Who owns Shiina stuff?

[Glathannus]

So I just got billed for the shipping on my 14 magazines. From Japan to my house, costs $111 USD. That's after $29 in other fees.

Now some of you might be thinking "OUCH! That's not worth it!", but the thing is, if you try to get individual magazines through a deputy service, you will end up paying a total of at least $25 per magazine, and that's if the magazine auction closes for under 1000yen! If I tried to get 14 magazines, that would come out to be $350 if it were 14 separate auctions. So yeah, a $111 USD shipping charge might seem like ohmygodwhatthefuckWOW, but in the greater scheme of things, it's really not so bad. I'd much rather pay $10 per magazine, than $25. Getting Japanese magazines through eBay, is at least as expensive as Yahoo! Japan Auctions with a deputy service, and the selection is extremely limited.

[Ringo~Bingo]

I think that works out as pretty good value, (£60.00 give or take) especially as you get them all in the one shipment. I'd opt to get them all as one too, because as you said buying seperately would be a fortune and you might lose a few in the transit.

a general query of any Vinyl owners out there!

is it right that you can extract audio from a Vinyl at much higher bitrates than a CD's lossless ? I thought that having my Shiina collection at bitrates between 900/1300 was the current peak! I'd always assumed that Vinyl fans were hyping up their format of choice saying it was richer and so forth ? I assumed it was different rather than superior ? so technically how much if measured in bitrate could be extracted from a Vinyl ?

[Glathannus]

Originally Posted by Ringo~Bingo

a general query of any Vinyl owners out there!

is it right that you can extract audio from a Vinyl at much higher bitrates than a CD's lossless ? I thought that having my Shiina collection at bitrates between 900/1300 was the current peak! I'd always assumed that Vinyl fans were hyping up their format of choice saying it was richer and so forth ? I assumed it was different rather than superior ? so technically how much if measured in bitrate could be extracted from a Vinyl ?

That has so many factors involved. You can't always say that more bitrate is better quality. Lossless compression rarely/never knows the difference between noise, and legitimate content. So noise adds to the bitrate that lossless thinks it needs, in order to "preserve detail". Plus, different lossless formats will squeeze the exact same content, into more or less bitrate, yet the detail contained within remains the exact same. Apple Lossless is by no means the best format at squeezing the bitrates, while what lossy formats mostly do is chop the bitrates.

The bitrates you get from vinyl, are going to depend on several things, but mainly the samplerate and bitdepth of your vinyl 'rips'. 44.1kHz/16bit PCM/Lossless is CD quality. 96kHz/24bit PCM/Lossless is "High Definition" quality, because it is three times the resolution of CD audio. Three times the resolution, doesn't automatically equate to three times the lossless bitrate, but generally the figures are very close.

Before lossless compression is even involved, not every person's rip of the same vinyl, are equally clean or detailed. A $10,000 turntable is probably going to do a much better job with clean & detailed playback, than a $250 or a $1000 turntable. And what you have to understand, is that however average or great of playback your turntable is doing, is what gets "locked in" to your digital recording off of the vinyl. Some vinyl rips may actually compress to less lossless bitrate than the CD, if a cheap turntable is producing a thinner and flatter sound, or if you didn't adjust the volume level properly.

People who have never listened to all three price ranges, might assume it's all a placebo effect, but in my situation, it took me a few minutes before I realized the music I was listening to in a showroom, was actually coming from vinyl, because I wasn't hearing any of the pops or clacks - it was very clean playback. And of course, let's not forget that two different companies could charge $10,000 for their turntables, but one could sound better than the other, and the better of the two might sound like another company's $15,000 turntable, and/or the inferior of the two might sound like another company's $7,000. You can't completely assume that the more money you throw at a turntable - the better it will sound. But what you can safely assume is that there are much better-sounding turntables in the world, than what exist in the $100-$1000 price range.

So not only does a wide spectrum of quality exist among turntables, but it also exists among digital recording gear. You could have two different soundcards rated at 96kHz/24bit, and one will do a better job at that resolution, than the other. Some recording soundcards even exist for 192kHz, but then it starts to become difficult to say which company is doing a better job of that, than the other. One company might have 0.03% THD (the lower the better), while another company might have 0.003% THD, and charge twice as much. Not only do you want lower THD, but you also want the ±dB of Frequency Response, to be as low as possible. The mentality of audiophilism isn't about "99.99% quality for $1000 is more sane than 99.997% quality for $2000". The mentality of audiophilism is "This $1000 product is 0.01% flawed, and flaws are a serious distraction from the escapism of music, to my trained ears. If another product is 0.003% flawed for $2000, that's a third of the flaws for twice the price, and therefore the $2000 is a 'great' deal".

And then whatever super digital recording you've done off of super vinyl playback, would have to be played only off of a super soundcard, because not all 96kHz/24bit soundcards are equally great at conveying detail from 96kHz/24bit files, and the particular soundcard you used to make the recording, is not necessarily the best soundcard for playing back those files.

