Jerry Cantrell is an amazing quitarist and a good singer I would prob still buy Alice In Chains records with him and the rest of the band but I wouldnt buy it if they replaced Layne Stanley. Dont ruin it with a new voice!

p.s: what about crosby's (other) point , about record sales?
I think he's right about digital media. personally I haven't bought a CD in about 2 years.
and I don't plan to, anytime soon.

but..
..I still buy (new) vinyl.  whenever I can get it.  
in fact I just bought a new GRADO magnetic cartridge for my turntable.
then I ran out and found a bunch of new "180gram" pressings of old Stevie ray Vaughan records,
each made from the digital master.
(and another one from Nirvana : a limited edition 180gram-pressing of "Nevermind" on virgin plastic..
..and again..
it was digitally remastered (probably for CD?) and then transfered to vinyl. so it sounds amazing)

-----

I've found, if you look around, there are a lot of albums being re-issued on vinyl nowadays,
made from the same digital masters as the 'SACD' version(s) of the same title(s).
(like the 'Pink Floyd: Dark Side Of The Moon' : the 30th anniversay edition)
(of which I currently have 2 vinyl copies on order)(hehe)

personally I think that CD's sound thin compared to vinyl.

(ie: compared to vinyl , CD's sound like an MP3 with a really low bitrate.
thin and hollow)
((where vinyl = infinite bitrate , if you want to look at it that way))

there's no comparison.

-----

I don't buy CD's at all, if I can help it.  and that includes "new" releases.
I got the new Foo Fighters album on vinyl instead of CD (called "One by One"),

it was $8.99 for a '2-record-set', on vinyl .. or $12.99 for a plastic CD.
and for what its worth , I'm having a lot more fun with the vinyl. hehe

this is my cartridge

http://www.gradolabs.com/product_pages/black_green.htm

'frequency response  10hz-50khz'   (show me a CD player that can do THAT, and I'll eat my shirt)    (hehe)

I'm assuming modern vinyl "record" players still use needles of some sort.

That was my biggest problem with vinyl records - my parents had a number of records growing up, and I played several of them very often, which of course wore them out.

I'm all for great tonal range, but it doesn't do much good if the recording doesn't last.  Yes, a CD can be scratched, but at least it is trivial these days to make a personal backup copy, which as far as I know isn't the case with vinyl.

Also, at least in my parents' case, some of the records warped over time - I'm not sure if it was something to do with humidity or how they were being stored (nothing special), but as I recall a few of them became less enjoyable because of it.

Quote (Cobalt60 @ May 28 2004, 1:35 pm)

(and another one from Nirvana : a limited edition 180gram-pressing of "Nevermind" on virgin plastic..

*insert mouthwatering noises here*

ya its true, you really have to take care of them, or they scratch over time.
but they're really not that hard to take care of. they last a lot longer than you'd think

the biggest problem with the whole vinyl scene, actually,
is that the equipment wears out over time, not the records.

and most people never bother(ed) to replace the needles/cartridges..
..so they destroy(ed) their record collection just by playing them.

I mean, an 'average-quality' needle is only good for ~200hours of use..
and the cartridge that holds it,about 1000 hours.

after that , you're just creating vinyl-dust on a lathe (hehe); that'll ruin the records for sure.



but thats 'average quality'.  
the more expensive cartridges will last longer and sound better
(and do less damage to the vinyl itself).
a "high quality" cartridge is a LOT less sensitive to the "surface noise" and "scratches" that you hear..
..while at the same time being a lot MORE sensitive to the (sometimes very weak?) magnetic signal on the disc.

(ie: I've seen magnetic cartridges for $1250+ from 'Pickering' which are supposedly indestructible..
..and they sound incredible (!) even on really old worn records, you won't hear ANY scratches)
(you just hear the music)

---------

that cartridge that I bought from GRADO (link above), is a bit of an anomaly : its under $100
and it sounds like the really 'high-end' cartridges from the 70's.  

I stuck it on a "modern" $200 Technics turntable, which you can probably still get from bestbuy..
..and the result is better than anything that your parents even had available to them 20 years ago.LOL.
(at any price)

the cartridge makes ALL the difference. hehe

oh ya . and another problem was, there was no quality control in the eighties.
(no 'low-limit' placed on the amount of vinyl that actually went into the disc itself)

so : you had black vinyl discs that you could hold up to a light and ####ing SEE THROUGH
(!)
they were that thin.  


but these modern re-issues of old albums that I've been buying (like the Nirvana one) are all being pressed on '180grams' of virgin vinyl.  the records themselves are THICK! and HEAVY! and they are made to last a long time.

Wow. That's pretty strange to me. I mean, sure, my mom has some old vinyl records stored away, but I could never imagine getting NEW albums on vinyl. Very odd, to me at least.

Interesting.  At some point I'd like to do a side-by-side comparison and see if I can tell the difference.  Over the last few years I've heard a few arguments about sound quality of modern vinyl records, namely:

- they sound warmer or richer than CD's

- the human ear can't really distinguish frequencies at the upper and lower end of the spectrum that well, so the perceived superiority of records is mostly psychological

- records do in fact sound warmer or richer by default, but that's mostly due to incorrectly set equalizers on most CD players - with properly set equalizers you can't tell the difference.

Unfortunately I don't know anyone who actually still has a turntable, so this is an experiment that will have to wait a while

this is kinda hard to explain, but with CD's
the sampling rates are too low to reproduce the 'sound' of the original recording.

picture : on an oscilloscope,  a 'sound wave' looks like a sine wave.  its round.

but : when a 'sound' @20khz is sampled into digital .. @ sampling rate of 40khz..
.. then the resulting sample ONLY records the 'peak' and 'valley' with NO information about the wave itself.

ie : in order to get an accurate representation of the 'wave' itself ,
you need to record MORE than just TWO samples per wavelength.
(heh)

so, the resulting "wave" looks perfectly square.
(it oscilates .. but it doesn't RESONATE!! hehe)
((you you still 'hear it' but it sounds thin)) *

-----------

this CAN be cpmpensated for, when the signal is converted back to analog..
..but (most) D/A converters, in (most) commercial CD players, are NOT up to the task.

you need to spend $1000+ on a professional-quality "DENON" CD player,
in order to get back that 'richness' and 'warmth' that you feel from analog sources

(it has little to do with 'equalization' I'm afraid,
and more to do with digital-to-analog conversion in the CD player itself)

(and even with the most expensive CD players.. since the D/A conversion process must extrapolate information about the sound wave(s) which is NOT present in the bitstream itself .. the resulting 'resonance' won't match what was recorded in the studio)

(so you lose the  "sound"  of the original recording )

-------

* back in the 80's ,.
this "thin" sound was marketted as being "CLEANER" than analog.

(IMO, a more fitting analogy would be "Faded"..  or "Bleached")