For years audiophiles have contended that vinyl has sounded better than CD, but with recent advances in digital recording technology (specifically the availability of SACD and DVD-Audio) is this still the case? I’m aware there will always be people contending that vinyl is king due to the fact that digital recording will never be an EXACT duplicate of the original sound, but surely at some point the differences become so minimal that even the sharpest ear can’t pick them up. Personally I’ve never embraced vinyl (at least since I switched to the CD format) strictly out of longevity issues: any increase in frequency range I get out of vinyl is offset by the increase in noise (hisses, pops, etc.) as the vinyl gets worn. On the other hand, if new formats of digital recording are coming along that narrow this margin I also don’t want to end up buying the same album twice: once on regular CD and again when it’s reissued on the new format. So what’s the deal?
I do not think vinyl is better than a properly remastered CD.
When CD’s came out, there were a very large number, the majority, of very average transfers to that medium.
First impressions count and the CD acquired a reputation, and in the conservative world of the audiophile, it stuck.
The audiophile world seems to be ful of little homilies that have no basis whatsoever in reality, such as the immense cost of speaker cables that hace ultra low capacitive reactance.
Any EE will tell you that this is just rubbish, but audiophiles don’t want to put in the work necessary to understand the electronics and maths, so they stick to what they think they know.
Other examples might include the fabulously expensive turntable and speaker stands, or oxygen free copper conductors(speaker cables again), or massively thick mains power cables, all of which are claimed to improve sound but in actuality can be proven to make no differance exept in the most extreme and unusual conditions under which you simply never operate, and which differance made is totally and utterly outside the range of hearing of any living creature.
Many audiophiles might believe this, but the truth is that vinyl is less a true representation of the original than you would think, and it can be proven that digital representations of original master recordings are far closer.
Mastering to vinyl had to take account of the limitations of that medium, and those cannot be fully overcome nor can they be fully compensated for.
Mastering to CD has limitations too, but, those limits in terms of faithful reproduction from the original master tapes are far better.
Good remastered CDs make the music sound almost as fresh as it was recorded.
A good example is the 4 CD collection by The Who. That collection is called ‘30 years of maximum R&B’.
When you listen to those CDs the raw energy and youth of the group comes across, suddenly lots of bands who claim to be grungy, or edgy sound tame. It brings the sound right up to date and is directly comparable to modern music.
You could say the same about the Led Zeppelin remasters.
When you hear Sinatra remastered, or Elvis, it strikes you just how good they were, and yet they all sound so fresh and contemporary. Vinyl can never hope to achieve this.
In my opinion, plenty of more recent artists have been getting away with turning out inferior material because it always sounds so much better than poorly remastered CDs taken from vinyl masters.
In the UK a band called Oasis have done particularly well, but they suffer in comparison when you listen to the remastered works of groups like The Kinks, or The Who or The Stones
Now the latest generation of CDs - SACD will get that much closer still to those original master recordings.
Audiophiles reinforce each others views, they seem to like that reassurance, need it perhaps - but my advice is not to bother with the crap they spout, put your own ears to the test, you are the only one who really knows what sound you like, and if it does not please the audio snobs - well screw 'em, it’s your money and your taste.
casdave - while a lot of what you state is true, you are over-stating the “fact” of a re-mastered CD’s superiority. You need to take a few factors into account. Bottom line, SAustinTX (home of lots of great music) each medium can deliver great music - a lot of it depends on what you want and how the music was mastered originally. My $.02:
Vinyl - as casdave stated, as a physical medium, comparatively limited in terms of frequency bandwidth. However - and this is a big deal - vinyl has three factors that contribute to a great sound:
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Continuous analog recording - sound is mechanically transferred to vinyl continuously; there is no digital sample. Human ears can sometimes hear the affects of sampling in digital recordings. Less of an issue vs. CD’s now, but a very noticeable thing at the beginning.
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Natural compression - because vinyl "colors’ the sound a bit through natural compression, we hear the music differently - and sometimes that’s good. Compression in and of itself can make the music more balanced, and you can be that producers factored in its effects when mastering vinyl albums. It is part of the reason that tube amps still sound better for electric guitars. I remember when I hear Nirvana’s Nevermind on vinyl - it sounded much better than the original CD for this reason. Some classical recording benefit from this effect as well.
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Producing with vinyl in mind - even if vinyl is inferior, ears get trained to listen for and prefer the compensation of vinyl.
CD’s - started off inferior because of a comparatively low sample rate (it has increased significantly) the fact that digital remastering had not been, well, mastered, so you ended up with analog mixes on vinyl or bad digital remastering. Much better now.
SACD or DVD mixes - have the potential to be great. A good friend of mine specializes in this - he remixes back catalogue CDs to 5.1 surround - The Cure, Erasure and a bunch of other top bands or bands popular in their day. Given the speaker array, a 5.1/DVD remix “opens up” the sound, giving each track more room to breath. Having said that, it is a brand new art and there is no definitive approach to remastering for 5.1 - in other words, a remastering producer can make some poor choices and through the music off.
It really comes down to you deciding what your ear prefers. I would venture to guess that the 5.1 remixes will end up taking over - however, it will be some time before that happens (5 - 10 years or more) and I suspect the physical disc may be on the way down well before then - with music being shared almost exclusively through downloads…
Just my thoughts…
There is only one problem with SACD or DVD-A, namely, nobody needs them cuz CD is already satisfactory to an OVERWHELMING majority of users. look at the trends, people are compressing CDs down to MP3 meaning most people are willing to deal with LESS sound quality than CD.
Vinyl, just like Vaccum tubes is all about elitism, snobbery and ignorance of electronics design.
There is no doubt in my mind that either SACD or DVD-A is superior to Vinyl in just about every way, however, i doubt either of those will ever take off. a consumer just can’t tell the difference between that and a regular CD. i mean if you drive a car that goes 0-60 in 6.000 seconds and the new model comes out and it does 5.999 seconds do you really give a shit ?
another reason why i dont think it will take off is its quite wasteful, both of them. way too much data is stored to adequately represent audio information. this is fine if you’re willing to manually change disks but if you want to store a library of 1000 disks on your computer … and i believe pretty soon that is what people will be doing, i mean people like me are doing it already.