Why vinyl?

03-19-08: Ihcho said:
"...I just wonder whether $30 for Norah's LP was well spent for the the marginal difference.
Anyway, for those of you who have both Norah's LP and CD, do they sound quite close in your systems or quite different?"

I've got both and much prefer the LP. It's not just overall sound quality, but the mix seems better. I don't know why they wouldn't come from the same two-channel master, but the CD is more compressed and the vocals not as rich, among other things.

Dave

"I've got both and much prefer the LP. It's not just overall sound quality, but the mix seems better. I don't know why they wouldn't come from the same two-channel master, but the CD is more compressed and the vocals not as rich, among other things."

I also prefer Norah's LP, but probably not as much as you do. My listening may not be as refined as yours, or my analog system is not as good as yours, but difference I hear is, well, subtle or marginal. Rather spending $30, I would go for $6 used CD. Maybe, when I become well off to spend for higher quality cartridge and amplifier (and speaker), I would not spend $30 for newly released albums; I would rather spend $30 for 10 used LPs.
There is an exception - I would not hesitate to spend $30 for albums like Muddy Waters' folk singer. Its sound quality is absolutely superb.

I am new to vinyl; I purchased a turntable in January. CD and vinyl presentations are very different. I enjoy them both. Since January, I have spent 90% of my time listening to my turntable mostly because it is new. However, today I listened to a B-tribe CD, which only comes in CD and it was extremely enjoyable. I don’t think there needs to be a B-tribe vinyl record, although; it might be interesting to hear B-tribe on vinyl.

I got interested in audiophile equipment a couple of years ago, so this is basically all new to me. It took me about two years to figure out how to get all the parts of my Audio system and environment to work synergistically together and to sound good. Since the rest of my system was set up fairly well when I got my turntable, all I’ve had to do since then, is learn what is necessary to make the turntable sound good in my system. That has taken about two months and I am still learning.

The turntable presentation in my system is a little bit thicker, a little bit more forward, has more of a feel to it, is slightly more 3-d and makes me feel like I am in the middle of it. The CD presentation is weaker in treble, the soundstage appears to be a little further back, and gives the impression of watching from a distance or the outside. They offer two different ways of enjoying the same presentation. Both my CD player and turntable are sweet sounding (especially after I figured out that you have to clean the needle every once in a while); both are very good at what they do and both are very enjoyable.

The way I see it, as long as I have a CD player, I am going to make sure it sounds good and is enjoyable. The same goes for my turntable. After two years of playing around with my system, there is one thing I’ve learned: I can always change something in my system to alter its sound and make it sound better, if I don’t like the way it sounds.

I have a lot of good SACDs and CDs; and I am building a nice collection of vinyl records. I like music so I will buy music in whatever format it comes. I probably have enough music so that if I were to decide to go through my whole collection, it might take me a few months. Basically, I probably don’t need any new CDs, SACDs or vinyl so if any of the formats disappeared, I could live with it as long as I could get parts for my CD player and turntable.

I really don’t’ think either CD or vinyl is going to disappear, though. CDs are convenient and can be very enjoyable in a properly set up audio system. Vinyl on the other hand is gaining a well-deserved reputation for a good quality rendition of music, which is attracting new comers like myself and a friend of mine who also bought a turntable a couple of months before I did.

norah jones is not my cup of tea, but beyond the sound quality issue, 10yrs from now what will the cd version be worth and which one will you still be listening to? which one will you pull out to try and introduce your children to the music you love?. records have been spinning for over 100yrs, cds dead before they are 30. vinyl, i believe, will out live us all.