8mm Forum: Vinyl Resurgence

This is topic Vinyl Resurgence in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000409

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 06, 2006, 08:44 PM:

Just read in a UK magazine that Vinyl records and record turntables are seeing something of a resurgance. In fact, the article says that Vinyl records still account for about 15% of the market, and sales of high end turntables and valve amplifiers are really taking off, while the opposite is true of CD'S and CD players which are now losing significant market sales.
Might the same thing happen to movie projectors and film equipment? Probably not. But it just goes to show that there are still a lot of people out there who have not totally bought into everything digital, and prefer the old technologies, be it sound or motion pictures.

Posted by Andrew Wilson (Member # 538) on October 07, 2006, 03:25 AM:

Well PAUL;The article you have been reading is more than likely true.I have a turntable myself and it leaves cd's standing.Nothing
beats the true sound of a recording on LP.It's not compessed either.That is true sound;the fact you can see the needle touching the plastic.Andy.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on October 08, 2006, 03:33 PM:

Paul
Regarding the drop in CD sales, I was reading that iTunes passed the one billion music download mark, it appears a lot of people are now getting there music this way.

Graham.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 08, 2006, 04:20 PM:

Well I can't remember the last time I bought a CD. The problem is no one is writing good songs anymore, you know -the one's that stick in your head and you want to sing and hum. Rap is pure unadulterated garbage-how can anyone classify it as music! Yet this is the only kind of crap that seems to be selling. What we need is another Irving Berlin, or Cole Porter- the world desperately needs some good music right now. Thank God for the old musical films!

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on October 08, 2006, 05:26 PM:

I wonder if this fondness for older technologies (in which I indeed share) also applies to those in the medical field. "Lasers?...Hah! Give me a scalpel and an incision big enough to put my head through....." [Big Grin]

Doug

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on October 08, 2006, 07:22 PM:

I just bought a new SONY turntable this year and I still have a TECHNICS machine that still runs ok. I buy LP's on EBAY and often find things that were never released on CD. The old MURRAY HILL sets of classic radio programs and the original soundtrack to the Albert Finney "Scrooge" from 1970 of which I got a gorgeous gate-fold jacket and mint LP - I don't think the thing was ever played. I've also been lucky enough to find some old MARK 56 releases (ie: Laurel & Hardy film tracks, etc.)

Posted by Dan Lail (Member # 18) on October 08, 2006, 07:38 PM:

The only CD I listen to is the Chet Baker sessions from 1954. The only reason I listen to that one is because I haven't found any Chet Baker LPs yet! I'm set up with special diamond stylus for 78s that sink deeper into the groove and pick up untouched vibes. I really love the 40's swing and R&B. I get a chuckle out of 1940's country. Classical 78s are very abundant and most often in great shape. Lps from the 1950's are cool, especially the trendy latin and percussion stuff not to mention acoustic jazz and all the outer space Lps. Beat me daddy eight to the bar and shoot the sherbet to me Herbert while I'm ridin' up that old Kentucky mountain 5,4,3,2,1! [Cool]

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on October 08, 2006, 10:37 PM:

Paul
I understand where you are coming from regarding the Boom,Boom, stuff the young ones like these days. Early on this year I got tired of the them sneeking into the projection room at work, and changing the CD music that plays through the cinema complex.

So, I decided to "get my own back" and bring in some of my music, Hits Of The 70s, and a John Lennons CD. Feeling quite smug with myself, and the cinemas filling up, everything was going well, until the phone rang from the downstairs supervisor.

There is something wrong with the music, he says, there is some guy telling everyone to "Play With There Ding A Ling!" it was Chuck Berrys 70s hit "My Ding A Ling" can you imagine sitting waiting for a movie to start and hearing that. [Eek!]

I quickly removed the CD much to the amusement of the downstairs staff and my embarrassment, thinking that was the end of it, wrong! ,later that day the phone again rings, there is now some guy saying the F--- word, I am told, turns out its John Lennons "Working Class Hero". [Eek!]

Remember the saying Egg On Your Face, well I felt a large omellete had landed on mine, it wasent my day. [Roll Eyes]

Graham.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on October 09, 2006, 03:27 AM:

quote:
Regarding the drop in CD sales,

... what about the sales of Audio-DVDs/SACDs?

