You can be every bit as "active" in the listening experience playing the music on an iPod or a CD player as you are sticking a needle on a vinyl record. And for that matter, you can be just as passive in the listening experience listening to a vinyl recording (well, OK, you might get a slight bit more exercise getting your butt off of the chair when the record is over -- if you can't get someone else to put on the next record :-D).

I do think that our culture is terribly entertainment-driven, and that much of the time music is just background noise that isn't really being paid attention to, but that has nothing to do with the medium, except that some mediums make that easier to do than others.

I Also think the culture tends to underestimate the value of peace and quiet, and that the TV or stereo doesn't have to be on 24 hours a day. Don't get me wrong, I love music, and so does my family. We have it playing regularly at our house. I'll still crank up the stereo when a song is particularly good (it's usually too loud for my kids before it's too loud for me :-D). But having some quiet in the day, so you can think without being bombarded with stuff in the background is also important -- not just for older people either -- kids and young adults need it too.

[edited to remove unintended indentation]

I believe you missed the point. He says the ritual makes the listener more involved with the music. He doesn't say different media make one more or less serious about music. It's similar with food: you can be serious about your food whether cooking it yourself or ordering it at a restaurant (or eating at a buffet.) But you're more involved with the food if you select your own raw ingredients and cook it yourself.

My point was that he was unnecessarily tying the listener's activeness/seriousness/whatever with/about the music to the medium it was on.

I totally get the point about there being different levels of interaction with music. I just don't think that listening to music on vinyl equates to you being a more active listener. For some it might help, I suppose, but I think it is far from universal. Also, the implication was (as I read it), that if you listen on vinyl you are tons more likely to be an active listener than someone who is using a more modern medium, and I just don't think that's true.

There is research which says our minds react differently to the physical world than to the digital one. So from the idea it follows that using a Vinyl itself may not be better/worse than digital, but the mental state you enter into because of the higher activation cost (decide to play music + go to place where music is + select music + play music + go back to place to relax) as well as the reduced control (requires significant movement to pause/play/go back/go forward vs a digital device in close proximity) that it makes a difference in appreciating the music that is playing because of that investment of energy.

If you play something on Spotify you just aren't invested as much and aren't as likely to pay as much attention to the song as you would if you had invested that energy into playing it on vinyl.

So not so much that you can't do it with modern mediums, but that the modern mediums are not designed to inherently provide that feeling or bring you to that mental state.

In that light, medium does somewhat equate to being an active listener - you evidence that you care about how the music was made in the first place.

As someone who considers himself a big music guy, at least once upon a time, I'm simply no longer as invested as I once was when listening to CD's or vinyl as I am now when listening to albums or singles on Spotify.

My take is that it's a matter of ritual. It's akin to the whole unboxing phenomenon on youtube. There is still something about physical tactile interaction with something before its enjoyment. The smell of CD's or vinyl and the collectability of things like limited edition covers and liner notes just make it that much more special. And then when you listen to an album on Vinyl, where it's practically impossible to skip forwards and backwards, you're de-facto an active participant in the whole endeavor. You enjoy the album as it's meant to be enjoyed, fully placing yourself at the mercy of the Artist who carefully constructed the order of songs.

I no longer hold new releases from artists I love as special as I once did when the album was released in stores for this simple fact. It used to be an event that could only happen after a few hours of anticipation.

Having all songs at your fingertips is incredible, but Stairway to Heaven is also much less special when you can skip directly to the guitar solo with minimal effort.

However, even as a kid, I'd probably only look through the album cover, liner notes, whatever maybe a few times, and then probably never looked at it again. I just wanted to put the music on so I could listen, and the album cover was just a means to an end. I would have traded that experience for "push a button and the album plays" in a heartbeat. There are some fond memories of artwork on the cover, etc -- and it is a valuable connection to the music -- because everyone remembers the Styx "Paradise Theatre" album cover, and connects it to the music that was on it.

"And then when you listen to an album on Vinyl, where it's practically impossible to skip forwards and backwards, you're de-facto an active participant in the whole endeavor. You enjoy the album as it's meant to be enjoyed, fully placing yourself at the mercy of the Artist who carefully constructed the order of songs."

