|
lobsterminator posted:I like vinyl. Not for sound quality, although I enjoy the snaps, pops and crackles, but I just enjoy putting a vinyl on and listening to a record with some concentration. I don't own any vinyl, my audio set up sucks, but I know a guy who runs a tiny label putting out autistically super high quality vinyl. While it's not my thing the sheer physicality of it is nice and it's neat to see all the moving parts, from masters to test presses to final product and assembly. It all takes a bit more effort but you get nice big art you can display etc.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 09:18 |
|
|
# ? May 28, 2024 00:18 |
|
holefoods posted:I’m a fan of the faces art versions, but drat if those don’t look nice laid out together. Is that version of Star Wars the one with the aspect ratio issue or the fixed one? This is the exact version I have: https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/07519/1130-80/Star-Wars:-A-New-Hope-(FOX) On Vinyl/any physical music release: I find that I will actually listen to the whole album as intended by the band/artist. If I piecemeal buy a song here and there digitally it really isnt the same thing. Imagine listening to Fear Factorys' Obsolete album without reading along with the liner notes and knowing the story!
|
# ? May 28, 2023 10:25 |
|
Humphreys posted:This is the exact version I have: I've gotten pretty good at not letting my ADHD control my music and keeping me from full albums but i do miss liner notes. Some band had liner notes about grafting coral or deer horns to your skull? Having a nice little book with lyrics, art, and ??? is awesome. Plus patches and stickers and posters and all the neat insert goodness.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 10:30 |
|
I like buying vinyl because the sleeves are cool. I have no idea if the player I have is any good because most of the time I'll actually just listen on YouTube music.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 11:52 |
|
I became a teenager too late for vinyl but I do kinda miss rewinding a cassette with a pen and writing my own labels. Absolutely don't miss stopping in the midst of my activity because the CD player skipped.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 12:34 |
|
I recently bought a car which has a cassette player. Rather than just ripping it out in favour of a Bluetooth unit, I thought it would be fun to make some cassettes for it. The first problem I ran into was that no-one kept any cassette infrastructure. I asked family, friends and friends of friends but no-one had a cassette recorder. I toured all the local charity shops, but none of them had one either. I eventually found one at the tip- in the form of an early 2000s Sanyo Microsystem. Boxed, and looking like new, for a tenner. I made some playlists on the computer and hooked it up to the little stereo, using a decrepit looking 3.5mm to RCA cable that originally came with a BBC Micro. Only after fully recording two tapes did I realise the recordings were peppered with the Discord notification sound because what I thought muted all notifications only muted one channel. Whatever, I’ve still got the playlists, I’ll record them again. Finally the day comes and I go to collect the car. My friend is giving me a lift and we pop the first tape into HIS cassette player - which he’s never used - only to find the belts must have perished because it doesn’t work at all. When we get to my new car I pop my first tape in… and the sound warbles so much it sounds like every vocalist is about to burst into tears. I removed the deck, assuming it was just a stretched belt but one of the plastic wheels has shrunk and cracked. So I tore the stereo out and installed a Bluetooth unit.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 13:01 |
|
Oh, I’d also forgotten how much cassettes rattle when in the door pocket of a car.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 13:03 |
|
Get one of these cheap adapters, no need to replace the player's belts. E: Just reread your post and you already tore out the unit. Pity. By popular demand has a new favorite as of 14:05 on May 28, 2023 |
# ? May 28, 2023 14:03 |
|
The last blank cassettes I remember buying were darn near impossible to find, but I got two at K-mart somewhere between 1999-2001. I used them in my 1996 Contour commuting from college. The Contour's tape deck was a beast, but the fast foward and rewind buttons yeeted themselves somewhere in the car one day and I couldn't find them. It left metal tabs poking out and those were still operational. During the life of that car, a relative took pity and gifted me a 12-disc CD changer, which had to be mounted in the trunk.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 15:49 |
|
I want to chime in as an old person who does not miss vinyl. I hated the pops and clicks and hiss and skips. Experienced the moment of accidentally scratching a record so many times. Before I had a CD player I would often borrow albums from the library. Listened to Roxy Music's "Avalon" a lot, and it was one of the first three CDs I bought. The first moments of the CD's opening track without any vinyl induced noise... heavenly. The only thing I miss about cassettes is making mix tapes. I loved doing that.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 16:30 |
|
Bizarrely, my husband came home from a two-day supermeeting or some such bullshit at his tech company with a brand-new, plastic-wrapped blank audio cassette. Apparently they held a weird Two Minutes Hate where they were physically destroying old technology (I don't even know, gently caress), and the cassette was part of it. It survived and my husband smuggled it home. I think I have a few more brand-new tapes somewhere with all my old mixtapes and dubs. Happily, my old Sony minisystem has been fully fixed and restored and can now play them (and all my CDs) with abandon!
