their predecessors.
Same thing happened with casette tapes and cassette mechanisms.
Most people think cassette tapes were terrible, because they remember the bargain basement iron tapes and no noise reduction. A top quality chrome casette when recorded well and played back on the right hardware is very difficult to tell apart from the digital original.
Similar story with VHS to be honest.
There’s a “minimum acceptable quality” which people were willing to tolerate, and manufacturers inevietably converge towards it in an effort to shave off a few cents here and there.
Audiophile now is very different, because it’s not a mass market consumer format any longer - it’s a niche hobby, and people are willing to pay top money for their hobbies.
Really? I’ve heard the opposite: that modern cassette players are garbage because they all reuse the same Chinese mechanism with mono playback and no Dolby noise reduction.
If you want a good cassette player, you’re supposed to buy one from the 80s or 90s, preferably a Sony.
Well yes that’s true.
The modern hobbyist resurgence is in vinyl, not cassette. I was only mentioning cassette to make the point that the same phenomenon occurs in other media too - of technologies getting worse over time. Especially true in cassette, in fact.
Good cassettes players are old ones.
It seems hit or miss. Most of my vinyl is 180 gram, I guess because it isn’t the primary means of consumption for music these days, people expect to pay a little more for better quality. But I definitely have a lot of cheaper, thinner records that I bought brand new in the last few years.
Hasn’t vinyl been around longer than 1985?
I suddenly feel old, doing the math wasn’t nice to me
They’re saying that by the late 80s when cassettes and CDs ultimately replaced the record, records had been in use for over a century, and the recognizable 12" disc format had been in use for 40 years prior to their replacement.
Oh duh, I misread that
Erm I have vinal records my dad gave me from the 50s
You are correct they are thin as shit though compared to the ones I buy now