The remix.

 

Basically, it depends on what you listen to, and what the quality of the recording and media is. If you listen to popular music, then CD's are adequate. If you listen to classical, I would say that vinyl is probably the way to go.

The reason behind this is that CD's reproduce the music well, but I find it to be kind of cold. LP's tend to convey the emotion of the music better, but you need a fairly high end system to hear the differences.

 

Mindcore hit the nail on the head. I have the same CD, it was the first CD I ever bought and I remember the digital cannons going off the first time - I thought I was going to blow the windows out of my house.

And yes it is a digital recording, all Telarc CD and LP's were digital recordings (I believe). I have "The Four Seasons" on both vinyl and CD. Both by Telarc, the CD is amazing, but for emotion, you can't beat the vinyl disc.

However, if you only listened to the CD, and never listened to the vinyl, you would think that the recording was amazing and could not be improved upon.

I would say it is like comparing women. One can be low-maintenance, beautiful, do everything right, but you can feel that she is kind of aloof, versus, the equally beautiful, but decidedly higher-maintenance, maybe a little less competent, but is definitely more emotionally available. One can be perfectly good (or even great), but the other one will blow your socks off

 

This is the crux of the discussion.

Preference is subjective. There is zero doubt on that front. Who likes what and why is a great discussion. Who likes red cars vs. who likes black cars. Same deal.

The difference in the LP, CD arena is that vinyal is a more equipment oriented reprodution than CD playback. The thing that most listeners cue into about vinyal playback is the warmth or range etc. These are just noob ways of expressing the higher noise floor and typical lack of dynamic range exhibted in most LP playback. It's the same effect with tube amplifiers, it's all like a cup of coffee being poured into your ears. Well, without the screaming and subsequent lawsuit.

So people take this difference in sound quality and tend to site it as the source of their preference. Well this is coloration of the signal. If you're an auditory hardass, it drives you up the wall and you endup with a single turntable that is 1,000 pounds and has connecting rods run a half mile into the ground.

This is why things get expensive. People say, I want dynamic range... No, wait... I want clarity... Well sucka, those things work against each other and if you want the best of both worlds your going to spend some cash plain and simple. This is why the vinyal discussion is so equipment oriented. People want their vinyal to sound CD clean and still keep that warmth that draws them to it in the first place.

Pleasing CD reproduction is much easier and less expensive than LP. Thats the moral of the story. The choice of which you like more, is yours and everyone's choice. Still, it sure is fun to debate why you make that choice.

 

but, see, that statement about money spent is patently wrong. In no way is a $100 record player going to make you think you are listening to a CD. It is clearly a record. The only reason to pay large sums of money for a record player is to more accurately play back the record and minimize wow, flutter, and vibration; *not* to make it sound "more like a record."

Hell, the crappier your player, the more "like a record" it is going to sound. You can't buy a cheap enough CD player to make your CD's sound like records.

 

Does anyone make "audiophile CD's". I have one that I special ordered about 6 or 7 years ago. It sounds amazing - has the sweet sound of vinyl, but the ease of CD. It was made from and analog recording. However, when I walk into a music store these days, I don't find anything that would be branded as an enhanced quality or audiophile quality CD.

With vinyl, there were companies that only produced high-end records (Mobile Fidelity, Telarc) but I don't see the same phenomenon with CD's.

 

I don't understand what you are saying here.

The only advantage, other than ease-of-use that a CD offers is wider dynamic range and greater S/N ratio.

For the most part, CD recordings start out as analog recordings, are mixed, then put through ADCs and transferrred to a CD.

Unless the CD is played back through sophisticated (notice I did not say expensive) DACs, the played back recording will suffer. With poorly engineered equipment, CDs will sound "harsh".

What vinyl "more like a record" sound are you refering to?

 

Try this for a start:

http://www.chesky.com/

 

the "like a record" sound I mean is snaps, pops, and rumble, like a machine is going underneath the music. Part of it is static, dust, and damage to the record, part is vibration from the motor. When's the last time you heard a CD snap and pop like an old dusty record tossed on a crappy player? CD's don't have that scratchy sound when you put the needle on, or that thump-thump-thump when you forget to take it off. CD changers don't have that mechanical click-click-whoomp when they change CD's. You can't hear a faint sound of the music when you play a CD with a cactus needle and paper cup.

There is a whole lot to records that is just missing from CD's. For good or bad.

 

I agree that records have those negative attributes . Those are the biggest problem with having a vinyl collection. I have a favorite recording that is so bad I can't stand to listen to it unfortunately it is no longer available.

There is software to take care of most of those issues, but I don't know if it is available to the public.

Soon we will have music recorded on flash media. No moving parts, no laser. I hope they plan ahead and get the sampling rate up to where the digital is indistinguishable from analog. It will mean one needs to buy a new piece of equipment (again).