h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is one major difference between the new and old YS albums that wasn't mentioned in the entry- the old one was recorded in sweet analog, while the new one was digitally remastered. For CD fans, this is a good thing, as the songs should sound clearer than on the old CD soundtrack. But for vinyl fans like myself, who prefer the warmth of analog, it is dissapointing- I was looking forward to an unplayed vinyl copy of the songs on YS, but the producers seem to have missed the point by releasing a digitalized version on wax. I guess they're counting on nostalgic baby boomers who can't tell the difference. Oh well, it saves me thirty bucks, and gives me something to look for at used record shops (an old YS in mint condition).

Okay - I must confess to being a young person who cannot tell the difference, sorry.

I'm a youngin' too. One day it just happened- I heard the difference. Now I can't listen to CDs without noticing how clear and hard they sound- kind of a cold and crystalized. Vinyl, by comparison, just sounds better- it has a much warmer, fuller feel. Part of this is due to the fact that it's analog, and therefore it has all the information, not an approximation, which is all 1s & 0s can communicate, and part of it is because of the direct contact of the needle in the groove. Therefore, digital records, though they sound better in some respects than CDs, don't match analog.

I've never really noticed, but then, most of the tapes etc. I had before my CD collection were recorded off of old records or the radio, and not a very high quality. I only had recordings of recordings, not the real thing.
My mum would never let us use the record player because it once cost her £12 to change the head... So I had no records

No records?! How did you survive? Music is the best (to quote Frank Zappa).

I survived with, as I said, a few tapes, mostly recorded off of my parents' records, and that was about it until I started collecting CDs. The first CD I got was "The Beatles Anthology 1" in 1995 - a year before my first CD player.

Many of the early conversions from tape to CD were done using 2nd, 3rd or later tapes. And not rebalanced to account for the expanded CD range, so they came out scratchy or harsh. Now many CD are being remastered from the original tape, when ever possible, and re balanced and mixed to utilize the full CD range.

Is that why they re-released "Imagine" on CD not so long ago?
I'm afraid that as I've grown up with poor quality recordings, I doubt I'd know the difference.

It's true that many early CDs were especially bad due to 3rd gen tapes, and failure to balance appropriately, and newer CDs do sound better. However, they are still digital. They will always sound different from analog. The information must still be coded as 1s & 0s, and this will always leave out inbetween sounds. CDs succeed in doing what they were designed to do: they sound clearer and crisper than tape and vinyl, with virtually no undesirable sounds. Since the days of Edison, this has been the goal of sound engineers. However, as far as I'm concerned, those goals were misguided, as the CD leaves me with a hollow feeling that vinyl does not. Digital recordings lack a depth, and a physicality that is difficult to explain. Kind of like the difference between a really good wholesome meal and one that just tastes good- you know that the latter hasn't given you anything you can run on. So enjoy your convenient, crystalized CDs, if you can. But if you ever come over to my place, be warned that you may leave with an urge to buy a record player!