Question
evrt:
ltwp:
Historians always wish that ancient civilizations had better-kept records from which to learn from. How can we try to make sure that in today’s world we are leaving sufficient evidence to fill up textbooks of tomorrow? Photos on flickr? Blog posts? It’s all in data formats that will die sooner or later. This age in which everything is digital has potential to be a huge blank spot in history if we don’t change those file formats.I think that is a pretty good observation you have made. I think people will always see a resurgence of certain things or media that are more for collecting, instead of just data on a hard drive.
For example, Vinyl record sales were up 15% in 2007, and up 37% last year. I think it has to do with disastisfaction of sound quality with the digital age. You cannot beat the quality of vinyl. I am continually amazed at the sounds that you don’t get with an mp3, and then I play the vinyl record and it’s like I’m hearing the song for the first time.
I am not exactly sure why vinyl is back. For audiophiles, it has never left, that’s for sure, and the quality you can get from a US$15,000 sound system with vinyl is nothing you can imagine from you US$500 iPod + dock.
But I don’t think your average teen discovering vinyl is doing it because of the audio quality. They have their dad’s US$200 turntable with an old styli. And does a US$200 turntable REALLY give you a better quality than a US$200 CD player or MP3 player, for that matter?
It’s something else; it’s getting in touch with the older generations, it’s “the vintage touch”, it’s trying to understand an experience thought gone. Much like when I started wearing my grandfather’s vests while being a teenager. In the end, fashion brought those knit vests back, and I looked cool and they were fine quality vests. But I wore them because he wore them before. I felt connected.
Of course, along with “getting the experience” comes the features from the experience itself. Those with good hearing and fine hardware will actually discover the quality difference, and might follow the audiophile route.
Some will find out that leaving your iPod in shuffle mode is a completely different experience from taking a disc out of its sleeve and listening through a whole side of it, then turning it around and listening to side B. In the digital world, it’s too easy to click “next”. But it’s not that easy to fetch for another vinyl, take it out, and take the needle up to the song you want. So, you feel more compelled to stay, calm down and appreciate the whole album. Two different experiences, none is better than the other; they just belong to different moments, different mindsets. And those not in contact with vinyl might never discover this other mindset.
Some will start on this path because old vinyls are cheap. It’s tempting: heaps of music for pennies. Thus, they will discover older music. They might not make vinyl such a big thing later on, because they find the digital path more convenient. But they will have discovered artists that won’t make it to iTunes frontpage but who are cornerstones in music, now forgotten by the mainstream.
But on the quality side, I have always had this issue with hardcore audiophiles: what is really better quality? I fully understand the analog vs. digital issue. I know Nyquist and its implications. And I’m not exactly cheapo on my audio equipment taste.
But at your average consumer levels, the CD experience will usually be better than vinyl. Why? However cheap, CD players don’t get rumble or wow-and-flutter; the resilience of the media to mild scratches is better; you can store more CDs in your cabinets than LPs; your car comes with CD player. MP3s still raise the bar more: one CD can carry 100+ songs, and you don’t even need discs, you can clip an iPod nano to your belt.
I remember a guy posting at Hydrogen Audio’s forums making a review that went more or less like this:
Test: listen to the same song on vinyl, tape, CD and MP3… on my bike, downhill.
Vinyl: Impossible. Awful quality. Skipped all the way. Power cable too short. Might try with a battery operated turntable…
Tape: Not bad. Sound quality is a bit crappy, but could take some abuse. Track search sucks. Acceptable battery life.
CD: Way better sound that tape, but could take less abuse without skipping. Track search is good. Acceptable battery life.
MP3: It rocks! For the background noise you get while on the bike, the sound quality is equivalent to CD, but it will NEVER skip, no matter the abuse. Best track search of all. Best battery life of all.
Couldn’t find the original, so I tried my best to re-do it.
Going to the original post: digital can be risky. archive.org, among others, is trying to do something about it. I guess libraries and other content-related organizations should be keeping digital assets safely. Maybe we don’t really have a time-proof media solution as of now. We know CDs lose information after some years. We need a solution that can last for thousands of years.
But then again, digital can also be better in some ways. Open, documented formats will remain, for they are not only data; there is meta-data that explains the data, that extends it, that puts data in context. Information experts are no strangers to the format obsolescence issue, and little by little, important steps are being taken. I wish we’ll be wise enough to provide future archeologists with the Rosetta stone to uncode our current data.
