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If Your Music Collection Could Only Be Vinyl or CD, Which Would You Choose?


Anderton

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I know a lot of people are going to say "vinyl," but for me, it would be CD. Less weight, easily rippable for portable music devices, no scratches...and frankly, I don't think either one sounds "better," just slightly different. I know people have problems with the concept of converting to digital, but the EQ applied by the RIAA standard is about as unnatural as it comes.

 

What say you?

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CD without hesitation. Vinyl is purely a novelty, at least for me anyway.

 

I have a teenage daughter who recently went through the Vinyl kick. I asked her the other day why she had slack off on listening to them and she stated it was just too much of a hassle.

 

 

Technology advances for a reason, its better, inovative, and makes life easier.

 

 

There is a very distinct reason you don't you don't see people riding around in a horse and buggy.

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CD of course, but 24 bit CD would be better. Initially when CDs came out in the 80's they seemed to be real TINNY sounding. Perhaps the engineers were still mixing for vinyl back then and overcompensating on highs, but I have since heard many recordings which are less harsh. But then there are many new styles of "music" which don't seem to care at all about fidelity. Vinyl or CD wouldn't make a difference for them.

 

Dan

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I have 1200+ LPs, 200+ singles and 78s, and maybe 500 or so CDs.

 

If I could have the LP content in CD form -- without those dreadful 'bonus' tracks, false starts, redundant outtakes, and radio commercials (!) and the ham-fisted remastering that make so many re-releases so crushingly disappointing/annoying/unlistenable -- that would be my choice.

 

 

But I'd MUCH rather have it all pre-ripped into FLAC and loaded into my online library where I could blend it with my streaming music subscription picks. That's how I have things set up now and it's largely great. I wouldn't mind if my service (Google's All Access) would switch to FLAC -- but that is now available from a couple of providers for about double the monthly ($20/mo instead of $10) so, if I really cared, I could think about switching. But the fact that while I have (on one very familiar test track) reliably sussed the diff between 256 and 320 (I know I was shocked), I nonetheless couldn't tell a 320 LAME mp3 from full CD quality, and money, it still doesn't fall from trees.

 

 

On the sound of vinyl. I've thought about this a lot and have talked at fair length to an audiophile pal about it. As the saying goes, everything that rises must converge, and the best vinyl playback (and my pal has sunk new car money in the phono components) sounds very close to good CD playback over the same rig. Still different. And then, even with the best, most virgin vinyl in the best shape, there is still the bedrock sound of needle in groove. I've never, ever, at normal listening level, once lifted a tone arm out of a groove and heard no difference. There's a sound. It's not an ugly sound. I'm sure some feel it's a comforting sound. I don't.

 

And then, having worked the middle ground with my own turntables -- the last to grace my rig was a next-to-top Dual manual with a very nice cart and careful setup -- as well as, of course, the crap that I started out with and that was still better than most folks had -- I have to say that between finding and buying decent vinyl -- the last vinyl record I bought new was premium priced for the time, from Eno's own private label and marred with scratches and surface noise -- and the rigors of maintenance and maintaining proper setup -- the only thing I REALLY miss about vinyl is the album sleeve art.

 

 

The CD was always a poor platform for album art.

 

[brace yourself for the I'm glad you asked me about X vs Y -- that's a great question -- and now I'm going to tell you all about Z part. And thank you very much.]

 

Happily, the advent of streaming allows album art to begin taking its 'rightful' place (and size).

 

When I start out the day, I usually 'flip' (more like slide) through my 'library' on my stream service -- the album view is laid out on one page and so is easy to quickly move up and down through* even though I have about 1800 items in my album list. Since the desktop version is browser-based I can resize things to whatever is convenient. I usually have it in an 8 to 10 across grid. I have the player set for shuffle. When I see an album I want in the day's mix, I just drag and drop it onto the queue button -- not much more than a quick mouse flick, basically. As I add more albums, they shuffle into the queue below the current playing track.

 

Google All Access has, no question, the best queue system of the 7 services I've used -- MusicMatch OnDemand (dead), Yahoo Music Unlimited (dead), Rhapsody, MOG (dead), Beats Music (walking dead; marked for organ donation to iTunes**), Spotify, and now the ludicrously named, occasionally frustrating, but very nicely featured Google Play Music All Access.

