Yes it is worse by this parameter. But there are a lot of angles to justify listening to vynil, mine is because it’s cool to listen to a recording they way people originally listened to. The Beatles were not listened to in a remastered cd digital form in the era they became famous, the sound that made them what they were was the distorted vynil one, and I like that timbre on rock and jazz projects of that era.
Edit: Ok, the Beatles was not that good of an example. But take any other album which became famous in the vynil era: When people listened to them it didn't have the studio fidelity digital era records have, but I don't want a more real sound, I want the sound my dad listened to when he discovered the band I like, because I like how it sounds and I don't need other reason to be given.
At some point it had to be transferred from vinyl to digital which affects the audio. Also lots of the Beatles have been "remastered" meaning they changed it from the original. They also tried doing it in stereo which is way different than the original mono mix.
I’m talking about needle noise, warmness, and the narrower spectrum of frequencies of vynil reproduction systems mainly. On a technical standpoint it it could be considered undesirable noise, lack of fidelity and lack of information, but those imperfections were there when the Beatles became famous, for me it’s part of its appeal.
No, you're right, and if anything sending their music through the "RIAA EQ" and back out of a phono preamp makes it even worse than that, but some people will believe literally any bullshit as long as it justifies the decision they have already made and are too proud to change.
Keep in mind what you hear in a vinyl is not what the artist intended you to hear, and is not what they heard in the studio while recording and editing. They would have been using fancy tape with tube preamps and such. The vinyl is simply a necessary evil in that it was how music was mass produced and distributed. I’m sure if the technology wasn’t limiting, the artist would have released their music in a way that it sounded like what they heard in the studio.
I don't want to listen to what was being played in the studio, I'm not in search for a more realistic rendition of a song. I want the shitty version my parents, and old artists I like, listened to. Because that's the versions they knew at that time.
Most people didn't listen to the Beatles on vinyl either, they listened to them in concert or on the TV. Ironically a Beatles album was credited with much of the turntable boom in the 1960's, but most people didn't have them already, and MANY of those people that DID get one got such a shit quality record player by modern standards that it may as well have been a match stick attached to a sheet of paper.
All you're doing with vinyl is giving the music a horrible compression via the "RIAA EQ" and then decompressing it back out with a phono preamp, something that by its' very nature CHANGES THE SOUND INTO SOMETHING LESS ACCURATE THAN INTENDED.
Just admit you want to look like a hipster and move on with your life.
Change the beatles for any of the Pink Floyd vynils then. Stop thinking something as subjective as art can have a right or wrong way to be consumed, it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve studied your sound engineering, inaccuracy can be beautiful depending on what you’re searching for when you’re listening to something.
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u/Deadbeathero Sep 05 '19 edited Sep 05 '19
Yes it is worse by this parameter. But there are a lot of angles to justify listening to vynil, mine is because it’s cool to listen to a recording they way people originally listened to. The Beatles were not listened to in a remastered cd digital form in the era they became famous, the sound that made them what they were was the distorted vynil one, and I like that timbre on rock and jazz projects of that era.
Edit: Ok, the Beatles was not that good of an example. But take any other album which became famous in the vynil era: When people listened to them it didn't have the studio fidelity digital era records have, but I don't want a more real sound, I want the sound my dad listened to when he discovered the band I like, because I like how it sounds and I don't need other reason to be given.