Why do records sound so much better than digital?

[analogplanet]

You’d think someone who rides a Harley would understand that an old technology can still be appealing to some people ;-)

The notion that new equals better is imbecilic

 

[rdenney]

The notion that new equals better is imbecilic

Yes, but I think there is no question that vinyl playback is obsolete, just like large-displacement air-cooled V-twin engines and mechanical wristwatches.

But here’s what I think is also demonstrably true: obsolete technologies fulfill a lot of requirements, perhaps all the important functional requirements (at least adequately for enjoyment), and certainly a few nonfunctional requirements not fulfilled by the latest technologies.

Frank Dernie said it best—vinyl is fiddly and therefore fun for those who like fiddly things. Just as old motorcycle technology is fun for home mechanics. That makes it good hobby material. But it can also be objectively workable.

Rick “who tells time adequately in terms of function and much more pleasantly than many alternatives using mechanical wristwatches” Denney

 

[Wombat]

Why can't this topic be a preference thing rather than a lost cause(vinyl) superior audio reproduction battle? The evidence is overwhelming re CD superiority.

 

[snowsurfer]

Like, why would anyone want to add pops and hiss and tizz and all of that to music, when we have digital recordings where there's just the beautiful music and nothing else?

If we are talking about those that make blanket statements how "vinyl is better than digital", I'd venture it is because they want to feel special, and see themselves somewhat like misunderstood outcasts whose sensibility to the "authentic" elevates them from us mere mortals that just want as close to audible perfection as possible. It is basically hipster mentality brought to audio reproduction.

Now, I can understand nostalgia and even ritual - I do enjoy vinyl from time to time for those very reasons, and grew up on it as many here. But every time I do that, I silently thank the world for some brilliant engineers having come up with CD/digital.

 

[rdenney]

Why can't this topic be a preference thing rather than a lost cause(vinyl) superior audio reproduction battle? The evidence is overwhelming re CD superiority.

Who in this thread is arguing for vinyl superiority in any objective measure?

Rick “not seeing it” Denney

 

[Mart68]

not sure about on this thread, it's long and I can't remember all of it, but you do see the 'analogue purity' argument advanced fairly often

The theory is that all-analogue recordings are best appreciated via vinyl as everything is then kept 'in the analogue domain,' and that any analogue recording will be somehow degraded in an undefined way if transferred to digital.

makes no sense but there are a lot of people out there who believe this and reckon they can hear it.

 

[iwantobelieve]

Not sure whether this is wise for a first post, but what the hey, just FWIW -

One of the most lovely (and I use that word advisedly) sounds I ever heard from any of the systems I've ever owned was when I had (huge, full-range) Meridian DSP6000 speakers, fed by a Meridian 818 (so an all-digital signal path right to the DACs in the active speakers. This was a really great sounding rig when playing a CD through an Oppo BDP-105, streaming Roon from Tidal, or local files, etc.

Then I had a bit of spare cash at one point and bought a used/fully serviced Linn LP12 with a Pro-ject carbon arm and a low end (AT??) catridge, and an Audio Note Kits (valve) phono stage. Neither were the high-end varieties, just the lower end turntable/arm and valve stage on offer.

The phono stage fed into the 818 (so ADC) into the DSP6000s. So to be clear, the analogue signal from the vinyl was digitised at 24/96 and fed to the speakers. I had some of the same recordings on vinyl, hi-res download and CD, so it was interesting to compare.

First off, I have no doubt that the all-digital route/source was the most accurate.

Secondly, it was shocking how close, in subjective terms, the vinyl routed this way came to the digital sources in all the ways which mattered for musical enjoyment.

Thirdly, even if it wasn't as accurate, I did find vinyl in most cases more appealing, seemingly natural, and relaxing (so, therefore, enjoyable) to listen to, for me personally. This comes with the caveat that with some recordings the master, or cutting, etc. sounded superior on one or the other - I do believe on a decent system the actual recording and mastering does account for a lot.

Anyway, I ended up selling the turntable and phono stage. Although it was lovely, it wasn't enough of a difference to put up with trying to source good vinyl pressings when I didn't already have a collection, and all the storage, cleaning and faffing. If cost and time were no object, though, I'd probably want a similar setup again, accurate or not, just for listening pleasure.

 

[Robin L]

The notion that new equals better is imbecilic

The idea that something that is old, defective and unfixable is somehow superior to something not quite as old and not created in an already broken condition is an altogether deeper level of ignorance.

 

[MattHooper]

The notion that new equals better is imbecilic

Agreed that new = better isn't necessarily true.

But of course that isn't the argument made on sites like this.

The argument isn't that digital is better than vinyl "because it is new" but "because of the ways in which it is better."

