Anyone still playing phonograph record (gramophone record)

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Saint, Sep 2, 2021.

  1. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    Are phonograph record, gramophone record still available for pop music?
     
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  3. Janus58 Valued Senior Member

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    The vinyl LP is making a comeback here in the US, and has recently gained popularity again. Even present day artists are releasing LPs of their new work.
     
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  5. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    Vinyl LP got any advantage?
     
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  7. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    Vinyl LP can easily switch to the songs you want?
    Do you need AV Receiver to produce good sound?
     
  8. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    No, you have to manually move the pickup from track to track if you want to choose songs out of sequence. But for the more serious types of music, you listen in the sequence determined by the performers anyway, so for those it is not an issue.

    You don't need a receiver, AV or otherwise. You just need an audio amplifier.

    LPs can make sense if you are interested in sound quality. The same is true of CDs. Most listeners today don't seem to care about that, preferring instead the convenience and immediacy of listening to tracks in the order they like, listening through earphones while on the move, etc. But apparently there is again a segment of the listening public that does care about sound quality, and is re-learning what people of my generation valued about sitting still and giving the music their full attention, as one does in a concert.

    I still occasionally play some of my LPs, many of which date from the 1970s and remain in good condition. Otherwise I listen to CDs.
     
  9. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    Same here.

    I got a Phase Linear 400 amp + Marantz 1120 preamp + Thorens TD 165 turntable in 1973. I built a huge set of infinite baffle speaker cabinets and loaded those with Utah and Electrovoice speakers. Threw a couple of powerful 1974 computer fans behind the Phase linear to control heat and had a top - notch sound system. Added a cd player when those were invented and a tuner for FM. Chucked the whole thing into a basement sound room along with my substantial 33 & 1/3rd disc collection. Had to get the PL repaired once about 10 years ago, but otherwise the system is still immaculate. I use it frequently and enjoy it very much. Less than 1/2 of 1% distortion.

    Also have several other sound systems in various places, all are quite nice and I use them daily, including the 5.1 setup on this desktop, but the Phase linear is the best.

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  10. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    MP3 format can be 320bit format which is near to the original sound.
    Most online MP3 are low bit, sound is terrible.
    You can use software to convert CD tracks into MP3 and play the songs thru thumb drive.
     
  11. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    Does fast internet kill Blue Ray disc?
    I only have CD and DVD (dual layer), but never played blue ray.
     
  12. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    No, but it has put a dent in the physical media business.
    In my view there are two things that streaming (or "fast internet") has against it, which means that Blu Ray are likely to remain...

    1. The image quality of a Blu Ray disc is superior to streaming in HD. While streaming offer HD resolution (1920 x 1080) they supress the feed compared to the Blu Ray. Netflix reckon streaming an HD film is about 3Gb / hr - so a 2-hour movie is 6 Gb - whereas a movie on the Blu Ray disc is typically 20-25Gb. The compression results in a reduction of overall quality - the more compression, the lower the quality. For the overwhelming majority of people, however, they wouldn't notice any difference between BluRay and, say, a Netflix HD stream unless shown side-by-side, and are going to be happy with the streaming quality... or at least not be willing to pay extra for what they see as only marginal improvements in quality.

    2. You can only watch on the streaming services the shows, movies, videos, that they have in their catalogue. Again, for the majority of people this is no problem, as they will likely watch a film/show once and move on to something else, always happy with the content their streaming service provider has. But for some people, they like to be able to rewatch what and when they want, and not be beholden to the service provider. So they would buy the physical media.

    If you like watching stuff on a reasonably large screen (40"+ etc) then the quality of Blu Ray is significantly better than DVD. If you're not fussed about image quality, though, then no reason to upgrade to Blu Ray (or 4K etc).
     
  13. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    high speed internet (1 Gbps) will be able to stream 4K quality video.
    Apple TV+ has 4k video.
     

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