by jedsoon on 30 Sep 2006 05:35
welcome aboard, grace!
gotta agree with mrs. g on preferring digital technology to vinyl. cd's haven't always been around, unless you're too young to have seen them emerge into and conquer the marketplace. but there are definite reasons it happened in the first place.
the main drawback to vinyl is that it wears out a little with each play. so a precious gem of music on vinyl has a relatively short lifespan. that's terrible!
this isn't to say cd's can't be scratched thru mishandling (which records are also prone to), or, in some cases, like leaving your player on pause for a few days, could damage a disc. but that's extreme. cd's overall are markedly more durable.
you can't play a record in your car. no way, no how.
i haven't seen a dealer in record players outside of a pawn shop in well over a decade. but i live in a pretty small town that wouldn't cater to dj culture.
dj'ing will keep vinyl around hopefully tho. i certainly don't have anything against the medium and hope to add a turntablist to our group one day. but there's no way i miss the rice krispie versions of my fav music!
PB makes an astute point about the size of album covers. they look great in the larger format. i know many people that use them as wall displays, which is very cool. but unless you're using them for that purpose, it's a double-edged sword, since they take up more space.
as far as mp3s/downloading/ripping goes, i'm less enthusiastic. i have a friend who downloads or rips just about everything that comes out to his taste. but he spends so much time acquiring he doesn't enjoy anything he has! he's got dozens of movies and albums he's never even watched or listened to, because his dvr log is so backed up he's having to delete programs he's not watching while his second computer burns the latest dvd before the game comes on!
i saw some footage shot inside a record pressing plant on my bob marley dvd. 45's (singles) were (and presumably are) pressed from a pile of plastic goop thrown down onto some kinda spinner. old ones got melted down and recycled into new ones that way.
i still have all my old vinyl. one day i will invest in a record player, because i want to digitize the full length don't stand so close to me '86 version, as well as the double 10-inch version of helmet's betty album, which has two or three extra songs on it i've never heard in my life!
-chris
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