02-12-2018, 09:32 AM
Well, if you're not an audiophile then maybe the chosen analogy is not the best. I'm not talking about basic music consumption. I'm talking about actively listening to music for playback accuracy. "High-Fidelity" man, as the kids used to say back in the day. As a general rule, musicians tend to be some of the least demanding individuals when it comes to their musical playback equipment. I don't blame them as the price of decent playback equipment is part of the problem these days. The cost of an iPhone isn't that much more than a really good phono cartridge (and they only go up from there). That's just the cartridge. I still have my old Linn turntable from the 80's and it cost more back then than any iPhone does now. By the time you add amps, preamps, speakers, etc. you could have bought a motorcycle, lol. But guys in pursuit of high-fidelity find a way to justify paying for such systems, just as we were able to convince ourselves that a relatively slow, air-cooled 1140cc, standard motorcycle with few bells and whistles was worth the cost for the experience it provides.
Vinyl records might have limitations when it comes to dynamic range (the difference between soft passages and lound passages), but older recordings took very good advantage of such range. I own around 2,000 albums, the majority of which are more than 30 years old. Most of today's recordings (that happen to be digitally recorded) are so compressed that they just don't sound natural to someone who actually actually pays attention to how live music sounds. Recordings don't have to be made this way, but the industry chooses to do so because this tends to make the overall recording sound more "exciting" to catch someone's attention, but it's not realistic. This works just fine for the masses as most people just don't care, don't notice, or both. When you take those same overly compressed recordings and then transfer them to a vinyl record, there is no benefit at all. The only thing that you've accomplished is that a person is now able to play said recording on their cool new turntable. Which in the case of most turntables bought by young folks today don't even have the same abilities for playback quality as the CD player that they've now abandoned. (It's the motorcycle equivalent of some young guy trading in his CBR250R for a Sym Wolf Classic 150 just for the retro vibe.) But those same young folks will go on and on about how great this all sounds because they've been convinced that vinyl sounds better. Vinyl can sound better, but there's no guarantee that it will. You've got to have the right vinyl and the right playback system. MTC, I'll give your kid the benefit of the doubt here and trust that he knows all this stuff.
That's what I'm referring to in this case. If Triumph were being honest, they would have said something along the lines of "we've made our fuel injection look like carbs, added some fins to the cylinders and tucked away the water-cooling where folks have a harder time seeing it so that you'll be seen rocking the cool old-school vibe!" That's honesty, but most boomers aren't going to be swayed by that. Trying to convince people that those fins are really anything other than aesthetic as Capo noted is no different than the young guys talking about how much better their new vinyl records sound. In the case of the typical young guys I'm referring to, it's simply ignorance. In the case of Triumph it's marketing baloney. But hey, it does indeed sell, just like the turntables and vinyl records that so many of the young guys are buying these days.
Ulvetanna, I'll give you a different analogy. I don't hardly play my electric guitar anymore. I ended up giving away my 1964 Fender tube amp to my brother as I knew he would truly appreciate it. Now a company could build a solid-state amp and then stick a few light bulbs in the head so that they would glow like tubes. Then they could market such an amp as having "tube sound". Plenty of guys wouldn't know the difference. But if I had sent something like that to my brother I don't think he would have been nearly as appreciative. Fake tubes/fake fins done just for looks and marketing appeal, same difference. Bugs me, but most guys just don't care about this kind of stuff anymore. So be it.
LongRanger, those old Marantz receivers get the job done. They even had decent phono stages. I've got one out in our cabin, just because I like the way it looks. I don't have a turntable hooked up out there because I don't really sit down to listen to music. I just use it for background music every now and then so I'll just hook up iPhone to the auxiliary port. If those old original Blue-Note records are still in decent shape then you've got a relative goldmine on your hands. The prices for those slipped beyond my comfort zone about 20 years ago. Consider me envious.
Vinyl records might have limitations when it comes to dynamic range (the difference between soft passages and lound passages), but older recordings took very good advantage of such range. I own around 2,000 albums, the majority of which are more than 30 years old. Most of today's recordings (that happen to be digitally recorded) are so compressed that they just don't sound natural to someone who actually actually pays attention to how live music sounds. Recordings don't have to be made this way, but the industry chooses to do so because this tends to make the overall recording sound more "exciting" to catch someone's attention, but it's not realistic. This works just fine for the masses as most people just don't care, don't notice, or both. When you take those same overly compressed recordings and then transfer them to a vinyl record, there is no benefit at all. The only thing that you've accomplished is that a person is now able to play said recording on their cool new turntable. Which in the case of most turntables bought by young folks today don't even have the same abilities for playback quality as the CD player that they've now abandoned. (It's the motorcycle equivalent of some young guy trading in his CBR250R for a Sym Wolf Classic 150 just for the retro vibe.) But those same young folks will go on and on about how great this all sounds because they've been convinced that vinyl sounds better. Vinyl can sound better, but there's no guarantee that it will. You've got to have the right vinyl and the right playback system. MTC, I'll give your kid the benefit of the doubt here and trust that he knows all this stuff.
That's what I'm referring to in this case. If Triumph were being honest, they would have said something along the lines of "we've made our fuel injection look like carbs, added some fins to the cylinders and tucked away the water-cooling where folks have a harder time seeing it so that you'll be seen rocking the cool old-school vibe!" That's honesty, but most boomers aren't going to be swayed by that. Trying to convince people that those fins are really anything other than aesthetic as Capo noted is no different than the young guys talking about how much better their new vinyl records sound. In the case of the typical young guys I'm referring to, it's simply ignorance. In the case of Triumph it's marketing baloney. But hey, it does indeed sell, just like the turntables and vinyl records that so many of the young guys are buying these days.
Ulvetanna, I'll give you a different analogy. I don't hardly play my electric guitar anymore. I ended up giving away my 1964 Fender tube amp to my brother as I knew he would truly appreciate it. Now a company could build a solid-state amp and then stick a few light bulbs in the head so that they would glow like tubes. Then they could market such an amp as having "tube sound". Plenty of guys wouldn't know the difference. But if I had sent something like that to my brother I don't think he would have been nearly as appreciative. Fake tubes/fake fins done just for looks and marketing appeal, same difference. Bugs me, but most guys just don't care about this kind of stuff anymore. So be it.
LongRanger, those old Marantz receivers get the job done. They even had decent phono stages. I've got one out in our cabin, just because I like the way it looks. I don't have a turntable hooked up out there because I don't really sit down to listen to music. I just use it for background music every now and then so I'll just hook up iPhone to the auxiliary port. If those old original Blue-Note records are still in decent shape then you've got a relative goldmine on your hands. The prices for those slipped beyond my comfort zone about 20 years ago. Consider me envious.