Entertainment For Lively Minds
In Defence of the Compact Disc
I'll stand up and say my name is Dr Volume and I still buy CDs, and I know from your blog posts a lot of the Massive do too.
There is much wrong with the CD format, I know the sound is not to some tastes and I'm sure nobody gets a proustian rush from hearing the clatter of jewel cases in a bargain bin or the squeak of plastic against plastic as you prise the disc from its mount.
But I'm of the Walkman and CD generation and similarly I get no particular pleasure from the surface noise or the ebb and flow of a bad pressing or warped vinyl record. I am quite sure that if you want to hear 'The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus' then it sounds best on Vinyl, but a lot of the music I like was never intended to be heard as such. To do so would be like printing out pages from the internet.
I buy downloads too, but generally speaking if it is one of my favourite artists or a particularly tasty looking re-issue like this one for example, then I will go down to the local indie shop and buy one. (btw these Spritualized discs are entirely matt black...they don't need to be all shiny and holographic!)
I still have an urge to collect music, and if its an album I really like then I like to own a hard copy.
While vinyl records may look, feel and smell nice they are also cumbersome, impractical, fragile and most importantly if you want to buy new music they are also incredibly expensive. A new release or re-issue on Vinyl will set you back £20 at least. As romantic as the notion of Vinyl is, I don't relish the though of cluttering my back bedroom with another 12 inches of plastic every time I want something new to listen to.
So for a 'master copy' what choice have I got? What have the surviving record shops got to sell people? What can the Word Magazine use to mount some new music on the front page? Until someone thinks of a better idea then it's still the much maligned and unloved Compact Disc.
If it's as beautifully packaged as the recent Kraftwerk box set...
...or the Mordant Music 'Dead Air' CD..
...then I'm happy and if everyone ditches the Jewel case in favour of the more tactile cardboard slip case then all the better.
Would love to hear what the massive think.
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Does anything
really sound better on vinyl? Isn't it just a mixture of nostalgia and rose-tinted specs which gives people that impression?
Some things do
A few weeks back I was sitting in my study with a glass of wine, listening to my vinyl copy of Tom Waits "Swordfishtrombones" and my wife stuck her head round the door to ask "That sounds different - why?". I hadn't played any vinyl for a couple of months and I had rarely played that on vinyl since it was one of the first CDs I bought.
She's not an audiophile hi-fi buff - a regular music listener who heard a difference.
I was listening to some old Blockheads singles too - they sound better on vinyl, crackles and all.
The difference in sound quality...
...between CD and vinyl often has a lot to do with quailty of equipment on which it's being played. To the average Joe with a Bush midi system, CD sounds superficially better because there are no crackles and pops, and if Joe were to be playing vinyl it'd be on a record player made of Milk Tray-grade plastic.
I found myself with a lump sum in 1990, having received a bit of 'compo' in the wake of a train crash. Still have the letter from then-Secretary of State for Transport, the late Paul Channing. 'Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to express her deepest condolences...' etc. Spent the lot on a turntable, an amp and a CD player.
Not long after, I came to be in possession of a very high-end cartridge, whose retail price in 1991 would buy you a two-year-old Ford Escort. All of a sudden, my turntable was making records sound like the musicians were playing just for me, in my house. It was such a huge step-up in reproduction.
Don't agree
With a suitably matched amp and speakers a CD based system is far superior to one with a turntable, which will just expose all the problems inherent in vinyl.
God, this feels like 1987 again!
Up and to a point...
...but beyond the point (maybe £500 per component?) a vinyl replay system has the potential to sound way better than a comparable cd system.
My Rega P25 with Audio Technica AT33PTG M/C cartridge sounds better, by and large, on a clean, decent pressing, than my AVI Lab Series CD player. Which would have cost over twice the price new (though I bought used). That's a £700 vinyl rig outperforming a £1500 cd player.
Not always the case, of course; set the turntable up wrongly, or let your records get mucky or damaged, then of course the cd player will win.
I've had a heap of turntables over the years - Linn LP12, NA Spacedeck, Clearaudio, Rega etc. - and they all basically sound much more musical than comparable cd players (even up to the really rather expensive category, such as the Naim CDS3/XPS2 which I once borrowed (£9k).
Nowadays I like to choose the third way (streaming on an SB+) and keep out of these arguments, by and large...
Different perhaps
but better?
Each to their own of course, but pops and crackles never made anything sound better to these ears.
In 1991
I got my first CD player, for my 21st birthday.
It was a relief and revelation - no more losing beloved albums to chewed tapes & scratched records. I have never looked back. My first CDs were:
I still have 'em, play 'em and love 'em.
I love the carboard
cases, they are so much better than the jewel cases and are quite aesthetically pleasing I think.
I have never been lucky enough to afford a decent turntable, so the difference in quality to me is negligible. I did inherit a decent set up from my father in the early 80s so can appreciate that vinyl is better than cd, but it was on its last legs and only lasted a few more years.
Dr Volume
well put and beautifully illustrated - nice to see someone kick against the argument that good packaging died with the ascendancy of the cd.
Great Review In The Current Word...
..for the Kevin Coyne Anthology and remastered Marjory Razorblade and the packaging to both are great in that me as a fan for umpteen years was given quotes and insights I'd not previously seen.
On the day of release EMI made 3 other Coyne albums available as downloads only with extra tracks - cynical or practical marketing I don't know. What I do know is that they haven't bothered remastering them like the reissues - there's no insights about the unreleased tracks and I for one won't be buying the downloads as I can hear them for free on Myspace streaming.
The simple reasoning is to try and show EMI there is a disparity in the sales between the CD release and the downloads - that might encourage a physical release or am I being optimistic????
Simple is best.
While I have a lot of sympathy as the cardboard cases do tend to be much more tactile, they're a bit of a pain when it comes to storage. I take the CD out of the case and put it, along with the booklet, in a folder, the case goes up in the loft. For me, the ideal CD packaging would be a booklet that includes all the artwork and useful information slipped into a clear CD sleeve with the CD. So far, Sparks are the only band to have supplied me with such an artifact.
Feel the Onion should have their say
http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/cd_sales_down_lp_sales_up