Your Vinyl Recording Of Old Music Might Be A Digital Copy

Vinyl is back.

Kids are asking for record players for Christmas, and vinyl records. Parents are searching the attic and the closets for their old LPs and 45s.

There is one famous old bookstore in Cheyenne Wyoming, Phoenix Books & Music, that no longer sells books. Now it's just a record store renamed Downtown Vinyl.

All is well and good for the old used records. But what about your favorite old songs on new vinyl? Is it the pure original recording? The "one step process?"

Some of the old music on the new vinyl is actually digital. (WHAT?)

According to the owner of Phoenix record shop, the ‘In’ Groove, Esposito said that 'pretty reliable sources' told him that MoFi (Mobile Fidelity), the Sebastopol, Calif., company that has prided itself on using original master tapes for its pricey reissues, had actually been using digital files in its production chain.  (John Sexton Hot Air Blog).

In other words, those old songs you love on new vinyl are not from the original master recordings but from digital archives that are then rerecorded on vinyl.

That might be fine if the digital recording came from the original master. But what if it didn't? Turns out it might not have come from there.

Audio vinyl geeks just HATE that idea. They want the original real deal.

The problem is the original recordings are only good for making so many records before the "stamper" is worn out. The video above explains the process.

For the young kids getting their new music on vinyl, they might not care.

But those original vinyl recordings from way back were recorded on all analog. Some purists want the purity of that.

There were those albums that were recorded on tape, then transferred to vinyl. But there were also albums that were recorded direct to disk, then copies made.

The purest complaint is that the old recordings were not taken from the original masters, but dubbed from copies on vinyl to digital, then back to vinyl.

I can understand what the purists want. But I bet, despite their insisting that they can tell, they can't tell.

Would you care where the audio came from if you were buying a new vinyl recording of an old song?