I can’t imagine why anyone would pick an LP over a CD! But, vinyl still has a following! Can anyone explain why this is? (Note: Looking for factual answers, not IMHOs!)
Some people like the sound of vinyl over CDs. I have definitely heard some CDs that sound terrible compared to a good L.P. played on a high-line turntable. The cover of an L.P. also provides a bigger area for cover art. Besides, what would one do with his Zerostat, Discwasher, and other accessories without some new L.P.s?
I just read an article on the subject in USA Today yesterday (it was free at the motel I stayed in). Basically, yes, there is a niche of people who consider the sound quality from vinyl to be better than that from CDs.
I can’t tell the difference, but I remember when CDs first came out Neil Young was vehemently opposed to them, because of the inferior sound.
Digital technology samples music. At a predetermined interval, usually something like twice the highest frequency of the recording, a processor takes a snapshot of the analogue music signal. A fraction of a second later another snapshot is taken. These snapshots are turned into binary numbers, a bunch of 1s and 0s, and then burned on a disc.
During playback these numbers are decoded, but since there are missing intervals (remember the music is sampled), the playback equipment has to interpolate the data in between the sample points. This means that instead of smooth analogous transitions you now have discrete points that are automatically filled in by the decoding processor.
So, to my ear, no difference at all. Some people swear they can tell the difference and prefer the analog recording where you hear everything in real time with no processor interpolation between sample points.
Vinyl’s market is ridiculously tiny, about 3.5% of CDs. (And of course, that percentage goes way, way down if you factor in all digital sales.) It takes almost nothing to keep a market that small going. A bit of hipster retro-cool would do it. The larger covers that give value to album art would do it. The sound value might be a part of it, but I bet you could explain 90+% of all LP sales even if the sound were noticeably worse. There are still buggy whip manufacturers. And typewriters, too.
Also it’s largely a collector’s market. They’re generally rare compared with CDs, and may last longer in storage. Collectors are willing to pay a premium for something that is obscure and interesting.
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It has a coolness value to it
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Some people like to listen to the music the way it was originally “recorded”. And, I also agree with that. Despite the level of the technology involved, if you want to hear what what an album made by Pink Floyd or the Beatles sounded like back then, LP is the way to go.
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Audio black-gold, gibberish, etc. All prejudicial.
I myself have some old radios, like 30s, 40s, 50s old. And, I like to listen to that era of music (sometimes). With that old stuff it’s like a mini time-warp. I’m listening to the music in the exact same way someone 50-70 years ago did. Blows my mind every time. Love it.
IMHO, for the general consumer, not the hi-fi enthusiasts. But, for the guy/girl with an iPod or the like, $30-$60 headphones, maybe a $250-400 audio system at home. This generation of recording/playback is best suited for music from all eras. Simply because I am assuming that they know what the average playback technology is and master for it. If you want to make money, you have to tailor to the class with it and most willing to spend it.
Now, if you are someone who has the money, like the departed Steve Jobs, for an awesome sound system with multi-thousand dollar speakers, turntable, amps, etc. to listen to your freshly pressed vinyl from Japan using the original masters. Then, by all means, go for it. And, I will bet any money that it sounds awesome at the least and better than an iPod with $30-60 heaphones.
This is one of the coolest things I’ve heard on this board in a long time, electronbee. Thanks.
I always thought I was one of those very few oddballs who occasionally listened to dated vintage music (in private, of course). I agree it’s like a time warp. Just curious: Where did you get your old radios?
OP: I have stacks of old vinyl with stuff you can’t/won’t find on youtube or digitally recreated/remastered. There is still a market for such rarities. Or are you referring strictly to people picking vinyl (is this even possible these days?) over a CD or mp3 as a purchase of modern music today?
More interestingly, how do you receive old broadcasts? Via the Twilight Zone?
I prefer vinyl for a couple of reasons. One is that I’ll always be able to play it even if I have to stick a pin in a piece of foil, hook it to a funnel and rig some kind of crank turntable. I have hundred year old records. I doubt anyone will be able to play my CDs in 100 years. I also enjoy being able to have a matched set of my fav artists work and thanks to rereleases and the fact that his new albums are on vinyl as well as CD, I’m almost at completion.
All of the above, plus LP’s are dirt freeking cheap a lot of places – it’s like going on a tresure hunt.
Well, unfortunately this discussion is the ***ultimate ***IMHO. The market for them are people who (mistakenly) believe that vinyl sounds ‘better’. These people, are insane. 
Talking about the ‘warmth’ of vinyl would be like talking about the ‘warmth’ of TV with rabbit ears: Not just low definition, but full of snow, static, unsteady picture, no color etc. It’s purely an emotional reaction. People like the ritual of sliding the big black disc out of the slip cover and the sound it makes when you manually drop the needle onto it. It’s also a nostalgia thing. Hell, there are still 8-track collectors out there!
Personally, I think it’s been downhill since they stop putting them on player piano rolls. The ‘warmth’ of holes in paper, oooooooooh…
This is an argument that has decades of provenance. There is a lot of misinformation about the nature of digital versus analog, and the nature of the sound, and the recording process. Some of it is repeated above.
Probably the most important thing is the idea that there is missing information in digital. There isn’t. Shannon proved that any bandwidth limited channel with a defined signal to noise ratio has a given information rate. This is a hard fact about the nature of the universe. LP’s are bandwidth limited to somewhere less than 20kHz, and have a dynamic range of 60 odd dB. A sampled channel that samples at 44.1 kHz captures every last element of the information that an LP does, and more. This is a result of Shannon’s theory, often called the Nyquist limit, and the proof appears in Shannon’s seminal paper. There is no information lost between the samples, because the bandwidth of the signal is bandwidth limited. Further, the signal to noise inherent in the 16 bit depth of CD is 98dB. This vastly exceeds LP. There is no mechanism by which an LP or similar recording technology loses information relative to CD.
