Comments on Profile Post by GoldfishX

cd resurgence is due to kpop

I think part of it is that it's easier for newbies to grasp the tweakiness of analog. You can see and feel it, and there's great satisfaction in that. Plus there's the psychosomatic connection; you get to change something physical, and you think it sounds better. Digital is still magical pixie dust for all intents and purposes, and there's a greater disconnect.

Or for non-newbies switching over from digital, well, maybe they ran out of things to realistically/financially tweak in the digital realm without breaking the bank... but Analog? well when you're starting from ground up, it's easier to get started into a new hobby when it's cheap, until you climb the ladder again.

The issue with breaking the bank is vinyl is extremely pricy and it expires with each playback. I just think a lot of people are ignorant about the conversion part of digital and skimp on it. If we gave everyone a good DAC for their 10th birthday, they'd grow up understanding how important the conversion process is (and not just relying on, say, what's in a unit or phone)

In my experience, people simply can't hear the difference. Heck, "louder is better" is still the ruling mindset for most people that I deal with.

I mean, what I hear is people talk about their connection to the music. While I can't argue with that, I know crap digital conversion or playback can just make listening a chore or severely dull the experience. Even to me, a $50 turntable sounds okay and I think this is where a lot of people build that connection to the music for the first time.

Human curiosity plays a big role. Honestly some people just get bored and want to play with new toys.

People must be rediscovering how useful the album covers can be!

Honestly, though, I know that "digital" /can/ suck the life out of music. Or even speech: listen to a really-low-bit-rate internet radio station and discover that humour can no longer be funny! But usually, given even quarter-decent equipment, it doesn't.

Yep: I'm just a cranky old man! I do believe the handful of people with considerable experience in both worlds who find something in vinyl that they just love. I do believe those who simply love the physical experience, even if only for the nostalgia.

But the rest? Today's fad. FOTM.

/cynical.

The vinyl resurgence is curiosity and novelty, not because people are setting up their digital wrong. There's not much to set up with digital. There's a lot to set up wrong with vinyl.

Also very important is the *ritual* of playing vinyl. There are so many physical steps from flipping through the albums, maybe read something, unsleeving, lifting the cover, placing, turn on, move the arm, drop, etc etc. There's a satisfaction in that, as opposed to today's digital streaming flip through my phone or saying "hey Siri, play blah blah" again.

You forgot "borderline paranoia about not scratching the vinyl and going online to see the cost of replacing it if your fingernail were to slip". But point taken. The convenience of digital files is something I can't back away from at this point.

@purr1n You'd be surprised how many people are not aware of the role of an external DAC in the system. It's probably not helped by the fact that it's impossible to find even a budget DAC on store shelves, but you're almost tripping over budget turntables in the stores. More of an awareness issue than a setup issue. Imagine if Walmart started stocking Modi's or something like that.

If you are talking regular folk, digital from an iPhone > random Numark table at Best Buy. I still think it's curiosity and novelty, especially given how modern record releases don't sound all that good. In some cases, they sound much worse than from iTunes or Spotify.

Yeah, regular folk. Ones that aren't going to be auditioning a digital rig against their Numark turntable and PC speakers, but still pay that premium for vinyl (novelty, as you say). The difference in pressings is another reason I'm far more comfortable in the digital realm. I've been very pleased with a lot of remasters of late (compared to the junk from the late 90s and early 2000s, especially on rock/metal).