Vinyl Resurgence

I've probably never mentioned vinyl records on this blog, except maybe occasionally in passing. It's not that I hate the format ... I've always had at least a handful of LPs in my music collection, and almost always have owned an apparatus on which to play them, and I don't even doubt the people who claim that they hear or feel a certain indescribable "warmth" and fullness to the sound of vinyl records that they say doesn't happen with any other format.

The main reason I don't give much attention to vinyl, and almost never buy it, is purely circumstantial: its convenience, or (arguable) lack thereof. I'm a practical guy, you see, and the ubiquity of CD drives in most every computer, the instantaneous accessibility of any track on the disc with the touch of a button, and the ability to quickly rip a whole disc into a folder of neatly separated MP3 files that I can tote around on my iPod, are all factors that have made CDs my format of choice by a very wide margin. And then there's the relative fragility of records compared to CDs: they can easily get warped by heat, or get scratched and develop a skip ... at least more easily than their digital cousins.

But there is now an outside chance that my neglect of vinyl records could soon change. You see, at a garage sale recently I happened upon a stack of about 30 LPs, all in excellent condition, and most from the early- to mid- '80s. It was a dandy little haul: multiple albums each by The Commodores, Lionel Richie, Eagles and Air Supply ... and even one each by Wham!, Phil Collins, and Peaches & Herb. I have yet to fire up my turntable and delve into them, but I'm somewhat anxious to. This one acquisition has more than doubled my library of vinyl LPs, and the other evening I actually sat down and organized my record collection for the very first time, only because I hadn't needed to before.

These newly-acquired titles now intermingle with the handful that I already had -- some inherited from my parents, but the rest I'd bought myself over the years -- and all are now neatly alphabetized by artist and separated by genre. Will I become as avid a collector of vinyl records as I am of CDs? I don't quite see that happening. For one thing, I'm not nearly the audiophile that the majority of vinyl devotees are, and I'm happy with the sound quality of CDs and of MP3s of a decent bitrate (128Kbps and higher), which give me all the fidelity that my conscious ear discerns or requires. But I rather doubt that these will be the last records I ever buy.

Out With The Old...

This week I said goodbye to a dear and cherished companion. We had a valued and mutually fulfilling relationship that lasted more than four years. I'll never forget our countless strolls in the sun together, our huddling close under the umbrella in the harsh winter weather, or those cozy times alone when there was nothing else to do because the power went out. She was always there to brighten my days and whisper lovely things in my ear. But your heart need not be heavy, because our breakup isn't a sad one. She's still happy and healthy despite having outlived her usefulness, and was even graciously understanding when she realized I had found a more attractive, intuitive, and versatile model to replace her.

Okay, I hope by now that you realize I'm not talking about a person, but rather about a music player ... specifically, my old Sony NetMD player. When I first looked at MiniDisc players, I was quite fascinated by the concept of being able to carry around five CDs worth of music on a gizmo that was less than half the size of my CD player. Purely digital MP3 players (the MiniDisc used a "magneto-optical" storage system) were a very new thing at that point, and since it was still a year or so before I really dove headfirst into music obsession, an iPod would have been overkill for me -- not to mention the fact that at the time I didn't have a computer that could support iTunes (let alone a bank account that could support buying an iPod).

The NetMD MiniDisc players were the next best thing to the iPod. Users had a choice of two software programs which came along with the player. One was kind-of like iTunes in that you could rip your CDs to your hard drive and then "check" them into or out of a MiniDisc (this odd system was designed to limit copying of any given MP3 file), but I opted for the simpler approach of just putting my CDs in and ripping them one by one directly to the MiniDisc. It was a lot slower than iTunes, and not nearly as elegant a method ... plus, if you only had a limited number of MiniDiscs at your disposal, you had to get out the CD and load it all over again if you had erased the MiniDisc it was on previously.

For its time, it was quite handy and versatile, even though the technology's shortcomings are evident now. MiniDiscs were like CDs in that you could customize their contents and instantly cue up whatever track you wanted; they were like CD-RWs in that you could record, erase, and re-record thousands of times; and they were like 3.5" floppy discs in how they looked and functioned -- the disc was encased in a rugged plastic housing with a sliding aluminum shutter through which the player read the media. Don't get me wrong ... I totally love my iPod and can't imagine getting along without one, but there was something about that clunky old system that I look back on fondly and will even miss in a way. I hope it's happy with its new owner, 'cause for as well as it served me over the years, it deserves to be.
















