To me vinyl sounds better, yet I think digital is better in every other way. Just try strapping a turntable to your wrist or putting one on the seat of your car.
Does Anyone Think CD is Better Than Vinyl/Analog?
I am curious to know if anyone thinks the CD format (and I suppose that could include digital altogether) sounds better than vinyl and other analog formats. Who here has gone really far down both paths and can make a valid comparison? So far, I have only gone very far down the CD path and I just keep getting blown away by what the medium is capable of! I haven’t hit a wall yet. It is extremely dependent on proper setup, synergy and source material. Once you start getting those things right, the equipment gets out of the way and it can sound more fantastic than you can imagine! It’s led me to start developing a philosophy that goes something like this: Digital IS “perfect sound forever”; it’s what we do to the signal between the surface of the CD and the speaker cone that compromises it.”
So I suppose what I’m asking for is stories from people who have explored both mediums in depth and came to the conclusion that CD has the most potential (or vice versa - that’s helpful too). And I don’t simply mean you’ve spent a lot of money on a CD player. I mean you’ve tinkered and tweaked and done actual “research in the lab,” and came back with a deep understanding of the medium and can share those experiences with others.
In my experience, the three most important things to get right are to find a good CD player (and good rarely means most expensive in my experience) and then give it clean power. In my case, I have modified my CD player to run off battery power with DC-DC regulators. The last thing that must be done right is the preamp. It’s the difference between “sounds pretty good” and “sounds dynamic and realistic.”
So I suppose what I’m asking for is stories from people who have explored both mediums in depth and came to the conclusion that CD has the most potential (or vice versa - that’s helpful too). And I don’t simply mean you’ve spent a lot of money on a CD player. I mean you’ve tinkered and tweaked and done actual “research in the lab,” and came back with a deep understanding of the medium and can share those experiences with others.
In my experience, the three most important things to get right are to find a good CD player (and good rarely means most expensive in my experience) and then give it clean power. In my case, I have modified my CD player to run off battery power with DC-DC regulators. The last thing that must be done right is the preamp. It’s the difference between “sounds pretty good” and “sounds dynamic and realistic.”
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@8th-note. Nicely put into words. I was also thinking a 50k++ for a kick a$$ vinyl set up. And don’t great recordings always stand out. Chasing down all this nuance can be a swirling vortex with diminishing returns. |
Hello, To start with the basics. It comes down to the recording. Garbage in, garbage out. Some remastered recordings are good like Abby Road. Others make good frisbees. As far as what we hear I have to say records as long as you have a pretty good TT and phono preamp. We are talking $1000 to $1500 minimum for both new and a good resolving system. If you don’t have that kind of budget then it’s CDs. Especially if you have a nice DAC and a decent transport. I am bot going to get into the cost of each media. My motto is- buy once cry once. Budget limiting I say try to get to the next level if you are close. Do you know how many people buy a Rega P3 for $1150 only to spend a $1000 dollars on upgrades to basically turn it into a Rega P6. In the end you still don’t have the P6 plinth. They trade or sell the modded P3 for $1000 to get a P6. I call it the $3000 Rega P6. Just buy the P6 and spend the $1000 on records. |
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Does Anyone Think CD is Better Than Vinyl/Analog?" Mkgus, You do realize that the title of your thread is mistitled, right? I think everyone participating on it thus far understands that a more appropriate title, that would be much more honest and just cut to the chase already, would be: " Does Anyone 'Like' CD Better Than Vinyl/Analog? So, with your true inquiry and intent now more explicitly revealed, I'll continue to proceed down this more honest and constructive path. I think skyscraper made 7 good points about cd vs vinyl. The main points that I and probably numerous others consider, when deciding on their preferred source material and gear, are his following points: 1) The pops, clicks and and other surface noises of vinyl are too distracting and appear even on albums that look to be in perfect condition. 7) You can't beat the ease of use of CD's, and don't need a record cleaning machine for them like you should use with your records. Many individuals choose and like cds and other digital sources, in other words, due to the lack of surface and background noise and the greater convenience with cds and digital in general. As I stated on my previous post, however, cds certainly do not represent 'perfect sound forever' mainly due to poor master/mixing decisions and the fact that they don't take advantage of the superior performance specs and capacities of cd technology. I also believe that the viewpoint, that home audio enthusiasts are making a binary choice between digital cds or analog vinyl for their preferred playback sources. As many posters have mentioned, many utilize both playback formats. But there are also many individuals, including myself, who realize the original high technical capacities and expectations of the digital cd format were sacrificed due to poor master mixing decisions (the loudness wars and uni-volume) and the inability to take advantage of the benefits of recording direct to digital. Many cds are just transfers of the original multi-track reel to reel tape master recordings to the cd format. These transfers result in zero sound quality improvements over the original rtr master version, but they are at least in a format less susceptible to degradation with each playing. As a result many, including myself, have progressed beyond the use of just the compromised digital cd format to the use of higher resolution digital downloads that were recorded direct to digital. It's very important to realize, however, that the recording of the music, whether played live at an event or in a studio, needs to be directly made to high resolution digital to capture the musical event in the clearly higher capacity and higher sound quality resolution. Often, companies will advertise recordings as "remastered to high resolution digital" even though it is actually just a transfer of the original music event captured on rtr tape in the older, inferior and regular resolution format. But the original master recording is like a photograph, captured at the resolution the recording equipment was capable of. Subsequent transfer to a higher resolution format does nothing to improve the sound quality of the original recording. This also explains why some people claim not to notice a difference between a cd and the same song/group "remastered to high resolution digital"; they're just comparing the original to a virtually identical copy/transfer of it. Tim |
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