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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.”
128x128mkgus
skyscraper
831 posts
 
Not having caught any previous iterations of this topic, this has an interesting and educational thread. Thank you for starting it mkgus. I’ve learned a lot about what comprises the differences between the two formats, and even a bit about streaming as well, which I’ve never done.

And by the way, whoever mentioned many of the Blue Note and Verve jazz remasters on CD are exceptional is right on the money. Having purchased many, mostly Blue Note, of late, I’ve been very pleased with how great they sound.

Happy New Year to you all too, and may you stay well and forever young in 2021.

Mike
phd
1,324 posts
 
Variety is the spice of life, so do it all, no right or wrong answers here. Besides, CD and Vinyl both contain good and poor recordings.
rodhunt
1 posts
 
Chocolate and vanilla. Much of audio is personal preferences.

I transitioned from a good TT to CD years ago and haven't looked back. Early days I knew the TT was better, I just didn't care for the effort involved to maintain a TT system. Some digital is poorly done but then again, mastering counts. Digital also matured and then HD came along too.

How much of the material **I** want to listen to is on vinyl? How much was originally recorded in full analogue? Not much. Others have commented on the effort/space to operate/clean a TT system. Been there, done that. Being fundamentally lazy, no thanks.

I have my material on a server in lossless format. I can use this wherever I go. Lossless playback while walking, driving, or cleaning house. HD digital sounds great to me. Well mastered CDs too. Serious listening, imaging/dynamics, eyes misting over during an emotional track. Check. Check. Check. Not to mention playlists, Roon, and services such as Tidal. In my household LPs have no chance.

TT is not better than digital. Digital is not better than TT. Both have plus and minuses so choose your flavor and enjoy. I have.
mikeydee's avatar
mikeydee
49 posts
 
Let’s approach this from a purely musical perspective. A symphony playing a written musical score will play the notes faithfully, but they must also respond to many other notations in the score that the composer added. One of those is dynamics. A composer will add p - pianissimo all the way to FFF - triple forte to notate that they want a particular passage played either very soft or very loud or somewhere in between. This is a very important part of music and a conductor should play close attention to what the composer intended, IMHO.

An advantage that CDs (and digital formats) have is that they can represent dynamics far more accurately than vinyl can as a format. This is not so important in rock of jazz, where dynamics are not as big an issue (a rock band usually plays at the same level of loudness throughout a song). I only heard one jazz group live that ever used dynamics really well and that was Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers (Blakey was a master at loud and soft).

So, I guess it boils down to what kind of music you like to listen to. Rock and Jazz can sound great on vinyl, whereas classical music suffers on vinyl (it sounds too compressed for me).

At least once in your life, buy the expensive tickets to sit in the front row to hear a great symphony orchestra and hear what I mean.

pingpong9
24 posts
 
For me, one of the big factors between vinyl and CDs is convenience. I played vinyl from the 60's to the 90's....and that was enough for me. Besides the clicks, pops and surface noise, vinyl became a chore when trying to listen to just specific songs. That's why cassettes became so popular...you could make mixed tapes of what you wanted to hear and not be forced to listen to a certain artist or type of music. I can't remember when I actually listened to a CD or album from beginning to end....there's always songs I don't care to listen to from the artist.  I do own CDs and I always rip them to lossless audio files and it's all kept on my desktop computer's hard drive. I can sit at my desk and listen to thousands of tracks in any order I choose since my audio system is in my office. I go from my computer via USB cable to a high-end DAC and then to my integrated amplifier.  I also purchase music tracks online and they sound awesome when up-scaled on my DAC.  Vinyl has too many limitations.           
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