Why is the vinyl revival not taking place in classical music?

[zenpmd]

I think a tiny bit of the reason, though an interesting one, is access to good masterings has never been a proiblem in classical, like they have in every other genre where places like analue sounds make good new versions

[jut1972]

The vinyl revival is primarily a youth led thing hence less interest.   Also the prices of new classical vinyl are ridiculous.

[mc ukrneal]

Because vinyl is inferior. It degrades with every play (not to mention all those already played). Plus I believe this is the only genre where SACD is actually alive in a bigger way. Perhaps the people who might get vinyl get this type of cd instead.

[Jo498]

I think there has been a fairly stable but small minority of vinyl lovers who simply kept their old LPs (or many of them) and/or kept buying them dirt cheap on yard sales or maybe occasionally a collectible rarity not so cheap. Most of them will probably also do CDs because otherwise most recordings of the last 20 years would be inaccessible.

[The new erato]

Two options:

1: We are old enough to have tried that, and it doesn't hold the interest of the new.
2: For those that are not old geesers but young nerds, this is too mechanically complicated.

More seriously; the breadth of repertoire is too limited to be of interest. Anything likely to sell in sufficient volumes we already have in droves.

[Daverz]

I don't know why you say that when some major classical labels have been re-issuing records.  Check Prestoclassical.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/search.php?searchString=Vinyl

That said, I think the whole thing is silly.  I've been collecting records since 1975, have some pretty good analog equipment now, but still prefer good old RBCD played back on my Squeezebox Touch and Auralic Vega DAC.

[71 dB]

Vinyl makes no sense at all with classical music. The vinyl revival is a silly trend as it is. Digital sound technology has matured long ago to a level where vinyl is technically totally obsolete and the only use I find for it is being a "cool" sound effect. Well, sound effects are not used in classical music productions. Vinyl is not high fidelity, has not been for decades. Digital audio has raised the bar of high fidelity way above what vinyl can do. Vinyl is old low fidelity. Classical music is about the highest possible fidelity meaning vinyl is totally oblolete for it.

For those who like vinyl sound, I recommend vinyls transfered into digital form. You get the vinyl "warmth" but also the benefits of digital audio (does not degrade with every play).

[The new erato]

I don't know why you say that when some major classical labels have been re-issuing records.  Check Prestoclassical.

I know, but still I can't get my Bacewitz, Vinci, Hindemith, Keiser, Caldara (etc) fix on vinyl.

[bigshot]

I'm waiting for the shellac revival!

[Mookalafalas]

I'm waiting for the shellac revival!

  Techno-junkie!

  The Edison cylinder is where it's at. 

[Todd]

Vinyl is not high fidelity

True, but why does it sound so good with some rock?  And pretty much all pre-digital jazz?  I did some A/B comparisons with the new Led Zeppelin release of Houses of the Holy.  The winner?  My mid-80s LP.  My teenage son, an all-digital kind of young man who scoffed at all things analog, agreed, after hearing for himself.  (Yes, the sampling was unscientific, but even my wife agreed.  She doesn't give a shit about any of this silliness.)

[Mookalafalas]

True, but why does it sound so good with some rock?  And pretty much all pre-digital jazz?  I did some A/B comparisons with the new Led Zeppelin release of Houses of the Holy.  The winner?  My mid-80s LP.  My teenage son, an all-digital kind of young man who scoffed at all things analog, agreed, after hearing for himself.  (Yes, the sampling was unscientific, but even my wife agreed.  She doesn't give a shit about any of this silliness.)

  Vinyl adds a fair amount of harmonic distortion.  Isn't that what rock-style electric amplifiers do to guitars and basses?  If a rock musician went for a reasonably accurate electric guitar sound, a la Wes Montgomery, it would probably bore everyone to death.  We like that fat, rich, throbbing sound in rock. Vinyl just adds some more.  Add that same effect to high notes in a violin solo, probably have less happy results.

[Todd]

Add that same effect to high notes in a violin solo, probably have less happy results.

I'm not sure.  Why do I so I so enjoy Christian Ferras' recording of LvB's Violin Concerto on LP even more than on CD.  (Seriously, on LP, it is so freakin' beautiful that the properly mastered CD sounds lame.)

I mean I get it, it's no surprise, but why bring it up?  Sometimes distortion sounds awesome.

[Ken B]

Because vinyl is inferior. It degrades with every play (not to mention all those already played). Plus I believe this is the only genre where SACD is actually alive in a bigger way. Perhaps the people who might get vinyl get this type of cd instead.

Exactly. Vinyl sounds better is a pose. Kinetoscope looks better.

[Todd]

Exactly. Vinyl sounds better is a pose. Kinetoscope looks better.

The fallback counter-argument of the easily suggestible. 

