CD Got Absolutely Crushed By Vinyl

I know what Orpheus means about the "Gestalt" of vinyl.

It really gets me as well. There’s just an "it" factor that draws me in and gives me this big "aaah..." when listening.

That doesn’t make digital sound bad to me though. Sometimes I really enjoy going back to digital for it’s own virtues.

My previous vinyl rig was more modest - a Micro Seiki turntable and cheap old Rotel phono stage. At that point vinyl still had an "it" factor that made it different than digital - a classic "warmer, crisper" sound.But it also sounded a bit on the nostalgic, slightly lower-fi side vs digital. I’d still tend to listen to a lot more digital.

But when I upgraded my vinyl rig to a much better turntable, cartridge and phono stage, that’s when vinyl seemed to leap ahead of digital in terms of what I wanted to play. Now it doesn’t have that slightly creaky nostalgia sound, but rather the noise floor is so low, the detail so clear and smooth, the sound so big, rich yet punchy and focused, that it just tends to sound "better" or more satisfying to my ears than digital (generally speaking). It’s not better technically, but it has a texture, heft and sense that it is that much more detached from the speakers making the sound while simultaneously having a "right there in the air in front of me" texture that blows me away.

I just received 3 albums I bought on discogs, from 1977, 1980 and 1984.All three are mint condition and dead silent wax, with absolutely gorgeous sound quality and the musical content just makes me giddy.Flicking through pixels looking at selections to play via my phone app (streaming to system) just isn’t nearly as fun and satisfying a way to interact with my music collection. And...choke...CDs. Yuck! I don’t mean yuck for sound quality - CDs are great and I ripped all mine lossless. But CDs themselves as physical objects just absolutely suck IMO. I was just down rifling through some of my many hundreds of CDs stored in my basement, and they aren’t pretty lookin’, don’t feel nice in the hand, always feel on the verge of snapping (which they often do), and just have no appeal to me these days.

I get that others, of course, have different experiences and really enjoy everything about CDs.


And also I would not ever try to push anyone toward vinyl.  If you aren't in to it, it's a hassle of sorts.  And can be expensive.  But if someone asks why I like it so much, I'll tell them.

Prof, I'm comparing vinyl to digital that's as good as digital gets, and vinyl is better; more subjectively than objective, but when you get into what I call the "deep listening zone"; it's no contest, vinyl is where the music resides.

Off the shelf CDs and stock off the shelf electronics really don’t have a chance. But they will have a chance, a very good chance when you roll up your sleeves and start treating the CDs and implementing tweaks, you know, like isolation, aftermarket fuses. Otherwise, forget about it. You’ll be living in Muzak land all your life. Your CDs will sound shrill, grainy, thin, threadbare, whimpy, bass shy, two dimensional, boring, discombobulated, metallic, honky, bloated, and like paper mache.

+1 @audioman58

This is the same old argument and old. My collection of CD's does not sound shrill, grainy, overly bright unless that was the recording in the 1st place. 

CD sound excellent as good as vinyl and in cases better, I own both. Having said that CD sound very bad and the vinyl better. It always gets back to mastering on both formats and includes the king of them all now days streaming. Highly compressed anything sounds bad, CD releases have this, vinyl not as much so because of tracking issues of the needle. I sold many bright and muddy sounding LP's in the golden era where they had Record selling shows a few times a year in the early '80s and late 60's and '70s. 

I have CD’s that sound better than my 1st pressing of the vinyl issue. In fact, depending on the pressing the same recording could really go from great to transistor radio sounding with lack of bass etc. I never brought LP's with the RE stamped on the cover corner, that meant reiisue and you never knew, and as years marched on in general they sounded nothing like the 1st pressings. 

So I own both, I grew up with vinyl though and that is always a 1st love, the LP covers, and the size, but sound wise is a case by case better, just like the vinyl days when vinyl sold more in a month than what is sold in a year now, a lot of vinyl sucked, in the 70’s it really got bad with compression used on rock recordings, the overdubbing and so forth, so sound was muddy to overly bright, and CD cannot change any of that unless that release was totally remixed much like the Beatles and the Elvis releases over the past several years with currently Sgt. Pepper and the White LP the Beatles. 

Nothing wrong the current CD format and players, like vinyl, improved from the 20’s to the 50’s vinyl sound improved as well as recording quality. Clean your LP’s before play, clean your CD with a quality car wax both sides and you will have long term enjoyment on the format of your choice. Streaming is the future sales are in the billions and with Tidal and others for 99% of consumers why would they want to buy. $11.99-19.99 a month for unlimited streaming music. People don’t just sit and listen to music anymore that era was for the boomers like hot rods were that was the thing, last 30 years digital, gaming, and 100% portable music and today iPhones and earbuds, XM/Sirus radio for the road.