Does anyone still use or like vinyl?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Would you explain, please, or post a link? I haven't heard of this.

I think this was one of the early claims about the error correction feature on CD players.

[Petrushka]

I have about 700 LP's, classical and non-classical, but haven't had the means to play them for many years. Apart from the odd military band LP I don't even want to. When I bought my first CD player in November 1985 I stopped playing LP's instantly and have never played one from that day to this. But, despite acute storage problems, I cannot bring myself to part with any of them. Nearly all are now on CD.

I also have dozens of cassettes of off-air concerts most of which will now be unplayable even if I had the means to play them. Common sense is finally beginning to tell me to sling them all out along with dozens of video tapes, mostly unlabelled.

The fact of the matter is that I only have so much room and, let's face it, only a certain amount of time, however long that may be I can't know. All of these factors are telling me to dispose of loads of stuff but I cannot bring myself to do it.

[salymap]

Do it now Petrushka, believe me, the older one gets, the harder it is to throw things out.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The fact of the matter is that I only have so much room and, let's face it, only a certain amount of time, however long that may be I can't know. All of these factors are telling me to dispose of loads of stuff but I cannot bring myself to do it.

I transferred some off-air recordings to CD before disposing of the open reel tapes, but others I discarded, such as Andrew Davis conducting Elgar's The Apostles. I now regret my haste. All I would say is - "check before you chuck".

[DracoM]

Ref OP

Yes, both.

[Petrushka]

All I would say is - "check before you chuck".

It will be an enormous task to check out all of the dozens of VHS tapes I have lying about and that together with the undeniable fact that I have more than enough CD's to last Methuselah his lifetime means that Salymap is right but first I have to overcome the inertia.

As for books...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think this was one of the early claims about the error correction feature on CD players.

Sorry?! If your CD (or player) has a fault in it, you're supposed to drill a 1/8" hole in it?? Who discovered this "solution"?

[Gordon]

Would you explain, please, or post a link? I haven't heard of this.

Many years ago when CD was first around one of the demonstrations of its "indestructibility" was to drill a hole in one and then play it. The idea is that the CIRC error correction system is so good that it would deal with the lost bits. IIRC Hi Fi News had a series of articles about CD and one of them mentioned this trick. This link goes some way towards it, someone suggests a black mark from a pen instead of a hole:

http://club.myce.com/f61/drilling-hole-into-cd-234512/I think he put the hole too near the end where the player may be challenged by eccentricity wobble enough to throw the servos off. Rather then the CIRC giving up there is also the likelihood of the missing signal from the optical detector upsetting the servos in some machines.

In CD coding the contiguous input audio data samples are separated and thrown about over the disc surface such that they are long way apart in the spiral. Thus if a big contiguous block of them go missing [it's called an erasure] the process that de-scrambles the audio and does the converse and puts it back in place also breaks up the large erasure into individual sample errors which the error control system can replace and remnants mopped up by some interpolation and a bit of judicious muting. Theoretically it should work but don't do it where the TOC is!! In some practical cases it worked but some players couldn't do it routinely. We used to do something similar as a demo trick when we worked on digital video tape recording by carefully removing spots of oxide!!

Don't try this at home.

[mangerton]

Thank you, Gordon. I'll not try this.

I didn't try the green felt tip pen trick, either.

On the other hand, I've read that these make a remarkable difference to the sound from one's hifi.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

On the other hand, I've read that these make a remarkable difference to the sound from one's hifi.

Somehow, I can't imagine Frau Alpensinfonie going for this, and it sounds pretty stupid anyway.

[jayne lee wilson]

LP was all heartache. Trying to clean them with zerostat and pixall, going back to the shop for a click-free slow movement (impossible), the problem of where to put them...

A friend wanted to buy them in 1988. You do know, I said, about the dust problem, the noise from occasional or worse clicks, rumble, and things...?
Yes yes he said, everyone says vinyl is cool, sounds great... this conversation was often repeated. Finally he bought them, a fair price.
3 weeks later a phone call. There seems quite a lot of crackle on these records...

I love all things digital - the quality of your choice (from poor to excellent) and effortless playback, even on live streams. Oh, wait a minute...

Like Petrushka I have cassettes of R3 FM broadcasts under the stairs (I'd really rather not count them) and no machine to play them on. They are like fading memories; but I learnt music (especially contemporary - Friday night, Music in Our Time!) from them, the concerts they were made from. Not happy with your last Schumann 3 or Tragoedia? Try again, tape over it...

Album Art? Embrace miniaturisation! Seen those Venzago Bruckner canvasses yet? Abstraction in relief!...Mmmm.

[Volti Subito]

There is something special about lowering the pickup into the groove, having cleaned the record scrupulously and done as much as possible to remove static. The listening experience was possibly more intense, as each playing theoretically degraded the disc slightly, so not paying attention seemed to be something of a waste, placing a greater value on the music that had been recorded.

Are we talking about vynil or acetate (78rpm) discs?

I have a vast collection of LPs, both mono and stereo, and mono 78s 10" and 12" which were bequeathed to me by an elderly uncle.

The 78s were always played using Imhof Thorn Needles, which could be re-sharpened after every playing using the IM Pointmaster - a gadget which rolled the needle back and forth across a strip of sandpaper, or it could be manually sharpened using an EverReady razor blade.

The result is that there were no scratches or appreciable groove wear, so I copied most of them onto CDs using my own quality 3 speed turntable. (Thorens) Alas, some of those CDs have developed dreadful crackles (doesn't seem to happen to my commercial CDs, so it must be down to the suspect quality of CD-Rs).


Old 78s of such as Heddle Nash, Webster Booth, Norman Allin, Dame Clara Butt - and even Gracie Fields come out of the past with gorgeous clarity. In a little flat like mine, who needs stereo?
I'd rather listen to Stokowsky conducting Scheherezade with the Philadelpia in 1936 than Jukka Pekka something-or-other on the latest stereo recording, assembled like a jigsaw puzzle from numerous takes and retakes.

Anyway, I'm a bit deaf in my right ear, so I suppose I really hear everything in mono.

Volti

[Bryn]

... Alas, some of those CDs have developed dreadful crackles (doesn't seem to happen to my commercial CDs, so it must be down to the suspect quality of CD-Rs). ...

I know the problem. The solution? Stick to Taiyo Yuden manufactured CD-Rs.

[Don Petter]

Are we talking about vynil or acetate (78rpm) discs?

I have a vast collection of LPs, both mono and stereo, and mono 78s 10" and 12" which were bequeathed to me by an elderly uncle.

I think your 78s are shellac, not acetate?

[Dave2002]

Somehow, I can't imagine Frau Alpensinfonie going for this, and it sounds pretty stupid anyway.

Ah, the snake oil pipeline again.

Curiously raising some cables - e.g USB cables - off the floor can make a difference, I suspect due to electrical or possibly interference effects, and also when (1) the cables may not be fully screened and (2) the digital recovery protocols used on a digital link aren't robust enough. I discovered this when trying to move data from an old Humax Freeview box to a computer. The probability of success definitely improved when the cables were off the floor. It was repeatable.