Are your record surfaces as silent as CDs?

Mostly yes.  But my cleaning is a bit "over-the-top", though obviously it doesn't repair physical damage.  Fortunately that's not a common occurrence for me.  But I'm happy with it so nothing else really matters.  😃

Vinyl will never, ever, ever be as quiet as CD’s.

However, vinyl can easily sound as quiet as CD’s given sufficient QC (no need for 180 / 200 gram for this) and proper use.

Biggest factors should be playback volume and whether or not you grew up listening to vinyl. If you or your family played vinyl in the 60s / 70s / 80s, it assuredly predisposes many (most?) folks to be more tolerant of the background noise by virtue of early impressions; some clearly even like it as part of a listening experience. And the more recent generations that should eschew vinyl for hearing all that subtle (or not-so-subtle) background from the medium that they didn’t likely experience early in life, well, they’ve rediscovered it as a trendy adolescent or YA hobby.

So seems like pouring heavy plastic discs housed in paper boxes to be shipped around the world… during an era when music is made digitally and comes nearly free of physical space requirements… is around for a while longer 😜

My subconscious is fine with vinyl background sound on older recordings. Tape hiss no prob so long as it’s within reason. But new digitally mastered stuff? My personal take on any sense of reason is not within the bounds of accepting that noise - it’s not a natural part of the process anymore and the limitations of the medium (vinyl) are an unnecessary constraint to digital music’s attributes. Best vinyl setups on earth won’t change that, but if ya like it and the results, all good! I’ve kept my vinyl setup modest because, in all honesty, the percent increase on return I’ve heard from more “serious” front-end setups is negligible. Spin a well-produced ol’ 45rpm on a reasonable setup and it’ll likely outperform the same via 33.3 (sorry, that looked too digital…) 33 1/3rpm on a better front end. But I digress from noise.

I agree with one of the posts above that, in my anecdotal experience, new vinyl can be noisier than old stuff. QC just ain’t what it used to be, maybe, especially with all the color-collectible stuff being cranked out. 🎼 “Snap-Crackle-Pop, Rice Krispies Frisbees!”

One thing seems surer than not, these days: the common sentiment for nifty kit, tangible conventional sleeves and so forth seems like it’ll keep vinyl in production longer than “silent” CD’s, which at least on a sociological level is pretty interesting. 
End morning coffee diatribes.

One thing seems surer than not, these days: the common sentiment for nifty kit, tangible conventional sleeves and so forth seems like it’ll keep vinyl in production longer than “silent” CD’s, which at least on a sociological level is pretty interesting.
End morning coffee diatribes.

@benanders, You may not have noticed, but digital streaming is now making up about 85% of record company revenues. That may have something to do with the decline of cd sales.

tomcy6

2,526 posts

03-13-2024 at 12:00pm 

@benanders, You may not have noticed, but digital streaming is now making up about 85% of record company revenues. That may have something to do with the decline of cd sales.

Hi @tomcy6 not sure if your comment means to imply something about what I mentioned - I think it’d be hard for someone with even the most fleeting concept of music playback to not be aware of CD’s (or any other physical medium for music playback) vs. digital sales / streaming, IOW: “Yeah, duh.” 😉

My comment was about the survival mode both aforementioned physical media (vinyl and CD’s) have been in, and how between the two, medium-specific features of vinyl predispose it to persist longer than CD’s, despite the latter’s superiority in the noise department.

It's all high res streaming for me. play any song anytime with a Wide and deep sound stage.. I tried going back, clicks pops and cleaning dust off of a stylus isn't for me