|
# ? May 28, 2023 16:39 |
|
RC and Moon Pie posted:The last blank cassettes I remember buying were darn near impossible to find, but I got two at K-mart somewhere between 1999-2001. I used them in my 1996 Contour commuting from college. A few years ago I bought a box of unused interrogation cassettes from a british police department on ebay. Cost barely nothing and now I have dozens of cassettes with a fun story.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 16:48 |
|
By popular demand posted:Get one of these cheap adapters, no need to replace the player's belts. Way ahead of you! I bought one of the Bluetooth versions. Unfortunately it made a loud buzzing noise, and that was the final straw. When I say "tore out" I of course mean I wrote the code on the old radio (a good old car owner always writes the code on the radio) and stashed it away, it will go with the car when I sell it. It has an integrated pen holder.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 16:48 |
|
lobsterminator posted:A few years ago I bought a box of unused interrogation cassettes from a british police department on ebay. Cost barely nothing and now I have dozens of cassettes with a fun story. Now that's just fuckin weird.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 16:49 |
|
Horace posted:It has an integrated pen holder. This is an instance of Show Don't Tell.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 16:54 |
|
Anyone remembers the first generation of cheap MP3 players from china? I had several so lovely they added a hiss but I couldn't notice it while the music played so I just accepted it before the major companies realized there money to be had for cheap players too.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 16:59 |
|
Desert Bus posted:This is an instance of Show Don't Tell. The surround with the pen holder is part of the radio. I don't know why they included it, the pen flies out the first time you go round a corner. (not my picture, my car is never so dusty)
|
# ? May 28, 2023 17:08 |
|
Oooh and a nifty coin slot between the vents there!
|
# ? May 28, 2023 17:11 |
|
By popular demand posted:Oooh and a nifty coin slot between the vents there! More obsolete 'tech' - it does have a coin holder next to the gear lever. All French cars from the 70s through 2000s do, something to do with their toll roads. Assume they don't bother any more.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 17:17 |
|
Did the US ever have the "toss coins into the big metal funnel" automated toll booths we got over here? They disappeared when we moved to a RFID / plate reader system a good long while ago, but I have vague memories of my mum dunking 10 NOK coins into them on road trips. E: Ah, the last ones disappeared early in 2008, more recent than I thought.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 17:25 |
|
Computer viking posted:Did the US ever have the "toss coins into the big metal funnel" automated toll booths we got over here? They disappeared when we moved to a RFID / plate reader system a good long while ago, but I have vague memories of my mum dunking 10 NOK coins into them on road trips. As someone who went back and forth to Chicago all the time when I was a kid, yes we did. I remember having to dig out 40 cents for my folks to throw into the toll a dozen times per trip.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 17:35 |
|
Yeah when I moved to Houston that was the main way to pay on the tollways here. That’s around 2001? They had EZtag but I was poor and didn’t want to give up the $40 or whatever that they’d preload. Thankfully once I got my first real job I was able to. I think there are a couple of full serve lanes still on most of the big tollway stations, but the newer express tollways are ez-tag only. I think they have to have a few full serve still for people from out of town and for contractual reasons on the older ones. Fake edit: they had full serve cash lanes and “token” lanes. You could get the tokens at convenience stores lol. Haven’t thought about all that in years
|
# ? May 28, 2023 17:48 |
|
Still have them for entrances and exits from the Garden State Parkway, apparently RoastBeef has a new favorite as of 18:02 on May 28, 2023 |
# ? May 28, 2023 17:55 |
|
Computer viking posted:Did the US ever have the "toss coins into the big metal funnel" automated toll booths we got over here? They disappeared when we moved to a RFID / plate reader system a good long while ago, but I have vague memories of my mum dunking 10 NOK coins into them on road trips. that's amazing, I don't think that tech ever made it here- we don't have many toll roads and I think in all of them a bored attendant has to be there to take your coins.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 18:23 |
|
It definitely made it to some places, I've seen those in movies.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 18:28 |
|
They were all over northern Illinois in the early 70s. I remember them very clearly with that clink-clink sound as the coins were counted.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 19:06 |
|
Spotify? Oh you mean the "we might have the record you want to listen to or we might not, it all depends on whatever licensing fees we were unwilling to pay this month" service?
