The Case for Vinyl

My Growing LP Collection

Sometimes old technology is better then new technology. For some Microsoft will never improve on Windows XP. While I don't agree with that opinion I will say there are indeed times when old is better then new.

For example...

This weekend I am looking forward to attending the Keystone Record Collector's "Music Expo" where I will take my time browsing thousands of vinyl LPs looking for vintage awesome music.  This music expo is now a monthly event for Keystone although my wife really only has the patience for attending it - about 5-6 times a year. Why is this event so popular? Why is vinyl still alive and actually growing in popularity? I have been asking myself these questions for about 3-4 years now since I have again begun collecting and listening to vinyl, as opposed to digital whenever possible.

Think about this. Just about every new form of technology has killed it's predecessor. First there was vinyl then there was 8-track then there was cassettes, followed by CDs and recently digital files. OK 8-track and cassettes are long buried in the heap of history and CD sales have been plummeting for years. Vinyl music was really first introduced in the 1940's and grew in popularity until the late 1980's early 1990's then CD's put a serious hurt on vinyl and almost killed the product. In fact vinyl was barely breathing until about 2006 when something amazing happened. Vinyl sales began to increase. This was unheard off with almost all previous leap frogged technologies.

There is some criticism of this vinyl reemergence as mere "revivalism". But I believe it is much more then that. You can see this in that almost all mainstream music today. Most artists are releasing their new material on "vinyl" 180 in addition to digital and CD. This was not happening in the late 1990's and early 2000's.  Artists are now regularly releasing vinyl versions of their new material, along with digital downloads.

Don't get me wrong digital music is here to stay and I would have it no other way. I have over 100GB of digital music available at any time to stream at home and over 60Gb on my portable digital player.

However when I am home, and just want to relax and get my mind off the world, spinning some vinyl is simply a perfect experience. There is a flood of emotions when selecting and listening to music on vinyl. First you browse the collection, looking through the art work, reading the liner notes and finally choosing an entire album to put on.

What Should I Listen To?

There's nothing that comes close to the joy felt when you slip a record out of its inner sleeve, place it on a turntable, and drop a needle on its outermost ring.  Being that the record plays for roughly fifteen to twenty minutes at a time, it makes sense to be nearby when it comes time to flip it over.  There is a definite gratification in these simple obligatory tasks which only further require you to engage in your music.  Awaiting that moment of infinite static which signifies the end of a given side, you have no choice but to listen to everything leading up (unless your attention span will have you drag the needle to the corresponding ring of the only song you actually like from the album, at which point it might have been more cost effective to just purchase that particular single).  Another nice attribute: no visual component, nothing to distract, take away from, or come between great-sounding music and a spoiled pair of ears.

Also being analogue, vinyl doesn’t have to go through any conversion process. Vinyl simply has more depth and solidity then digital music, especially a pair of ear buds. There is some controversy here, but for me I have found this to be true and ear buds are usually stuck on my head when I am working outside so I truly have been comparing this for years.

With analog sound the listener is getting what the engineer intended while digital recordings are produced by changing the physical properties of the original sound into a sequence of numbers, which can then be stored and read back for reproduction. In practical terms, you’re getting a representation of the sound. This is not the case with vinyl.

Yes there is a nostalgia to some of this resurgence with vinyl for that I am certain. This is a positive experience for most people, otherwise they would not spend the time and money picking up a classic LP that they sold in a garage sale back in 1992!