Is Chronological Order Too Much To Ask For?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

c. 2030 ????????

The clicking of the geiger counters, measuring the atmospheric radiation level for a species recently extinct.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Turned out nice again.

[Conchis]

And now we see TV adverts with people putting on vinyl records, and lowering a pickup onto the tracks ...... Progress!!!!

I realy can hardly believe that this is happening - vinyl can sound good on good kit, but on the cheap things which now seem to be sold even in supermarkets it surely has to be a hopeless way to distribute audio. Who are the people who buy this stuff? Don't they know it's rubbish and will sound as such?

An unholy alliance of the under-30s, for whom it's a tasty novelty, and the over-60s, for whom it's nostalgia.

I would never go back to vinyl, because it's such a high maintenance medium. And you have to be very picky about what pressings you acquire - it's well-known that in the dying days of vinyl, the industry let quality control lapse, so just about anything produced from 1983 onwards is going to sound shocking.

For orchestral music, I wouldn't bother with vinyl AT ALL: pops and clicks may add 'something' to classic rock (though I'm not sure what) but they do nothing to enhance anything else.

[teamsaint]

The vinyl resurrgence is keeping people in work. It is helping keep record companies , and especially young rock bands, going. Son tells me a lot of bands only release on vinyl and download now.It is introducing new generations to different , sometimes better ways of listening. It is in many cases respectful of the original recording, and visual art that packaged it. And lots of people like it.

I don’t need audiophile reproduction quality to enjoy music, though often of course it is a help.

If physical media are dying, then they are going slowly, and kicking and screaming. In our consumer world we love stuff, and in our cerebral world we love music and reading. It is a very powerful combination.

Incidentally, I bought my lad a cheap and cheerful turntable, because he had said he fancied one, and he is very much enjoying acquiring and listening to a few albums that way, as well as the experience of searching with other enthusiasts at record fairs etc. Perhaps one day he’ll hear his own songs on vinyl as well as on spotify and Youtube. He’d be pretty pleased, I think.

Cheap kit is also likely a gateway to better kit. The way it was for us.

So, b****cks to the naysayers.
Never packed my vinyl away, never will.
Live and let live.


Incidentally, have just remembered that about 5 years ago, our then MD wanted to go over to ebook only, eventually. Didn’t really turn out to be his best idea.

[Conchis]

The vinyl resurrgence is keeping people in work. It is helping keep record companies , and especially young rock bands, going. Son tells me a lot of bands only release on vinyl and download now.It is introducing new generations to different , sometimes better ways of listening. It is in many cases respectful of the original recording, and visual art that packaged it. And lots of people like it.

I don’t need audiophile reproduction quality to enjoy music, though often of course it is a help.

If physical media are dying, then they are going slowly, and kicking and screaming. In our consumer world we love stuff, and in our cerebral world we love music and reading. It is a very powerful combination.

Incidentally, I bought my lad a cheap and cheerful turntable, because he had said he fancied one, and he is very much enjoying acquiring and listening to a few albums that way, as well as the experience of searching with other enthusiasts at record fairs etc. Perhaps one day he’ll hear his own songs on vinyl as well as on spotify and Youtube. He’d be pretty pleased, I think.

Cheap kit is also likely a gateway to better kit. The way it was for us.

So, b****cks to the naysayers.
Never packed my vinyl away, never will.
Live and let live.


Incidentally, have just remembered that about 5 years ago, our then MD wanted to go over to ebook only, eventually. Didn’t really turn out to be his best idea.

I remember once reading a piece in Record Collector, where someone opined that Joe Meek's records would 'never sound good' on CD, as the laser would reveal too much of how they were put together. CD certainly revealed that the early Beatles sessions were held together with string and cans.

[Bryn]

Neither vinyl nor polycarbonate is readily recycled, but at least CDs use less plastic than LPs do.

[jayne lee wilson]

Just to throw the cat among the pigeons, you understand, but re. "it's absolutely essential that people understand totally what any composer has written chronologically", how many composers write chronologically? Many start off other than at what is to become the begining of the final version of a composition. Can we ever be quite sure what a composer wrote first, and what followed? Again, it might be handy to know that Beethoven wrote his 2nd Piano Concerto before the 1st, or that Bruckner wrote his 1st Symphony before his 0th (or did he?), but is it really that essential to understand such matters?

It was never just about what comes first, more the knowledge of what happened when....and especially with Bruckner!
The uncertainty about Bruckner's Zeroth and 1st is fascinating precisely because he probably worked on them (or thought about them) across the same years - yet No.1 is so clearly superior on every musical level to the D Minor - inspirationally, structurally and argumentatively. "Here I Am!" it announces - so direct, self-assured and purposeful from the very first bars...and surprisingly distinct, almost self-contained, too; from the 2nd Symphony's opening about 5 years later - you're in another world: the start of the great adventure....

The trudging uncertainty beginning the 0th sounds almost like a hesitant sketch for No.1 and soon dissipates, losing its way...I think Bruckner laid it aside because he couldn't make it cohere or find anything like a fully-focussed structure; this probably became even harder after he'd completed No.1 - the brilliantly dramatic, headlong impact of that finale!. The Zeroth sounds more like a Suite to me now; no wonder No.2 heads off in such a new direction...

If the 0th was composed entirely after the completion of No.1, well, who knows? Perhaps, like Enescu with his Octet, with his 1st Symphony Bruckner may have brought off a greater success than he was in a position to develop....

