Someone used this term in a meeting yesterday and it got me thinking. What will we call this repetitiveness when no one knows about vinyl records anymore? Do you think this phrase will outlast that technology, like "flash in the pan" and "whole nine yards" have outlasted the use of those techonologies?
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
Good question, CW. I imagine in future years, when people don't even remember records, they will search places like world wide words or word detective to find out how the phrase developed. I think it will stay around, though.
If you think records are going out of fashion, you might want to try googling "vinyl records". Not only is the retro scene very active, but DJ use of vinyl on turntables is big business. Virtual turntables with digital audio storage will probably eventually push mechanical DJing out, but the hip hop traditionalists will no doubt hold on for a long time.
The concept of a "broken record" may fade from consciousness. When vinyl is used for live music the records aren't left to run unattended for any length of time. The chances are small of getting a track repeating due to a scratch, and should it happen, it's unlikely to be perceived as a fault.
Isn't it funny how vinyl is once again regarded as the quality product, becuase it produces better sound than CDs, minidiscs, mp3s or digital radio.
And once again it's not the best product that has market share. Can anyone say VHS versus Beta? The average consumer does not want better sound: they want cheap, sturdy, and portable equipment. What does a good turntable and tube amplifier cost these days?
Most consumers believe that audio CDs sound better because of the lack of hiss, pops, and clicks caused by dust on the old vinyl LPs. The kids wandering around plugged into iPods just like the fact that they can listen to up to 10K of songs in MP3 on a device smaller than a pack of cigarettes. There's always been a trade-off between desire and quality.
Vinyl records can break but are not fragile. The early wax cylinders were very fragile and could be broken simply by being to enthusiastic when putting them onto the playing mandril.
Shellac 78s were less fragile but could be broken by being dropped.
The "broken record" technique is an assertive technique which simply involves a continual re-statement of a position and it is named after the fault of the continual repeating of a single rotation. This was common in 78s but less so in wax cylinders (because they had a screw that moved the playing needle) and less so in vinyl because of the lighter pickup and lesser tracking weight.
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
quote:Isn't it funny how vinyl is once again regarded as the quality product, becuase it produces better sound than CDs, minidiscs, mp3s or digital radio.
I studied audio engineering back in the late 70's - early 80's, before CD's came out, so we spent a lot of time on phonograph recording and playback. CD's beat vinyl by any quantitative measurement. It is really, really hard to get good sound out of a needle vibrating in a groove. It is a mess of contradictory engineering constraints.
Some people like vinyl better than CD, but that's a matter of taste, just like some people like steam locomotives better than diesel.
quote: some people like steam locomotives better than diesel.
Since I'm old enough to clearly remember steam locomotives, I can attest to the overall experience of a steamer's being multi-sensory. There was the puffing, the chugging, the screeching of heavy steel on steel, the sight of white steam and black smoke, the mini-earthquake of its passage, and the the wraith-like shriek of the steam whistle wailing while your nostrils drank the moist air and smoke. Kinda like hearing someone play a synthesizer, then hearing the same thing on a big pipe organ. More of one's senses are quickened.
I think vinyl is prefered by the "DJ's" because it's manipulatable. You can push it back and forth and get those cool squeaks, shrrrrps and woozhzhzhzhes. Can't do that with digital stuff.
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
quote:I think vinyl is prefered by the "DJ's" because it's manipulatable. You can push it back and forth and get those cool squeaks, shrrrrps and woozhzhzhzhes. Can't do that with digital stuff.
Very true. Don't forget that this music evolved when people were literally throwing their phonographs in the garbage, and kids started picking them up and hacking them. Turntable manipulations horrify audiophiles of the Vinyl Generation, which, I think, is part of the point.
My younger son, Michael, is an apprentice sound systems low voltage electrician. He has DJ equipment of his own. He showed me the special needles DJs use which have rounded tips, so they bounce along the grooves instead of actually doing damage to them. There are even "scratch" records designed to be used with these needles with no, or very little damage. Soooo, it seems turntables aren't the dinasaurs we once thought them to be.
CD's beat vinyl by any quantitative measurement. It is really, really hard to get good sound out of a needle vibrating in a groove. It is a mess of contradictory engineering constraints.
I thought I was crazy! Glad to see you validating that, neveu.