 

[MattHooper]

Ok, haven't read this whole thread, so sorry if this post adds absolutely no value. Just wanted to say that for me personally listening to vinyl just drives me nuts. Yap. All those defects just annoy the h*** out of me. I've listened to really good vinyl setups, which cost more than my annual salary, and I still disliked it just as much.

Totally legit, of course! If you are that sensitive to vinyl artifacts, it ain't for you.

But remember that outside the bubble of a site like this, most people who are in to listening to music are not obsessively chasing down the best SINAD numbers for their DAC or lowest distortion numbers for their amp or the highest possible dynamic range in their source etc. The fact is the type of performance chased around here is not terribly relevant to what most people require in order to enjoy music. Why does anyone here care about all these low distortion numbers if it's not in the end about listening to and enjoying the music? Most people can get there without the scrutiny many apply in a forum like this.

Which means many who buy vinyl get the same satisfaction you do from listening to music PLUS what are, to them, the added aesthetic/conceptual characteristics of buying records and owning turntables that they find enhance the experience. It's actually the most rational thing in the world, if you just look at it from outside your own perspective and criteria.

Like, why would anyone want to add pops and hiss and tizz and all of that to music, when we have digital recordings where there's just the beautiful music and nothing else? I really don't get it. I understand the fascination with the ritual, the physical sensation, etc. But the sound itself? Nah.

Some people find some romanticism and nostalgia in the pops and crackles of worn vinyl. Ok, if that suits them. Personally I don't. I like as clean vinyl as I can get. Many other vinyl listeners feel that way too.

I buy vinyl in the best condition I can find, and also keep it in good condition (including having an easy-to-use ultrasonic cleaner). I also have a good turntable and high quality cartridge that seem to produce lower background noise than my old turntable set up. The result is that, with the exception of perhaps hearing a tiny bit of noise in the "silence" between tracks, I very rarely can actually hear any pops, ticks or crackle added to the music. It sounds very clean. If the records I own actually sounded as noisy as your post implies, frankly I would not be in to playing vinyl. I'm not in to ticks and pops. But I DO really like the sound of good vinyl, and the way it tends to sound a bit different than digital. So I find I get my sonic jollies with vinyl where I'm often blown away by the sound AND I get the aesthetic pleasures of records, turntables, having a physical collection, a more focused listening to music, etc.

The one blind study we have to date - referenced on the first page - supports that I'm not alone in perceiving it this way, when peeking is not allowed. In my view the vinyl resurgence is about tied with MQA when it comes to "most stupidest thing happening in audio right now". Let's make CDs great again.

Funny that you follow "most stupidest thing happening in audio right now" with "Let's make CDs great again." From my perspective, CDs would be the "most stupidest thing" to resurrect right now. I find CDs awful as physical objects, those jewel cases break and snap if you look at them wrong, they don't "feel nice" in the hand, they slip and slide everywhere, the artwork and liner notes are so tiny. As physical carriers of the digital signal they both suck and are now rendered unnecessary. I was never happier than getting rid of my CDs after ripping them. They are, to me, a "no man's land" stuck between the ease of streaming digital music, and the physical, aesthetic appeal of LPs, having neither of those attributes. "Why would anyone buy or play a CD when you can just stream the music?"

Personally I find the vinyl revival to be a beautiful thing. It certainly revived my own interest in listening to music on my audio system (where I was starting to find the ubiquity and access to "all the music in the world" to actually somewhat devalue the experience, making it more for constant background listening). It's had a similar effect on many other music and audio fans. And it has expanded the musical world for tons of young people as well, who upon being intrigued by vinyl have discovered tons of music in their parent's vinyl collection, or in record stores and vinyl hunts, that they would not otherwise have explored. If you pay attention to the various forums in which vinyl newbies talk of their recent record discoveries, you'll see just joyous amounts of enthusiasm. Plus, many really are acutely aware of how buying a vinyl copy of their current favorite artist, indie or otherwise, helps directly support that artist in ways streaming does not. There is so much enthusiasm, and richness in the vinyl culture that concentrating on chasing the last bit of good SINAD numbers (or dynamic range/perfect silence or whatever) just misses.

Like Bruce Lee said: "It's like a finger pointing to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, lest you miss all that heavenly glory." Similarly, while there certainly IS a rational for concentrating on the best measurements you can get in gear, and for noting the differences between digital and vinyl, if we concentrate too narrowly on the "finger" of technical achievement we can momentarily miss the point of it all: the enjoyment of music, to which there are many legitimate paths. By concentrating "on the finger" we lose touch with why other people can enjoy music in forms we do not.

