35 replies to this topic

[Grinch]

After not posting for over a month, I thought I'd come back with a friendly poll. After talking with a audio professor (who is also an audiophile), we engaged deep into a conversation about music formats. After doing some research, many experts claim that vinyl radiates a "warmth" not present on CD. This is because the music is pressed right into the vinyl, and it requires no compression. Apparently, this is referred to as "natural sound". CDs require compression and must be conveyed into a digital form. Anyways, I thought I'd make a poll...

What format do you prefer overall? Do you like CDs because of their durability, compact size, and sound quality, or do you prefer vinyl for the record jackets and their natural sound? My daily newspaper had an article on this the other day. Apparently, Japan and Britain are now releasing albums on vinyl and CD simutaneuously. Sales ranks have claimed vinyl sales to be increasing and CD sales to have cut in half.

Anyways, make your decision. And, for you nine year olds that have never heard of anything before CDs and MP3 players, please don't take part in this poll. Thanks!

Edited by Grinch, 16 February 2005 - 09:23 PM.

[IronRhino]

I can't put vinyl on my IPod.

[merlinski]

I'm going with CD/MP3 for two reasons:
First: Practicality. I'm a huge audiophile too. In fact, I like to listen to music all day. Which means I don't want to be turning over or replacing a record every half hour. Not to mention portability. I can't very well take a record player in my backpack and listen to it with headphones, nor can I put one in my car.

Second: Durability. The nature of records, running a diamond-tipped needle over grooves in the vinyl, means that they will never last as long and go through as many play cycles as either a laser-read disc or a digital file.

[NinjZ]

I chose vinyl because it does sound ALOT better than CDs/MP3s. Aslong as you keep your records dust free, and your needles clean, vinyl can last through the ages. While only 10% of my music collection is vinyl, I seem to lsiten to them 95% of the time I am at home.

[Talio]

I chose CD because I find it hard to fit one of these on my desk at work.




Talio.

[Grinch]

~snip~

Haha, Talio, this is the 21st century. They're a lot more portable than that.

[okto]

True. Vestax and Numark both make portables, and Numark's is small enough to fit in a record box.
I prefer vinyl for the superior sound quality and presence, and of course the analog warmth—but I have an iPod to carry around with me, and you can't get much more digital.
No given audio medium is superior in every respect to any other...it's like asking if a screwdriver is better than a bandsaw.

Good poll.

[MattPaintballer]

I've never heard vinyl ...

[cxwq]

The 2^16 waveforms possible in 16-bit digital recording are insufficient to describe music perfectly. The dynamic range of vinyl is much greater. Think of the turntable as an actual instrument - the vinyl plays the instrument - so depending on the type and quality of the turntable, your experience will vary a whole lot.

What it all comes down to for most people though is what you can do with it. Digital music can be imported 100% accurately into new devices, manipulated, recorded out, whatever you want. It allows someone with almost zero investment in equipment to be a music producer.

[Pineapple]

Geeze.

I'd never have thought I'd see poll results like these.

For someone who just bought their first CD player last year (not counting drives on computers, etc.), it's either been FM radio or cassette tapes for me.

My small vinyl stash has been in storage for years (33's and 45's). So have my three turntables (including one, Talio, that DOES fit on a desk , though not the best sound quality.)

But excepting the stuff like Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Eagles, Doobie Brothers, .38 Special, Santana, and some old ZZ Top, most of my vinyls are disco trash. Well, the Tom Tom Club is okay.


Nostalgic.

-Piney-

[Grinch]

The 2^16 waveforms possible in 16-bit digital recording are insufficient to describe music perfectly.

True, but what about the new 24-bit masters I've heard of?

Personally, the best CD's I've ever heard are Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab tapes sourced from virgin vinyl and put onto CD.

[TED]

Vinyl because you can't scratch a cd and have it sound cool at the same time!

[taita cakes]

Vinyl because you can't scratch a cd and have it sound cool at the same time!

Amen!

I'm suprised so many people voted for CD.
I'm young, and even I understand the worth of LP and 45's. I'm so posting a picture of this wall hanging when I'm done with that. Think colour coded 45's.



Note: Yay, I capitalised my I's for once!

[okto]

The 2^16 waveforms possible in 16-bit digital recording are insufficient to describe music perfectly.

True, but what about the new 24-bit masters I've heard of?

Personally, the best CD's I've ever heard are Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab tapes sourced from virgin vinyl and put onto CD.

24-bit mastered CDs are still pressed 16-bit. Since it's a digital conversion, every ounce of extra fidelity from the 24-bit master is removed with surgical precision.
And as for MoFi CDs, those are off original master tapes, not vinyl. And MoFi vinyl sounds even better than that; I have the MoFi copy of Dark Side of the Moon, and it's absolutely flawless.

Edited by okto, 18 February 2005 - 01:59 AM.

