Vinyl vs CD?
polycounter lvl 8
Hey guys, for years I've obtained music through various digital means. However, now I think I might be interested in buying the hard copies of my favorite albums.
Vinyls have started making a comeback where I work, and for some reason I'm attracted to them. Might be because the album art the true size and so much bigger than on my iPhone (yes, I realize how stupid that sounds).
I've read about vinyls a bit, and it seems you get better quality because it's a direct analog signal. However, some people say there is no noticeable difference.
So I thought I'd ask Polycount. Do you have a record collection? With the convenience of digital music, do you ever even listen to your vinyls or CD's? (does the increase in sound quality justify the inconvenience, assuming you have a quality set of speakers?)
Vinyls have started making a comeback where I work, and for some reason I'm attracted to them. Might be because the album art the true size and so much bigger than on my iPhone (yes, I realize how stupid that sounds).
I've read about vinyls a bit, and it seems you get better quality because it's a direct analog signal. However, some people say there is no noticeable difference.
So I thought I'd ask Polycount. Do you have a record collection? With the convenience of digital music, do you ever even listen to your vinyls or CD's? (does the increase in sound quality justify the inconvenience, assuming you have a quality set of speakers?)
Replies
I'd never even consider vinyl unless I was some hardcore DJ. Who even has space for all that stuff? Plus they break easily and wear out much quicker than CD's.
That said, i've got a few things that havnt been re-issued in a digital format since they were put out 30+years ago, so theres that
Eh, this is really wrong, well half the story. The main factor here is how much money are you willing to throw at playing vinyl? You're going to need to spend a fair bit on a system (way more than Gir suggests) to get anywhere near the sound quality of a CD. Mostly people are talking about older recordings there and the warmth of sound that analogue recording could produce through tube amplifiers. Are you really into woodwind instruments?
My vinyl got thrown up in the loft/attic a long time ago. I spent around 800 pounds ($1288 ), some 10 years or so ago, on a Nad amplifier, Nad (HD)CD player, Sony floor standing speakers, (they're kind of rare and seemingly only marketed in Germany), and some decent heavy gauge wire. The speakers were `shop soiled` bringing their cost down a lot. It sounds way better than any vinyl or mp3 setup that I've ever heard for sure, for what I would listen to, which is pretty mixed.
Most audio shops will let you try out mix and matching amps and speakers, and that's really important to do, as no reviews can really advise you there. I tried out the Sony speakers against everything else they had, including $1600 B&O speakers, and the Sony's sounded the best, with the amp that I`d set on, for my tastes by a wide margin.
Good luck and enjoy!
The more you listen the worse it will get, the same is true for magnetic media like cassettes. Except cassette tape just decays. Also if you leave it out and dust lands on it, that will effect the quality also.
If they get too hot or too cold it can effect the quality.
Too hot and the groves start to soften making it easier for the needle to smooth everything, that is if the heat doesn't smooth out the grooves on its own.
Too cold and it shrinks causing the needle to be rougher in the grooves and wear a little faster.
I'm nostalgic for vinyl but I don't miss the headaches that went along when it was the only game in town.
Honestly, I'll show my age hear, but I've had records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, mp3 players, and my brother had the Sony DAT player. I loved moving into the digital world (CDs +). I've always had the cheap record players, and the scratching/popping always annoyed me too much to realize how much more I could hear in the music, so I was glad to get away from them.
But like Gir said, if you drop enough $$ on a system, a record can sound great. The thing with digital is, once you stop focusing on how much you can hear, it tends to break back down to the music. Personally, I get into the music so much that I don't notice anything missing, even though I know some of the tone is left out.
Physically, albums WERE always much cooler though. The artwork, the shine of the grooves in the vinyl, and pulling it out of that paper sleeve. For some reason I always loved that. A much better feeling than fighting to take tightly wrapped plastic off, then scraping at an invisible sticker/seal, and eventually popping open a plastic case, and bending the CD until it almost snaps, just to get it freed.
stick with CDs, loosing album art sucked but nothings stopping bands from putting large cloth posters into the cd box and charging us an extra 10$ ( which wed pay for a cool poster.)
lol same, temple of apshai took 30 mins to load
Generally they only get played once or on special occassions. The first play is to record it as FLAC and save it digitally
If there's no download-code included (often there is) I just torrent it, other people are bound to have a better recording setup than my shoddy record player.
I just like owning a hardcopy, and prefer the bigger size of vinyl.
It's not for any reasons related to quality (many of which are nonsense, being an audiophile comes with its fair share of dogmatic 'knowledge').
This isn't actually true - in some cases, especially with older and lower budget recordings. There's a reason why practices changes when recording for a digital format and that's because the CD format demanded a significant reduction in background acoustics caused by the recording environment. Quite a few older recordings will suffer minor degradation in audio quality due to noise introduced at this stage that is audible on CD, but not on vinyl.
Ofcourse I agree that the equipment matters, that only stands to reason. But then there's the stereotype of the audiophile loudly lamenting the fact there are no vinyl rips of an album that was made entirely 'in-the-box' and only released digitally, because 'the vinyl would sound better'. Really? I suspect the way the artist made the music sounds best, rather than a copy specifically mastered to work on a format the artist didn't consider from the start.
One thing I'll say is this: because of the physical limitations, modern-day mixing and mastering practices (the so-called 'loudness war') haven't been abused as much on Vinyl. There are plenty of 'digital' releases that respect the dynamics of sound though.
Anyway, this is a minefield of a topic, and here's where I bow out. /exit stage left
the 2 formates aren't really directly comparable, but i guess there is possibilities of there being a little more quality in vinyl even if the recording is digital, since cd's are only 16bit 44.1khz, while most studios i know, even just the ones around my city record at 24bit 88.2khz or better.
but in that case why not just offer the consumers that actually got good gear, the higher quality digital copies, really i would love to be able to by music in 24bit 88.2khz flac or wav.
Also there other problem is most people aren't even getting the best quality they can out of the current CD quality specs anyways, due to the gear there playing stuff back on, and even the ones that think they are still aren't, since all the time on the bus or while out around town, i will see people doing stupid things like listening to music on really nice AKG monitoring headphones, but have there music playing of there phone, which would introduce a huge amount of noise to the signal, and have a shit DAC and headphone amp.
EDIT:
to end this, really just the option of more choice would be great, be it CD's, LP's or multiple different digital formates at different bit-depths and samples rates.