Vinyl records make the world go around again

[Lester]

In the brave new world of MP3 players, compact discs are dying, cassettes are Stone Age, and old-fashioned vinyl records... they're back!

http://yhoo.it/wrELv5

With all the lower bitrates and high compression to save disk space, I wonder how obvious one of these would sound on the air. Discuss.

[Tom Taggart]

Well, considering that most CD's are driven into digital clipping (pull one up on an audio editor and look at the display), vinyl would sound pretty good, assuming that old SP-10 is matched with a good preamp. Certainly better than an MP-3.

With mastering done digitally, there's no tape hiss to contend with now. Apart from surface noise, the one remaining weakness with vinyl is the RIAA curve, which not only boosts the highs but also cuts the low end (to improve tracking). Many preamps did not restore the low end.

[CoolBreeze]

Biggest... Ripoff.... EVER:

It's a fact that CD players in cars are dinosaurs already. Yea yea... many of you still have CDs. I just bought a brand new car with a crummy 6 CD changer in it. WHY?? What is this... 1963 all over again? Between the lasers and motors and belts and more motors and skipping etc... why don't I just install an old cassette deck again?

Seriously... how hard would it be to install a couple of CARD READERS in the damned dash just like a computer? NO moving parts whatsoever! And how easy to change!

Oh sure, my new car has a stupid jack for a stupid IPod or MP3 player. Are you kidding me? Now I have to lug around another piece of equipment? Flash cards are SO cheap right now that there's no reason cars shouldn't have had the ability to use them YEARS ago. But no... I still have a bunch of damned motors and gears and moving parts as though it's the industrial revolution of 1899!

[Schaffer]

Mine has a card reader.

[lastone]

Mine has a RADIO. Remember those?

[CoolBreeze]

Mine has a RADIO. Remember those?

Hahaha... yea, I remember them. They were something that I used to listen to music on, along with some commercials. Now, they're used to play commercials and occasional music.

[AmpedNow]

I use the AUX jack mostly for satellite radio but sometimes I listen to podcasts and streams through my iPhone. While it only takes a few seconds to plug in and gives us more choices than ever before, it's still more effort than the average joe will ever do.

I'm amazed at the number of people with smartphones that still don't realize they can use their phone as a radio. Quite a few seem to care less even after they're told.

Then again, I think I'm the only person in WV with an HD radio, so what do I know...

What us geeks see as a no-brainer to plug and play is apparently still a tedious effort for the average person to learn how to do.

[Scott Reppert]

...the AUX jack...

My new car has one. It is the work of Satan.

I hooked up my MP3 player to it and (a). it sounds GREAT and (b). the MP3 player is HORRENDOUS to control in the car. You have to remember that I am the type of person that wants certain songs coming on at certain times followed by certain songs. That is the way it HAS to be. That is why I will continue to make CD's for the car.

And as for vinyl, the higher quality sound of the music is not worth the price of the distracting sound of the flaws...

[cgarison]

...the AUX jack...

My new car has one. It is the work of Satan.

Amy's Rav4 has one of those as well and I swear it is hooked to the back of the head unit (if you can call the back of the built radio controls that) through a factory installed, crappy RF converter like I have installed in my car. It really makes me mad to hear the engine feedback through the speakers on a factory head unit when we have our Android phones hooked up to the car.

But the real work of Satan are the cars that have USB jack that only work with iPods/iPhones. Everything related to the iPod after the 5th Gen ipod ( a.k.a. the iPod Video which is still available and over priced) and the third gen (fat) Nano along with any version of iTunes after version 4 just felt like a combination of bloatware and crapware all rolled into one.

I guess that above statement means I really hate iOS and all the devices that run on that eco system. If only Google could come up with a way of XML tagging music (that won't violate Apple's patents) to make the Android work as well as the iPod Video. I really love my original iPod as much as I hate iTunes.