Posted by David Roberts (Member # 197) on October 09, 2006, 01:24 PM:

i havnt posted for ages,but as my other hobby is vinyl records and valve(tube)hi-fi,couldnt resist making a contribution.
there is a vinyl revival thats been going a few years now.im told that very expensive turntables are being made and are selling well,and people are spending around £25 on a single audiophile LP.
top end phono cartridges are available that cost several thousand pounds,these are nearly all made in japan,interestinly enough.
the reason for all this,in spite of the inconvenince and the odd bit of crackle,(far less than you might think)vinyl LP sound far nicer than CD. just as film is far nicer to watch than DVD.
in its hayday,the LP record got a bad name because most peaple played them on really crap turntables,so was born the myth CD was better.
i use film and vinyl for the same reason,their superiority to the alternatives.
regards,and a big hello to kev.

david

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on October 09, 2006, 02:24 PM:

While I have cassettes of alot of music and spoken word, my LP collection and box sets by Murray Hill are STILL wonderful to own and hear; Aesthethically for the artwork and collectible sleves and jacket inserts and the quality with the pop and crackle here and there is vintage as I like it to be - Shorty

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 09, 2006, 03:08 PM:

Hi Dave,
Yes I think it's most interesting that the very top end amplifiers are now the ones with electronic valves in the output stages, in fact the actual valves are proudly displayed on some of these units. Just goes to show - old is new again! [Smile]

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on October 09, 2006, 09:34 PM:

Paul

One of my all time favourite LP covers.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 09, 2006, 09:57 PM:

What a great cover Graham! I think it epitomizes the golden era of the great movie musicals. Those truly were the good old days- and we will never see them again. All the great song writers have left the planet.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on October 25, 2006, 12:53 AM:

A really interesting thread which also fills me with sentiments. I am one of those valve amp enthusiasts and just love the warm rounded sound you can only seem to get from valves. My other love is reel to reel tape. I have quite a few albums from the 70 and up to the demise of tape albums and some of these will knock your socks off with the quality they can produce. Where has that warm, deep bass gone these days?

The reel to reel is also good for using with the Elmo GS. If I want to lift a sound track (for whatever reason) I record the pulse via the cresta sync onto one track and the sound on the other. I have used cassette for this task many times but you always get some cross talk between the tracks. This doesnt happen on reel to reel due to the wider tape and gap between tracks.

Reminds me has anyone got any NAB reel adapters going spare?

DVD/SCD I havent seen any of these. Are they about?

In London where I work there are 4 shops selling only Vinyl records all within a couple of mins walk from my office. They must be doing good business as floor space is very expensive in the Soho area.

Kev.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 25, 2006, 10:01 AM:

Graham's album cover of 'South Pacific' raises a question. Was this film ever released on S8? I know Derann released several R&H musicals including 'The King and I, 'Carousel', and 'The Sound of Music', but I have never seen 'South Pacific' or, for that matter, 'Oklahoma' on S8. Anyone know why?

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on October 26, 2006, 12:42 AM:

There is a 200ft segment from each of those titles but I was told once by Derek that Derann couldnt get decent origination out of the distributors and then the deal fell through so the negs they did have had to go back....shame [Frown]

Kev.

Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on November 11, 2006, 01:18 PM:

Paul

In the car this afternoon I caught the end of BBC Radio 4 Weekend Womans hour (yes I know, don't go there [Roll Eyes]

), there was an item about the resurgence of interest in buying music on vinyl. It made very interesting listening, especially for us cine collectors; lots of parallels...

The item is billed like this;

quote:
This year over a million copies of new vinyl will be sold in the high street – the biggest upturn in sales since 1979. And with bands like the Arctic Monkeys and Razorlight leading the revival - could the seven inch single become cool again?
Jenni is joined in the studio by two vinyl addicts, Esther O'Callaghan and Mike Adams who’ll be explaining its lasting appeal.

And it can be heard again here (but only for the next few days);

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/03/2006_45_thu.shtml

Mike

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on November 11, 2006, 02:37 PM:

Hi Mike,
Thank's for the link, I listened to the program, and as you say, the parallell with cine( "tactile feel of records and record players"), is very apparent. One reason why DVD will never replace cine for people like us, despite what some people in the DVD camp would have think.

Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on December 01, 2006, 01:37 PM:

Paul

There was another interesting article on Radio 4 today about the vinyl resurgence this time on the "You and Yours" programme.

It concentrated more on the collecting market and there were several good interviews with collectors.

Again lots of similarities with us cine collectors!

If you want to, you can still hear it for the next couple of days on the Listen Again page here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/listenagain/friday.shtml
Mike [Cool]

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on December 01, 2006, 03:27 PM:

Thank's Mike- a great listen. This whole conversation could just have well been about the fascination of super 8 film collecting. Maybe someone in the UK should contact this BBC program and see if they have any interest in talking to some of us film collectors about why we prefer running films to DVD'S.

