Analog Lps vs. Digital and what does it have to do with photos

[mikling]

What makes an old photo so endearing. When you watch a movie and someone picks up and old photo to bring back memories....that emotion is understood.

Step back one moment and you will find a similar reaction with LP records. We now have filters that add artificial clicks and pops into recordings to give that vintage feel. Perfect is somehow not the same. Why?

Forward to photos and think for a moment if a perfect fade free photo twenty or thirty years from today will feel the same as a print which does show some aging.

What exactly was the print supposed to be in the first place? Perfection or a recording of a moment? Or a memory?

I recently watched a movie and this aspect dawned on me.

There's a reason why there's a resurgence of LP records and people are finally paying big bucks for turntables that they never would have thought of paying twenty thirty years ago. I've been seeing the price of used LPs go up in flea markets now as well.

 

[The Hat]

I've been seeing the price of used LPs go up in flea markets now as well.

Even the Flea appreciates the sounds of Nostalgia....

 

[mikling]

Swat. Nostalgia gone.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

...Nostalgia aint what it used to be!

 

[Redbrickman]

Technically LP's are inferior to a high quality digitally mastered version of the song, but there is a certain pleasing quality and pleasure out of opening an album, putting the vinyl on the deck and playing. The current upsurge in LP popularity is I believe part clever marketing and partly due to the fact that younger people who have been listening to completely dynamically compressed Mp3's on their iphones or ipods etc. have actually heard music with a full dynamic range via a record deck and realised how much better it sounds.

As for the current quality of new LP's - well, many are rubbish pressings from plants where the pressing team have no idea about contamination and cleanliness. Add to that the fact that there are few original disc cutting engineers left to pass on their years of experience and it all adds up to a poor quality product.

The Double whammy is the crazy prices they are selling for

I have a sizeable collection of LP's along wth a top oof the range deck and arm which are going to be sold off shortly, as I have now got a digital system that has matured to the point where I no longer consider LP's to sound "better".

 

[The Hat]

That my boy @Redbrickman, like yourself, my Feckin hearing isn’t what it used to be either...

 

[martin0reg]

There is more analogy of vinyl LP's to prints from wet darkroom:
Think of quality and quantity. Before digital you had to be aware of the very limited amount of shots you would be able to shoot. Nowadays everyone with a telephone can shoot and show masses of pictures. And while you now have also masses of music at hand in your phone, it is really a slow down when you take a platter out of the sleeve, put it on your turntable and hear to the music without browsing in millions of titles, even without jumping fast foward, instead you have to gently turn this thing to hear the next 4 - 5 titles! It's like a sedative for people stressed by media overkill of these days.
BTW just a few weeks I bought this:

... and for printing this:

to reanimate my home darkroom.
First ten prints, which is a full roll of film, took one day. But without any clogged nozzles!

I wonder how long my new addiction will last..

 

[apetitphoto]

I wonder how long my new addiction will last..

Ah, substance over speed. Hmm, I don't wonder...

 

[martin0reg]

..substance...speed...? ..substance of speed.. ?
..in fact speed never was my addiction.. neither as a substance..
(learning english with printerknowledge, see my signature)

 

[The Hat]

(learning english with printerknowledge, see my signature)

I’m having enough problems with English myself, so believe me you’re amongst friends here...
It’s like the Open University...