Tuesday 22 April 2014

Digital Vs Analogue - It's A Personal Thing, Isn't It?

Just read a great article from vox.com on the issue of the supposed Superiority of Vinyl.  Let's face it you get something different from a CD or a download.  It's a personal mix between hi-fidelity, convenience in acquiring and in playing and possibly your first experience of a particular track or album.
My listening time is now 80% on the move.  my i-pod allows me to review my collection on the tube each morning and select whatever I want to hear.  I know it sounds different to my vinyl or even CD copies but then Hi-Fi, docking station, computer speakers, Car systems, headphones, ear buds all add to the differences.
I happen to have a lot of CDs - some of which were bought as a first experience of, say, Amy Winehouse - to me CD is her natural home.  Then again hearing the CD version of the Four Tops "Standing in the Shadows of Love" for the first time was a revelation as I'd always been used to the vinyl version on my mum's radiogram playing my older sisters scratched 45rpm.  Which do i prefer - not sure?! Some tracks lose their "sound" if heard digitally.  At the beginning of the CD era a number of classical releases had to be edited as exterior noises from the original concert halls could be heard under the new format, whereas they were previously hidden behind all that surface noise previously. But we got used to that didn't we.  Radio broadcasts narrowed the sound  - Berry Gordy ordered his engineers to play up the beat and the higher end percussion to meet the restrictions of radio play. And so the argument can rattle on...

Of course vinyl is the cool item to own.  But then again isn't it all about the music itself?