Recollecting in 2024

One common theme across a number of years has been around the purpose and nature of my record collection because across the decades music has been issued in a variety of formats and it's fair to say that from the mid 1980's there has been a strong push towards getting new recordings on the compact disc.

With me while classical music was a early boyhood like, the nature of it means generally once you have aquired what you consider to be  great recording of a particular work, then that is generally it so your collection is generally static with just a few additions across the year.

Popular music being drawn from mainly new songs or tunes is ongoing and additions tend to based upon what you what like in the current charts or anything from the past you have just discovered in either album or single form.

Like many I gathered quantities of lp records in the eighties and early nineties and either part exchanged or otherwise replaced them for compact discs as they were seen as more durable, better sounding and well more modern that having a needle go along a groove cut in vinyl.

As time has gone by a number of things happened of which ones some records left but never were replaced and the other was that actually provided you cleaned them, actually those records for a variety of reasons actually sounded better than the compact disc!

That's different than the whole thing around the more tactile nature of records, the better potential for album art, reading notes and whatnot in a larger but thinner form.

Thus I have being buying back a number and while there are less outstanding from when the first wave started around 2011, in 2024 I do see a number returning.

The other area has been the buying of new albums, and while some modern trends in popular music don't do anything for me, I have been buying a number of albums for the first time on vinyl and these do include some compilations that take me back to my earlier years.

Handling including the placing of the record on the turntable and lowering of the arm all take me back to those days where many of us that's how we listened on our record players so music of that era in that form really pulls emotionally and nostalgically.

Pictures and stuff

There's a few things to talk about this week one is about pictures on this blog which can come from different sources such as official publications which if known are credited, anything I've personally taken and a big bag of things which have been through the likes of Tumblr and Pinterest.

Trouble with the latter is often they were not credited upon first uploading and can go through various editing sequencies such as cropping or even superimposition of detail in photoshop so you may not tell if it is some known picture or just yet another picture of the same event by a.n.other.

While I prefer crediting sources, to ignore something just because it lacks one even if it's done the rounds as it were when it fits the tone of the main written entry isn't something I am inclined to go with.

If somewhere down the line it is actually one of yours, if you send a comment to that effect then that certainly will be added as I'm not claiming everything published on here is mine.

That's not why they're published here.

Another thing is honesty in grading the condition of used books and records which continues to be an irritant.

For instance Monday a stereo copy of Beatles for Sale their fourth album turns up graded as Excellent when the vinyl has lost its shine and looks a bit worn, I can see especially on the first side five lined scuffs and a clear mark that are audible as clicks throughout the quieter moments

Although this is a 1976 issue, the inner is a 1982 one clearly dated and not the original.

This copy is VG (Very good) visually at best and doesn't get a better grading as a "Play Grade" going more by how it plays either.

It's enough to say I wouldn't of bought this has I know its real condition.

Audiophile vs Analogphiles

 After last weeks more introspective blog entry I am looking at a different topic this week as the rumbles of a great unmasking in July continue to make themselves heard.

The casual music fan who visits a record stores cannot help but notice the resergence of the vinyl record, specifically the twelve inch "long player" in recent years from when it was almost phased out with perhaps a few bins in a dark corner where a very limited promotional copy of a couple of thousand world wide might reside to where a sizable amount of the store has been devoted to it complete with seperate artist and genres per rack.

For some that's where it ends.

You see a record by your favourite artist, you look the cover over before taking it to the sales desk, hand over your credit card and there it is in a bag to play when you get home.

That's if you haven't ordered it online from Diverse Vinyl, HMV or Amazon in which instance it arrives to your door.

For some there are other things especially when it comes to re-issues of older, "classic" titles such as what source did they use cut the record from, was it the actual assembled stereo mixes mixed down from multitrack session tapes, a copy of them a generation or so removed, a digital copy of that and how does anyone know what they are getting is from a good sounding source?

One thing complicates it some record labels such as Sony seldom if ever now allow the actual tape to leave their own vaults either making a tape copy or sending a digital file to use the team mastering cutting the new version of the record.

This at at the core of dispute in the audio community where generally most people saw themselves as more "Audiophiles" - people who like to hear a recording sound the best it can and spend time setting their own systems to enable that in their homes.

For them the only thing that matters is when comparing them is which sounds the best.

Increasingly a subset of them appear to formed a view that when a recording was made on analogue tape only a tape should be used to cut it even if may be a copy and if it might benefit from some work that can only happen in the digital demain.

They even feel there is no benefit at all in making a record from a digital recording.

No form of preserving through copying produces an exact perfect copy this may be tape or it may be high resolution digital which if even regarded as perfect enough can only store what the playback from the tape produced.

I regard the position of these analog-philes really extreme as really what does matter is which system for each recording delivers the best possible results.