Neil Young disses the CD medium in USA Today (1 Viewer)

[Lewis Besze]

Oh the usual suspects of the vinyl crowd is at it again.
It seems to me that some of you been abusing that "static remover" gun!
Of course some "explanations" of superiority of the shiny black medium,is just as flawed as those big "coasters". Well whatever spin you discs dudes!

 

[DavidDeane]

Same reason VHS costs more to make than DVD and costs less in the stores. The consumer perception is that CD/DVD is a higher quality product than cassette/VHS and so is worth paying more for.

The cost of manufacture has very little to do with the price of anything. It's all about perception of worth. You can bet it doesn't cost GM anything like $40,000 to build a Suburban, but people apparently are willing to pay that, so...

That's not a perfect analogy. Though it is true that perception of worth on the part of the consumer helps determine price, this assumes that a true free market is in play, which is not always the case. GM has not entered into a cartel with all the other car manufacturers to fix prices. The music industry has, and has had its hands slapped several times by the Feds for fixing CD pricing thanks to its ability to dictate terms to music retail outlets.

As to manufacturing costs, these were not inconsiderable when music CDs first came out circa 1984-ish. But these costs are almost miniscule now. Consider the drastic drop in CD-R and CD-RW prices as mass adoption helped lower manufacturing cost; this occurred in a competitive, free market environment where no cartels or trusts were at work to artificially keep prices high. The differences compared to music CDs is striking; at the very least competitive pressures should have lead music CD prices to move downward somewhat matching lowering manufacturing costs, rather than remain steady with inflation, or even increase.

We shouldn't too readily believe RIAA industry sob stories about their expenses; much of this is creative bookkeeping on their part (designed in part to trim artist's royalties) and we really have no way of knowing how much money they are really making.

 

[Mike Broadman]

Ok, now you all are confusing me. On the one hand, I'm reading that CDs leave out some of the higher frequencies and range, and on the other hand that vinyl has warmer sound because it cuts off the higher range? WTF?

Not knowing much about vinyl (I'm a CD child), I wouldn't be surprised that some of the sentiment for it is due to nostalgia. I'm not saying that vinyl is worse or better as I haven't heard enough of it on a really good system, but I've heard these arguments time and time again, and the vinyl aficionados retreat to, "it just sounds more pure" or some philosophical stuff like that.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Can you also explain how a DVD (which is only a 5 year old format, who's hardware is nowhere near as common as the CD player) with anywhere from 90 minutes to 5 hours of material sells for only a few dollars more than an audio CD?
It costs alot more to make a Hollywood film than it does a music recording. The average cost of a Hollywood film can range from $20-40 - and that's not including promotion and packaging, etc.
Obviously the studios can recooperate a nice chunk back from it's boxoffice tally, but many films lose ALOT of money. Yet these boxoffice bombs are available on DVD with a good deal of material for only a few dollars more than the price of CD.

You nailed it yourself... they pay for the films at the box office stage. Let's face it, for a good portion of the 20th century, the studios were making a profit without the home video market. Yes there are bombs, but there are also runaway successes. Assuming that a studio only pulls in minor profits from the theatrical windows, they get the television rights, which they have to do NOTHING for. That alone would play for the initial production costs of most DVDs, leaving anything they make from DVD sales to be pure profit.
This is also why companies like Criterion, which don't benefit from a theatrical window, are forced to charge much higher rates for their releases
Mike: They do sound warmer and nicer. They may not be actually superior, but in the non-quantifiables, vinyl will win. It just feels warmer. Hell, MP3 are really low quality, but they have some grunge elements about them that I enjoy.

 

[Jagan Seshadri]

I believe that if CDs came with the 12" x 12" jacket artwork of LPs, the CDs would sound better.
Actually, this remark is not entirely in jest - I think that leafing through the liner notes and admiring the artwork is part of the whole experience of enjoying music. I know friends with gigabytes upon gigabytes of MP3s but you know what? It's faceless and can't compare with a good ol' sit-down with the real album spinning and the artwork there to leaf through.
I hope Neil Young will ensure that good liner notes go into the eventual DVD-A release of Harvest, if that ever actually happens.
Until then, I'll be playing Neil Young songs on my....guitar which has better sound quality than any CD I own.
-JNS

 

[Derek O]

I think that leafing through the liner notes and admiring the artwork is part of the whole experience of enjoying music. I know friends with gigabytes upon gigabytes of MP3s but you know what? It's faceless and can't compare with a good ol' sit-down with the real album spinning and the artwork there to leaf through.

Amen!

 

[Mike_G]

Perfect vinyl will crush CD sound.

Except there's no such thing as perfect vinyl.
(skip)
perfect vinyl.
(skip)
perfect vinyl.
(skip)
perfect vinyl.
(skip)
perfect vinyl.
(skip)
perfect vinyl.

Mike (who spent WAY too much time and money in the 70's and 80's keeping his vinyl collection perfect. It never happened).

 

[Charles Gurganus]

That was pretty funny Mike. Have you not heard CD's skip as well. It isn't a pretty sight (sound). Nothing worse than a digital skip....
erwa....erwa....erwa...scruppp....scruppp
Yeah, I know you can clean the disc and usually get rid of the offending skip. I can even sometimes do that with LP's.
No one really commented on my "remastered" comment about CD's. Did it not bother you that they see fit to REMASTER the cd's because they did such an awful job the first time around? That was part of my ripoff scenario to start with.

