With the arrival of new mediums to distribute, music has arrived at significantly better sound quality. At least, that is what the music industry wants most people to believe. Realistically, a large number of mediums ended up sacrificing quality for portability and medium protection. New technologies did not sound right to some because of the lack of excellent quality, but a brief overview makes it clear what direction music companies were trying to take.
Vinyl records comprised the first form of highly produced media. Music companies first sold vinyl records as the first mass created form of media because it is a perfect replica of the studio recording. Records remained strong for a while, and are even used today, but had a number of distinct issues. The first is that they were incredibly prone to scratches, and all of them can be heard as the music plays. They are also big discs and cannot be carried around easily or kept in a single storage area without some space. The record players also need to be high quality, and a bad record player can produce bad audio quality as well as damage the disc. Given these reasons, a new audio format had to emerge.
In order to solve the size problem and offer shelter, compact cassettes were introduced and became popular. 8-track tapes also emerged around the same time frame cassettes came out. Even though both of these mediums were much the same in the way they stored music and protected it, cassette tapes wound up staying around for much longer. The ease of the cassette tape retained reliability and functionality for much longer, since the components in 8-tracks would often ruin the tape in one way or another. Since music companies wanted to get the highest profit out of what they sold, the grade of 8-tracks often lagged behind what they should have been. The reason both of these had to be replaced is because tape will in the end morph after enough playback, degrading the audio quality of the music.
Compact discs became the next version of distributed music mediums. These discs never changed for the worse in sound quality with use as long as they were not scratched. People still did not want something extra to carry around, so ultimately they had to be replaced. MP3 digital compressed audio files are the most popular today, while they slightly degrade the quality of audio.
Still, listening to some Bob Dylan vinyl offers the best sound quality of any of these sources. Since music up until recently was recorded through analogue, vinyl has always been the most accurate since it is a purely analogue form of music reproduction. It is not uncommon anymore to find White Stripes vinyl or other more modern bands’ vinyls, given the resurgence of audio purity popularity.
SoundStage Direct, LLC is an online independent store based in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. SSD has the largest selection of vinyl records online. And you don't want to miss amazing closeout deals available at our LP outlet! We have record albums in every genre (for example: Bob Dylan vinyl and White Stripes vinyl) and in a variety of formats available ready to be shipped at your doorstep.
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