Is there a problem with Decca's new packaging for vinyl records?

@mahler123 

Seems to me that Decca is ignoring the audiophile market completely.  They have some outstanding classical musicians on their books, and some outstanding performances are being captured.  

In their heyday Decca introduced ffrr or Full Frequency Recording Range which was hugely successful from a marketing perspective.  I still use Decca analogue recordings (delivered on CD or via digital streaming) to evaluate sound quality.

I am on a personal journey to find out what all the fuss about vinyl is really about.  In the classical world, not much so far.

Decca has an advantage over more audiophile labels for me when it comes to vinyl, because unlike them it does not offer the more tempting SACD or multi-channel formats.

I can understand why some folk prefer the extra noises from vinyl playback, just as some prefer the extra harmonics added by 'warm' tubes.  I do not think vinyl is "the closest approach to the original sound" though!

Decca isn’t ignoring the audiophile community.  If they were ignoring us they wouldn’t be issuing vinyl.  It’s more correct to say that they are exploiting audiophiles who are willing to shell out extra cash in the belief that vinyl is a superior playback medium.  
  They are ignoring nay sayers such as myself that argue that a digital file-, even if embedded in a slab of petroleum and requiring a needle scratching that petroleum to cause movement of that needle and it’s housing and then convert that movement into analog sound wave- that this is still digital.  However why should they care what I think since people like me won’t be interested in their product.

@mahler123 

Vinyl is not just for audiophiles!  Surveys have shown that many vinyl purchasers do not even own a turntable. Aldi sells vinyl, for goodness sake.

My comment was aimed at the lack of any information from Decca about the recording chain used.

In one sense this might be a good thing, because the only way to evaluate the product is by listening to the results, not on in-built biases ... the MOFI scandal shows how reliable biases can be

@mahler

How about those cheap turntables that have streaming USB output?  They must have cheap Analogue to Digital Converters far below the quality available to record producers.

I am not a fan of streaming over USB under the best of circumstances.

But some really cheap turntables include Bluetooth which still cannot handle CD quality digital.  Beats me ...

I agree with you.  A few years ago I had a nephew buy an LP because he swallowed the vinyl propaganda and he was chagrined to learn that he couldn’t play it on his laptop.  One of my son’s gfs has an all in one turntable speaker/usb gizmo that cost about $120 US.  She has several LPs purchased for around $30-$40 and states they sound better than any stream of CD.

  One would hope that Classical Music lovers would have one more brain cell than this, and that Decca is borrowing a marketing strategy based on pop music, but I would love to see the sales numbers and learn the tastes in playback of the purchasers