Oh, by the way ... how do you like my new header graphic? Spiffy, eh?

a Blast(er) From The Past

This might entertain you. While visiting with my sister and brother-in-law during vacation, she invited me to borrow a boombox from their office so I could listen to some of the CDs I had just bought. Well, imagine my surprise when the boombox in question struck me as looking strangely familiar ... it turned out to be one I used to own! If I remember correctly, it was actually the first device I had ever bought that was capable of playing CDs ... at least the date of manufacture stamped on its backside (November 1989) seems to confirm that presumption.















It was dusty, scuffed, and tired-looking, but to my surprise that old JVC beast sprang to life as nimbly as I remember it doing back in the day, and played CD after CD without the slightest glitch. Sure, the sound was a bit tinny, as those players couldn't help but be, but there wasn't any of the hum or crackling or distortion in either of the speakers that the machine's condition made me expect to hear. After twenty years, a good 16 of them under what I suspect was decidedly less TLC than I give my electronics, it still runs perfectly. I'd like to see the consumer electronics they manufacture nowadays stand the test of time so well.

Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, I thought you might want to know that I spent a recent evening updating all the links that had gotten broken when I changed my blog's URL a year and a half ago. I know, I know, it's about time, right? Well, it was just one of those things I'd never gotten around to. All the MP3 links, most of the YouTube videos, and many of the pictures I posted back in the day are dead or gone, but at least you can navigate to other articles in my blog.

The Next Best Thing

I was wondering what to write about next in this blog (what with "American Idol" being over), when there it was, sitting in the used rack in the little independent music store I frequent, as if it were waiting for me to find it ... a particular type of digital disc that's rarely seen and virtually unknown in the U.S. and Europe: the Video CD, or VCD. What exactly is a Video CD, you ask? The easiest way to describe it is as a simplified DVD, except that it's written on conventional CD media (as its name implies).

Popular mostly in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island countries for over a decade (although I imagine by now that DVD has begun to push them aside in popularity), Video CDs have some advantages, and some disadvantages, compared to DVDs. One nice thing about them is that they're not subject to region encoding, which means they can be viewed with any VCD-capable player anywhere in the world -- including most (but not all) American-marketed DVD players ... and with the right software, your computer, even if the only optical drive you have is a CD. Also -- though I definitely don't endorse illegal copying of discs -- they almost never have the copy-protection defenses that DVDs have.

However, as you can imagine, there's a downside to putting movies on the less-capacitous media of CDs. The picture clarity isn't a whole lot better than VHS (a high-quality VHS that would never degrade, but VHS nonetheless), and there's no 5.1 surround sound -- two-channel stereo is as good as you'll get. And you might as well forget about alternate language or commentary tracks, or optional subtitles; if you get a VCD that has subtitles, they're on the screen whether you want them or not, in whatever language they were written in. And then there's the matter of run time: a Video CD can hold about 80 minutes of content at best, so basically any theatrical film will be split over two or more discs.

But when we're talking the the shorter-length content, like concert films or music video collections, where none of those extra bells and whistles really matter, Video CDs fit the bill nicely. Indeed, if you like import pop like I do, VCD may prove to be your only option in certain cases -- a DVD may be unwatchable due to foreign region encoding, and with a little luck, the artist is popular enough in the right country that they've warranted a VCD release. Oh, and if you're techno-savvy enough, you can even copy out any of the disc's "chapters" and use them with other applications, since each chapter is in its own individual file on the disc, essentially in MPEG-1 format ... none of that shady DVD stripping-and-ripping software needed! (Again, I don't endorse the practice ... I'm just sayin'.)

I've accumulated a few Video CDs over the years: a companion volume to Five's "Greatest Hits" (even with a matching cover) that includes all their music videos ... a concert film by The Moffatts during their "Chapter I" days ... an A1 disc featuring interviews with the boyband as well as a handful of their videos ... and my newest addition, a 1998 assemblage of Duran Duran's music videos, released in conjunction with their "Greatest" hits compilation. Oh, and I can't forget the disc of videos that piggy-backs Gil's "Best of" audio CD ... and there are probably one or two that accompany various-artist compilations I have, too.

Sure, Video CDs aren't as pretty to watch or as graceful to navigate as DVDs (heck, some of them don't even have a menu to speak of), but their novelty makes them fun to experience, and their scarcity can make them enjoyable to collect. Not to mention, since they're housed in ordinary CD jewel cases, they fit nicely in amongst your CD collection. Go ahead, search eBay for "vcd" (or visit retail sites VCDCD.com and VCDGallery.com, though please note I haven't shopped at either of these sites so I can't personally vouch for their service -- caveat emptor) and see what you might find ... but check the compatibility of your DVD player or computer first to make sure you'll be able to watch what you buy!