 

[Mike Broadman]

The problem is even more complicated because a lot of people claim that the remastering of the CDs does not improve the sound quality and are rip-offs themselves. Personally, I always make sure to have the latest version of the albums, but I'm sure there are lots of people who think I'm a sucker for doing that.

NP: Miles Davis, '58 Sessions, CD

 

[Ryan Spaight]

Did it not bother you that they see fit to REMASTER the cd's because they did such an awful job the first time around?

That doesn't bother me nearly as much as an awful remaster of a CD that is inferior to the first release. I'll never complain about an improved product.

Ryan

 

[Frank_S]

Mike_G, sounds like you had a tough time with vinyl as I'm sure many other people had too but CD's are not a whole lot better. I remember my room-mate borrowed a Hall & Oates Greatest Hits CD during the 80's and when it was returned to me, it skipped so bad I could not even play it at all. Most LP's can at least be played if they are scratched.
I don't think there would be much argument from vinyl lovers that it does take a lot of care to keep vinyl in top shape.
I own hundreds of albums and not one of them skips. If you abuse anything, it will not perform up to its capability.
Sometimes when I play lp's for friends they cannot believe how they sound, very quiet, in fact they usually end up saying, wow, it sounds just like a CD,(They are only referring to how quiet they sound, no ticks, pops, etc.)
LP's, IMO, sound better. YMMV.

 

[Mike_G]

Just because they sound better doesn't mean that the medium as a whole is better. You're right, I had a tough time with vinyl. You pay all this money for vinyl only to have it susceptable to every little nuance. Towards the end, I would buy blank XL-II tapes and tape the albums once so that I wouldn't have to play them again. Then you have to label them, and keep THEM somewhere else, etc. New needles, vinyl cleaning kits that were usless, etc. Not a good way to keep a collection. Once CDs came out I jumped on them. I got tired of the maintenance that came with vinyl. I see I'm not in the minority. I still have my turntable but I don't use it.

CD might not be perfect, but it's damn convenient.

Mike

 

[Samuel Des]

What is re-mastering supposed to accomplish, anyway?

 

[LarryDavenport]

In my circle of friends (about a dozen or so people in their 30's) only three of us still have turntables and I'm the only one who still has a cassette deck. Neil might be right and analog 180 gram vinyl on a high end turntable may beat your average CD player, but most people in our modern times are not going to invest in the equipment to play LPs or 45s (I just had to pay $40 for a basic Shure cartridge for my Technics turntable).

I'm tired on Neil sitting on his high and mighty ass. The next time I see bootleg CDs of On the Beach, Time Fades Away, or Journey Through the Past on Ebay I'm going for 'em.

 

[Frank_S]

Quote:
"Neil might be right and analog 180 gram vinyl on a high end turntable may beat your average CD player, but most people in our modern times are not going to invest in the equipment to play LPs or 45s (I just had to pay $40 for a basic Shure cartridge for my Technics turntable). "
It does'nt take a "Hi-end" TT rig to beat an average CD player, IMO. I'd also like to say that my modest Rega TT beat my $3K Cary CD player, so I sold it. The laws of diminishing returns are met much sooner on digital than in vinyl playback systems. The more you spend on a TT/cart., the more noticable the returns, IMO. That is a major reason I decided to put more money into vinyl. I still listen to CD's through my Classe pre/pro but my Rega TT is my primary source for music.

 

[Rachael B]

Mike, I have records that are over 30 years old that are very close to perfect. I have a copy of Small Faces' FIRST STEP that sounds better now than when it was new due to today's better speakers. There is the highest proability you would prefer the LP over the CD. The LP might have 2 or 3 slight ticks on it's about 40 minutes. For all practical purposes, it's perfect.
I have over 2000 records of various sizes and speeds. Alot of them are perfect or damn close. Those that aren't perfect would mostly fall into the category of lousy manufacturing, which became more prevalent in the late 70's and early 80's. By the time CD arrived, it sure seemed they were trying to drive us to CD.
The late game LP's had a very low content of "virgin" vinyl and othe rate of off-centre spindle holes and too shallow grooves had never been higher IMO. By the mid to late 80's, for the most part, the only new records really worth buying were audiophile-grade records.
What the "big five" (music cartel) charge for the latest and greatest music albums on CD is really a travesty. Their costs have never been lower and their potential markets have never been bigger. I don't see why any single CD should ever cost more than $10. Records, properly done, would cost more.
I like older, phono age, stuff on records. I can always make an MD or CD for convience's sake. I kept my records in great shape years ago by putting the heavy play titles on reel to reel and cassette tapes for day to day listening. Older music was recorded with vinyl in mind and that's how most of it ultimately sounds best.
P.S.- Mike, if you ever want to hear K.C.'s EARTHBOUND, you'd better hunt down a copy of the record.

 

[Jagan Seshadri]

What is re-mastering supposed to accomplish, anyway?

Remastering is supposed to achieve a better transfer from the original analog master tape mix onto CD (or whatever digital format).

Like any product, you can do a rushed job (like what happened when CDs first came out) or you can take a craftsman-like approach and do your best to ensure that the transfer to digital media is done with proper clarity, balance, and fidelity.

JVC's XRCD remasters go all out in ensuring the transfers are top-notch.

Remixing is another matter, however.

-JNS