You can find us talking about more than just music on our podcast The Entertainment Now! Podcast: Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7r3tRYeur7H0PJVPaP4Wfx
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-entertainment-now-podcast/id1663687032
I work at a pressing plant. I can say that yes, picture discs have improved significantly over the years. However, getting into the business and seeing how they were made makes it pretty obvious why they tend to have inferior sound quality. The grooves are pressed onto a sheet of clear plastic film. There’s a pvc puck in the middle between the paper image on either side, but the outer layer is a flimsy piece of clear film. You also have to press picture discs a lot cooler than regular records. So there are more opportunities for defects to show up and be undetected due to the fact that it’s a clear film that’s being pressed into. Anyway, great video. I still avoid picture discs.
I thought you might include the "colored vinyl sounds worse than black vinyl" notion. Someone recently pointed out that black, indeed, is a color so the notion that, say, orange is worse sounding than black vinyl doesn't hold much weight. I think it has more to do with the quality control than it does the color of the vinyl. I have some excellent sounding colored vinyl and some not great sounding colored vinyl. So, the blanket statement that colored vinyl sounds worse doesn't hold weight for me. Having said that, if there is a particular release where the black vinyl is universally praised and the colored vinyl appears to have issues, I, of course, would go with the black. But I think that's down to the quality of the material used as opposed to the color. Regarding the digital issue you mentioned in the video, I agree completely. Until it was revealed that MoFi used DSD in the mastering chain for some of their releases, record nerds were touting the MoFi versions as the best pressings to date. And then what? When they found out there was a digital step, all of a sudden they were no good? 'Digital' does not automatically equal 'bad' nor does 'analog' automatically equate to 'good'. There is so much more that goes into the production of a vinyl record that the layman (myself included) does not understand. I think the public chose to focus on the digital vs analog debate because it's one of the few aspects they even approach understanding. But many records with a digital step sound excellent; sometimes even better than their digital file counterpart. And this is because digitally sourced records are often mastered differently for vinyl. Recently, Darko Audio did an analysis comparing the dynamic range of the 2023 "Stop Making Sense" vinyl reissue to the 2023 hi-res digital files and found that the vinyl had significantly greater dynamic range. This does not mean "vinyl is better than digital" by the way. There's just a great deal that goes into music production that most of us don't understand... nor should we if you think about it. As consumers, we should be happy if our product sounds good. We don't need to understand every aspect of how it came to be. Having said that, this doesn't excuse MoFi's lack of transparency. I'm also not suggesting that we shouldn't know the provenance of a recording as I definitely appreciate releases that include the SPARS code. There's nothing wrong with having or wanting that kind of information but, where I take issue, is when individuals, who think they know more than they do, make inaccurate claims about the significance of a particular aspect of whatever that argument is.
I decided to skip the black vs colored vinyl argument simply because I feel like I have that argument all the time. lol The only semi-consistent issue that I've had with colored records is sometimes those pinwheel (or split color) pressings can have a very brief moment of noise where the two colors meet.
When I first started collecting, I thought records were so delicate and prone to scratching that you were often just throwing your money away. This was compounded by a brand new bad pressing of Abbey Road I received as a gift that had a skip on one side. It took me many months of hesitant purchases to realize that vinyl is a heck of a lot more durable than you think, and most problems can be solved by a good cleaning. A couple hundred used albums later I realize that was a self-imposed myth that kept me out of the hobby for years. All those scratched up record experiences I remembered as a kid were just me not knowing how to take care of things. 🤣
Nice video, enjoy the myth busting. Regarding the sound quality of vinyl vs cd, it is a scientific fact that cd's sound better. By every measure. The "warm" sound of a vinyl record is merely surface noise. Not to mention a vinyl record is prone to skips, warp, scratches etc. Let's look at it like this, a cd is virtually maintenance free. Whereas one can spend hundreds of dollars on disc cleaners such as a Humming Guru. If you want to listen to tracks 1, 4, 5, and 8 of a record, it can be easily accomplished with a cd. Forget it with a vinyl record. With a cd, I can put it on and relax in my favorite chair for up to 80 minutes depending on the length of the disc. With vinyl I have to get up and turn it over in 20-25 minutes. CDs are easily stored; they don't take up a ton of space. And now, to make matters worse, the record companies are pricing vinyl out of reach for many people. It's like they saw this vinyl "fad" take off, and figured, why not squeeze the vinyl community dry before they wake up. Meanwhile cd's are still relatively inexpensive by comparison. I grew up listening to and collecting vinyl. I loved my record collection, but I must admit with the advent of CDs, listening to music has only gotten better.
