LPs, v. iPods - round 1


Controversy! While watching the Yankees beat (finally) the Red Sox yesterday, I saw a great TV ad. A guy fights with his significant other because of the giant stacks of LPs all around the apartment. Clutter, clutter everywhere, nor any place to sit!! She storms out, flinging a record at him.

Next scene … he proceeds to rip every record to an electronic file and loads the files onto what appears to be an iPod in a docking station.

When the girlfriend returns home, all the records are gone and the spotlessly clean apartment is decorated in some sort of post-modern IKEA stuff. Where did the records go? A tag sale? No time for that. Goodwill? Maybe. A dumpster? Most likely.

The punch line of the ad is to buy the vendor’s digital audio product – because low bit rate digital is A-OK – and restore harmonic bliss to your life. The subtext of no need for high quality audio reproduction in your life is lost to all but we audio hobbyists and music lovers, I suppose.

I don’t really know why, but this ad really bugged me. I like the Yankees and the Red Sox. I like records. I like girls. I even like the iPod. Maybe it’s the representation of music lovers, record collectors, audiophiles as socially deficient pack rats. Are we really perceived by society as such?

Just a rant, I guess.

Bob R.
rmrobinson1957
I also read the CNN article. It seems the point is that convenience is the only thing that really matters. Maybe that's what irritates me so much. The triumph of mediocrity.
Its important to be flexible in both worlds. I own the pod. I own records. When I'm drivin in my car or out in my garden I listen to the pod, although mildly annoyed.

When I open a 12 year single malt and put up my feet at the end of that day well...let the vinyl play.

Flexibility folks. After all, we can have our cake and keep stuffing ourselves.

Peter
I'll buy that guy's records if they are any good.

Every new introduction since 1990 (when lp's were replaced by MP3), has been strictly for convenience of use, not for sound reproduction quality or permanence of storage.

For cleanest sound and permanence, vinyl still reigns.
Did you read the article about Ry Cooder in Stereophile? He didn't like the sound of his CDs and asked that the master be ripped to an ipod before the final master was released. Like most of us here the word "heresy" was used. But Ry Cooder found it more pleasing to listen to.

I believe Robert Baird wrote the article. It was the last page of a Stereophile issue fairly recently.
round 1

guy with no nuts - an ipod, happy girl friend and no lps

me - an ignore ipod, dump the girlfriend, keep lps

gotta love those ipod docking stations - this is hi fi?