Why will hipsters not shut up about vinyl to me, it is unending

Which is why I own an iPod...

So if you had FLAC conversion of all your Vinyl which is perfect copies etc, would you replace your vinyl for portability/listening as there would be no audio difference?

Edit: I personally am not fussed, just curious.

edited 30th Mar '11 4:06:33 PM by IanExMachina

FLACs seem to be roughly three times as large as (320kbps) MP3s, at least if the sizes of album torrents are anything to go on.

edited 30th Mar '11 4:10:54 PM by Nyktos

If it was practical to carry my vinyl collection around in FLAC form (as in, if there was a portable player that could keep them all for me, always ready to play), I'd still keep my vinyls, though.

There's something special for me in putting that platter on the spindle and setting the needle. It's a nice little ritual.

iPods don't play FLAC, but Apple Lossless (or ALAC) gives comparable compression.

And if we're going to brag about nice looking vinyls, I have this.

edited 30th Mar '11 4:24:46 PM by MetaFour

So pretty much portable then if you had a portable player that was compatible then, cool.

So rather than perfect audio quality, which is what a pure audiophile cares for you're also for the ritual/style of how you listen to it?

Roughly on the subject I'd quite like an old timey jukebox myself.

edited 30th Mar '11 4:23:22 PM by IanExMachina

I don't think FLAC adequately reproduces vinyl sound either, but I might be misremembering.

If you have an older iPod, you can play FLAC if you put Rockbox on it.

What I'm trying to say is that between FLAC and vinyl, there's little difference. But the little things like being able to set the record to spinning is nice.

On the topic of vinyl and mp3s: You can transfer the vinyl recording to mp3 files with a 48.000kHz range at 320kbps, which has fantastic sound, but I think that the key point of vinyl is to have it played through a massive stereo unit...

I know I've heard audio engineers tell me that the thing is not that vinyl is more accurate to the source but that the particular degradations of the signal produced by the process are pleasing to the human ear.

Also, how many people here have actually listened to C Ds through a true audiophile setup? A lot of you, I feel, are comparing crappy CD playing experiences to a decent quality, if old, hifi setup with a turntable.

I really can't tell the difference between a regular 320 kbps mp3 and a FLAC. And it hasn't been my experience that vinyl sounds better than digital audio. I still like vinyl, though.

Actually, what I prefer if I can get them are variable bitrate mp3s, since my hard drive is tiny.

I can tell the difference on decent quality headphones/earbuds, e.g. the Etymotics I currently use most of the time. To varying degrees depending on the music. It's as if ... to use an analogy, it's kind of like the foreground bits of the music are casting "shadows" over the musical backdrop, blurring and hiding and distorting it. At higher mp3 bitrates it's less noticeable but not wholly gone.

My CD and Vinyl setups are equally crappy.

Mostly because they're identical except for the presence of a record player in one and a CD player in the other.

My computer has mediocre speakers and I'm too lazy to use my headphones, plus I'm only a moderate audiophile to begin with.

But I do definitely have audiophilic tendencies. It's what happens when both of your parents are musicians.

I had a $1500 setup (in fifteen years agos' money) consisting of a single-disk CD player, amp and pair of speakers. Damn, you hear things in there you never did on crap. Unfortunately, the components wouldn't work on 110V and the speakers were too heavy to economically ship when I came here.

I listen to my records almost primarily (due to sharing a house with my student wife and 19 month old daughter) through my headphones (Sennheiser H D595s) that I have running through a decent preamp. I don't think that I personally ever implied that C Ds are that much worse than vinyls. I will say though that if you give me a fresh pressed vinyl and a new CD, I've learned to tell the difference aurally. There's a certain crispness, almost a tinniness, to CD's treble that I think is warmer through a vinyl.

Though I'm not out to set anyone straight. It's what personal tastes are all about.

Anything from 192 kbps up, I honestly can't tell the difference between. Anything more than that is just wasted space to me.

@Exterminator Zed: Oh, wholly. In the end, enjoyment of audio is the point, isn't it?

With my current setup, it is difficult for me to hear a difference between a 320 mp3 and a CD/flac, so my Vinyls are mainly being stockpiled until I can shell out the big bucks.

To vinyl to MP3, you could also use something like this.

The quality will be shot to hell (most likely), but it still makes it easy.

Music > system the music is played through.

Although, I like the feeling of going to a record store and buying a few C Ds. Just a fun experience. Since I don't own a vinyl player, buying any would be quite redundant.

edited 1st Apr '11 8:30:18 AM by tnewhandl