Posted by Claus Harding (Member # 702) on December 01, 2006, 09:18 PM:

A very good discussion....

I still have my 500 or so LPs and my Luxman turntable I bought in 1977, and they still sound marvelous.

As someone who is a home musician as well, I have seen innumerable threads from studio engineers bemoaning the lack of both creative and technical quality on today's CDs. The lack of talent plus the obsession with CD loudness for radio is killing the very notion of Hi-Fi.
That, plus the exorbitant pricing, is what is driving nails in the coffin for the 'conventional' music companies and dealers, and speeding the download business. The latter, however, won't improve the music.

As far as what formats are 'dead' and which aren't. I increasingly view such statements as some variant of "The Emperor's New Clothes": if enough people hear enough people say something is outdated, they will take it on good faith, as opposed to fact. But when you look 'under the radar' you see a different truth.
How else to explain companies spending money on mastering and pressing gear in the year 2006 to sell old-fashioned 'records' if not for demand in some form, and for a reason? In the grand scheme of things, most folks out there still don't even know this is done.
Another case in point: reel-to-reel, as Kevin mentioned. I use a Studer reel-to-reel 2-track. I also have a 24-track digital 'box' which will do every trick in the book, but the tape blows it away for pure fidelity every time. Outdated? To most people, yes. Not to the companies who are now producing brand-new reel-to-reel tape again....and so it goes.

I wonder if any of this is some sort of unconsicous backlash against the ever-faster change in technologies, or just a few blips on the radar? The folks who have VCRs are (at least officially) now a couple of generations behind, and they probably still can't set the clock, but they might just be happy enough with their VHS tapes that they don't care to know about digital hard drive recorders.

And then of course there are those film buffs...

Claus Harding.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on December 01, 2006, 10:46 PM:

You have to wonder how much of this "obsolescence" is driven by the manufacturers to continuously sell new equipment and media. For all our claim to individualism in Western Culture, we still are sheep when it comes to technology, and are ashamed to be caught more than a generation down.

"Do you really enjoy the recording and equipment? That's OK, we'll give you a reason to be dissatisfied!"

This is the blessing of Super-8: it's so obsolete that it's become pre-historic, and most people aren't even aware of it any more, so it slips under the radar of "coolness" (Why do you think you keep hearing S8 cameras called "camcorders" and films called "tapes"?)

Example: I went into a cafe at a campground last year and sat down with my wife and son for breakfast. I laid down my Minolta XL-401 on the table while we ate. A woman noticed it and said "That's a neat camera, it's so thin!"

-I didn't have the heart (...or perhaps the guts) to tell her it was 25 years old!

Posted by Tony Milman (Member # 7) on December 02, 2006, 02:24 AM:

I just saw the title of the post and got all excited..... [Wink]

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on December 02, 2006, 05:52 AM:

Hi Tony, whats M31????
Best Mark.

Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on December 02, 2006, 05:56 AM:

Mark

Exactly.

Mike [Wink]

Posted by Chris Quinn (Member # 129) on December 03, 2006, 12:27 PM:

You don't know what M31 is Mark!!!!!!!!

Chris.

Posted by Craig Hamilton (Member # 258) on December 03, 2006, 12:45 PM:

Sounds like a crime novel to me........

Craig

Posted by David Pannell (Member # 300) on December 13, 2006, 02:04 PM:

I have to agree with the sentiments expressed throughout this thread.

I too, am a lover of the analogue sound and vision. My hi-fi kit comprises the Marantz range of professional studio equipment from the '70s.

As a pianist and an organist (amateur, not professional, you understand) I have a great affinity for classical piano and organ music. And I mean proper church/cathedral organs.

Comparatively recently I invested in an active sub-woofer, and upgraded my pick-up cartridge to an Ortofon Jubilee moving coil.

WOW!!! The difference was unbelievable - almost more real than "being there"!

But, has anyone realised or worked out why we tend to prefer this sound?

I'll tell you.

We humans are analogue beings, not digital ones. Our ears are analogue dynamic devices, as are our eyes. Just think of how an echo works, or how the 'persistance of vision' works.

Therefore we feel much more at home with analogue/dynamic surroundings and they naturally seem more real to us - even musical instruments are analogue in nature.

I once had quite a long conversation with both a doctor and a music teacher on this very subject, so it all makes sense - to me at least. I hope you all agree.

Best ,

Dave.

Posted by Tony Milman (Member # 7) on December 16, 2006, 12:51 AM:

M31 all began when Mike (oohh look at those boxes) Peckham was searching for M31 title for one of his collections-you need to look for an earlier thread [Wink]

UBB.classic^TM 6.3.1.2