CDs Vs LPs

CD's who buys CD's anymore?

Anyone interested in the more out-of-the-way classical repertoire.

An anecdote.  My last trip to audition speakers.  Most stores have now gone over to streaming.  The first two tracks I habitually use are from a recording called "Crye" done by the Concordia consort of viols on Metronome of English music for viols.  It's an excellent recording, beautifully played, and very revealing of many aspects of speakers.  Was it anywhere on the database?  No!

Fortunately, the salesperson was accommodating enough to lug a transport in from another room.

OK Ralph, you're right. There's no such thing as a not very well built or poorly set up turntable or cartridge, no damaged vinyl, no dirty records, no off center spindle holes, no poorly recorded LPs.

Everything in vinyl land is just as good as it can be. Every playback of every LP is indistinguishable from live musicians playing in the room. I don't know what got into me that I forgot all that for a minute. Thanks for correcting my thinking.

Yeah, and no poorly built CD players, no damaged CDs, no dirty CDs, none that simply won't play, none that are poorly recorded??
The problem here is conflating the media in general with individual results, notwithstanding the fact that nothing in this world is perfect, not digital and not analog.

But if we are going to have this discussion, its helpful to work with facts. When someone posts LPs specs that might have been true in 1962, its not the same as saying that's how it is now. I've had people do that to me- claiming that there have been no improvements in cartridge or tone arm tech since the early 60s- then expecting me to take that hand waving for real!

So here are a few facts.
CD/digital noise floor is usually limited to the room in which the recording was made and the electronics chain used.
LP noise floor is variable from about -60 to the same above. The LP mastering system has arguably more headroom than any other operation in audio.

The results of either are highly variable and depend largely on the producer and the care taken by the recording and mastering personnel.

Distortion amounts are not vastly different, but the nature of the distortion is. LP distortion is less audible because its mostly harmonic as opposed to inharmonic. IOW aliasing is highly audible in small amounts where harmonic distortion is not. The LP is at a disadvantage due to poor setup resulting a large amount of distortion.

Bandwidth of digital is variable due to scanning rate and the need for record side filters. Sometimes exceeds 20KHz. LP is *usually* bandwidth limited to about 50KHz in record but can go much higher.

Ticks and pops can be on the surface of the LP, but far more of them are caused by poorly designed phono equalizers that are unstable, resulting in a tick or pop that isn't actually on the LP. About 95% of ticks and pops have this origin. Otherwise, the LP is fragile and should be treated with care.  CDs don't have ticks and pops, but can have dropouts and can get 'stuck'. The surface is fragile and should be treated with care. Music can be streamed, but bandwidth can cause the music to stop, and provenience issues can cause your music to simply not be on the cloud where you left it. (For this reason I prefer disk storage with ample backup)

Analog storage is a pain in the ass. Digital storage usually is easy, until it isn't and then its enough to make you cry if you lost your entire disk or the like.
In a nutshell, LP is usually more pleasing while digital can have a bit less noise, individual results depending on a wide range of variables on both sides.

Atmasphere 10-10-2018
... aliasing is highly audible in small amounts where harmonic distortion is not.

And likewise timing jitter is highly audible in small amounts. Which depending on the design of the specific equipment that is used can be introduced during A/D conversion in the recording process, and during D/A conversion in the playback process, and in the latter case regardless of whether a one-box CD player or a transport/DAC combination is used. And that in turn can be affected by the condition of the disc. In a thread here a few years ago one of our particularly knowledgeable members, Kirkus, described experience on the test bench in which he regularly observed noise generated by disc tracking servos finding its way to the point of D/A conversion in CDPs and thereby contributing to jitter, to a degree that depended on how "hard" the servos had to work to track particular discs.

So all sorts of subtle hardware and disc dependent effects can be among the "wide range of variables" you referred to.

Glennewdick 10-10-2018
Why do we have to be in anyone camp lets have a foot in both...

+1.

Regards,
-- Al

Ticks and pops can be on the surface of the LP, but far more of them are caused by poorly designed phono equalizers that are unstable, resulting in a tick or pop that isn't actually on the LP. About 95% of ticks and pops have this origin.

I am sorry, but this is complete BS.