[Grinch]

24-bit mastered CDs are still pressed 16-bit.  Since it's a digital conversion, every ounce of extra fidelity from the 24-bit master is removed with surgical precision.
And as for MoFi CDs, those are off original master tapes, not vinyl.  And MoFi vinyl sounds even better than that; I have the MoFi copy of Dark Side of the Moon, and it's absolutely flawless.

Ah, but that's where you're wrong. I've got a few Beatles bootlegs that are sourced from MoFi virgin vinyl and pressed on silver 24-bit CDs. They retain all the warmth of vinyl, as well as MoFi's insane audiophile quality.

Anyways, for those who care (and know the value of this), look what a just snagged at a garage sale for $50:

[Tinkerer]

I picked cd's for a few reasons:

1) I can't find any of my favorite music available on Vinyl.

2) The only turntable I own is a mono record player I salvaged from being thrown out from the school my dad teaches at.

3) records are more prone to scratching

4) in my experience, when things get a little wild, the record will start skipping long before the CD player will

5) have you ever seen a pocket Record player?

[Grinch]

*snicker*

Vinyl is owning 33 percent of the vote.

Get it?

[/pun]

[taita cakes]

And ⅓




Well at least I got it!




If the vote changes, or people just don't understand ...

[Vassili]

I can't put vinyl on my IPod.

You can't put shit on your iPod because you don't have one.

[Grinch]

I can't put vinyl on my IPod.

You can't put shit on your iPod because you don't have one.

Dude...owned.

[Grinch]

Sorry to double post, but does anyone know what bit the new Mobile Fidelity gold CD's are? Are they 16-bit or 24-bit?

[taita cakes]

I'm guessing the 24 Karat Gold reference has something to do with it being 24-bit. I dont know though, just using logic.

[Talio]

The CD really has nothing to do with compression rate, that's really more on the software end, but I supposed the media would also impact what the software can do.

However, the 24KT DOES NOT mean that it's 24 bit compression. I've never heard of 24 bit compression, but KT means Karut, which is refering to the purity of the gold. 24KT gold, you've all heard this said.

The advantage of using gold is that it's non corrosive and highly reflective, meaning you have a lesser chance of data corruption, oxidization or read errors. However, I have a feeling that it's probably a ploy to sell CD's. I know that Radio Shack was trying hock gold plugs for a while saying that they are more conductive then copper, but in truth, the difference is extremely minimal. Reason they do this is because gold is really cheap these days, especially when it's got a low KT. You can get gold jewlery thats 24kt from department stores for super cheap prices. Not to mention the layer of gold that they're putting on those things is so small, that it still probably only costs them a couple extra cents to make and then they get to sell it to you for 3 bucks a pop.

Can't say I've ever really tried them though, but if you properly store and use regular CD's, even the generic ones, you shouldn't ever have a problem with this type of thing. Now if you're planning on shipping your CD's in crate on a cargo ship in the middle of the pacific during a storm, ok, perhaps you would have something to worry about, but still, they're probably no more resitant to things that actually cause data corruption on regular CD's anyway.

Thats the story,

Talio.

[xedice]

VINYL!!!!

Where would all my local bboy and dance clubs without VINYL??? You can't dance to a cd, thats just gay, all the tracks gonna be shitty quality and you can't blend or scratch (not fingernail scratch) them.

Vinyl is the future.. and the past. CDs just suck ass in my opinion. Except for mp3 cds which are good for playing in the car, but thats about it.

I'm pretty much even between mp3s and vinyl, vinyl is good for big groups of people, mp3s are good for personal use. My final answer is vinyl.

to loosely quote kitty from that 70's show, "why don't they just stick record players in cars?"

[okto]

Sorry to double post, but does anyone know what bit the new Mobile Fidelity gold CD's are? Are they 16-bit or 24-bit?

MoFi's CDs, as previously stated, are 16-bit, becasue if they were not, they would A not meet the CDDA standard (which may or may not be lumped into ISO 9660), and so not play in any CD player on earth, and B hold only 40-50 minutes of audio, which is kinda impractical.

MoFi's CDs only sound better in a better CD player that has an accurate enough timebase, precise enough disc transport, and quick enough DAC to read and paly every frame. CD players are time-priority rather than accuracy-priority drives, meaning they're more concerned with getting the audio out the door than getting it perfect, and will throw away frames to allow this. So, when you play a CD in a player that cost you less than ~$1000, you're only hearing 95% or so of all the audio on the disc, which is again not capturing the whole audio waveform because of the nature of PCM digital audio encoding. In this area, vinyl still and possibly always will triumph, because barring skips and pops (which aren't hard to avoid if you take care of your vinyl), they reproduce 100% of the audio that was put on them in the first place.

Talio: the data on CDs is not compressed in any way. It's full-bandwidth 16/44.1k PCM.