BTW, I have had CDs that skip, too. My wonderful Al Green CD, that I love, has an annoying skip.
quote:Isn't it funny how vinyl is once again regarded as the quality product, becuase it produces better sound than CDs, minidiscs, mp3s or digital radio.
I studied audio engineering back in the late 70's - early 80's, before CD's came out, so we spent a lot of time on phonograph recording and playback. CD's beat vinyl by any quantitative measurement. It is really, really hard to get good sound out of a needle vibrating in a groove. It is a mess of contradictory engineering constraints.
Some people like vinyl better than CD, but that's a matter of taste, just like some people like steam locomotives better than diesel.
How interesting. I was only going on what I've read and heard with my own ears. Does digitisation have no ill affects?
Sure, but nothing like a phonograph. In a wire-to-wire comparison of the electrical signal recorded to the electrical signal reproduced, CD beats phonograph by miles. Signal-to-noise: 98dB vs. 45dB, frequency response flat out to 20KHz, stereo separation infinite vs. 20dB.
The sampling frequency of digital recordings determines the highest frequency that can be recorded. CD's are sampled at 44KHz so the highest frequency is 22KHz. Any signal power above that gets turned into noise at the low frequencies, so the signal has to be steeply high-pass filtered to cut off all the signal above 22K (8th order Butterworth is what I remember). This filter scrambles the phases of the signals between 20K and 22K, and some people cite this as a problem with CDs. You wouldn't even hear these frequencies from a phonograph record and if you are over 18 you probably can't hear them anyway. Some people argue that ultrasonic sounds combine in the non-linearities of the ear and the air to produce audible coloration, but the power levels in the ultrasonic range for normal instruments (except possibly percussion) is negligible -- you can hear this effect with a couple of ultrasonic transducers, but you have to put a lot of power through them. The stylus-tonearm assembly with its masses, springs and dampers introduces phase distortion all over the spectrum. In any case, I don't think it outweighs the S/N, separation and frequency response advantages of CD.
Psychologists discovered long ago (probably Bell Labs, probably the 50's, but I can't remember the paper anymore) that people prefer the quality of reproduction they are used to. If you are accustomed to the coloration of a phonograph and tube amplifiers, that is what will sound normal to you. Any mass in the system (microphones, speakers, needles, tonearms, motors) will color the sound -- sound reproduction is really a misnomer, it's sound re-creation. It's all colored. In the end, it's just a matter of taste.
CW, you are so cute! I was thinking the same thing...and I think about it with jheem's posts and aput's posts and arnie's posts...and many others here. Sheesh! Can't we talk about nursing?
quote:Originally posted by neveu: Sure, but nothing like a phonograph. In a wire-to-wire comparison of the electrical signal recorded to the electrical signal reproduced, CD beats phonograph by miles. Signal-to-noise: 98dB vs. 45dB, frequency response flat out to 20KHz, stereo separation infinite vs. 20dB.
The sampling frequency of digital recordings determines the highest frequency that can be recorded. CD's are sampled at 44KHz so the highest frequency is 22KHz. Any signal power above that gets turned into noise at the _low_ frequencies, so the signal has to be steeply high-pass filtered to cut off all the signal above 22K (8th order Butterworth is what I remember). This filter scrambles the phases of the signals between 20K and 22K, and some people cite this as a problem with CDs. You wouldn't even hear these frequencies from a phonograph record and if you are over 18 you probably can't hear them anyway. Some people argue that ultrasonic sounds combine in the non-linearities of the ear and the air to produce audible coloration, but the power levels in the ultrasonic range for normal instruments (except possibly percussion) is negligible -- you can hear this effect with a couple of ultrasonic transducers, but you have to put a lot of power through them. The stylus-tonearm assembly with its masses, springs and dampers introduces phase distortion all over the spectrum. In any case, I don't think it outweighs the S/N, separation and frequency response advantages of CD.
Psychologists discovered long ago (probably Bell Labs, probably the 50's, but I can't remember the paper anymore) that people prefer the quality of reproduction they are used to. If you are accustomed to the coloration of a phonograph and tube amplifiers, that is what will sound normal to you. Any mass in the system (microphones, speakers, needles, tonearms, motors) will color the sound -- sound reproduction is really a misnomer, it's sound re-creation. It's all colored. In the end, it's just a matter of taste.
