Any uncompressed Hayley music out there?

[stevemacdonald]

On the thread about how to keep your Hayley CDs I noticed one poster saying he keeps her music on the computer. As a would-be audiophile I was flabbergasted that some people prefer convenience over the best possible sound. But then I realised that the best possible sound reproduction is from a bygone era.

I wonder if anyone ever heard Hayley's recorded songs in a completely uncompressed format. Mp3s involve compression and so do CDs. This means loss of fidelity, even though today's ears aren't accustomed to the highest standards of the past. As older folks know, the only true way to experiemce great music is in analog mode, as in original tapes or vinyl albums. Just imagine how amazing Hayley would sound on a direct-to-disk LP! The sound of her voice would be richer, with a clarity and presence more like what she reserves for live shows.

Hmm, I think I know what they should do: Recond a live Hayley-in-concert album and release it on vinyl. After we all retro-fit our sound systems with turntables, the discussion will change in a hurry to: How do you keep your (Hayley) LPs?

[Tin]

Hi Steve,

I do see a few vinyls in HMVs (not Hayley's of course), but can I ask how much is a machine which plays these big discs? I wonder if I had seen one in real life (I had only seen replicas in TV now and then).

Tin

[grant]

Jul 26, 2008 15:07:32 GMT stevemacdonald said:

After we all retro-fit our sound systems with turntables, the discussion will change in a hurry to: How do you keep your (Hayley) LPs?

Hi Steve

I still have about 60 LP's and still have a turntable with my sound system!

Although, because non of my LP's feature Hayley, they don't get played now!

Best wishes
Grant

[larryhauck]

Tin,

I'm sure you can get info on turntables on the internet.

Larry

[Tin]

Hi Larry,

I just knew these players are called turntables; how ignorant of me

Tin

[Paddy]

Hi Tin,

I've seen some (used) turntables for sale on Ebay from time to time.

New turntables are still made, e.g. by Sony.

news.sel.sony.com/en/image_library/images/small/consumer/home_audio_video/detail?archive=0&asset_id=33738

I suspect many are easily available in Hong Kong electrical stores.


Paddy

[martindn]

Hi Steve,

I guess it is my post you are referring to. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. I still use my turntable regularly, and have a large collection of vinyl records dating back ti the early 1960s. Some of those are unobtainable in any format today, and many have never been transferred to digital formats.
But I was talking about playing music in my car, or in our motorhome. Unlike my system at home, these are not meant to be hifi anyway. I have carefully experimented with CD vs MP3 vs wma, and with different bit rates and concluded that the small difference in quality from CD over the others is almost undetectable on such systems and does not justify have to cart hundreds of CDs around. And all of these systems are certainly better than the cassette players that were usually installed not many years ago.
But I agree about vinyl,there are some albums, especially ones that were originally released on vinyl, then transferred to CD later, where I much prefer the sound of the vinyl recordings when played on my hifi system. And this includes some of my favourite recordings (not Hayley's obviously).
I agree it would be interesting to hear Hayley on vinyl.. Oerhaps this is one reason why I have always claimed that Hayley's records do not do her justice, and why I so love to hear her sing live.

In fact it is an interesting observation that Hayley seems to have been born too late. If she had been around in the 1950s or 1960s, she would be rightfully hailed as one of the greatest singers of all time I am sure. She still is, but people these days seem too bound up in ideas of what is fashionable, rather than what is quality.

Martin

Martin

[Dean McCarten]

Well I have had the privilege of having LP's and a turntable as well and an old gramophone. As I can agree with the statements in this thread.

But as Hayley has no LP's and as I spend a lot of time at a computer or mac and my iPod, I copied all my Hayley CDs with the following settings:
MP3:
Channels: Stereo
Bit Rate: 320 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz.

So This is the best I can do as these settings are higher than that of CD (128 kbps -160 kbps)

p.s a Hayley-in-Concert Album is a great idea

[martindn]

p.s a Hayley-in-Concert Album is a great idea

Hi Dean,

Sometimes it feels as if you and I are the only ones here today! I guess the rest are at Broadlands!

I agree, but a Hayley in Concert DVD might be even better!

Martin

[milewalker]

Jul 26, 2008 19:28:16 GMT martindn said:

In fact it is an interesting observation that Hayley seems to have been born too late. If she had been around in the 1950s or 1960s, she would be rightfully hailed as one of the greatest singers of all time I am sure. She still is, but people these days seem too bound up in ideas of what is fashionable, rather than what is quality.

Hi Martin,

I think you are correct that Hayley was born out of time - I have posted as much elsewhere. I would have placed her ideal birth a decade or two before you however - because the chief problem is that she happens to excel at a type of music simply not in vogue right now, and which has been out of vogue for quite some time - easy listening (at least in America) was becoming pretty marginalized by the 60's.

This being said, how could you ever objectively define quality music? My impression is that such definitions have always been subject to things like generational change. For example, you have elsewhere named several artists you liked to one degree or another - and for the record I tend to share your tastes. However, this was also the music of my youth - and my father certainly didnt like most of it. To him, earlier artists like Mario Lanza, or Jim Reeves were quality music and Fleetwood Mac, or Pink Floyd certainly would not have passed muster with him.

What we now think of as classical music is nothing more than the pop (read fashionable) music of its time. None of the people involved were interested in writing "quality music" at all - or only to the extent that they wanted to make a better living than their peers. In his own time, Beethove was far more reknowned as an improvisational musician (today we would call him a jazz musician) than he was as a composer.

Getting this back on topic, there is a general economic rule in play here. The chief rule in any product is that it be functional - it must perform the task it is designed to do. To an extent, most products actually have a bit of extra "quality" built into them because it helps build sales if the product is perceived to be better - but only to an extent. At some point, as the perceived difference in quality becomes less meaningful - and at that point it makes less and less economic sense to improve it.

I would venture a guess that the limitations of normal human hearing, along with the fact that most music is now designed to be "portable" means that it simply doesnt make any sense for the producers of music to be overly concerned with the level of "quality" suggested by this discussion. I doubt that 5 percent of the market would even notice the difference - and I dont think you can market profitably to a group that small.

Jon