When the merits of two audio reproduction systems are debated, I think it is reasonable to assume that the main thing being discussed is audio reproduction.
All the other aspects you mentioned are fetishistic elements having little to do with audio reproduction. I mean, there is a web site that argues that 8 tracks are superior to all other audio formats.
CDs are a fad? They were introduced in 1980, 32 years ago. The Stereo LP was introduced in 1957
and was outsold by CDs in 1988, so being dominant for maybe 20 years. The early Beatles records were mono. Which one was the fad?
Allowing “poor and unreliable sound reproduction” as an aesthetic, you are absolutely right.
I knew something was fishy here.
You’re arguments are dated. CDs are on their way out faster than vinyl. You should be comparing vinyl to MP3, and I believe that the two media will be closer in their audio reproduction abilities.
CDs still account for vastly more income than downloads. Illegal downloads are another matter, but harder to quantify. The problem with MP3 is that it is already an obsolete and not very good compression scheme. There are a range of competing compression schemes, and with the dramatic drop in cost of both storage and bandwidth, there is little case to be made for any lossy compression. Thus MP3s are probably a dead end that will vanish, to be replaced by lossless formats. In the field of illegal downloads MP3 will probably hang around longer, but this is a bit like comparing compact cassette to vinyl.
The critical element to any of the digital formats is that they are derived from the same master as the CD. There is no different compression or eq applied. A lossless (say FLAC, Apple’s lossless AAC) rip of a CD is bitwise identical to the CD when played. So the comparison with CD is moot. If there is perceivable difference the only reason would be that there is a fault in the system.
From the point of view of the recording producer, and in many respects the consumer, there is no difference between a lossless download and a CD. The producer targets 44.1/16 and the consumer gets 44.1/16, in digital form. The advantage of a CD is that it is a physical object with no DRM. What is stupid is that CDs are often cheaper. The advantage of a download is convenience. You are just buying bits.
There are a few high end downloadable recordings in 96/24, which attempt to provide a super HiFi experience. In principle DVD audio and the like can also provide this, but both are niche at best. There is however a very solid argument that a properly mastered 44.1/16 recording captures everything that a 96/24 recording can contain that we can hear. It is very close to the edge, and requires a well understood workflow, and precise use of things like noise shaping dither to achieve. A bit more leeway might have been nice, but isn’t really needed.
Actually, there’s a very solid argument, based on sampling theory and tests on the human hearing range, that any recording at greater than about 48 KHz provides slightly worse fidelity. See the article I linked to in my previous post, which is by Christopher Montgomery of the Xiph Foundation.
Lovely article. One thing the author might not have realised about ultrasonic signals, is that any well designed amplifier will, as a matter of course, include a low pass filter on the input to avoid issues with intermodulation and slew rate limiting. So the ultrasonics of 96kHz and 192 kHz sampling rates would get sliced off anyway. Sadly there are many many audiophile amplifiers that for all sorts of strange reasons do not qualify as “well designed”. So the point is well made - ultrasonics are to be avoided.
I don’t doubt that properly mastered CDs are technically superior to vinyl. My problem with CDs is the Loudness War, which has occured over the last two decades or so. In practice, what we now get on CDs is (IMHO) worse than what we got on vinyl.
Your own cite shows that this problem is not unique to CDs, and indeed was first observed with 7" vinyl records. Presumably many of today’s vinyl releases are similarly compressed.
From that link:
I know very little about this topic, but I wanted to post anyway, in appreciation of the many participants that do know much sharing this knowledge. Thanks much – ignorance is being fought!
The loudness wars are not of themselves tied to the delivery format. The advent of digital processing in the production is the most important - so that compressors can be built that can look ahead at the coming sound and adapt their operation, and operate in many frequency bands, and perform perceptually optimised shaping. This means the compressors can operate much more viciously. In the heyday of vinyl compressors were much more limited in their operation, and simply unable to achieve the ridiculous compression now performed. One place lookahead was used was in the cutting of a LP master, where the pitch of the groove could be varied to make room for the loud bits. Something that helped maintain dynamic range. The LP process itself limits peaks and the inherent need to compress dynamics leads - counter intuitively - to LPs sometimes having more punch to their sound, and thus being termed “more dynamic” when the reason was actually lower dynamic range. I have a few LPs from the 80’s where the loudness issue was already becoming apparent. There is a smooth continuation in the problem through time that is pretty independent of the popularity of the final format. I have no doubt that even if we were still spinning vinyl as out preferred format, the loudness wars would still be with us. The sophistication of the compressors would simply have reached a point where the absolute last gasp of loudness was being wrung out of format. The 12" 45 RPM dance mix was probably the example of what was possible. They could be astoundingly hot. As were special pressings released to radio stations of new singles from major artists. These could be 12" 45 RPM format too.
Luckily the loudness wars are pretty much restricted to modern popular music releases. Classical and jazz is pretty immune. I will say however that there is a lot of modern popular that I simply don’t listen to because it sounds so bad. Friends may recommend a new band, and I will find their recordings unlistenable. This can’t help their sales.
If one wants to have pops, crackles, and lower dynamic range, one can easily apply filters to CD audio to get that effect. That’s like saying that some people prefer black and white photography so subjectively an old black and white camera is better for some people. Whereas a modern color digital camera can easily provide that sort of functionality and has other advantages.
I understand that aesthetical value with the sound that vinyl has, I have some modern albums that have individual songs or, in one case, and entire album that is deliberately mastered to sound like it was on vinyl for exactly that reason. But then I can turn around and take another modern album that takes full advantage of the fidelity and dynamic range that would simply not translate well to vinyl.
It just flat makes more sense to use a higher fidelity medium and master for the sound that one wants rather than try to do it the other way around.
And when I get new CDs, I love to look at the art and read the lyrics when listening to it. The only extremely minor advantage vinyl offers there is that the image is larger, but even that’s pointless comparison as if one really wants to see album art larger, it’s easily found on the internet.
As for putting an album on the turn-table, while one may find it more enjoyable than inserting a CD, even if it is such a huge part of their experience, they can fully simulate it while still having CD quality sound.
I still don’t think an ebook is really a apt analogy because there’s zero difference in the quality of the words and one directly interacts with the medium itself every time a page is turned. I think comparing music to photography or film is a much better comparison. There are certain aesthetic values to using film vs. digital cameras, so it’s understandable if the photographer himself feels like it has a real impact on his work. But as a consumer of the art, all we’re really getting is the resultant image or the soundwaves, the actual medium should be transparent and, ideally, any aesthetic artifacts they may introduce ought to be intential decisions by the artist.