Yes, music is analog. That is exactly the point. CDs don’t stream digital data directly into your brain. The digital data gets converted back into an analog signal, and that analog signal is a much more accurate reproduction of the original analog signal than you can possibly get from vinyl.
There’s really no debate about this. CDs have a wider dynamic range because they don’t suffer from all of the signal distortion and noise inherent in vinyl at low amplitudes. CDs do distort because eventually you get down to bit resolution, but that happens well beyond the amplitude range that vinyl is capable of reproducing. So the overall ANALOG SIGNAL at the output side of things from a CD is better.
Vinyl gets distorted when you create the master disk, which again gets distorted when you copy that to make the disk from which records are actually pressed, and gets distorted again when the vinyl disks themselves are pressed. They get further distorted when played on a turntable, which introduces wow and flutter distortion. And every time you play a vinyl record, you scratch off part of the surface and introduce even more distortion. Sure, you won’t notice that after one or two plays, but it’s really obvious on old records that have been played a lot.
With CDs, you get some distortion of the signal when digitizing it and when you convert it back to analog. But the amount of distortion you get is significantly less than the distortion you get from vinyl. Since the signal is digitized, the only way to distort it is to distort it so badly that you flip a bit. Digital signals are therefore highly immune to distortion, and unless the CD is scratched or damaged, you don’t get any. None. Zero.
So yes, music is analog, and from an analog point of view, compared to a CD, vinyl sucks.
Most people these days buy their music as digital downloads (mp3s and the like), not as either CDs or LPs. Either that, or they stream it. Entertainment distributed on physical media is yesterday’s way of doing things. I doubt that physical media will ever surpass intangible media again.
People have always valued convenience. Even during the LP era, people listened to cassette tapes and 8-tracks, two awful-sounding media. They did it because those media are compact, portable and skip-proof.
I don’t know whether it’s true, but I’ve heard that some people who buy new LPs don’t even have turntables. They buy the records as artifacts, to put on display or to keep as part of a collection.
Vinyl is up, while other physical forms of media are down. Not that vinyl is more popular than, say, CDs, but that it’s going up.
The best idea I’ve heard is that it means people who want something for decoration are moving to vinyl, as it is a more visually aesthetic format. People who used to buy CDs to support the artist are buying vinyl instead.
Downloadable music is also going down, BTW. The thing going up is streaming services. People would rather pay to essentially rent music from a large library, rather than buy a particular piece of music outright.
The idea that vinyl is valued for audio quality is silly for one fairly easy reason: it’s trivial to simply make a digital copy of the vinyl, if that’s what people want to hear. It’s trivial to actually mix the audio for vinyl, if people think it’s only the hiss and clicks that make it worse.
Digital is just inherently better. We’re at the point where the quality of digital audio surpasses the quality of any medium that analog audio can be recorded on. We have insanely high bit rates, giving us tons of dynamic range. And the Nyquist theorem means we can perfectly encode the frequencies up to a given maximum. Current standards have us keeping audio that is double what we can actually hear.
True, this audio is then usually converted to a lossy format for ease of use, which decreases quality. But, even there, we’re at the point where actual A/B testing shows that you can’t tell the difference, assuming you use high enough quality.
The only reason to prefer analog is that you like some of the artifacts it introduces. But, again, you can then record that analog audio as a digital file. You can just digitally record that vinyl or that cassette tape, if that’s the sound you want.
True, but keep in mind that mp3 is a lossy and distorting format. From an analog sound quality point of view, compared to vinyl, mp3s suck. Most of the streaming formats distort the signal as well.
Not at full quality, they don’t. That’s specifically the A/B testing I’m referring to. A properly encoded 320kbps MP3 couldn’t be distinguished from the raw source by the vast majority of people.
Vinyl’s artifacts are much, much more audible than the artifacts on MP3s at even low levels such as 128kbps. Now, below that, and I would agree that vinyl sounds better.
And, of course, many newer formats sound better than 128kbps MP3s.
No. MP3s are only worse than vinyl if they’re made such. Otherwise, they have the improved dynamic range, the lack of copy-of-a-copy distortions, and everything else you correctly attributed to digital media files in previous posts.
It’s possible to make a horribly-compressed MP3 with the dynamic range of a foghorn and all kinds of noise, but it’s also possible to make an MP3 which is indistinguishable from the original band playing in the studio. A combination of the Nyquist-Shannon theorem and the inherent limitations of how humans perceive sound make that possible.
So, to summarize:
A good, well-made digital audio file (including lossily-compressed ones, like MP3s) will always sound more like reality than a vinyl recording, where “reality” is a band sitting in a studio or similar. This is what most people mean by “sound better”, just so everyone knows.
A vinyl recording will sound more like a vinyl recording than a well-made digital audio file. This is what some vinyl fans mean by “sound better”, assuming they’re being honest with themselves and everyone else.
Finally, a well-made digital audio file made from a clean, undamaged vinyl recording will sound like a clean, undamaged vinyl recording long after that specific piece of vinyl has been reduced to a shambles by repeated play and other incidental damage inherent to being an analog format.
I think that this is the big issue. Sales of vinyl LPs are up, both in the absolute, and as a share of physical music media sales – but physical media sales are in steep decline, and downloaded music is also in decline, while streaming services are increasing (as BigT notes above).
This New York Times article from last year shows the overall trends from '06 to '15; the year-over-year changes from '14 to '15:
I’ll agree with you on the lack of copy distortion and the improved dynamic range.