So it really isn't so much a question of bitrates. It's more a question of, do you have the best turntable, the best recording soundcard, and the best playback soundcard? Because if you compromise any one of those three, then you've got a weak link in the chain. Did I mention that cables and power conditioning make a difference with that price range of turntable and soundcard? (this can add several thousand more dollars to the setup) Oh, and the absolute last thing you ever want to do, is buy a "USB Turntable". They are an all-in-one consumer convenience tool, inferior at EVERYTHING - needle/arm/motor/soundcard/etc.. They are like the fast food of audio equipment.

The only reason the average person has to do a vinyl rip, is if that vinyl contains unique versions of songs. Anything 'unique' to the Ringo/Jihen vinyls, you can rip off of a one-Ringo-song CD (Baishou Ecstasy bonus CD - or Casshern soundtrack) or off of a PV collection on DVD. Otherwise, the vinyl rip done by Joe Average Idiot, is the exact same tracklist and song versions you can get on CD, with pops and clacks and background hiss they either leave behind, or process through "noise removal", and in so doing - they end up removing a little more from the sound than just the 'noise', so you're damned either way.

The reason an elitist would do a vinyl rip of something they can officially buy on CD, is because they spent at least $15,000 on their setup (not even counting amplifiers/speakers/headphones), and they know all about getting the dynamics to match without normalizing or clipping. In the end, they have digital files that will sound the same during the 1st playback or the 1000th playback, and fall a little bit short of the original vinyl, yet still sound noticably better than a CD rip. The original vinyl will degrade, the more times it is played. The vinyl rip remains consistent, and you have the convenience of being able to queue it on a playlist among other things.

Most people who have expensive turntables, don't even bother trying to 'rip' their vinyls. They just continually replay their original vinyls, with a diamond-tipped needle, because they like that sound better than any digital recording they could get off of it, and that's if they even have all the the necessary digital equipment, and know how to use it! The vinyls themselves, have no bitrates. They are an analog format, and analog is a solid line, while digital is a collection of dots trying to mimic a solid line. The higher the digital resolution, the more concentrated the dots are, and the more convincing the illusion is. Compared to CDs, original vinyls in good condition, playing on a good turntable, will usually sound thicker and smoother, and convey more sensitivity with instruments like the piano - which an audio CD will often 'butcher' in comparison. It's mostly the 16bit of CDs that's the problem - piano in any samplerate of 24bit, will sound much more convincing.

Portable players generally cap at 44.1kHz/16bit lossless, so the vinyl rips from someone who actually knows what they're doing, are basically for home use only. Plus even if portable players 'could' do 96kHz/24bit playback, it's going to get muddied up through the mini-jack and low-class DAC, and basically sound no better than 44.1kHz/16bit on the same player, but still consume at least three times the battery life.

[Jesse]

yay... I got two anniversary folders today. They bent them over to fit inside the box! Sooo not happy! I shall post up my new SR/TJ collection list once I get all my other orders, which mightn't be for a few weeks yet.

[Ringo~Bingo]

Thankyou Glath,
You always give me 5 star respones in just about everything I ask,
I fully appreciate it. If I did the vinyl rip I know of people who can do it "right" I know a few guys who are skilled in that field through my brothers Guitar tutor so I'd ask them to do it for me instead of me sitting with the USB all-in-one setup

@ Jesse
Don't worry if your folders are bent out of shape! all of mine came like that as well. All you have to do is weigh them down with a heavy book or something overnight and they'll be quite alright.

[Jesse]

Originally Posted by Ringo~Bingo

@ Jesse
Don't worry if your folders are bent out of shape! all of mine came like that as well. All you have to do is weigh them down with a heavy book or something overnight and they'll be quite alright.

ah ok, coool. Good to know!

[Jesse]

Yay first press Tsumi to Batsu, Gunjou Biyori, Killer Tune and OSCA have arrived! All pretty good condition, bar some of the jewel cases, but they can be replaced.

I didn't realise Tsumi to Batsu had the kanji embossed on the cover! Nice!

[Jonny]

I realized I have another load of stickers in my drawer. And once again the photo of old-school Jihen (not a sticker... afaik).

It's from 雙六エクスタシー (sugoroku ecstasy), I guess.
The small stickers are transparent, i.e. the eyes in the golden dice are transparent etc. Anyone else got these? Anyone willing to pay money to get them? I think I have doubles of some of these...

[Glathannus]

Those stickers didn't all come from one package. I have around half of those. It's difficult to say what some/all of them are worth. For some reason, folks in Yahoo! Japan Auctions are far more enthusiastic about bidding on DOMESTIC Virgin Line stickers, than for any stickers related Sugoroku Ecstasy or Adult or Kronekodow in general.

[Ringo~Bingo]

Originally Posted by Jonny

I realized I have another load of stickers in my drawer. And once again the photo of old-school Jihen (not a sticker... afaik).

It's from 雙六エクスタシー (sugoroku ecstasy), I guess.
The small stickers are transparent, i.e. the eyes in the golden dice are transparent etc. Anyone else got these? Anyone willing to pay money to get them? I think I have doubles of some of these...

if you have Paypal Jonny I can buy them off you next week (the sale is for all the items pictured ?) (if you still have them)! tell me what price would be fair!!