Wow. That is such a fantastic answer, I have copied it to keep forever. The only other one I've done that for from this board had all the definitions of different types of love (was that you also?).
I'm not sure I believe the psychologists. Vinyl always seems to sound special, even though I play 100 Cds for every LP. I compared recently with the start of This is the Sea, by the Waterboys, and my 19-year-old vinyl version sounded better on my £200 sytstem upstairs, than the 2004 digitally remastered CD did downstairs on my beautiful Cyrus Hi-Fi.
For the beneift of both UK and US readers, remember that there is a language difference here. When US users talk of a phonograph they mean any kind of sound reproducer that's not tape or cd or later. This usage came about because that is what Edison called his original machine.
In the UK we use the term only to refer to machines of the Edison type, which used wax cylinders are their recording medium. Machines using the Berliner system of shellac discs were called gramophones and that name persisted until the advent of the vinyl disc in the 1950s when the name, without especially good reason, changed to record player.
Edison's system had many advantages over the Berliner system - its groove speed was constant (so the sound quality didn't drop off as the end of the record was approached), there was no side-thrust on the groove (which leads to asymetric wear on a disc) its recording medium was quieter and its styli lasted far longer than did Berliner's single-use needles. It did suffer from one severe disadvantage, though, which ultimately lead to its extinction. Every recording made on a cylinder was unique; at the most no more than maybe a dozen could be made at each session (by having several recording machines surrounding the performers) and this meant that production speed was low and costs high.
But once a Berliner cylinder had been cut, a reverse die was made from the master and an unlimited number of identical pressings could be made at minimal cost and at high speed.
Price and costs, as always, won the day.
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
quote:Originally posted by Richard English: The early wax cylinders were very fragile and could be broken simply by being to enthusiastic when putting them onto the playing mandril.
What's a mandril? Is this a familiar term that I just happened never to have learned, or an unusual term?
It might have been more familiar had I spelt it correctly
A mandrel (sic) is a kind of core or rod around which material is shaped or formed.
The old phonograph cylinders were driven by being pushed onto a rod that was slightly conical and whose angle matched that of the interior of the cylinder. The friction between the cylinder and the rod provided the drive. If the cylinder slipped (and, bearing in mind it was made of wax and the friction between wax and steel is clearly low) then it had to be pushed harder onto the rod and, if pushed too hard, could break.
The disc was a far better idea from the point of view of drive, since the whole surface of a large disc rested on the turntable and, even if that were covered in baize, would have a high enough level of friction that slippage was impossible.
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
Mandrel is an interesting word. It comes from French mandrin 'lathe' > Provençal mandre 'axle, crank' > Old Pronvençal 'beam of a balance' > Latin mamphur (a hapax legomenon) 'bowdrill' which may have been borrowed from Oscan or some similar Italic dialect. The Romance forms point to a Latin word *mander which does not exist in the literature. Strangely, it has nothing to do with the mandrill baboon man + drill; the drill portion is of West African origin and means 'baboon'. (I also see that mandril is an accepted variant from mandrel.)This message has been edited. Last edited by: jheem,
Probably not to true nit pickers, JT, but language outlives the people who speak it, so perhaps the number of nit pickers will just approach zero over time.
quote:Originally posted by jheem: Probably not to true nit pickers, JT, but language outlives the people who speak it, so perhaps the number of nit pickers will just approach zero over time.
Makes me think of the movie _Earth Girls are Easy_ when Julie Brown says "I'm a freshman in my third year at UCLA . . ."
But something tells me you really just kept finding new degrees to obtain. I stopped at Master's. Every once in a while I think about how what I'm doing would make for a great PhD thesis . . . but then the fever subsides and I get back to actually working.
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
quote:Originally posted by Caterwauller: PhD stands for "piled higher and deeper".
That's the final part of a three-part joke.
"Howdy neighbor! Haven't seen hide ner hayir o'ya fer years. How's that thar edeecated kid o'yours doin' in kollej?
"Wa'll, after four year he tell me he got him some award fer BS -- and you know what BS stands fer. Then he stayed 'n studeed smore, and they gave him MS -- that means More of the Same. And now, after 5 more years, he dun got his it PhD -- Piled Higher 'n Deeper."
CW, you are so cute! I was thinking the same thing...and I think about it with jheem's posts and aput's posts and arnie's posts...and many others here. Sheesh! Can't we talk about nursing? 