[Jo498]

There are recordings and playback setups when vinyl sounds better. (Although I doubt that this is true for modern digital recordings but for some of the LP age.)
And self-transferred LPs as mp3s are often the worst of both worlds. They are convenient but with a decent setup vinyl usually sounds much better. ("sounds much better" is explicitly subjective, so it is of secondary importance if the reason for this is harmonic distortions of the LP (or whatever makes them sometimes sound "warmer", "more natural" etc.) or digital artefacts (or whatever makes them sound "flat", "shallow", "cold" of the other formats or something else.)

[Ken B]

There are recordings and playback setups when vinyl sounds better. (Although I doubt that this is true for modern digital recordings but for some of the LP age.)
And self-transferred LPs as mp3s are often the worst of both worlds. They are convenient but with a decent setup vinyl usually sounds much better. ("sounds much better" is explicitly subjective, so it is of secondary importance if the reason for this is harmonic distortions of the LP (or whatever makes them sometimes sound "warmer", "more natural" etc.) or digital artefacts (or whatever makes them sound "flat", "shallow", "cold" of the other formats or something else.)

Lossy mp3 is not I expect what our resident sound engineer had in mind.

[Rinaldo]

The vinyl revival isn't driven by fidelity (with the exception of people who prefer vinyl pressings of records which CD versions were butchered in the Loudness war), but by aesthetics and the newfound enjoyment of taking your time to prepare and play a record. The listening, again, becomes a ritual - a ritual that younger generations actually never experienced! Which only adds to the hipness factor.

Also, don't forget the 'mythical' quality of an LP. For example this, in vinyl form, is an artifact that no classical record, however amazing, can match:

[Todd]

"sounds much better" is explicitly subjective

Any variant of "sounds better" is subjective.  It is fact that redbook CDs measure better and are more durable than LPs, but it is possible to prefer the inferior format.  High resolution digital measures better than CD, but it is possible to hear little or no difference.  There are other examples of objectively superior or proper measurements not matching up with preferences.  Tube audio gear measures worse than solid state, and SET noticeably worse, yet there are people who prefer the sound of tube gear.  Subwoofers are often displayed in showrooms with volume boosted and sometimes set out of phase to offer a bigger, more appealing boom.  A lot of people like that and some make a subwoofer sound like that in their homes, though it is not at all accurate.  Some people enjoy, so I have been told, single-driver, crossover-less speakers.  Every one I have heard (admittedly only a few) sounded terrible - but someone bought and buys these types of speakers.  Outside of audio, in the film era, the most popular consumer print films by sales volumes, by far, had exaggerated color saturation while more neutral print films were used mostly by pros.  (Some of the more neutral films were widely available, not materially more expensive, and relied on the same processing chemistry, so cost and availability were not big issues.)  When TVs are sold today in showrooms, brightness is generally set very high and contrast exaggerated because that is more visually appealing to many people.  I'm hoping that's not how people use them, but I don't know.  Measurements are objective.  Preferences are subjective.

[71 dB]

True, but why does it sound so good with some rock?

[1] Some rock may benefit from the distortions caused by vinyl. Rock music uses a lot of distortion effects so this is not surprising. That's why I suggested using vinyl as a sound effect, so you can hear it on a CD too. Vinyl transferred to CD sounds vinyl because CD is extremely transparrent, so all the colourizations you hear are from the vinyl.
[2] Explosing your ears to vinyl sound teaches you to prefer it. You have learned to expect the distortion.
[3] If the record is mastered for vinyl, it is not a wonder it sounds goof on vinyl.
[4] Vinyl cannot contain high amplitude low frequency content out-of-phase. The prevent the needle jumping off the groove, signal is filtered with elliptic filter which is a kind of crossfeeding. This may give an advantage for vinyl when using headphones. However, you can always use elliptic filter with digital formats too so this is not a technical advantage
[5] The cover art of a 12" vinyl is much larger than the 5" CD cover. Maybe this together with all the needle dropping business makes listening more special? Is so, it's all in your head.

And pretty much all pre-digital jazz?

I guess some of the points above apply here too. You have an learned idea of how pre-digital jazz (whatever that term means) should sound like and the remastered cleaned up CDs don't sound like that.

I did some A/B comparisons with the new Led Zeppelin release of Houses of the Holy.  The winner?  My mid-80s LP.  My teenage son, an all-digital kind of young man who scoffed at all things analog, agreed, after hearing for himself.  (Yes, the sampling was unscientific, but even my wife agreed.  She doesn't give a shit about any of this silliness.)

It is a known fact that due to loudness war older master sound best in many cases. Again, this is not a technical issue. Luckily the lunacy of loudness war is relieving.

You can transfer any vinyl to CD and it will sound the same, because CD is superior technically. You can't do the other way around. You can have the clean dynamic sound of many CDs on vinyl and having it sound the same. It will get distorted. There are bad sounding CDs, but it is the fault of the sound engineers following the stupid orders of their bosses causing this.