 sj |
||
|
||
Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?.
|
|
|
|||||||
|
Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. |
Share Thread
|
||||||
|
Subject: Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. From: Azizi Date: 17 Jun 06 - 11:21 PM I confess. I am a dailykos lurker. While I enjoy posting on Mudcat, I've never done so on dailykos. But I avidly read the diaries and the comments and listen and learn. But little did I expect when I opened up a thread about trolls being paid to post comments on political websites, that shortly into the discussion, a fascinating exchange would occur about recorded music and the machines that play it. How the conversation jumped to music is a story in and of itself. If interested, you can read the entire dairy and comments Here I don't want to do a long cut & paste post, but imo, these comments are so rich that I want to share them with this community. So here goes: "Caution: Music snobbery ahead. The term album is actually the proper way to refer to any titled collection of music released as a whole. It does not, or should not, infer "vinyl record". Album is appropriate as the generic term no matter what medium the music is physically stored on. When I hear DJ's referring to an artist's new "CD" that just came out, it makes me cringe. They should refer to it as "an album released on CD" -- or in the case of downloaded albums, "on MP3". Just "album" is best."... As for actual vinyl, many music-heads prefer to play vinyl for serious listening. There is still no commercially available digitally sampled form of recorded music that reproduces the "full sound" or "warmth" that is possible on high-quality analog media such as vinyl LP's. I'll spare you the technical details. Just try an A/B test on a decent system and you'll see (er, hear). Some of my favorite artists are still co-releasing new recordings (or back catlogs, sometimes) on good quality vinyl. Try it, you'll like it!" by Mountain Don on Sat Jun 17, 2006 **** language changes all the time. how one generation uses a word can be completely destroyed and come to mean the opposite by a later generation. (the words "bad" and "wicked" are two that leap to mind!) In the case of music, these changes in terminology and their meanings and their uses is often tied specifically to the sub-cultures that re-invent, change, modify, or re-use specific words and phrases. For example, I am a composer, and I compose so-called "serious" music, as opposed to "pop" music (terms used by ASCAP and BMI). I hate this dichotomy. However, when many friends and family describe my music, they call it "classical," which it certainly IS NOT to any professional musician who performs or writes or studies in this particular genre. To that class, "classical" music refers to some music of europe in the 1700's and is usually distinguished from "romantic" music (which followed it) and "baroque" (which preceded it). But, to the vast majority of music listeners in the US, "classical" refers to most music played by orchestras or other such ensembles. I try to understand the use of the terms in reference to the speaker. And that's o.k. by me. To you, I'd probably say "album", but to some kids in a class that I teach as a volunteer, I usually say "CD". And now, with mp3's and other downloadable materials, I hear those kids simply call it "the entire disc". whadda-ya-gonna-do?" by troubador on Sat Jun 17, 2006 at 12:04:33 PM **** -snip- And there's more where those comments came from. **** Maybe Ipods aren't the latest gizmo. I don't have one yet...How is the sound on Ipods? What is your choice for playing recorded music and why? |
|
Subject: RE: Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. From: Azizi Date: 17 Jun 06 - 11:24 PM Here's another choice post from that dairy: 'serious' v. 'classical' this is an interesting linguistic issue. I have a friend who is also a composer of "serious" music - except that he has a great musical sense of humor, so calling his music "serious" doesn't really work either. Personally, I like calling it "modern" or even "postmodern", since his musical sensibility was formed in the 60's-70's. And I once read a very perceptive and funny thing about how you could tell what decade a person had been born in by what they called a machine that plays pre-recorded music: "talking machine": 1900-1910 "gramophone": 1910-1920 "victrola": 1920-1930 "phonograph": 1930-1940 "hi-fi": 1940-1950 "stereo": 1950-1960 ..and there it ended, but the technology kept marching on. Not sure if it's as easy to peg people who listened to 8-tracks, cassette tapes, CDs, or mp3's in their formative years? by sidnora on Sat Jun 17, 2006 at 02:27:32 PM" -snip- The poster forgot "turn table". I don't know when that term started to be used {1990s?}. She also forgot "record player"- I guess that's from the 1950s. |
|