|
# ? May 28, 2023 19:21 |
|
By popular demand posted:Anyone remembers the first generation of cheap MP3 players from china? I had several so lovely they added a hiss but I couldn't notice it while the music played so I just accepted it before the major companies realized there money to be had for cheap players too. The trick is to listen to industrial, where the hiss is an instrument.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 19:24 |
|
Horace posted:More obsolete 'tech' - it does have a coin holder next to the gear lever. All French cars from the 70s through 2000s do, something to do with their toll roads. Assume they don't bother any more. Id imagine that paying with cash for toll roads is headed for this thread. Now they can just snap a picture of your license plate and bill you.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 19:42 |
|
Horace posted:
OMG this is even more lovely and useless than I was picturing in my head. Fantastic all around.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 20:10 |
|
They had those toll funnel things in NY State on most of the highways that I've been on through there. Haven't seen them in years, but I haven;t been to Americastan in years either. Speaking of Laser Discs, when I was in grade 10 English class, circa 1994 ish, I recall an assignment where the teacher had us write some poo poo about where "future you" will be living, working etc.. So part of my essay was like "house, job doing whatever the gently caress I wanted to be at the time, whatever car I thought happened to be the coolest at the time (obviously) giant screen tv and LASER DISC PLAYER".
|
# ? May 28, 2023 20:33 |
|
Cojawfee posted:Yeah, but why bother with a CD? If I want to listen to a perfect recreation of a song, I can just listen to spotify. If I specifically want to listen to just one album, I'd rather put on a record. It's fun to go through the process of getting the record out, putting it on, sitting on my bed and then listening to all the pops and crackles. As opposed to putting a CD in and getting the exact same experience I'd get just listening to it on my computer. Records just make the experience more fun for me. Once decent streaming bitrates came about, there was really no reason to have a CD anymore. If you buy a CD, you can be certain that you have a specific edition of the music you're looking for, and it won't change throughout time. You can look for a specific master of the music - for instance, if you look for the pre-1990 stuff, you generally have mastering that didn't yet compress the dynamics to poo poo. Buy the same CD from 2000, and you can be fairly certain it's a veteran of the loudness war. On a streaming platform, who knows which of the two you're gonna get, or whether a certain nice version of a song eventually gets replaced by a remastered version. You also don't get things like censorship. If i listen to music on youtube, i've noticed more than once that some swear words were censored. You have no lossy compression (though i gotta say that many spotify tracks sound just fine) Finally, you own the phyisical medium, and if a record company decides 'No more music for spotify' the music won't disappear. In other words: you get stability and certainty. Thing is, CDs are still 20 bucks or so if you buy them new (if they're available at all lol, haven't bought a new CD in 15 years) and that's way too much. I only buy 2nd hand CDs if i happen to come across them for cheap. There wouldn't be a benefit if you could get flac/wav downloads that you can easily find the mastering date from, that you can just store locally. Usually pirated music has a nice document about from which LP or CD the music was ripped, which pressing etc. LimaBiker has a new favorite as of 21:55 on May 28, 2023 |
# ? May 28, 2023 21:53 |
|
I do sometimes wonder, when I want to listen to a song on Spotify and I see five different remasters from different years of the same song, and they all kind of sound exactly the same to my ears but usually the total length of the song is a second longer or shorter, if I'm listening to the best version of the song. Because my ears can't tell but just knowing that I might be hearing the inferior version is frustrating.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 21:59 |
|
Dick Trauma posted:I want to chime in as an old person who does not miss vinyl. I hated the pops and clicks and hiss and skips. Experienced the moment of accidentally scratching a record so many times. Before I had a CD player I would often borrow albums from the library. Listened to Roxy Music's "Avalon" a lot, and it was one of the first three CDs I bought. The first moments of the CD's opening track without any vinyl induced noise... heavenly. As a fellow oldster, I agree with you 100%, the only thing I like about vinyl is the large cover art and lots of room for notes, personnel, etc. Having to clean the dust off records, tip-toe around the room while they’re playing, deal with skips, it was a PITA.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 22:02 |
|
I go to a lot of local music shows and I love buying vinyl from these tiny local indie bands. I’ll never buy one of their cds but vinyl? Hell yes.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 22:05 |
|
My Metal Gear Solid vinyl is pretty badass. It's semi transparent!
|
# ? May 28, 2023 22:15 |
|
I enjoy vinyl, makes listening to music a little more fun. CDs are fine as well but nowadays I just rip them and put them back on the shelf instead of playing them on the CD-player.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 22:19 |
|
LimaBiker posted:
This is what bandcamp offers, it's pretty much the only place I'll buy music these days other than directly from the artist.
|
# ? May 28, 2023 22:21 |
|
Trabant posted:The trick is to listen to industrial, where the hiss is an instrument. trying to find a copy of the downward spiral where the rip wasn't hosed up took a couple tries before I got it
|
# ? May 29, 2023 02:15 |
|
|
# ? May 28, 2024 00:18 |
|
Wayne Knight posted:Laserdiscs being displayed on wood paneling?? The included patriotic lenticular hologram is also a great conversation starter.
|
# ? May 29, 2023 02:58 |