Life In Stereo

My life is about to plunge headlong into the gaping maw of chaos. Well, actually, it's just my stereo, but to me it's pretty-much the same thing. Hard as it is for me to believe, that trusty old music machine of mine is in fact 13 years old. Only it's not quite so "trusty" any more ... some of the buttons on the front panel have begun doing strange things (the "next track" button switches the stereo from CD mode to radio mode, the graphic equalizer button changes CDs, the "play" button resets the graphic equalizer), it sometimes doesn't see that there's a CD loaded into a specific slot (or just skips over a slot or group of slots for no good reason), and the cassette playback deck went "boink" almost two years ago.

All is not lost, because I can work around those faults, at least for the time being: the remote control still works perfectly so I use it whenever I can, a strong blast of air makes the CD slots behave normally for awhile, and there's still the cassette recording deck that I can use when I have occasion to play (or record on) a tape. But if and when this thing finally bites the dust, it's gonna be a really sad day. This beaut has a 51-disc carousel CD changer, and a dual-cassette deck -- two features that are all but extinct on so-called "shelf" stereo systems anymore (the best I can find now is a 5-disc changer). If I went to a specialty retailer and assembled my own component system, I'd probably be able to find features like those, but I'm neither financially inclined to spend the money on a customized system with all the bells and whistles, nor am I such a finicky audiophile that I need a top-of-the-line sound system.

I'm still old-school in that I sometimes like to make mix CD's "the old-fashioned way", by recording them in real-time, track by track, from my stereo onto my stand-alone audio CD recorder. That's one reason I like my system so much -- I can load all the CDs I'm burning tracks from into the stereo at once, and just nudge the jog dial from one disc to the next as I go. Sure, it would be faster and easier to assemble the playlist in iTunes and hit the "burn disc" button, but it's so fast and easy that I almost think of it as cheating ... besides, such a mix CD would be made of 128Kbps MP3's instead of coming straight from original CD tracks. As for the remaining working cassette deck, I still make use of it, though admittedly not a lot. I do still have a couple dozen tapes that I listen to occasionally enough that I haven't felt the need to burn to CD; and I have yet to get a request to record a mix tape instead of a mix CD, but it's nice to know that, for now, I still have the ability to do so. And to top it all off (quite literally, in this case), not long after I'd gotten this stereo, I happened upon a matching turntable add-on for it, the same brand and dimensions and color and everything, making it a complete and total all-format (for its time) system!

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it's not just these conveniences that I'll miss if and when its proverbial number is up, but it's what this stereo represents in a broader sense. This is mostly what I've listened to music on for the last thirteen years ... in other words, for almost three-quarters of my music-loving life. Though I've embraced the iPod and now basically can't imagine life without it, I grew up with CDs, cassettes, and vinyl records, and now it seems that the big-name electronics manufacturers have all but forgotten those formats and now almost totally cater to the MP3 and iPod crowd. If you're not sure just how old(-school) your generation is becoming, all you have to do is check out the shelves of any electronics retailer, and it'll become pretty clear. Hey, I've still got a cassette Walkman, for cripe's sake! (It almost never gets used, and its belt clip is broken off, but I just can't bear to part with it.) Did I mention that my stereo doesn't even play CD-RWs or MP3-CDs? It reads CD-Rs just fine, though.

So, the question remains: what am I going to replace my existing system with when it finally kicks the bucket? I do have to admit, a 250- or 300-disc CD changer would be way bitchin' to have, but the way my listening habits have been changing slowly but surely (when playing a CD at home nowadays, I've gotten into the habit of just popping it into the computer and listening to it from iTunes), I just can't imagine getting my money's worth out of such a thing anymore. I went browsing around at Best Buy's online store the other day to get a feel for what's out there, and I guess I hadn't realized just how much the iPod has truly taken over -- the vast majority of the shelf systems out there are iPod-ready, complete with a dock that will not only pump your Pod's tunes through its own speakers, but even recharge its battery.

But I like to think of my iPod as being for strictly on-the-go music listening (Really, if you need to have songs in MP3 on your computer to put them onto your iPod, why not just play music from your computer when you're at home?), so I probably won't be looking for that particular feature. Sp far I've found a sweet-looking Sony 5-disc changer with a CD-recorder, which would potentially allow me to get rid of two machines at once, but then away go the cassette deck and turntable. Then again, there's a very cool-looking "retro" Victrola-style turntable housed in a desktop-sized woodgrain speaker cabinet, complete with a cassette deck on the side panel and a built-in CD player (or, for a bit more money, a CD recorder, for making those LP-to-CD or tape-to-CD conversions) as well. Maybe that's the ticket ... hey, if my stereo is my life, and I'm as old-school as I say I am, I might as well walk the talk, right?