Subject: RE: Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. From: BuckMulligan Date: 18 Jun 06 - 06:36 PM Azizi, "turn table" is a component of the non-cylinder wax/shellac/vinyl playback system. Victrolas, gramophones, "record players" and "stereos" etc. all make use of turntables. All by itself a turntable is not a playback device - it's purely a mechanical thingy that makes "records" go round & round ("oh-who-oho, and it comes out here....") |
|
Subject: RE: Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. From: Azizi Date: 18 Jun 06 - 07:27 PM BuckMulligan, Thanks for that info. If I understand you correctly a record player needs more than a turn table to be a functioning player of records. Right? Well, maybe I am totally confused but I've heard folks in my neck of the woods use 'turn table' as a referent for record players, hi-fis, stereos... I recall about 20 years or so ago I went to a Sears department store to buy a record player because my old one was caput. I asked the salesperson in what I thought was the appropriate department-given that I saw speakers and such- did the sell record players and he said they sold turn tables. I bought one that went with the speakers and radio and CD player components. Over the years I would periodically having the Sears repair man come out to my house to fix various things that went wrong with that 'sound system' or whatever you call that music playing thing I had purchased. One of the things I could count on asking the repairman for was needles for the record player. Fast forward about 5 years ago, after not having played my 33 1/3 records or my 45 records for a while, I went to a large chain record store and asked the young salesperson did he sell those yellow plastic thingies that you put in the middle of 45s so you could play them on a record player. The guy said "45s?". He had no clue what I was talking about. I asked that same salesmen if he had any needles for record players and I got the same look of confusion he had given me before. I then realized that times- they were changing. Or rather-time had changed and I had become an oldie [but goody]. And here we are in the Mp something age and the Ipod and Lord knows what else and its just been three years or so that I've reluctantly switched from casette tapes to CDs. I'm trying to keep up with this modern generation...I guess I gotta take some Geritol {if they even still sell that product}.. And no Viagra jokes, please. :o) |
|
Subject: RE: Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. From: Charley Noble Date: 18 Jun 06 - 07:48 PM THere are several tech threads here at Mudcat for the options you might be interested in for compact recording. I use an Edirol Wave/MP3 Recorder R-1, which records to flash cards, and have been very pleased with it. It's pricy, $400 or so, but fits in one's pocket. Charley Noble |
|
Subject: RE: Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. From: Bunnahabhain Date: 18 Jun 06 - 07:49 PM Which is better? Depends on what you want to do with it. If you simply want the very best sound quality possible, then vinyl is best. It also is the only way many old and intersting recordings are available. If you've got an eight hour train journey ahead of you that day, then the portability of an Ipod or similar is very useful. But vinyl is only going to sound better than CD with records in good condition, and an expensive stero system set up properly , in an otherwise quite room. You may have the same recording on both formats, but most of the time, you'll listen to the cd. |
|
Subject: RE: Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. From: bill kennedy Date: 18 Jun 06 - 09:08 PM in a thousand years someone unearthing a vinyl or shellac recording could put a sharp thorn through the end of a large leaf rolled up into a cone, spin the disc on a stick and hear Bobby Goldsboro's 'Honey'! The main point being that what is on the recording determines it's value, the secondary point is that all the being of the future could do with a cd he stumbled upon is check his makeup in the reflection. Simple technology is often the best long term, we haven't done much with the wheel since it's invention, after all, except minor improvements. All the new ipods etc. will be the eight track cassettes of thier day, soon obsolete and variously obessed about or forgotten by those who knew them. Digital technology will never equal the quality of analog forms, either sound or picture. They are just new. |
|
Subject: RE: Records, CDs, IPods-which is better?. From: Declan Date: 19 Jun 06 - 03:55 AM I knew some people who got to listen to CDs when they were a new technology and reckoned that the music quality was so poor that they would never catch on. Similarly I know some people who won't listen to MP3 becuse they consider that the music quality is not up to scratch. Thankfully my own ears are not sensitive enough to be able to tell the difference. There is definitely a lot of snobbery around. I wnet into a musical equipment shop in Dublin and asked the owner, with whom I have been dealing for many years, could he supply me with a particular lead, explaining that I needed it for an MP3 player. The owner gave me an indulgent smile and politely informed me that his shop only sold audio equipment! |
| Share Thread: |