24bit Vinyls

[Quarterquack]

I was wondering if any tracker has a decent amount of these? Preferably recent stuff, of course. I usually buy old Vinyls, but when it comes to new music, they become extremely hard to scout. Do the lossless trackers come close to having a good amount of them? If not are there any other trackers with a comprehensive amount of Vinyls?

[ca_aok]

What probably has the most from that Team 96 hype about a year and a half ago. People got really obsessed with 24/96 rips and a lot of them have shown up since, albeit often ripped with poor equipment.

The folks on the lossless trackers generally know what they're doing and sometimes have decent equipment to boot (plus the rips generally come with full artwork). It's really the case of quality v.s. quantity.

[pretend]

What.cd has biggest selection I guess, but seriously some people don't hesitate to rip vinyl even with digital dictaphone. Besides that Pedro's and Eo have decent amount of well-ripped releases, rutracker.org has its vinyl enthusiasts (vinyl rippers there usually care about quality), avaxhome.ws, which mostly serves rips taken elsewhere but still might be great source.

[IdolEyes787]

I'm confused , you take a vinyl record and change into not a vinyl record.Excuse the ignorance but kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

[pretend]

I'm confused , you take a vinyl record and change into not a vinyl record.Excuse the ignorance but kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

I doubt that even well-done 24/96 rip will sound better than CDDA, but still vinyl sounding is kinda cute. And what else to do if the thing wasn't released in lossless digital format? I'd say some electronic/indie-rock labels still prefer vinyl over anything else and sometimes don't make new releases available on CD.

Anyway I don't think this defeats the purpose. If people like listening vinyl, they will like listening to exact replica of once played tape.

[IdolEyes787]

[youtube]awi14wDTxNw[/youtube]

[windterry]

what...................................

[Quarterquack]

Correct. The Vinyl will always be better than its digital form. However, my problem is locating said Vinyls. I don't know a single place in Ottawa that sells "modern" LPs and I sure as hell am not going to drive up to a place that does 200-400Kms away just for one or two of them.

I've been updating my audio systems lately, and the 24/96k rips that I have sure do sound better than a FLAC playing at 900kbps. Maybe it's a placebo, maybe it's not, but I can still even hear the degradation crackle. I'm not hunting for Elvis 1980's LP's, I'm looking for more modern stuff by current artists that still release them, but are hard to find. So, I settle for the next best thing; their digital form.

EDIT: How silly of me; thank you to both pretend and ca_aok. I'll look into all of the options you mentioned, guys.

[elbuitre]

I'm confused , you take a vinyl record and change into not a vinyl record.Excuse the ignorance but kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

Well each time you play a vinyl record the needle damages it, so by recording the first play at 24bit you keep all the information, albeit digitized. Only an unplayed record can be turned into a 24bit rip.

[ca_aok]

I've been updating my audio systems lately, and the 24/96k rips that I have sure do sound better than a FLAC playing at 900kbps. Maybe it's a placebo, maybe it's not, but I can still even hear the degradation crackle. I'm not hunting for Elvis 1980's LP's, I'm looking for more modern stuff by current artists that still release them, but are hard to find. So, I settle for the next best thing; their digital form.

It's placebo (unless you mean 24/96 vs 16/44.1 of the same vinyl rip in which case it's still probably placebo). DVDA or SACD sources are always preferable.

Well each time you play a vinyl record the needle damages it, so by recording the first play at 24bit you keep all the information, albeit digitized. Only an unplayed record can be turned into a 24bit rip.

Not exactly. You're right that an LP degrades on every play (less so with better equipment and storage practices) but you're wrong in that you're keeping all the information. The analog->digital conversion is quantizing the analog soundwave into digital form, which completely benefits the so called advantage of vinyl: the completely analog signal chain.

Throw in the fact that many modern LPs are recorded digitally (and certainly mixed/mastered digitally) and many modern LPs are directly sourced from the 16/44.1 CD mastering, and you have a boatload of fail in most cases. By the time the sound is actually coming out of your speakers it's been transcoded multiple times from analog to digital.

Regarding the 24bit part, that's not exactly true. 24bit sound increases the dynamic range of the recordings, but most LPs probably don't have the dynamic range to make use of those extra bits, and if they do it's not necessarily completely degraded on the first play. Hell, many LPs, especially older ones probably don't even have the dynamic range to fill a 16bit file. And even if the LP is superbly pressed and mastered, people doing vinyl rips online are often teenagers using shitty equipment that cost a few hundred dollars all told, or even worse, a USB turntable.

The only time a vinyl rip is better is if the mastering is significantly better than its CD counterpart (this isn't always the case, you can brickwall a vinyl master as well), or of course if there is no CD counterpart. Otherwise you're better off buying the LP yourself and downloading the CD sourced FLACs.

tl;dr Vinyl rips are mostly useless, especially 24bit rips.

Edit: Also "Vinyls" is not a word. Every time I see that I die a little inside