That's a testament to good engineering, similarly a helicopter has no right to fly!
Revenue for the records is higher, artists benefit more, from vinyl than from CD and certainly from streaming. I think in US vinyl equals CD sales in units sold too. But as you say that is not the issue. Fast food is popular - no accounting for taste. What is amazing is the return of the record and the record player. I think this is to be celebrated. In 20 years the CD player will be gone I think. Streamed music on PCs and Mac laptops will have vanished in 10 years. The purchased vinyl will still be in homes worldwide, loved and enjoyed for decades to come.
If quality of music is the subject then clearly vinyl is technically greatly superior. If very basic level high school arguments about sampling theorem is the subject, go digital.
Re. "
Except the quality of music isn't, don't confuse quality with personal preference.
Hi. What is quality if on one side there is a cruel two-dimensional facsimile; on the other beautiful involving music? Oh, I'll go for the false sounding one, someone said digital is perfect. Why would we do that? This present forum is somehow convinced that digital is "more scienific" "more youthful" "more accurate" - yet tens of millions of people are turning to records despite decades of digital propaganda. I think people who love records for their technical superiority should just say so.
It's technically inferior, massively so by any measure. However, that doesn't stop it being hugely enjoyable. I love using my 1977 Technics with all of the ritual of playing an LP, it's a visceral tactile experience that CD never came close to replacing, let alone digital streaming; but I don't confuse that pleasure with best sonic performance. My digital source simply sounds better, just sometimes not as much fun.
I honestly do not undestand how anyone can state digital media are technically superior, it's beyond me. In what way? It is complex certainly. I have studied DSP to a published level. But to confuse DSP with the simple fact that, despite necessary tolerances being met, the record turntable and cartridge produce music in the home to something approaching perfection just baffles me. I suppose if people on forums repeat this stuff about technical measurements often enough it's come to take on a seeming "law of nature". CDs sound really poor compared to the same music on a record - that's the thing forums should try to figure out. I'm just casting a vote for the turntable. I cannot listen to CDs. They're fake. Why would anyone prefer fake to nearly the real thing?
The fact that you are baffled is no indication that you are correct.
Someone has to speak up for the record.
haha... good pun.
Can't agree with you that vinyl is technically superior to d1g1t0l formats. With CD, as an example, a dynamic range of about 90dB is possible. You are not getting anywhere near that with vinyl. The cutters can achieve that, but such records would not be trackable by any known cartridge. Vinyl manages to do so well sonically because most of the music placed on it came from magnetic tape, which does not have the dynamic range of digital recording techniques, and vinyl could capture a good deal of that. Still, vinyl has no right to sound that good in spite of its technical limitations! As for what sounds better, technical certainty aside, that is in the ear of the beholder.
We can state that digital is technically superior because objectively it is.
Any parameters showing what the sound is, shows digital has better performance. Just think of one parameters to judge how good a sound is, digital file can do it better than any analog medium.
This thread is of course revisiting for the thousand times argument that appear legitimate, but can I argue they are not. First this statement about dynamic range. Oft repeated. But let's suppose I invent some medium with 200 dB dynamic range but it's realisation in the time domain is imprecise but escapes the usual FFT. And I publish the dynamic range. People are impressed. Most people applaud the technology and it sounds good on cheap domestic players. It takes off. Then - as in the Emperor's new clothes - someone says, but it doesn't sound quite right. But the crowd shout back, it has 200 dB dynamic range. That's sort of my 'drift'.
Ah the magic data. Science? I would like to introduce something a little original. Let's try ... there is Nick Zacharov's text "Sensory evaluation of sound". That text considers the statistics of sound comparisons and evaluations. A great read. But the wonders of the turntable will hardly be appreciated by learning about ANOVAs and whether a study is published in say, Journal of Acoustical Society of America. It helps to look in that journal - going back decades the research really doesn't live up to the promise one might expect. I've looked. OK, so what about specifically technical measurements of equipment, a core focus of this forum. But measurements may be highly misleading, showing for example that two pieces of equipment will sound identical simply because those measurements may be averaging over time domain features (the integration window of the FFT). Now, what if we find that listeners can reliably discriminate between two amplifiers but FFTs show they measure equally above a criterion? We smile and fall back on good old listeners biases. After years observing these inconsistencies I am happy to praise turntables and raise an eyebrow at the measurement people and their dB dynamic ranges as well as the sensory perception people and their statistics. Of the two I'd rather go to a talk by Nick Zacharov I suppose. I remain highly sceptical of all reviews, claims, opinions - and my own. But the turntable is to be praised for its wonderful simplicity, life-span (if one purchases a good one), local manufacturing possibilities; beauty; amazing sound quality; similarly the vinyl record is to be praised for its amazing tolerance to damage, its longevity, its simplicity, its sound quality potential; and the fact that in 100 years most vinyl today will still be around and enjoyed.
Please unpack "the usual FFT". I don't know what that means.
no. it degrades every time you drag the rock across the plastic groove.
