Listen closely, among the shelves of the last remaining music shops, in student dorm rooms and amid the flat whites and reclaimed wood of certain coffee shops, and you’ll hear a sound that many thought long banished. Check out the steadily rising sales figures of the past few years and there’s little doubt: the vinyl record is making a comeback. With it comes the return of another sound, like some po-faced, bearded handmaiden: the whine of the vinyl bore.
It is three decades since 12-inch PVC discs were the dominant means of access to music, but for some the format never died and analogue will always offer a purer, more true-to-life audio reproduction. Listen up and you’ll hear them jabbering insistently about ‘warmth’, ‘punch’ and ‘high fidelity’.
The analogue-digital debate is as old as digital recording itself.
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