 

[rdenney]

not sure about on this thread, it's long and I can't remember all of it, but you do see the 'analogue purity' argument advanced fairly often

The theory is that all-analogue recordings are best appreciated via vinyl as everything is then kept 'in the analogue domain,' and that any analogue recording will be somehow degraded in an undefined way if transferred to digital.

makes no sense but there are a lot of people out there who believe this and reckon they can hear it.

I think we dealt with that shibboleth on the first page or two. The subsequent discussion has been whether vinyl playback is worth doing given its objective inferiority.

Rick "for whom it is, but not for sonic reasons” Denney

 

[Frank Dernie]

those jewel cases break and snap if you look at them wrong,

IMO the only thing wrong with CD and massively irritating from day 1.
The person who designed it is a cretin.

 

[Helicopter]

IMO the only thing wrong with CD and massively irritating from day 1.
The person who designed it is a cretin.

I think they took a cassette tape case and said "Cassettes and vinyl persist on the used market for ages. How can we make this worse? Let's do something that scratches, cracks, chips and shatters right away so the used market is garage-sale prices only."

I would gripe CDs aren't more durable and scratch resistant too. Put them in one of those big Case Logic soft cases and they end up scratched through the foil on the back and scratched on the face after some regular and relatively careful use.

 

[MattHooper]

IMO the only thing wrong with CD and massively irritating from day 1.
The person who designed it is a cretin.

Hear, hear!

Time for a tribunal!

I still buy the occasional CD to rip in to my system. Not long ago I bought a double CD and it used the dreaded two-sided lever thingy that pops up when you open the case, a CD attached to each side. Those ALWAYS broke and so I opened it up delicately. It broke with a snap and now rattles around in the case. Yeesh.

 

[krabapple]

That’s a snide and ignorant comment on so many levels I’m embarrassed for you.

Except 'euphonic distortion' is a valid concept long discussed in the audio world.

 

[oivavoi]

Totally legit, of course! If you are that sensitive to vinyl artifacts, it ain't for you.

But remember that outside the bubble of a site like this, most people who are in to listening to music are not obsessively chasing down the best SINAD numbers for their DAC or lowest distortion numbers for their amp or the highest possible dynamic range in their source etc. The fact is the type of performance chased around here is not terribly relevant to what most people require in order to enjoy music. Why does anyone here care about all these low distortion numbers if it's not in the end about listening to and enjoying the music? Most people can get there without the scrutiny many apply in a forum like this.

Which means many who buy vinyl get the same satisfaction you do from listening to music PLUS what are, to them, the added aesthetic/conceptual characteristics of buying records and owning turntables that they find enhance the experience. It's actually the most rational thing in the world, if you just look at it from outside your own perspective and criteria.

You get a like for voicing criticism in such a polite and well-reasoned way!

Yes, fidelity and preference are different things. And my preference is indeed mine. I would just like to add that I am in no way a "sinad chaser". My preference when it comes to loudspeakers and speaker systems is not for speakers which rate highest in the Harman school, for example (I like omis and dipoles), and I've listened to several systems with old school horns and tube amps which I liked quite a lot, to my great initial surprise, even though I wouldn't have it at home. My annoyance with vinyl is simply that it deviates so much from my subjective sense of high fidelity, which is about recreating acoustic musical reality. When listening to music I want it to sound like actual acoustic instruments are playing in my room. Even the very best vinyl setups introduce a noise level that gets in front of the instruments, to say it metaphorically. For me, vinyl always sounds reproduced to the core. Given my romantic ideal of high fidelity ("let's bring the concert hall to the living room") this irritates me.

Funny that you follow "most stupidest thing happening in audio right now" with "Let's make CDs great again." From my perspective, CDs would be the "most stupidest thing" to resurrect right now. I find CDs awful as physical objects, those jewel cases break and snap if you look at them wrong, they don't "feel nice" in the hand, they slip and slide everywhere, the artwork and liner notes are so tiny. As physical carriers of the digital signal they both suck and are now rendered unnecessary. I was never happier than getting rid of my CDs after ripping them. They are, to me, a "no man's land" stuck between the ease of streaming digital music, and the physical, aesthetic appeal of LPs, having neither of those attributes. "Why would anyone buy or play a CD when you can just stream the music?"

What I like about CDs is that they allow uninterrupted and un-distracted listening to whole albums, compared with streaming, which at least for me leads to interruptions and song-by-song playlists. I also like to be able to listen to music without having my phone or iPad at hand. I'm trying to remove screens in general from my life as much as possible (recently bought an old nokia phone which I use instead of my smartphone when I can). And with CDs, the audio quality is there. But I do realize, sadly, that I'm a dying breed in this sense...

