A "Diggin' the Crates" Special Installment: What's the Big Deal with Analog Sound?

sliding a treasured LP out of its jacket, laying it on the platter, dropping the needle, and just listening.

That's hot.

I've made a deal with myself that anything I think I might want to still listen to in ten years (for reasons other than nostalgia), I'll get on vinyl. Music is personal, and analog formats are tactile and, well, personal.

Yep. Harmonic resonance, my friend.

The key to the aural universe.

Evan... you are a legend! You have totally inspired me and I am, as I write, cracking out my vinyl and contemplating a trip to the markets and my fav second hand store to purchase some more. I prefer buying LPs recorded when vinyl was king, something about the sound and the look that can't be matched by cd recordings of the same records or even LPs made in the CD age.

I am also a huge fan of both the tactile and aesthetic qualities that vinyl has (I do include cds in this but I suspect I am not so much a purist as you are). While I have an ipod for mobile convenience I NEVER listen to music on my computer or use my pod at home. I will always and forever love the jacket, the liner notes, the tangibilty of a record... *sigh*

I remember the whole cd-versus-vinyl debate and later the mp3-versus-cd debate. During the cd-versus-vinyl debate I was working at a radio station and all of us were of the opinion that vinyl was better. Most of us on-air dj's used vinyl in our shows but there were a few who chose to use cd's. My opinion at the time was that we owed our listeners the best sound reproduction that we could put out, and that was vinyl.

I suppose it all comes down to this: music is digitizing, and vinyl is slowly fading.

I suppose in some ways you're right, but the fading varies by relative genre. In the hip-hop world there is still a lot of vinyl being produced for the DJs. Also, more and more "indie" rock artists are coming out with vinyl versions of their CDs, becuase audiophile hipsters have all stolen their parent's (or, for even greater cred, their grandparent's) turntables, but don't really dig all the Burt Bacharach and Grateful Dead. For example, CocoRosie released an album on both CD and LP, with the LP edition providing a link where you could download their songs in MP3 - acknowledgment of people's love for analog sound as well as their love of digital portability.

As an aside, someone told me once that something in vinyl provides a natural high-frequency compression, as opposed to digital formats that have to crunch the data down so you're ears don't bleed. The issue though (at least, for him) is that digital compression, being artificial, doesn't relay sound the same, so the CD still has a slightly audible harshness to it, where an LP is a "softer" listen due to its naturally-occurring compress. He claimed that after listening to CDs for hours (especially with headphones) would gradually hurt his ears, whereas he could listen to LPs all night long. I don't know if there's any credence to this, but it would make sense.

Now, if you really want to talk about extinct, try tapes.

Very nice article Evan. It's all about the sine waves. Another name for the digitization phenomenon you are talking about is "aliasing" -- a curious phenomenon in which high frequencies (high tones which are almost inaudible to human ears) can become low frequencies (which are spurious, audible, and very annoying). There is a pretty good article on that here. This article includes tasty tidbits such as the "Nysquist Frequency" for those ready to geek out. For what is is worth, this phenomenon isn't limited to music. It occurs in digital photography (moire effects), and even in the debate about global warming and detection of climate change above background "noise", and sonar for finding submarines, and in oil exploration -- really anything that uses digital data. OK, end of lecture. You got it.