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Music Stores (HMV, Virgin, Sunrise)

Towered said:
Vinyl.
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No. Studies have repeatedly found that CDs have better sound quality. It's scientific:

The mathematical data encoded on a CD, however, is a nearly exact representation of the original sound. Comparing an LP and a CD made from the same microphone signal, the LP's groove must perfectly match the signal to sound close to CD-quality, which is almost impossible, says Stanley Lipshitz, who studies electro-acoustics and digital-signal processing in the Audio Research Group at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Even so, some audiophiles claim to hear a natural sound, vaguely described as "musical warmth," when listening to vinyl. What they're hearing, Lipshitz says, is most likely the deficiencies of the record player. Sound waves from the speakers and the needle's rise-and-fall passage over the grooves cause the LP to vibrate. The needle picks up these extra vibrations and adds them to the music, creating the "fullness" that's associated with LPs. "Some people mistake this defect for a virtue," Lipshitz says.
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junctionist said:
No. Studies have repeatedly found that CDs have better sound quality. It's scientific:
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Oh let's not get into that debate :rolleyes: To me, it all depends on the skill of the mastering engineer who prepared the release. If they did a crap job, it's gonna sound like crap. Simply there are tons of crappy sounding vinyl, and also tons of brilliant sounding vinyl...same is valid for the CD's. Everything is up to the mastering, not the format itself.
 
gabe said:
Oh let's not get into that debate :rolleyes: To me, it all depends on the skill of the mastering engineer who prepared the release. If they did a crap job, it's gonna sound like crap. Simply there are tons of crappy sounding vinyl, and also tons of brilliant sounding vinyl...same is valid for the CD's. Everything is up to the mastering, not the format itself.
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No, I'm tired of the BS I hear about vinyl. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the sound of vinyl, and you make a good point about the importance of mastering. But science shows that CDs are the most accurate way of reproducing sound. The CD is the objectively better format.
 
Yeah, where have all the 8-track stores gone?! ;)

WKL - sheet music vs. every format that recorded music has every been sold in: not the same.

42
 
W. K. Lis said:
Didn't the phonograph record mean the near demise of the sheet music store? You can still find them, but not many. See link.



However, if the sheet music is still around, so should other formats for music.
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Today's sheet music retail scene is mainly aimed at students and amateur musicians learning to play music. There could be more stores, but it's easy to order books online now. Piracy and amateur tab sites are also cutting into retail sales.
 
CD's may have sharply declined in sales over the last decade, but they're stubbornly holding on much longer than I thought they would. I remember someone who worked at a Best Buy back in 2010 said they were going to stop selling CD's entirely the following year, yet that hasn't happened.

I wonder who these people buying CD's are - I have a reasonably large social circle and I don't know a single person, myself included, who's bought a CD in at least 5 years, and that includes a lot of music nerds (myself included again) who used to buy tons of them.
 
junctionist said:
Today's sheet music retail scene is mainly aimed at students and amateur musicians learning to play music. There could be more stores, but it's easy to order books online now. Piracy and amateur tab sites are also cutting into retail sales.
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Pretty sure the Pirates won't get at the student market much (if at all)....it is cause for expulsion at serious music schools if you show up with a pirated (or even a photocopied) piece of music.
 
Towered said:
CD's may have sharply declined in sales over the last decade, but they're stubbornly holding on much longer than I thought they would. I remember someone who worked at a Best Buy back in 2010 said they were going to stop selling CD's entirely the following year, yet that hasn't happened.

I wonder who these people buying CD's are - I have a reasonably large social circle and I don't know a single person, myself included, who's bought a CD in at least 5 years, and that includes a lot of music nerds (myself included again) who used to buy tons of them.
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I still buy CD's. I don't think Walmart or Best Buy makes any money off of CD's. They are so damn cheap compared to what they were 10 to 20 years ago. I see CDs that i paid $20+ back in the 90s, selling for 5 bucks now!

it's a crap shoot when it comes to buying new vinyl. I have had brand new sealed records with skips, surface noise, scratched, warps, dirty. Pressing plants are cutting way too many corners. That's one reason why I buy most of my new music on CD.
 
To fit music onto vinyl without the needle getting thrown out of the groove requires a lot of sacrifices to the original music, especially the bass frequencies. And of course there are problems with the ticks and pops and the vinyl record wearing out each time it's played.

When I buy music, I buy it on CD. Serious music fans get the CD, SACD, FLAC, etc. Vinyl is just a fashion statement, nothing more or less.
 
Towered said:
Vinyl.
Click to expand...
Vinyl is the word. It may be a trend, fashion statement or whatever. Maybe not everyone's thing, and that's okay. But people really to gravitate to the sound and cover art. And there are so many stores popping up where you can not only buy records, but also enjoy the experience with many enhancements - coffee, food, accessories - that did not accompany most record shops of yesteryear. For a few: https://tovinyl.wordpress.com
 
The vinyl comeback has infused the music retail scene with the kind of romanticism that was lost with the dawn of the internet age in the mid-90's.
 
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