^ a few things about this. First it really depended on the album/artist/producer who decided the order that the songs went in. For many albums it was not the artist. Producers often decided what was the "most commercially viable" and put those songs up front (or in whatever order fit their particular strategy). Some artists insisted on more control, but the record companies had a lot of power here, so I think those situations were more rare.

Second, dude, did you never pick up the needle and skip over a song? :D Didn't everyone either try to hit that tiny gap between songs to play your "favorite", or to pick up and skip one, or go back and repeat one? Of course, the "ultimate" solution was to record to cassette tape just the songs you wanted, and in whatever order you wanted them. Also, I personally don't find the lack of control of what plays in what order to be any value to me. If the music is good enough that I want to listen to the whole thing, it usually makes no difference to me what comes after what. The only exception to this might be, for those albums that are really that good that I listen to them over and over, I know which song is coming next when one finishes, so I can be prepared to sing along, or whatever. But I still see no need to give up control of the order of play just to experience this, I an just queue up the whole album on the electronic device of my choice and push 'play'.

Third, while it is true there were some artists that had an idea of an "experience" and wanted things laid out just so, I don't think most artists cared which order you listened to their songs in. In fact, musicians tend to be a lot more laid back than that. They don't care how you listen to their music, they are just happy if you are and that you get something out of it. It really depends on the artist, of course.

Case in point: myself.

I have never owned a record player nor any vinyl records.

I have owned a Walkman which was a hand-me-down from my older brother and I used it for a couple of years before it got accidentally broken.

Then I owned and used CD players (a mini stereo and a Discman) for about 5-8 years after that.

Ever since then I've owned mp3 players and/or streamed music onto my computer / devices.

The drop in audio quality/fidelity from switching to digital formats notwithstanding, I still very much listen to music very deliberately and very purposefully.

I actually try not to just play music as background noise while I work (I listen to podcasts instead).

Instead, I make time to experience music during my walks or at home.

I do this regardless of the medium.

To suggest that vinyl records is the only way to truly experience music is almost to suggest that people who don't own record players don't really like or care about music which is grossly untrue.

And also, collecting and curating your vinyl collection is not the only way to be active about music.

I don't prefer learning or brainstorming using pencil and paper because they did it in the twenties, I do it because it's effective and I enjoy it, same for reading real books, I just enjoy them more than a Kindle (which I tried and find subpar)

I have a hard time imagining just sitting down to listen to music. Not listen to music and converse or eat. Not listen to music and browse the web. Just listening to music sounds like a hard task.

However when I am at a live concert it is very easy to completely focus on the music even over a couple of hours. I can see the instruments and my other senses are involved in the experience.

As a teenager in the 90s I started buying vinyl because it was cheap and browsing a local record store was the best way to discover music, mainly jazz and hip hop. I'd spend hours a day just listening to albums from start to finish, reading liner notes, doing nothing else. A couple decades later and I still discover most of my music the same way. Spotify's Discover Weekly often is good, but it never matches the random LP dug up that completely opens your mind to a style or form you've never run into before.

The big part that is lost today is the music.

Why stop there? Do you also churn your own butter, milk your own cows, shave with a straight razor?

Personally, I think it's just silly hipster bias.

One of the consequences is less compression/clipping, better dynamic range, etc. for the vinyl version. This can have a huge positive impact on sound quality.

You don't have to be a nutbar audiophile to appreciate it, either - you can even hear the difference between old rock albums and their heavily compressed re-releases.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-how-does-masterin...

http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/end-loudness-war

The manner in which the album is recorded (analog vs. digital) doesn't matter, it's the limitations of the format for which the master is intended. The physical limitation of a needle tracking a groove measured in microns places a hard limit on the amount of compression which can be applied to the dynamic range. You can't make a needle follow the kind of narrow, jagged, shallow groove that would be the result of using a "loudness wars" era master meant for the CD format.

That said, the number of "got to have it" albums which were caught up in the loudness war isn't enormous. The biggest victims were re-releases of classic rock albums during the 90's but the original records with the true mastering are widely available in the used market. While there are some classic albums begging for a vinyl focused remaster, there aren't too many people clamoring for Limp Bizkit's catalogue to be rereleased without all the trickery employed on the CD master. There are also a ton of garbage "vinyl remasters" out there cashing in on the trend. For example vinyl rerelease of the early Modest Mouse catalogue is just garbage. I seriously think they lied about finding the original masters and just took the CD master and added "crackle and pop" on top to mask the obvious half-assing. That or they used the worst pressing supplier on earth.