The guy at Circuit City today told me that I could play the new Braveheart laserdisc on my turntable and it’s a myth. It didn’t work at all and they won’t let me return it because I opened it. Tried calling circuit city corporate offices and no one answered.
Nick - great video, I love the “common sense” approach I expect from a fellow Michigander (although I live in Chicago now, but grew up buying records in Ann Arbor).. Some thoughts: 1. Vinyl does generally sound better than CD - this is due to your point the way the CD is mastered. In going from analog to digital a lot can be lost. Again it just depends, for instance SACDs sound great, but don’t let some knucklehead tell you digital “measures” better - trust your ears (I do) and remember it is the music that matters. 2. Colored vinyl and picture disks - I really don’t like either, but everybody should be aware that black vinyl is in fact “colored” vinyl with black coloring added. So I am a hypocrite for saying black vinyl is better. 🥴 Picture disks suck except for collecting. 3. High end systems vs entry level - I have been collecting records since the 1970s when I bought my first Beach Boys comp “Endless Summer” at Wonderland Mall. I have had many different systems since starting with my all in one turntable with mini speakers that was initially my sisters to my “high end” system I decided to splurge on - yes the sound quality has changed, but not my love. My point mirrors your own but what you can afford - it’s the music that matters. 4. Old records - records if taken care of don’t really age - I have 65 year old jazz records that sound better than anything available today. The only time vinyl can be impacted is with a bad stylus that is worn or improper stylus (never use a mono cart on a stereo record, but the opposite is just fine). Sorry for the long reply, but I liked your video and wanted to chime in on these topics in particular. It is so awesome to see people getting into vinyl these days.
Love the shirt! Been a blink fan since middle school 2000! Had their sticker on my BMX bike! I’ve got my son into them as well. Got the indie record store coke bottle clear One More Time and I seriously think this is may be their best record. So good! Take Off Your Pants and Jacket has always been my favorite.
Sound is subjective... 'cause our brains are subjective! There is no raw, "perfect" sound any more than there's a "perfect" kind of music. Our ears and our brains (and all our other senses, under the influence of our moods and the state of our health) have to put it together into an experience. What matters most is the quality of the original recording, how it was recorded (from the '80s on almost EVERYTHING was originally digital), mixed, EQed, mastered, how the lacquers were cut and how it was pressed (vinyl quality matters A LOT) or converted to CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-Ray or some lossless or lossy CD-res or hi-res file format. And that's all before it even gets into your system, where every element changes the sound that you produce/reproduce: stylus, cartridge, tonearm, turntable, interconnects, preamp, power amp, speaker cables, speakers... and the placement of all of it in the room, and how you position yourself within it! So, yeah, the "digital is better" or "vinyl is better" are laughably insupportable statements. Just listen. Nobody else can tell you what you hear, and they certainly can't tell you if you should enjoy it or not.
I bought a used copy of Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss original 1990 US pressing, back before the reissues had been released, and even after throughly cleaning I could not get the record to play. Of course I had an entry level record player but no matter what as soon as I would let down the needle it would skate across the record after player only a few seconds of War Ensemble. I originally thought it was an issue with the record being worn out and ended up returning it to the seller. I was new to vinyl at the time so honestly don’t know if it was the record or the turntable that was the issue. I wish I still had that pressing though.
Oh man, that sucks. Yeah, unfortunately it was probably the turntable. I recently had a similar conversation with someone in one of my local record stores and he was having issues with all of his records skipping. He said he had returned a few before thinking it was an issue with his turntable. He told me that he had changed the stylus multiple times and was still having issues. I had to break the bad news to him that it was likely the turntable and not an issue with the records.
You might think it sounds good until you might buy a new Phono Preamp. then you think it sounds better, you might even find that you hear things from the recording that you didn't hear before
I think the reason UHQR pressings are $150 is the same reason why SACDs with superior packaging run $45+. There's an upcharge for a premium product. With that being said, as much as I enjoy the UHQR pressings that I have, they are very much overpriced and probably shouldn't be more than $100-$125.
@@TheVinylDenif the UHQRs sounded the same as a $20 CD or a $45 SACD no one would be paying $130 for a mofi 1step or $170 for a UHQR. people are surely hearing the difference? well mastered and pressed vinyl has the potential to surpass any kind of digital right?
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I work at a pressing plant. I can say that yes, picture discs have improved significantly over the years. However, getting into the business and seeing how they were made makes it pretty obvious why they tend to have inferior sound quality. The grooves are pressed onto a sheet of clear plastic film. There’s a pvc puck in the middle between the paper image on either side, but the outer layer is a flimsy piece of clear film. You also have to press picture discs a lot cooler than regular records. So there are more opportunities for defects to show up and be undetected due to the fact that it’s a clear film that’s being pressed into. Anyway, great video. I still avoid picture discs.
