Why do records sound so much better than digital?

[Emlin]

It's all down to the fact that you can roll a spliff on a record cover.

 

[Robin L]

Three things come to mind.

1. Better mastering; no loudness wars for vinyl.
2. Euphoric distortion.
3. Psychoacoustics. When I am going to focus on music with intent, I usually pour a drink and put a big wholesome record onto my gorgeous analog system, after taking pride in ownership of the physical medium and spending a moment looking at the artwork in my hand. It sounds way better to my ears than the digital I stream while working.

Just for the record., your intended term is "Euphonic" distortion. [I guess these people think like guitar players into tube (transformer, mostly) amps, like to add a cup or two of second order harmonic distortion along with the reverb and chorus].

Select psychotropics administered under ideal circumstances induce "Euphoric" distortion. So far, this has been the single greatest and potentially most cost effective upgrade of sound quality.

It's all down to the fact that you can roll a spliff on a record cover.

That too.

 

[LTig]

Just for the record., your intended term is "Euphonic" distortion.

Select psychotropics administered under ideal circumstances induce "Euphoric" distortion. So far, this has been the single greatest and potentially most cost effective upgrade of sound quality.

As far as I understand the majority of reviews of analog gear the term euphoric distortion describes it perfectly.

 

[AdamG]

This thread is a day late right? Am I still in ASR forum? Vinyl has a sound signature and for many years it was the Standard all recorded sound was measured.

 

[KeithPhantom]

I’m actually opposite of OP, I hate records and even magnetic tape if the recording wasn’t perfect with the mixing and mastering. I hate analog defects such as hiss or pops. I hate bad mastering, that makes me not listen songs that I really like less often just because I can’t stand the lack of resources and/or care to have better recordings. There’s like a million songs I will pay a million dollars each just for them to have better better production in general. I think bad audio quality limits the emotion a song can transmit or the wanted impact of the melodies that the artist wanted (unless premeditated).

 

[Helicopter]

I have no interest in anyone else's "conditions". They can't negate more than 45 years of lived experience. I've put in thousands and thousands of dollars into analog equipment (tables, tonearms, cartridges, cleaning machines, fluids, setup tools, phono preamps, etc) and literally many thousands of hours into table setup, collecting, and cleaning records. I will not waste more time on such a manifestly inferior medium.

Winky face means it's a joke. Welcome to the 21st century. If you read the whole thread, you'd see I am agreement that digital has better sound objectively.

 

[pads]

There's the source as well, a lot of reissues on vinyl these days come from digital sources (personally I don't think this is a bad thing) but some of my best recordings on vinyl are from analog masters. That said I have some fine high def CDs and digital downloads which I enjoy just as much but in the end I still prefer vinyl, nostalgia, confirmation bias and quite possibly justification for the amount of money I've spent on it over the years...

 

[JSmith]

Best vinyl record player is laser... no needle contact. This puts some in a quandary… is it still vinyl?

https://www.elpj.com/



JSmith

 

[Robin L]

 

[MerlinGS]

Can't do that with 1s and 0s.

I own thousands of records and 4 turntables (ranging from modified Japanese direct drive to air bearing with a 70 lb platter), and can tell you for a fact it has nothing to do with 1s and 0s. If I make a digital recording of any of my records with any of my turntables you will not be able to distinguish the turntable reproduction from the digital recording in a volume matched blind test.

 

[HiFidFan]

Best vinyl record player is laser... no needle contact. This puts some in a quandary… is it still vinyl?

https://www.elpj.com/



JSmith

Whaaaaat???

 

[flyzipper]

I have no interest in anyone else's "conditions". They can't negate more than 45 years of lived experience. I've put in thousands and thousands of dollars into analog equipment (tables, tonearms, cartridges, cleaning machines, fluids, setup tools, phono preamps, etc) and literally many thousands of hours into table setup, collecting, and cleaning records...

My comment applies to everyone, regardless of which side of the debate you find yourself on: your years of lived experience doesn't matter to anyone but you.

Not picking on this poster specifically, but using it to highlight that people can't even accurately compare things that happen 45 seconds apart, let alone have a proper recollection of things that happened 45 years ago.

When comparing one thing VS another, properly controlled blind A/B testing matters, not your lived experience.

That said, In the 80's, I had the most excellent sounding boombox for all my cassettes (fond memories from after-school hangouts).

 

[Helicopter]

Best vinyl record player is laser... no needle contact. This puts some in a quandary… is it still vinyl?

https://www.elpj.com/



JSmith

The coolest thing about these is that they're all-analog.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

The coolest thing about these is that they're all-analog.

I thought speakers are analogue. I guess a good match until humans are digitized.

 

[Deleted member 28849]

My take on this. Recently I purchased a phono amp with a usb out. With the usb out I can have the same signal path as I have with digital.

It just so happens that I have two albums that are the same on both vinyl and cd. IMO both of these albums sounded slightly better with the vinyl than the cd, having better depth of details thus giving vinyl a fuller sound. The cd sounding thinner.

However IMO when playing an uncompressed digital recording and now Amazon HD (which sound like the Master recordings to my ears). Digital betters these same two albums.

Vinyl has to doctor the bass so that the grooves cut into the vinyl are not deeper than the mediums range. This gives the bass a kind of artificial sound that I believe vinyl lovers come to like. This also depends on whether or not a recording has low frequency bass to begin with, if so, digital can capture the low bass frequencies without the manipulations, sounding real, not fake.

Digital also has it's problems related to the loudness wars. Too much gain, various forms of compression, etc..

Bottom line, good digital recordings trump vinyl. But vinyl trumps many digital recordings because it doesn't have the same type of compressions that have been applied. Thus having an uncompressed sound that has been applied to many digital recordings.

 

[Daverz]

My comment applies to everyone, regardless of which side of the debate you find yourself on: your years of lived experience doesn't matter to anyone but you.

My comment applies to everyone, regardless of which side of the debate you find yourself on: your years of lived experience doesn't matter to anyone but you.

Not picking on this poster specifically, but using it to highlight that people can't even accurately compare things that happen 45 seconds apart, let alone have a proper recollection of things that happened 45 years ago.

When comparing one thing VS another, properly controlled blind A/B testing matters, not your lived experience.

That said, In the 80's, I had the most excellent sounding boombox for all my cassettes (fond memories from after-school hangouts).

I suppose I deserve this shirt-tucking, "well, actually..." type post for posting after several beers.

 

[Linus]

I feel it’s sometimes easier to find a better sounding version (of an album) on vinyl. It’s also easier to find an awful sounding one. So many terrible pressings.
That’s why you need both, analog and digital. Not really about which one sounds better, but which one can play the version that will sound better.

 

[JSmith]

"Warm" is just even order harmonic distortion.

https://musicfans.stackexchange.com...yl-records-their-characteristic-sound/273#273



JSmith

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Are you saying that the "magic" disappears for you if you digitize the output of your turntable and play that?

No, although that's true of course, but I'm saying you can literally feel the music in the record grooves. And understand it. You can't do that with 1/0.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

It does.

Sure.