The Silliness of the Vinylists
How do you listen to a short story
It has been shown the the world's greatest wine critics simply cannot distinguish between an ordinary, off the shelf wine and the greatest of vintages in a blind test. The great vintage is great by virtue of the hypnotism of labels.
I have listened to the various audiophile arguments about "depth" and "warmth" of sound from vinyl--how it differs not merely in qualitative ways, but the difference can be quantified. I have owned (for a long time) music from both sources and can say, that I have striven with all due diligence to hear the difference between the two, and the only difference I do here is the lack of static, blips, and creaks in the vinyl, and the introduction of new skips, blips, and creaks in the CD.
A person can convince themselves of anything whatsoever on the slenderest of evidence--and if it gives one great pleasure to think that one is hearing something better, I suppose there's no harm in it. And record players are coming back (even if only as transfer mechanisms to the digital milieu).
It has been shown the the world's greatest wine critics simply cannot distinguish between an ordinary, off the shelf wine and the greatest of vintages in a blind test. The great vintage is great by virtue of the hypnotism of labels.
I have listened to the various audiophile arguments about "depth" and "warmth" of sound from vinyl--how it differs not merely in qualitative ways, but the difference can be quantified. I have owned (for a long time) music from both sources and can say, that I have striven with all due diligence to hear the difference between the two, and the only difference I do here is the lack of static, blips, and creaks in the vinyl, and the introduction of new skips, blips, and creaks in the CD.
A person can convince themselves of anything whatsoever on the slenderest of evidence--and if it gives one great pleasure to think that one is hearing something better, I suppose there's no harm in it. And record players are coming back (even if only as transfer mechanisms to the digital milieu).
I still have my record player, although I haven't used it in years. I don't know if it still works. It's more the result of inertia than an active choice. I have perhaps an hundred LPs gathering dust, as I play the CDs now and am searching for replacements for the vinyls.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the market for short stories on vinyl is the same market that insists music sounds better on vinyl than on CD.
It also sounds like an appeal to snobbishness to me.