 

 

*The album art storage does present storage issues on mobiles -- I can't use the service on my phone because the album art [it takes up as much as 400 MB on my tablet! That's just image files, not music!] is stored in internal memory -- not SD -- although their music file DLs are stored to SD if you have it; but Google has a thing about SD storage; they don't like it and won't let their apps load into it; a cynic might suggest they're trying to sell devices; my cheapo LG phone has a 32 GB SD in it and all the apps I put on it work great, so this annoys me. If I actually ever went anywhere, it might even be an issue. ;)

 

** What ties those four dead/dying services together? The fact that the first three were under the control of Beat's Music CEO Ian Rogers when they were put in the ground. Soon, you'll be able to add the woefully misbegotten Beats Music to that stack of bodies.

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Except for about 60 LP's that got stolen from me when I was a High School Senior, I still have every LP I ever bought. Started replacing them with CD's a couple of years after CD's came out. Still have all the cd's. Then started replacing the missing with MP3's. Don't wanna give up any of it. But if I had to choose....I'm 62, records are heavy...It would be CD's I reckon.

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Personally, I like the sound of LPs better. Neither format gives you a faithful reproduction. It's a matter of which kind of distortion sounds better to you.

 

However, I'd pick CD. It's more convenient, takes up less room on the shelf, capable of recording entire symphonies without flipping the LP between the 2nd and 3rd movement (or James Brown's "I Lost Someone" from the 1962 Apollo album without a fade out - flip - fade in), and less degradation with wear (although you have to watch for those CD pits).

 

I have thousands of LPs and CDs and I tend to listen to the CDs the most.

 

Funny thing about tone, we all hear it differently, perhaps the frequency response of our ears???? (just a wild uneducated guess).

 

When I went to CDs, I brought a vinyl and CD copy of the album "Focus" by Stan Getz and brought both. I wanted to compare CD decks to see which one sounded closer to the LP.

 

The salesman (a musician) and I could hear the difference in saxophone tone, the store owner (an audiophile) could not. On the other hand, the owner could hear the placement in the stereo field better on all the CDs we tried than either the salesman or myself.

 

I've heard Stan in person, and his tone is definitely closer to the LP than the CD. The CD puts an edge on it that makes him sound a little closer to the sound of Zoot Sims. But then with the LP you have those clicks and pops that are definitely distracting (although they weren't in their day).

 

Insights and incites by Notes

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CDs

 

I keep thinking back to when I had my collection of vinyl LPs, how playing an LP was an event. Taking the sleeve out of the cover, removing the LP from the sleeve, placing it on the turntable, cleaning it, headphones on, needle down, go 'there' for 40 minutes or so :)

 

But there must have been a reason why I sold all of my LPs. CDs are eminently portable, easily stored, and playable in the car. No contest, really

 

LP liner notes > CD liner notes, though ;)

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I had hundreds of LPs that I eventually replaced with hundreds of CDs. I hated the pops, clicks, warps, distortion and eventual frequency degradation of vinyl. Also the lack of portability and the fragile nature of vinyl. I'll take CDs any day over vinyl, not that I buy CDs anymore either.

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NEITHER. Now that I can hear the difference of 24 bit 192khz mastering it's all I care to listen and certainly wont spend on anything less... high res audio is all that comes out of my rig. Broadcast is almost all 24 bit high res audio now as far as new releases are concerned but a mastered record no longer needs either format; which is not the same thing as saying not preferred by those who know better...

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Vinyl. Discounting normal wear-and-tear, in the long run a phonograph record is more permanent than a CD. There's no catastrophic failure mode built into the construction. A phonograph record is more "involving" to play and makes it easier for me to focus on the music I've chosen to hear rather than just having background music (I use radio and Internet streaming for that). And 100 years from now when there are no more CD players, (heck, even today, if you want a CD player, you have to buy a DVD player or a car) unless we've lost our ability to make tools, we'll still be able to play phonograph records. Playback of Edison cylinders today is better than ever.

 

And, besides, it's easier to read the liner notes on a 12" square than a 5" square.

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CDs of course. But with a wistful glance behind at some things lost such as the album art and that pillowy, warmed-to-sleepiness vibe of vinyl.

 

CDs, when they came out, as Dan mentioned, had awful screechy high-end problems. All solved now for a long time. But CDs also were like when they clean some ancient painting we all thought was dark and gloomy and behold, it's actually bright and vibrant. But we miss the patina of grime that we're so used to, like a smelly old pair of shoes we won't wash because they won't feel the same.

 

nat whilk ii

 

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CD of course, but 24 bit CD would be better. Initially when CDs came out in the 80's they seemed to be real TINNY sounding. Perhaps the engineers were still mixing for vinyl back then and overcompensating on highs, but I have since heard many recordings which are less harsh.