However, this doesn’t mean that the result sounds any good. Early CDs suffered from very poor mastering. LPs inherently have limited dynamic range in high frequencies, and although they are nominally equalised to have a flat frequency response, the reality is that most reproduction chains
have a tailing off in response in the high frequencies. Worse, LPs cannot contain out of phase information between the two channels at low frequencies. The manner in which the left and right channels are encoded means that in-phase sound wiggles the grove in the horizontal plane, and out of phase information wiggles in the vertical plane. Out of phase low notes will bounce the stylus out of the groove. A recording that is mastered with the intend that it be used to cut an LP take these limitations into account. When you take that same recording and use it to create a CD, unless a further re-mastering is done, it can sound strident, and horrid. This caused a lot of complaints in early CDs. Some labels re-issued “high quality mastered” versions of classic recordings some years after the first CD release, with vastly better sound, to correct just this issue.
Also, vinyl has some interesting distortion mechanisms. Vinyl is elastic, and deforms under the pressure of the stylus. Further, the typical cartridge has a range of magnetic non-linearities inherent in its construction. Turntable platters have resonances, some quite noticeable. Overall a turntable system is as much a musical instrument as it is a precision instrument. They have a sound. Years of tweaking and experience has created turntable systems that can sound really very nice indeed. So much so that the listening experience can be quite prized. The same sort of thing also comes with enthusiasts for tube based amplification, and some high efficiency speaker systems, especially horns. Some music can sound magic on well tweaked up system. Some enthusiasts get similar results with CDs, and perhaps even more tube based enrichment, and others go for end to end accurate systems. However the recording process is inherently not able to deliver a perfect reproduction of the sonic experience, no matter how much money is paid for any part of the process. So even a system that strives for very accurate components ends up compromising in the final sound field, typically by selection of speakers and precise position in the room.
One might note that the hands on experience of vinyl and the ritual inherent in the entire thing really do contribute too.
(Noted that you’re representing the opinions of others)
It’s important to recognise that analogue recording systems are performing interpolation too. The microphone element, recording cutter and playback pickups all have inertial properties, so will inherently ‘smooth’ anything that happens at a frequency outside of their response range.
None of this should matter though; even with digital sampling - if the sample frequency is sufficiently high, what can possibly happen to a waveform between samples, that the human ear could possibly detect?
I don’t doubt they can sound different from one another, but that’s more likely to be something that vinyl changes in the sound, that is less changed on a digital recording. That change might be aesthetically a positive one - I guess it could easily be argued that an orchestra sounds better in a concert hall than in the most clinical of recording studios.
Audio buffs are pretty prone to this sort of thing though - it makes them easy targets for fleecing with expensive magical cables, etc.
Retro chic? The Protomen, one of my favorite indie bands, have rereleased their debut album on vinyl, despite the fact that the original came out in 2005. They’ve even released their latest single exclusively on cassette.
Exactly.
Man, you must really love your vinyl.
mmm
Radio broadcasts, both concerts and interviews were sent to the radio stations on vinyl. I have a 2 Queen ones. I was living in Central California and Queen was coming and they had a “live” interview with Freddy. I was already to record it and they didn’t play it. I called their sister station in Los Angeles and complained…begging the guy to make me a cassette and he surprised me with the master along with a second one I had never heard.
One thing that really bothered me about cds was how it was pushed on the public. I didn’t want a CD player right then. I wanted to wait until the bugs were worked out and I had (still do) a huge collection of vinyl. The record companies started releasing CDS with extra tracks…then they started doing cd only. They changed it over way too quick. I didn’t appreciate being forced to buy a cd player… Also alot of artists (like Kiss) included things with their records… Tattoos, the Love Gun pop gun, stickers, Posters… books. Then there were the lyrics… how else does one prove to their best friend that Gene is not saying “I’ll smell your unders” on God of Thunder? They made them big enough that you didn’t need a magnifier glass to see them.
Alice Cooper was known for his album art as well. Billion Dollar Babies was a giant wallet…complete with money and pictures. Schools Out folded out into a school desk with a lid that raised…and the record had a pair of paper undies on it. Have to be mighty small to fit on a cd…on the verge of child porn!
When Cds first started they were too clean…I missed the pops… It was part of rock and roll to be raw. I found they weren’t mixed as well. We knew alot of the bands we listened to and they said the same thing. Alot of times the sound was muffled. I remember the cd manufactures also claimed they would last forever. Fotfl. They use fairly low quality recording media.
I think they should have continued making vinyl and offered formats. It’s hard these days to even find a receiver that you can use a turntable with without a preamp. Harmon Kardon makes a nice one. I’m one of those people who still believes in buying separate components. So I can get the best sound quality from my old vinyl. I have moved on from cassettes to recording my vinyl on cds. Alot of people don’t realize how much quality you lose burning cds on a computer. If you want quality buy an HHB cd recorder and the cdrs they suggest. I don’t know what led me to them. I found out later that studios use them to create masters… SO my instincts served me well
I could never afford to replace all my vinyl… and remember bootleg vinyl? There is so much out there that you can’t buy anymore. I’m trying to transfer all my radio shows etc off of tape and onto cdrs… I have a few 100 to go…then I get to start on the 4000 VHS tapes…lol
Long Live Vinyl…
Long Live Rock and Roll!
Back To Mono! 
People are saying there is still a market for vinyls. I recently inherited 8 milk crates of records. What should I do with them?