Thursday, 1 March 2018

Why vinyl LPs are better than CDs and MP3s

Science Youtuber Steve Mould explains why vinyl records are better than digital media. Not because they have better audio quality (I'm not getting into that argument, because I don't care much about sound quality) -- it's because LP grooves can be used in unusual ways. For instance, the spiral of an LP ends in a circular track called a "locked groove" or "runout groove" and some records include a recorded snippet that endlessly runs, just for fun. For instance, The Beatles famously added a loop of gibberish at the end of side two of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Mould also demonstrates "interwoven tracks," which were used on horse race game recordes, with a random horse winning each time the stylus was set on the record. Mould's old toys with tiny records inside are very cool, too.