[cloughie]

I recently acquired the 'Warner' 9CD box of Elgar's electrical recordings. For a while, I struggled. Should I listen to it in the order of composition? Or should I listen to it using the order he recorded works? Which would be more 'chronological'?

In the end, I made a cup of tea and listened to it in the order presented on the CDs, reading in parallel the notes with the earlier LP issues (including J Northrop Moore's book on the recordings).

Quite complicated enough, and most enlightening and enjoyable.

I just settle for listening to them as I wish - Symphony 1 first of all, not for any reason than I love th3 work! Then perchance Falstaff with an interlude of Chanson de matin. Does it really matter? If I’m listening to a Ravel box I’ll maybe skip Bolero completely.

[jayne lee wilson]

Especially for longer works such as operas, late Feldman etc., I am a little surprised that the DVD medium did not take off to a greater degree for audio. The DVD Audio specification provided very high audio quality and 48/24 LPCM 2-channel audio using the DVD Video specification provides long playing times and high quality audio. A good decade or so I got myself a licenced copy of Audio DVD Creator. That has proved invaluable, both for long works and high resolution recordings I have made for my own use. The Mode recording of Fledman's SQ2 (Flux Quartet) on 48/24 stereo audio DVD is a boon, but I understand even that recording has sold better in its 6 CD format. Most recently there is the issue of the same work exclusively on 12 vinyl LPs. For a continuous work, this strike me as quite ridiculous, especially as I understand the original recording was digital. I hope Blu-ray takes hold rather better than audio DVD has, but I have my doubts. How many here, for instance, link a DVD, let alone a Blu-ray player, to their HiFi system?

I recall looking very closely at the emergence of DVD-A and SACD. What to do? Oh no, not another format war...

Two points of discouragement kept emerging in the reports and reviews of DVD-A: first, the inclusion of "copy code" duplicate protection embedded into the discs, which was supposedly inaudible but turned out on test to be all-too-audible to reviewers, damaging to SQ. (This found its way onto many CDs too, including some Warners Elatus issues of Harnoncourt).
Then, the need for a screen to access the TOC, bass management and various other issues in the more complex format was off-putting for anyone used to the simplicity of CD replay...
It was a pity, it had huge potential really....

But in the last 5-10 years, rapid and significant innovations in DAC architecture have really changed the CD game; it can sound so good now, you might think, who needs SACD anymore? But it has its adherents just as vinyl does.... DVD-A begat the 24-bit download.... there's a lot of high-quality choices now, the main problem is navigating through it and settling with something.

So the attraction (and sheer simplicity) of streaming, whether CD or hi-res quality or not, is all too obvious...

[cloughie]

Just to expand on Sir V's thesis:

c. 1870 Edison and cylinders
c. 1900 Berliners flat discs, acoustic recording, scale manufacturing of '78s'
c. 1925 Electrical recording using microphone, continuance of 78s.
c. 1955 LPs at 33rpm and EPs at 45
c. 1980 CDs
c. 2005 Downloading/streaming
c. 2030 ????????

Mono LPs c1950, Stereo LPs c1955!, CDs c1985

2030 hopefully I will be warm, vertical and compos mentis and still getting round to playing my big boxed sets of CDs!

[cloughie]

I recall looking very closely at the emergence of DVD-A and SACD. What to do? Oh no, not another format war...

Two points of discouragement kept emerging in the reports and reviews of DVD-A: first, the inclusion of "copy code" duplicate protection embedded into the discs, which was supposedly inaudible but turned out on test to be all-too-audible to reviewers, damaging to SQ. (This found its way onto many CDs too, including some Warners Elatus issues of Harnoncourt).
Then, the need for a screen to access the TOC, bass management and various other issues in the more complex format was off-putting for anyone used to the simplicity of CD replay...
It was a pity, it had huge potential really....

But in the last 5-10 years, rapid and significant innovations in DAC architecture have really changed the CD game; it can sound so good now, you might think, who needs SACD anymore? But it has its adherents just as vinyl does..DVD-A begat the 24-bit download.... there's a lot of high-quality choices now, the main problem is navigating through it and settling with something.

So the attraction (and sheer simplicity) of streaming, especially CD or hi-res quality, is all too obvious...

No doubt the industry will continue to shoot itself in the foot as it has in the past - a prime example being the abandoning of developing the minidisc. I’ve not seen anything to match its user-friendliness - yes I hear you say it was not as hi in fi but then it was, as I say abandoned!

[AmpH]

So, b****cks to the naysayers.
Never packed my vinyl away, never will.
Live and let live.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more ts.

[cloughie]

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more ts.

Despite all its inconvenience, inadequacies and faff - still connect to the amp after all these years - its where the music collection all started - not used a lot but there when needed.

[Bryn]

Mono LPs c1950, Stereo LPs c1955!, CDs c1985

2030 hopefully I will be warm, vertical and compos mentis and still getting round to playing my big boxed sets of CDs!

Mono LPs 1948, Stereo LPs 1957, CDs 1982, DVD 1996, SACD 1999, DVD -Audio 2000, Blu-ray 2006 (first commercial releases).

[richardfinegold]

And now we see TV adverts with people putting on vinyl records, and lowering a pickup onto the tracks ...... Progress!!!!

I realy can hardly believe that this is happening - vinyl can sound good on good kit, but on the cheap things which now seem to be sold even in supermarkets it surely has to be a hopeless way to distribute audio. Who are the people who buy this stuff? Don't they know it's rubbish and will sound as such?

They don’t care that it sounds like rubbish. It’s cool and trendy