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Originally Posted by summer
Now, I have never heard a vinyl record in my life. My parents sold theirs long ago, and I see no reason to invest in one myself, but I'm curious. Anyone here who buys vinyl, why? I have heard that the sound quality is better, and to me this makes no sense. Perhaps if it is, it would only be because CDs are mastered poorly (loudness war), not necessarily because CDs are an inferior medium? Or, maybe, you only buy vinyl purely out of preference?
I dunno. Just curious. Never seen the point of it, so I'd like to see different opinions.
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Vinyl sounding better makes complete sense, you probably just need it explained why it is so; so here is the explanation: current digital recording technologies are as of yet unable to supply the sampling rates that can encode all the harmonics that can be heard in analogue recordings. Up until recently the highest sample rates have been 320khz this means 320,000 samples per second, this is then down sampled to cd medium which is 16bit with a sampling rate of 44.1khz or 44100 samples per second. This has an effect on the harmonics that we are unable to hear, however just because we can't hear it, it doesn't mean these harmonics are irrelevant. These harmonic frequencies interact with those within our hearing range and this is what people recognise as warmth in a recording.
Ahhhh you say but isn't most stuff these days recorded digitally??? Well yes it is but before the signals end up as ones and zeros there is a significant amount of analogue processing that these signals will pass through to bring the extra warmth to the recording, yet while the warmth is added in through these processors such as avalon tube compressors, neve channel strips etc the nice warm analogue signal is still degraded somewhat once it has moved through it final stages and through the a/d converters. This however, still makes vinyl recorded and pressed in modern times warmer sounding than the same music pressed to cd.
Current the highest sample rates are available through sony's new dsd technology which not many studios have. The sample rates of this technology is around 2.4ghz, so 2,400,000 samples per second. This is a marked improvement on the previous sample rates and it can really be heard quite dramatically. An example would be Carl Orff's Camina Burana conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. This particular cd sounds a whole lot better than any other cd i have in my collection and this is due to the massive leap in sample rates. Although this is a large jump it still does not hold the same warmth as a good analogue recording.
The loudness war really doesn't make much difference to vinyl records sounding better than cds. Yes The same music will be mastered differently for the two different mediums but this has less impact than the actual technological differences that I outlined before. But as an example something like QOTSA's songs for the deaf, if the mastering that was on the cd was the same master that was on the vinyl you would have a hard time keeping the stylus in the groove. That is the biggest issue with this loudness war. Things are generally brick wall limited and almost all dynamics are cut out of the music so the quiet songs will be the same volume as the loud songs.
The digital versus analogue issue is not just an issue in the domestic world of vinyl and cds... I notice it alot with my work and what is going around the pro audio industry. My console of choice is a digital console but I usually choose to have, client budget permitting, some outboard analogue processing, particularly for vocal channels. Most large format digital consoles have ugly sounding mic pres so there is a need to suplement these with something nice and warm. I generally use a Yamaha M7CL console which is a very good digital console but the preamps sound a bit lifeless. The higher end digital consoles that are coming out now, like the new Midas console is a lot better but it is also $500,000 so not many people get to play with them.
Any way I hope that clears some things up for you. Ohhh and yes I still buy vinyl and I also buy cds. I don't however do mp3, because even at the best quality they suck balls.