Dan

 

In the early days I think the primitive analog to digital converters were probably a big part of the tinny sounding CDs. Of course a lot of the CD payers of the era also probably had tinny sounding digital to analog converters.

 

NEITHER. Now that I can hear the difference of 24 bit 192khz mastering it's all I care to listen and certainly wont spend on anything less... high res audio is all that comes out of my rig.

 

High res is great but there a lot of other factors involved in getting good sounding audio:

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/it-was-one-of-kickstarters-most-successful-109496883039.html

 

aside from a hipster vinyl revival' date=' didn't CD's already win this fight? [/quote']

 

I know some people in a vinyl group. They all get together at each others houses, drink coffee and listen to their latest expensive new 180 gram vinyl records as well as some old scratched up vintage vinyl that they scrounged from their older siblings or parents basements. They think anything digital is bad and vinyl is inherently better than CDs.

 

I asked a guy if the new vinyl album he had just bought had been recorded and mastered totally analog since most new music is probably recorded digitally and he said he didn't know and had never really thought about it. He also knew nothing about his turntable or cartridge and was listening through a modern mid level receiver and speakers that you might get at any best buy.

 

Vinyl can sound very good and under optimal conditions probably sound better than CDs but there are so many variables to good sound including the original source of the two track master. A CD from a well recorded and mastered source should probably sound better than any vinyl or high res that was made from a poorly recorded or mastered source.

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In the early days I think the primitive analog to digital converters were probably a big part of the tinny sounding CDs. Of course a lot of the CD payers of the era also probably had tinny sounding digital to analog converters.

 

The same goes for phonograph recording, but there's a cycle. When commercial electrical recordings came out shortly after World War 1, they sounded a giant step better than acoustical recordings (and same with playback). From the 1950s through the 1970s, we got stereo records and the "better than the record player and car radio" home stereo emerged.

 

Then there were cassettes

 

And we all know what the problems with CDs are - initially the available technology couldn't support the theoretical quality, then it was affordable technology that was better but not as good as it could be, then it was pretty darn good, even for cheap, and then the quality of what went to the pressing plant went to hell, so we had near perfect reproduction of a bad sounding recording.

 

And here we are at another crossroad, but we have to convince the chicken (the record producers) to cross it and start pressing better sounding CDs and releasing better sounding digital files. The vinyl people took advantage of the opportunity. I haven't heard complaints of vinyl releases, particularly new releases (not previously released in a digital format) sounding like loudness-enhanced CDs.

 

I know some people in a vinyl group. They all get together at each others houses, drink coffee and listen to their latest expensive new 180 gram vinyl records as well as some old scratched up vintage vinyl that they scrounged from their older siblings or parents basements.

 

I used to be one of those. We were high school and college students, and we usually drank something differently stimulating than coffee when we got together to listen to our new records, and occasionally an old record found in a thrift shop or radio station. Some of them even turned at 78 RPM.

 

I asked a guy if the new vinyl album he had just bought had been recorded and mastered totally analog since most new music is probably recorded digitally and he said he didn't know and had never really thought about it. He also knew nothing about his turntable or cartridge and was listening through a modern mid level receiver and speakers that you might get at any best buy.

 

Chances are it was recorded digitally, unless it was a re-release from the analog days. Nothing wrong with that today. And while his turntable wasn't a $20,000 audiophile one, it's probably better than the run-of-the-house turntable or changer from the 1960s. If he's getting a bigger kick out of listening to vinyl than from listening to CDs, it's because of the source material, not the playback system. He might be wowed further if he heard a really top dollar audiophile system, but he knows he could never afford it.

 

Vinyl can sound very good and under optimal conditions probably sound better than CDs

 

I don't subscribe to that. Different kinds of damage are done to commercial products at the final stages before replication. If a recording studio had a lathe and someone who knew how to use it, and dumped their best mixes to both CD and lacquer, no doubt the CD would sound better - as long as "most like what we heard from the control room speakers" was a significnt part of the definitio of "better." But when that digital master gets sent off to the CD mastering lab with the instructions to "make this louder than the last record you made," it's going to sound like the last record they made.

 

 

 

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I still have my original LP collection dating back to the first albums I bought as well as Cassettes and CD's. I have bought some CD versions of the albums but I see no sense in replacing them all. I don't even listen to much commercial music any more. When I have time I'm usually working on my own music. I neither have the time or desire to convert them to digital at this point. I still have a decent turn table if I want to play them but many times I can just Google up the tune I want to hear.

 

Dollar wise the Vinyl is probably worth more. I do have allot of extremely rare LP's collectors would buy in an instant.

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