Something Needs To Be Done About This.... (digital "vin

[jackbrown8786]

I recently found out that a lot of my vinyl is digitally sourced. I'm sure everyone who listens to vinyl has noticed a huge difference between the sound quality of one particular record vs another. It's sad to find that the reason is usually because the bad records are basically digital ports to vinyl.

It's the same exact thing as ripping a DVD onto a Blu ray disc and selling it as a blu ray. Or removing meat/dairy products completely from some food item and then selling the food as vegan. Or taking crappy vodka from a plastic bottle, distilling it a bunch of times, and selling it in a fancier glass bottle for a lot more money. Maybe I shouldn't continue in case I give someone another s***ty idea like pressing vinyl from a digital source. It's entirely pointless to buy vinyl pressed from a digital source - it's objectively, strictly worse than the CD. It's taking a real sound wave, translating it into a digital approximation, and then dressing it up as the real deal.

All it does is potentially add crackles and pops to your CD, yeah thanks a lot. I don't do extra work and put in extra time flipping the enormous piece of wax, removing it from its protective sleeve, cleaning the vinyl, etc, all just for worse quality. It isn't even worth degrading your stylus to play these records.

Because of the permanent irreversible damage (however minor) to equipment, it's worse than piracy. There should be laws against it.

THE WORST PART ABOUT IT: I now have to do hours worth of research for every batch of vinyl I want to buy in order to make sure that it's actual vinyl and not garbage. This is time that I could spend listening to music instead. I know I could listen while researching, and I do, but listening to music during this research is lower quality listening because I can't pay as close attention to the music.

If only we could at least get a law that forces stores to put stickers on "vinyl" that is digitally sourced, preferably a big red one.

Until then, perhaps we could use this thread to list labels and maybe even individual pressings that are purely analogue and list which ones are digital. If this list already exists somewhere, PLEASE point me to it. Googling never gets me a straight answer very quickly. All of my findings on which labels/pressings are digital or analogue will go here. I'll try to start with the records that are in the top 1000 on this site.

[Kool Keith Sweat]

If you're just now finding out about this, I can't imagine you're too concerned about audio quality. If anything, you've just given yourself a new bias and time sink. If you want to continue though, discogs would be the best resource I know of.

No audio format replicates a sound wave perfectly. Analog recording can perfectly catch a sound wave, but mastering LPs requires shaving off high and low frequencies (as well as adjusting volume) to fit the vinyl medium. Some masters and vinyl formats are more suited to a high quality replication, like 10ish minutes of music on a 12" 45 side, and some are less so, like a 25 minute side on a 12" 33 1/3, like many/most LPs. The medium also doesn't preserve well and is not that sturdy, and sound quality degrades rapidly with minor degradations in the medium. A digital recording samples a sound wave, and is by definition not a perfect replication, but often samples at such a quick rate that the human ear cannot tell the difference. The digital recordings put to CD do not have to sacrifice high and low frequencies (or volume) to fit the medium. Both medium's output quality is also dependent upon the input quality.

There's something nice about keeping analog to analog, there are some instances (usually of mainstream music) where low quality digital is pressed to vinyl, and (because of the difference in mediums) there are different mastering techniques required, but a high quality digital recording is high quality audio shouldn't sound discernable from analog when pressed to vinyl, *if mastered for vinyl*.

Coming from someone that buys vinyl, CD, and digital, because it's ultimately the music you're there for, not the bit rate or the old school cred.

[RoundTheBend]

The only reason I still collect Vinly is for the liner notes/physical connection to music. Sometimes there's some kind of disconnect when only experiencing music digitally.

Otherwise there's some amazing lossless recordings I would easily listen to over any vinyl recording. Plus the labor of love it takes to maintain a record collection (rotating it, cleaning it, etc.).

But I agree it was frustrating to learn that digital masters were used to press vinyl because I had this idea that it should be better.

[Hayden]

Properly, a vinyl master is a lot different than a digital master. A lot of frequencies have to be altered, accented and remixed. The low end in particular is a pain...

There's nothing wrong with a digital source. Like, analog is cool and all, but you're not going to get that anymore. You're just not. Particularly in... well... 90% of genres. Analog hip-hop? Best of luck. Anyone making a record for less than $5000? Ha.

Just because a record has 'digital' on it, don't just assume it's a CD-rip or anything. It's done completely differently, and frankly, it's a considerable amount of work and knowhow. When working in a proper studio, producers have far higher quality of tracks than just 320kbps. As long as labels/producers/people give a crap, good stuff's going on the wax, don't fret.

Like... yeah... sometimes it's bad quality... but I'm not sure how to spot those out from the bunch other than trial-and-error

[Anti]

Why I love Kevin Shields and Phil Elvrum: they still do analogue recordings so their vinyl is beuno.
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...and for dessert!

[gloriousgoo]

While I certainly agree that the sound quality is different in digital pressings, I don't think it's fair to say that it's the same as listening to a CD. There's still a definite increase in the sound quality (assuming it's a decently well done pressing, which the vast majority seem to be).

Also yeah, passive listening isn't the end of the world. Plenty of people only consume music as a background to other things and it's not like they are completely devoid of the ability to appreciate music or have no musical knowledge. Hell, some music is made with the express purpose of being listened to while doing other things. I get that it's personal preference but don't just write it off completely as some sort of waste of listening time.

[PurpleHazel]

I myself wouldn't buy digitally sourced vinyl of an album originally recorded on analog equipment before digital recording became the norm in the 1980s.

In the end, how much time you spend researching vinyl should be proportional -- or less -- to how much you care about the source and vinyl in general. For example, the quality of Blu-rays are so variable that many serious Blu-ray collectors read technical reviews and side-by-side comparisons of the different releases of every single movie they buy. I collect to an extent, but I choose not to spend all that much time researching because in the end I just want to watch the movie a few times.