I know this thread is a few weeks old, but just got around to reading the linked article. I guess I had a different, less vociferous, reaction. While the author acknowledges his own bias, due largely to missing out on the previous vinyl age, he hardly calls vinyl [or other non-digital media] crap, let alone dead; and I sure didn't pick up a tone or whiff of a**hole from the article, just pragmatics. Seems to me he makes cogent arguments why vinyl is not the future of audiophilia. I don't agree with everything he says, but some of it is undeniable. Especially his discussions of market forces and numbers. And the numbers [market and revenue] don't lie. And neither do some of the numbers—dynamic range, for example—that do relate to sound quality.
I think he is right on a number of fronts, but sorely mistaken if he is hopeful that the producers of mass market digital will somehow drive a quality renaissance. Much as I might like the idea of 384k/32-bit iTunes downloads, it's not likely any time soon, and the people desiring it are few in number. Right now, we seem to be building a largely digital world, and a lot of the output of that world is pretty mediocre [check your dustbins, so was a lot of the vinyl output].
The criticism of SQ shortcomings does not, I believe lie with the medium in which digital information is transmitted; it goes right back to the quality of the recording itself and the mastering, as it pretty much always has [as several commenters on the article mention]. Media evolve and change. It is no surprise that during overlapping periods of predecessor and successor media, one form rarely arises immediately superior to the other. But I don't hear anyone waxing lyrical over the SQ of wax cylinders versus LPs these days. Eventually, more stable media, with more reliable reproduction and longevity, displace their predecessors in the market. Doesn't mean the predecessors disappear, only that they no longer occupy the apex.
Like Lon, I think we have a win-win situation right now, but long term, I find it very unlikely that vinyl will drive the next several plateaux of sound reproduction. There is only so much that can be squeezed out of those grooves, while the curve for digital still has a long way to go [if the producers will put the quality in on their end,
and consumers demand it]. In fact, it's not vinyl or digital that will drive that; it will always be the artist and the consumer; same with tube vs. solid state; I loves me my Decware, but I am under no illusions that tubes are the wave of the future.
I suspect, long after I am gone, but perhaps while my children are still here, there won't be any ADC or DAC devices, because we will figure out true end-to-end digital spectra. Call me crazy, but I am one of those guys who thinks the world is not analog, but digital, that things like vinyl grooves and tape magnetic paths are poor metaphors for a digital reality. That life itself is digital. Check out this
Scientific American piece. Started thinking that way when I did my first physics work in school and read my first Jack Chalker. But that doesn't keep me from enjoying my Decware or a first-rate vinyl rig when I get to hear one.
And if that makes some of us mad, well, imagine how the dinosaurs who survived the meteor impact felt.
P.S. RR, I love ya man, and while I agree that SACD was at some level a re-sell opportunity, and that both it and BluRay have robust copy protection, both formats offer significant audiophile and, in the latter case, videophile benefits. The amount of information those discs can store and reproduce is significantly greater than predecessor media. And in being that much closer to master digital, I have a hard time faulting them their copy protection. But well-recorded ones can be something very special.
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It is official, Vinyl is crap (Read 14228 times)