I thought you might include the "colored vinyl sounds worse than black vinyl" notion. Someone recently pointed out that black, indeed, is a color so the notion that, say, orange is worse sounding than black vinyl doesn't hold much weight. I think it has more to do with the quality control than it does the color of the vinyl. I have some excellent sounding colored vinyl and some not great sounding colored vinyl. So, the blanket statement that colored vinyl sounds worse doesn't hold weight for me. Having said that, if there is a particular release where the black vinyl is universally praised and the colored vinyl appears to have issues, I, of course, would go with the black. But I think that's down to the quality of the material used as opposed to the color.
Regarding the digital issue you mentioned in the video, I agree completely. Until it was revealed that MoFi used DSD in the mastering chain for some of their releases, record nerds were touting the MoFi versions as the best pressings to date. And then what? When they found out there was a digital step, all of a sudden they were no good? 'Digital' does not automatically equal 'bad' nor does 'analog' automatically equate to 'good'. There is so much more that goes into the production of a vinyl record that the layman (myself included) does not understand. I think the public chose to focus on the digital vs analog debate because it's one of the few aspects they even approach understanding. But many records with a digital step sound excellent; sometimes even better than their digital file counterpart. And this is because digitally sourced records are often mastered differently for vinyl. Recently, Darko Audio did an analysis comparing the dynamic range of the 2023 "Stop Making Sense" vinyl reissue to the 2023 hi-res digital files and found that the vinyl had significantly greater dynamic range. This does not mean "vinyl is better than digital" by the way. There's just a great deal that goes into music production that most of us don't understand... nor should we if you think about it. As consumers, we should be happy if our product sounds good. We don't need to understand every aspect of how it came to be.
Having said that, this doesn't excuse MoFi's lack of transparency. I'm also not suggesting that we shouldn't know the provenance of a recording as I definitely appreciate releases that include the SPARS code. There's nothing wrong with having or wanting that kind of information but, where I take issue, is when individuals, who think they know more than they do, make inaccurate claims about the significance of a particular aspect of whatever that argument is.
I decided to skip the black vs colored vinyl argument simply because I feel like I have that argument all the time. lol
The only semi-consistent issue that I've had with colored records is sometimes those pinwheel (or split color) pressings can have a very brief moment of noise where the two colors meet.
When I first started collecting, I thought records were so delicate and prone to scratching that you were often just throwing your money away. This was compounded by a brand new bad pressing of Abbey Road I received as a gift that had a skip on one side. It took me many months of hesitant purchases to realize that vinyl is a heck of a lot more durable than you think, and most problems can be solved by a good cleaning. A couple hundred used albums later I realize that was a self-imposed myth that kept me out of the hobby for years. All those scratched up record experiences I remembered as a kid were just me not knowing how to take care of things. 🤣
Lots of good points made! Especially on the turntables!
Great topic Nick!!!! Well made points
Nice video, enjoy the myth busting. Regarding the sound quality of vinyl vs cd, it is a scientific fact that cd's sound better. By every measure. The "warm" sound of a vinyl record is merely surface noise. Not to mention a vinyl record is prone to skips, warp, scratches etc. Let's look at it like this, a cd is virtually maintenance free. Whereas one can spend hundreds of dollars on disc cleaners such as a Humming Guru. If you want to listen to tracks 1, 4, 5, and 8 of a record, it can be easily accomplished with a cd. Forget it with a vinyl record. With a cd, I can put it on and relax in my favorite chair for up to 80 minutes depending on the length of the disc. With vinyl I have to get up and turn it over in 20-25 minutes. CDs are easily stored; they don't take up a ton of space. And now, to make matters worse, the record companies are pricing vinyl out of reach for many people. It's like they saw this vinyl "fad" take off, and figured, why not squeeze the vinyl community dry before they wake up. Meanwhile cd's are still relatively inexpensive by comparison. I grew up listening to and collecting vinyl. I loved my record collection, but I must admit with the advent of CDs, listening to music has only gotten better.
The guy at Circuit City today told me that I could play the new Braveheart laserdisc on my turntable and it’s a myth. It didn’t work at all and they won’t let me return it because I opened it. Tried calling circuit city corporate offices and no one answered.