But you do make a good case for the virtues of the vinyl resurgence / vinyl culture. I suspect part of the reason I get so annoyed about the vinyl resurgence is that:

1) It closes off any chance of a CD renaissance, because people who buy physical records buy vinyl and not CDs. For me personally as a CD lover, this is very, very annoying.

2) I have a suspicion - which may or may not be wrong - that vinyl appreciation for at least segments of the vinyl culture is about hipsterism or distinction from others, not about music or audio. Does this apply to all vinyl lovers? Of course not. But from what I see around me anecdotally among my vinyl lover friends, it does play a role for many of them.

So summing it up, I am not going to chastise people for listening to vinyl, of course - à chacun son goût etc. But just like with MQA, the fact that vinyl is having such an impact on the audio world does actually affect those of us who don't like MQA or vinyl...

 

[krabapple]

I think they took a cassette tape case and said "Cassettes and vinyl persist on the used market for ages. How can we make this worse? Let's do something that scratches, cracks, chips and shatters right away so the used market is garage-sale prices only."

I would gripe CDs aren't more durable and scratch resistant too. Put them in one of those big Case Logic soft cases and they end up scratched through the foil on the back and scratched on the face after some regular and relatively careful use.

How fair a comparison is that? People didn't usually cart their LPs along with them on a day to day basis.

My 1000+ CDs pretty much all played fine...and they went into storage years ago after being ripped. (Newer ones are immediately ripped and stored away too.) CDs were absolutely more bullet proof than LPs, because most scratches on the 'play' side were either inaudible or could easily be polished out. Scratches on the 'label' side very thankfully extremely rare (thankfully because those are fatal).

 

[Robin L]

Hear, hear!

Time for a tribunal!

I still buy the occasional CD to rip in to my system. Not long ago I bought a double CD and it used the dreaded two-sided lever thingy that pops up when you open the case, a CD attached to each side. Those ALWAYS broke and so I opened it up delicately. It broke with a snap and now rattles around in the case. Yeesh.

Back when I was madly collecting $1 CDs [like, 2015], Office Max/Depot had jewel cases in nice, sturdy boxes, suitable for stacking incoming CDs into neat little bundles, 20 to a box, something like $10 a box. The $1 CDs looked a lot better with new jewel cases. But that was just before streaming discovered me and soon after I started ripping every CD as it came into my "collection" [hoard]. Strange how quickly things are changing these days.

Double-CD jewel cases are the devil's work.

 

[Robin L]

That’s a snide and ignorant comment on so many levels I’m embarrassed for you.

"People in glass houses . . . "

 

[MrPeabody]

Isn't anyone besides me annoyed by the way this thread was titled? It seems like some kind of troll baiting, insulting by intent to anyone who does not agree with the proposition.

The idea that people like vinyl for personal reasons need not be defended. The idea that vinyl is superior to CD in any objective sense is not an idea that deserves to be seriously considered.

The bigger problem I have with vinyl isn't the sound quality. The platters are too big and heavy, and they don't store enough information.

The plastic CD cases are awful, but the cardboard packaging for vinyl eventually erodes, especially around the corners and edges. No one ever came up with a good packaging solution for either 12" vinyl discs or for CDs.

A little more than a decade ago, there was an effort for music distribution using small memory cards. The company behind the effort was SanDisk. SanDisk would have been keenly aware that the entertainment industry wouldn't have anything to do with it unless it was copy protected, so DRM was naturally part of the formula. At the time this was attempted, back around 2009, downloading had already become the dominant means for commercial distribution of music. It was abandoned several years later.

Being the old fuddy-duddy that I am, I still like the idea of having your music on some kind of physical media, and I especially like the idea of music distribution via small memory cards. There's no point whining about DRM; it's here to stay no matter the means of distribution. If music was distributed on small memory cards, it could be packaged in a box with the same form factor as CD jewel cases, which is a convenient size. The box could be made from some sort of durable material that doesn't erode like the cardboard covers that vinyl comes in, and that doesn't shatter like CD jewel cases, and that isn't fiddly like CD jewel cases. I wish that a company like Sony would seriously entertain this method for music distribution on physical media. I think that if a company like Sony were to push it, it would have a chance of success. It might revitalize record sales, and it might restore the interest in the album concept (as opposed the concept of an individual tune or song). Sony has introduced and promoted a small number of other distribution formats over the years, none of which had much chance of success, being based either on tape cartridges or on the assumption that CD sound quality isn't good enough. But so far as I know, Sony has never seriously entertained the idea of backing a music distribution format using small memory cards. I think it would a good thing if they did. For me it would be anyway. Maybe it would be even for them.