"...because of the limitations of the vinyl format, loudness and compression on a released recording were restricted to make the physical medium playable—restrictions that do not exist on digital media such as CDs—and as a result, increasing loudness levels never reached the significance that they have in the CD era."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

I think with vinyl people are looking for more of a sense of ownership. It doesn't feel like you own an album, and don't get the feeling that it contributes to some part of you, when you click "save" in Spotify. It doesn't take any effort or any sacrifice (money) to do that, so it comes with no opportunity cost. But buying a record is more deliberate and usually means that your ownership of it comes at the expense of something else you'd instead buy with that money.

I admit it's a pretty wishy-washy argument, but for most people, the prospect of buying a vinyl record has to be rooted in something psychological because objectively speaking there aren't very many good arguments for it.

My deal is, that goes both ways. I've owned record players in the past, I've grown a sizeable vinyl collection, and I ended up selling it off because I'm living a much more mobile lifestyle now.

If the OP gets a more "active" experience (whatever that means to them) out of listening to a record instead of putting a CD in a cd player, great, but what bugs me is there's always an undercurrent of "it's better this way".

No, man, you just like it more. It's not "better" than listening to songs on an ipod or putting a CD on.

And all this talk about "it sounds better" or whatever, it all boils down to assigning objective measures to an experience that is, at its core, subjective. No, it's still just your preference. (Some people actually like the analogue tape sound. To them it's "better".)

Let people like what they like.

Personally I prefer records for these reasons:

- If I want to share a record with a friend, theres a greater chance they'll just let it play as opposed to a bluetooth connected speaker, where everyone decides they want to be the DJ.

- Having records often starts conversations. Its much more likely someone will see my records or ask to flip through them than say "Hey, can I peruse your Spotify library?"

I like music and it's nice to connect about it without having to force a conversation with everyone I meet.

That being said, I've often thought of living a "mobile" lifestyle like you mention, and if I do records would not be on my list of necessities.

Yeah, it can seem annoying when someone does that to what you like, but all humans do this at some level. Its same thing as when someone insists that a $7,000 bottle of wine makes you sit down and have a personal experience with the wine, makes you appreciate the weight of the wine, its powerful robust swirling texture, and its assertive character. cue: eye-rolls

>Does everything have to be about efficiency and logical superiority?

No, but I bet you don't consult tarot cards before choosing your next job.

>People enjoy the experience more and are spending money on it. How horrible.

Agreed, leave people alone, people !!

I think any hobby will have its fair share of smugness at the top.

Also comparing listening to records as consulting tarot cards is a bit extreme don't you think?

I was part of the smug audiophile brigade. Still bitter about buying those $700 headphones!

>Also comparing listening to records as consulting tarot cards is a bit extreme don't you think?

Hehe, yeah maybe a tad bit :)

Ah, but you don't know! On Beck's Odelay Deluxe Edition release, for example, there are at least two tracks that came from a lossy source.

I don't think it's something that happens often. But through some combination of factors it has happened before, and probably happens more often than people might be aware.

When I buy a vinyl, it's because it's a physical representation of music that I enjoy. A lot of time, there's a extra items included with the vinyl, like a small poster.

Discussions about music on vinyl is always interesting to observe.

Collecting artifacts is such a prevalent part of nerd and geek culture that it's no wonder many of us love to collect and play records.

At the same time, many of us are super focused on efficiency and specifications that listening to less than perfect reproductions where you have to physically manipulate the media makes no sense.

I had a lot of records when I was younger and was happy to move on to CDs and now mp3 and streaming. If I had more space to devote to yet another collection, I would in a heartbeat.

I consume most of my music digitally essentially in the background but if I want to have a music listening session, alone or with friends, I reach for vinyl.

From a purely technical perspective I'll pick a typical lossy file over vinyl every single time.

I am not sure how this is a passive activity. For me, listening to music in my car is when I am actively listening, I have time to contemplate the lyrics, listen to songs over and over again and hear the nuances, and really gain appreciation for a song. It is sad that my car has the worst audio quality, but it is far from a passive experience.