However, even at the highest bit rates, I’ve had mp3s distort the sound more noticeably than vinyl ever did. It’s particularly noticeable (for me) with acoustic guitars. Keep in mind though that I am a musician (of sorts) and I am much more sensitive to signal distortion than the average Joe.
Maybe it’s a limitation of the software I was using and not so much of the format itself, but I have never been able to get some songs with acoustic guitars to sound decent when I’ve converted them to mp3.
And optimized so the electrons flow on the outer layers, and don’t get slowed and distorted by passing through the center of the wire. And unidirectional, so the sound doesn’t try to flow backwards, causing audio blocks and distortion.
In the end, this is the major difference. I’ve put out a few recordings, and have had two mastered for vinyl. When we told the person mastering the final recordings that the end product was vinyl, we received a different mastering. Not only was an RIAA EQ curve applied (cuts bass and emphasizes highs, the inverse is present in playback), but the overall dynamics were compressed a bit, without really boosting the overall volume (just compress the lows and highs toward the middle). Those aren’t really present in a master intended for digital recording, because the equipment can handle it.
Conversely, a recording mastered for a digital end product can have brighter highs and greater stereo separation of bass frequencies. If that floats your boat, you’re gonna like that master better.
Some people find one method of mastering as sounding better because it smooths things out, other people like the other method because it provides wide dynamics and sparkling highs (and when you’re mastering for digital, you can make everything LOUD if you so desire). It depends on your preference.
As far as the “artisinal” quality of current records: it’s not really bullshit. I have a large record collection, and lots of records produced from the mid 70’s to late 80’s were crap due to the manufacturing process, and massaging that as much as possible for profit. The more a stamper is used, the more it degrades. I understand that after 1000 pressings, a stamper is no longer usable. Most pressings these days are less than 500 records, and they’ll re-make the stampers earlier now, because it’s not being sold as a $2.99 bargain-bin record. This is evident in vinyl re-issues that come out today. Between the heavier vinyl being pressed today, and the limited runs, it’s obvious whether that record was produced in those dark days. Even my early 70’s K-Tel records sound good when compared to a large release from the 80’s. The era it’s produced in seems to have more effect on the sound quality than how much it’s been played.
Vinyl vs CD? Heh, that ship has sailed. Vinyl outlasted it and has recently started outselling it, from what I understand. I’ve personally bought far more LPs in the last 5 years than CDs. Vinyl’s mainstream, anyway. Don’t get me started on the audio cassette hipster jerks! You put out a cassette? Great! I have absolutely 0 devices built in the last two decades that can play that. I hope it has a download card in it (naw, they’re nice folks, just a little off).
-Scabpicker, who’s gonna charge you more for a physical copy of the next record than a digital download when it comes out on 4/20 (naturally), because I had to cart that heavy ass box of records to the show.
You missed the point I was making. Most people don’t care much about audio quality. They care about convenience. If they cared about audio quality, they wouldn’t have ever listened to cassette tapes, which sound awful.
I know you’re not serious, but I do feel obliged to point out that gold has a resistivity 30% greater than copper. And low resistance in speaker cables really does matter- it’s about all that does.
Perhaps we’re being too cheap here. What about platinum?
Nearly 6 times worse than copper.
What about mercury? That’s heavy stuff, must be good.
No, sixty times worse than copper, and your medical problems will be more pressing than your hifi problems.
The only more conductive metal is silver, and it’s only 5% better.
I heartily endorse those pointing out that with correct sampling you get EXACT reconstruction.
I am serious when I say if you wanted really good audio, that you should dispense with connectors completely, and solder the connecting wires directly to the components. I have more trouble with corrosion on the RCA jacks than I ever do with the cables themselves.
Of course, that hampers working on the system, or replacing the components with newer ones.
The fact I can’t find a single, simple answer here with Google is, really, a testament to what I just said: MP3 has enough tweakable parameters you can dig up MP3 files to make any point you want, including “MP3 is worse than AM radio”, “MP3 is as good as CD”, and anything in between. My point is that it’s possible for MP3 to be better than vinyl, “better” defined as being closer to the original studio sound, and the fact MP3 can approach or equal CD quality is proof enough of that.
When you expand your horizons to include AAC and other, more modern lossy formats, the blanket statement that lossy music formats sound bad is even more wrong.
mp3 has a few corner cases where it has issues, irrespective of bit rate. I remember there was some talk of an audio file of castanets which would cause pre-echo in any mp3-compressed version, regardless of what implementation tried to do it.
This. This factor has distorted (pun intended) the whole discussion:
• A lot of recordings in the 80s and early 90s basically intended to be heard on CD just weren’t mastered well.
• A lot of stuff that had come out on analog was mastered terribly for CD during the time period. (I’m not sure when it came out, but I found a Billy Squier greatest hits collection in my stash the other day, put it in in the car, and it was one of the worst recordings I’ve ever heard in my life. If those were indeed the “real” remasterings for CD, it’s no wonder that some people ended up thinking that vinyl was better.)
• Or stuff was remastered for CD and sounded better (by some objective and/or subjective standard), but people were used to the old sound and considered the new inferior or just not to their taste.
I used to be a vinyl proponent, but I’m not any more. I have a lot of vinyl, and some of it doesn’t exist on CD, and I do like the covers and the nostalgia (and some LPs do sound great–not necessarily inherently better). But for the most part, I’d rather just have the music in lossless digital format.
