geiginni wrote:-Everything below 500 Hz must be in mono.
where do you get this information?
you have to watch it with LF in stereo, but i don't believe that absolute statement is true
-ALL vinyl masters have some degree of limiting on them, even if (or particularly, because) the source master has none.
the same can be said for any CD master with any kind of dynamic range that sounds decent. without limiting, the peakiest peaks determine overall level. if those peakiest peaks are not limited, the resolution of the audio content suffers greatly. just part of sound reproduction, regardless of format.
-The horizontal resolution of an LP is reduced some 70% from the beginning to the end of a side. Tracking distortion increases and frequency response decreases. On a rock or jazz LP you can easily put the quiet ballad at the end; not so easy to do with Beethoven's 9th, Carmina Burana, or Pines of Rome.
true. just last night, i was wishing 'supernaut' wasn't at the end of a side on _vol. 4_.
-Vinyl does degrade with playing (as opposed to CDs degradation being environmental). A stylus tip will heat to 700 degrees F while playing. As we know, that's hot enough to melt a little bit of the groove. After a couple hundred playings, you will notice it.
i didn't know the temp thing
i believe the degradation is minor if you have a decent turntable, however, and are not tracking at more than a couple grams, maybe 2.5g
Mahler symphonies, the Cure's Disintegration, etc. can be over an hour. That means cutting at 0dB or (eech!) -3 dB....hello noise floor, hello compression.
half an hour per side is simply too long for good sound on vinyl. 22 min is about the limit, i think. this is one big limitation of the medium, no doubt.
-I can't put my entire LP collection in my pocket and listen to it on the train ride to work (at least until I digitize it). There are practical aspects to this format that completely overcome any shortcomings. If someone told me when I was a teenager that in 15 years I'd be able to put 300 albums in a cigarette pack and listen to them anywhere/anytime I would have been blown away.
i agree
i think portable digital audio is great, as a temporary medium
when i actually pay money for music, i like it to be retrievable for the rest of my life, however. the only way to guarantee that is to buy vinyl. and i prefer reasonable-qual vinyl vastly over mp3 as well as cd. i capitulate on 24-bit digital--i think it probably beats vinyl. but i can't listen to it on my stereo, and i have no faith i could get stuff in a stable format easily in the near future.