MP3 VS FLAC VS CD VS Cassette VS Vinyl (video idea)

[Ithanul]

42 minutes ago, themctipers said:

new = new to the user

am lucky i have a bunch of vinyl records and cassettes, and even a DAT (digital audio tape) player / tapes sitting around in the basement, 

along with stupidly expensive speakers and amp, using that now. seriously, why is this sitting in the basement unused, rotting away?

High chance the previous owners no longer use those formats and moved on to a new format.

There a reason myself and my family threw out our cassettes and VHS tapes.  Old tech eating up space.

[themctipers]

1 minute ago, Ithanul said:

High chance the previous owners no longer use those formats and moved on to a new format.

There a reason myself and my family threw out our cassettes and VHS tapes.  Old tech eating up space.

don't use it but its sitting around in the basement, 

they don't really care and i get to fuck around with a bunch of old tech

[MadModder]

I have 4 computers, and 7 pairs of headphones. The same music/sound is completely different using these devices. Even if I use the same platform, and swap headphones, the experience is completely different. Then you also have the fact that different people may not like your choice of music, so it won't "sound" good to them anyway.

The same would be true if you asked people to look at a picture. The color would vary according to what gpu, and monitor they are using. It might look great on one rig, and terrible on another, which would have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the original picture.

If I play a cd on my stereo (mid-range), and take the exact same cd and play it on my brother's stereo (high-end) it sounds completely different.

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

People are stupidly biased.

 

Even comparing different headphones, etc, or high end DAC vs onboard, AMP vs no AMP, etc.

 

Audio is so subjective to the listener that even identical experiences can and will be "different" to some people.

Not only that, but unless you're in the exact same listening environment with the exact same positioning, it's going to sound slightly different.

 

I can turn one of my speakers maybe a degree or two off and it doesn't quite sound the same.

[Volbet]

7 hours ago, Ithanul said:

Though, I never understood the hype over vinyl considering the medium's limitations.

To me vinyl is just a really collectible format. 

I have never been one to praise vinyl for its supposed superior sound quality. I've just always like collecting vinyl records (along with CDs and cassette tapes).

 

7 hours ago, Ithanul said:

Plus, who the hell wants to mess with cassette....the pain of rewinding tape sucks major or finding a track.

I still mess with cassette tapes. Both the tapes I bought during the '90s and newer releases. 

There are still plenty of releases that are exclusive to the cassette format, so if you want to hear them you have to mess with cassette tapes. 

My main cassette deck also have track skip, so finding individual tracks isn't that big of a hassle. 

Although, I never use it. I have always prefered listning to albums all the way through. 

[Ithanul]

1 hour ago, Volbet said:

To me vinyl is just a really collectible format. 

I have never been one to praise vinyl for its supposed superior sound quality. I've just always like collecting vinyl records (along with CDs and cassette tapes).

 

I still mess with cassette tapes. Both the tapes I bought during the '90s and newer releases. 

There are still plenty of releases that are exclusive to the cassette format, so if you want to hear them you have to mess with cassette tapes. 

My main cassette deck also have track skip, so finding individual tracks isn't that big of a hassle. 

Although, I never use it. I have always prefered listning to albums all the way through. 

I can understand the collecting part.  Myself though, I don't want to bother with those old formats, especially cassettes, I don't miss them at all.

 

At least there some individuals that find value in them.  Wish I found someone like that back home.  They could had the 100+ cassettes for free instead of me tossing the tapes out.

[Brennan Price]

Thing is you can't really get the sound of vinyl without actually listening to the track... on vinyl...

[slavikcc]

There are many caveats with respect to vinyl records, most particularly the equipment and how well a record is mastered and cut by a sound engineer.  Even with today's records being wholly digitally recorded, mixed, and mastered, you can still get decent sound and even better dynamic range, provided that a sound engineer can create a dedicated master for a vinyl LP.  A wholly digitally clipped/brickwalled release is physically impossible to cut on a lacquer or a direct metal master since the cutting machine won't even handle the sound quality, which partially explains why people noticed that some records are "less fatiguing" to listen to.  And there's even more factors that come into play including the pressing plant, how clean your records are, sound difference of various record pressings and editions due to different mastering by different sound engineers, the sound source, etc.!

 

Equipment is another HUGE factor in getting decent sound, but with the onslaught of horrible players from Crosley, Jensen, ION, Boytone, 1byone, and even low-end turntables like the Audio Technica LP60 or the Sony PS-LX300 are known to be quite problematic to the point of causing accelerated groove damage to the records.  This includes heavy tracking force (the stylus onto the grooves), speaker vibrations (built-in to the player or placing speakers too close to the player), no anti-skating (meaning the stylus is properly centered onto the grooves, which would otherwise hit the groove walls back and forth, which is applicable to the low-end Crosley players), and records skipping from loud and dynamic passages in the grooves.  And that's only scratching the surface as I haven't gotten into how phono preamps, different cartridges and stylus shapes, speakers (even right down to how it should be placed), etc.!

 

To get somewhat good sound quality, I would liken to it to Taran's electric bike reviews (particularly his WaveBike 2.0 video) in which there are simply unavoidable costs in making a good piece of equipment.

 

Personally, I'm fairly format agnostic as I try to find the best sounding release of my favourite albums, whether it's lossless digital media, vinyl LP release, etc.