That is not even beginning to talk about the fact that on an open road (admittedly rarer and rarer each day), that music becomes an interactive experience. Be it slowing down and opening the windows to feel the wind pass by while the perfect Americana song plays, or pushing that pedal to the floor when just the right song comes on.

I'll readily agree that music at work is very passive though, I have to avoid songs that require (or encourage!) active listening.

> When I want to listen to music I grab a record.

I reach for my FLAC collection, legally ripped, and stored in the cloud.

At the time of vinyl, the RIAA had standards on how to process the sound. Those were good standards. On the move to digital we threw them away, and nowadays some companies go into the cheapest route, some go into the best benchmarks route, and nearly no company tries to release a system that sounds good anymore.

But vinyl systems still have to follow the RIAA standards, otherwise they'll get completely distorted.

For others, here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization

Looks like they used to develop all kinds of tech for sound record and playback.

Since you simply cannot do this on analog storage, vinyl will not have these compromises and will usually sound better.

But compared to good lossless digital storage that makes the opposite sacrifice (ie: Take up more space to retain more quality) vinyl will almost always produce a less accurate reproduction due to the physical properties (degradation) of the record itself.

Though many people seem to find these analog losses appealing or 'warmer' and actually prefer it to a more accurate reproduction of the original master.

Uncompressed digital audio is going to sound equal to or (more likely) better, and it doesn’t have the degradation problem.

I think (again, my personal experience) that reading while also having a tactile sense of where I am in the book (say ~20% of the way through) makes it easier to remember smaller details; perhaps the physical book helps my brain create a sort of "memory castle" that a little progress bar on an ebook does not.

One example: I read all but the latest Game of Thrones books in paperback (well before the HBO show was even announced). I devoured them and was able to keep track of all the families/storylines without a problem or a second thought. I tried to read the latest one as an ebook and I found I'd have forgotten details of various storylines between reading sessions. I ultimately never finished it and I'm just watching the TV show now :|

Now when I want to read a book, I buy a book - I just can't get into ebooks. Sure, it's not as convenient, but it also doesn't need to be plugged in, ever.

Maybe it'll become feasible as the price for flexible eink displays drops.

Still, the Kindle is so damn convenient. It's just that it's not the same pleasurable reading experience for me. It's not true that the Kindle "disappears" like Amazon claims -- or maybe, it actually disappears too much!

There is something to be lost in digitizing our lives, automating our activities and putting it all online. Sure, we gain time to do other things, but it seems we then fritter it away scrolling through facebook feeds, tweets and whatnot.

As a musician I can't "un-hear" a different method of engagement even as a listener for enjoyment. It's a different subject, but also related to the active notion you described. After all these years, sampling things from across the world time and time again, it takes quite a bit of "Ooomph" for me to really feel the hairs on my arm bristle up.

What's great in modern times though, is that I can get a real buzz every time I shop on Beatport, listen through my studio Sennheisers, and at volumes that would be considered torture if inflicted involuntarily. RAM Records and HEAVY ARTILLERY are two that I really enjoy because it's music that will scare people who even love music. Ha!

That is similar to how using vinyls allows you to have some buffer before and after listening to music or a musical piece. You can't have the same high all the time. Similarly, you can't enjoy that one part of a song for 10 minutes. Similarly, you can't music playing all the time at the same level as you can enjoy some music (that you like) playing sometimes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34801885

I'm no fan of Scruton or respecter of his intellectual prowess, but it does baffle me how willing old-fashioned aesthetes are to carve out exceptions to their own principles. Surely if late period Metallica has artistic value, large swathes of the music he's condemning do as well.

ps: this and the album scale, art, lyrics. It felt crafted a lot more. I spent most of my life trying to generate everything perfectly and I miss the analog stuff.

As much as I can appreciate vinyl, I can't force myself to go through the hassle (and expense) of trying to do that today.

As a vinyl collector myself, another thing that interests me is the feeling of quality you get when you buy vinyl. I love looking through the lyric booklets in 10/12" format, beautifully printed and often a piece of art in its own right. I actually feel like I _want_ to sit there and listen through a whole album when you have all that to gaze through at the same time.

There has been a strong shift towards consumption in all forms as we've gotten better at making things.