Nick - great video, I love the “common sense” approach I expect from a fellow Michigander (although I live in Chicago now, but grew up buying records in Ann Arbor).. Some thoughts:
1. Vinyl does generally sound better than CD - this is due to your point the way the CD is mastered. In going from analog to digital a lot can be lost. Again it just depends, for instance SACDs sound great, but don’t let some knucklehead tell you digital “measures” better - trust your ears (I do) and remember it is the music that matters.
2. Colored vinyl and picture disks - I really don’t like either, but everybody should be aware that black vinyl is in fact “colored” vinyl with black coloring added. So I am a hypocrite for saying black vinyl is better. 🥴 Picture disks suck except for collecting.
3. High end systems vs entry level - I have been collecting records since the 1970s when I bought my first Beach Boys comp “Endless Summer” at Wonderland Mall. I have had many different systems since starting with my all in one turntable with mini speakers that was initially my sisters to my “high end” system I decided to splurge on - yes the sound quality has changed, but not my love. My point mirrors your own but what you can afford - it’s the music that matters.
4. Old records - records if taken care of don’t really age - I have 65 year old jazz records that sound better than anything available today. The only time vinyl can be impacted is with a bad stylus that is worn or improper stylus (never use a mono cart on a stereo record, but the opposite is just fine).
Sorry for the long reply, but I liked your video and wanted to chime in on these topics in particular. It is so awesome to see people getting into vinyl these days.
Love the shirt! Been a blink fan since middle school 2000! Had their sticker on my BMX bike! I’ve got my son into them as well. Got the indie record store coke bottle clear One More Time and I seriously think this is may be their best record. So good! Take Off Your Pants and Jacket has always been my favorite.
I didn't really know what to expect when it was released, but I really love the new album! IMO it's one of their top 5 albums.
PIONEER PL-516 TURNTABLE With a Stanton D880 Cartridge.
Sound is subjective... 'cause our brains are subjective! There is no raw, "perfect" sound any more than there's a "perfect" kind of music. Our ears and our brains (and all our other senses, under the influence of our moods and the state of our health) have to put it together into an experience. What matters most is the quality of the original recording, how it was recorded (from the '80s on almost EVERYTHING was originally digital), mixed, EQed, mastered, how the lacquers were cut and how it was pressed (vinyl quality matters A LOT) or converted to CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-Ray or some lossless or lossy CD-res or hi-res file format. And that's all before it even gets into your system, where every element changes the sound that you produce/reproduce: stylus, cartridge, tonearm, turntable, interconnects, preamp, power amp, speaker cables, speakers... and the placement of all of it in the room, and how you position yourself within it!
So, yeah, the "digital is better" or "vinyl is better" are laughably insupportable statements. Just listen. Nobody else can tell you what you hear, and they certainly can't tell you if you should enjoy it or not.
I bought a used copy of Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss original 1990 US pressing, back before the reissues had been released, and even after throughly cleaning I could not get the record to play. Of course I had an entry level record player but no matter what as soon as I would let down the needle it would skate across the record after player only a few seconds of War Ensemble. I originally thought it was an issue with the record being worn out and ended up returning it to the seller. I was new to vinyl at the time so honestly don’t know if it was the record or the turntable that was the issue. I wish I still had that pressing though.
Oh man, that sucks. Yeah, unfortunately it was probably the turntable. I recently had a similar conversation with someone in one of my local record stores and he was having issues with all of his records skipping. He said he had returned a few before thinking it was an issue with his turntable. He told me that he had changed the stylus multiple times and was still having issues. I had to break the bad news to him that it was likely the turntable and not an issue with the records.
I like to record vinyl to CD to keep the quality on the LP's high.
You might think it sounds good until you might buy a new Phono Preamp. then you think it sounds better, you might even find that you hear things from the recording that you didn't hear before
I can't like this enough!
But it can also happen that you buy something that you are dissatisfied with, that may not sound at all the way you think it should sound
if vinyl sounds the same as a cd/sacd then why are there $150 UHQRs?
@@user-rr4ro4mq8w I have, and the sound quality is pretty similar.
I think the reason UHQR pressings are $150 is the same reason why SACDs with superior packaging run $45+. There's an upcharge for a premium product. With that being said, as much as I enjoy the UHQR pressings that I have, they are very much overpriced and probably shouldn't be more than $100-$125.
@@TheVinylDenif the UHQRs sounded the same as a $20 CD or a $45 SACD no one would be paying $130 for a mofi 1step or $170 for a UHQR. people are surely hearing the difference? well mastered and pressed vinyl has the potential to surpass any kind of digital right?
I think my RCA Victrola sounds better 😊
Great video! It's good to hear an opinion that isn't attached to any preconceived ideas. More videos like this are needed. Stay good!