Are your record surfaces as silent as CDs?

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

If you can’t tolerate surface noise, then analog will be a frustrating experience.  It is interesting how effective cleaning and different types of gear will minimize it

Some of my LP’s play all the way through without any perceptive noise.  
Of course my ears aren’t want they used to be.

I have found some older first-pressing vinyl albums that are dead quiet in  my collection. Especially after a good cleaning. Taking care of them for decades helps and the fact that I was doing a lot of digital listening compared to vinyl the last 15yrs meant nominal wear and tear too. However, I have new vinyl pressings, freshly bought and cleaned, that don't sound nearly as quiet as some older pressings which means I might need to put the newer vinyl through the record cleaner once more to remove the factory crud. 

Surprisingly, I have a few records that look visually ok and expect them to play noisy and with a good cleaning they are quieter than I would have expected.