[Closed] Digital or Vinyl?

Reading about Cougars 'Classic Album Sundays' I think the real point of those is that you listen to a whole album from start to finish. In the time of tape and vinyl I knew what track was coming next on all of my albums but I mostly have playlists and shuffle now.

I remember, as a teenager there was always a great feeling to be had from walking down the street carrying your brand new copy of (for example) The Rolling Stones, 'Sticky Fingers' for all to see. You don't get that with CD's.

And there was always the inevitably crap quality yet much prized, vinyl bootleg LP.

Ah the Digital v Analogue debate, isn't it great. Well I run a Michell Orbe with SME V and a Koetsu Black cart for those in the know so I think you can guess which I prefer. I also now have Naim CDX2 which is a stunning CD player but just doesn't satisfy me like the Orbe.
The convenience thing is there I guess but it's a small price to pay for a superior sound and with Digital and MP3 stuff you just skip tracks too quick instead of giving the albums a proper listening too. As for scratches on vinyl get a decent amp and the sound spikes are reduced to virtually nothing, they aren't made worse by better amps - that's just a load of crap.

And may I add, anyone who is taking the whole digital or vinyl thing even remotely seriously should get their arse off the sofa and go hear some live music to remind them how trivial the debate is.

The Faces 'Ooh La La' is the best vinyl album cover ever. You dont get that with frickin ipodtunes, do you?

I love the idea that you can't do a proper listening experience unless it's vinyl. Lol that's such crap.

I think the real point of those is that you listen to a whole album from start to finish.

Absolutely. Many times I'll hear a song finish on the radio / wherever and my brain starts into the next track, because it [i]should be there.[/i]

These days, listing to the radio I'm more plagued with mentally doing the associated Rock Band fingering.

And may I add, anyone who is taking the whole digital or vinyl thing even remotely seriously should get their arse off the sofa and go hear some live music to remind them how trivial the debate is.

I was at the MEN last night watching Rammstein.

(Ironically, I thought the audio mix could've been better, it took them most of the set to sort it out)

Vinyl. It sounds better and I like the process and interaction.

I don't smoke anymore, but as a very wise man once said, 'You can't skin up up on a download'.

True, you can't skin up but your don't have to get up 20 minutes after you've smoked it to flip the disc. You can just enjoy your stupor and not move.

Currently saving to replace my Ariston Q deck with a rega planar 3(desperately trawling ebay for a bargain!)

And may I add, anyone who is taking the whole digital or vinyl thing even remotely seriously should get their arse off the sofa and go hear some live music to remind them how trivial the debate is

I've never got this argument for amplified music. I like lots of music that sounds pretty awful live, whether that's the quality of the performance, the kit, the mixing or just the acoustics of the room (or all of those of course). Do I want to recreate that out of tune singing and muffled lyrics in my own front room? No thanks 😆

Rubber_Buccaneer - Member

In the time of tape and vinyl I knew what track was coming next on all of my albums but I mostly have playlists and shuffle now.

But you know what this is- you've been offered a new feature and you're choosing to use it. You can still play an album front-to-back if you choose... I do.

Always find it a bit odd when people resent a choice they're making themselves, especially an ongoing choice.

I love the idea that you can't do a proper listening experience unless it's vinyl. Lol that's such crap.

Not at all. Depends how good your ears are, how good your stereo is, how well it was originally mastered, but most of all, whether or not you're sat listening to the music, rather than pottering about doing something else with music on in the background. Lol.

I prefer vinyl. i like the covers, the liner notes, the fact that you tend to sit down and enjoy the whole album rather than shuffling through tracks or only listening to snippets before moving on to something else. Personally I have a Technics 1200 (bought during my hip hop phase)

Maybe I just tend to romanticize it a bit and while I love my ipod, i really miss tapes most of all. Making a mixtape for your obsession of the month was a pleasure and a challenge at the same time.

There are rules

Vinyl for me - just turned 53 so not a surprise really.

I have an mp3 player but it sounds so flat and only half the music being there. A lot of emotion in vocals is missed in mp3 format.

MP3 and Spotify is convenient for listening to stuff on camping trips/fixing bike or to try before I buy but if I have the little woman round and a nice bottle of plonk then vinyl (or cd) is preferred.

Even Mrs B who is deaf enough to have a hearing aid can tell the difference in quality in an instant.

(Linn LP12 / Avondale Arcam Alpha 5 CD / Naim 72/140 and Credo for those who give a toss)

I sat and listened to a selection of vinyls this afternoon with a couple of lovely beers (Renaissance Stonecutter). I love my vinyl. I back to backed with Flac and very different, noticeable.

Most of my music is digital however I still buy Vinyl if I can get it and the album is good enough. I like both and I expect I couldn't tell the difference in quality between a good D/L and a record. I do like these sorts of things though.[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Not really anything to do with music though, are they?

I mean this:
[i]Ah the Digital v Analogue debate, isn't it great. Well I run a Michell Orbe with SME V and a Koetsu Black cart for those in the know so I think you can guess which I prefer. I also now have Naim CDX2 which is a stunning CD player but just doesn't satisfy me like the Orbe.
The convenience thing is there I guess but it's a small price to pay for a superior sound and with Digital and MP3 stuff you just skip tracks too quick instead of giving the albums a proper listening too. As for scratches on vinyl get a decent amp and the sound spikes are reduced to virtually nothing, they aren't made worse by better amps - that's just a load of crap.[/i]

Has nothing to do with music. Just an obsession with hi-fi equipment. It's hardly even related.

I've been listening to a lot of vinyl lately, since my CD went on the blink.

I do think it sounds better and I certainly enjoy the "ritual" more, but I find it awkward to play my records in the car or on the bus so I'm also open to the benefits of digital music.

Has nothing to do with music. Just an obsession with hi-fi equipment.

I do wonder if that's part of it, or at least, makes for unfair comparisons. "I've spent the GDP of a small African country on a record player and you know what, when I compare it to a twenty quid mp3 player from ASDA it's [i]just not the same,[/i] mp3 is far inferior."

I reckon if I made a lossless mp3 copy of a record and played it to someone, the vast vast majority of vinyl advocates wouldn't notice the difference. Especially as most of them are old gimmers and their hearing's going. (-:

I'm sitting on my sofa it's raining outside and I'm listening to some old Nina Simone on Vinyl. It's really only about the music for me but this does seem to sound nicer than the CD..

"The Faces 'Ooh La La' is the best vinyl album cover ever. You dont get that with frickin ipodtunes, do you?"

I've got that one 8) Should have seen my other halfs face when I told her how much it cost. She tends to buy 99p records from charity shops though. I'll occasionally buy vinyl and occasionally have an evening where I just play vinyl. I use Spotify to check out stuff before I buy it. I still mostly buy CD's as they are generally cheaper than downloads. I'll only buy downloads if the music is only avaliable in that format or if I've been given some vouchers for iTunes.

I haven't listened to vinyl in years nor have I processed and printed film in years but there is no doubt that both involve a process that doesn't exist when you go digital and which is very enjoyable in it's own right.

edlong - Member
The "vinyl is better" argument is pretty simple really, if the music was mastered, mixed etc. analoguely, then the groove on the vinyl gives you an analogue of the sound the musicians made in the studio.

It's like the difference between having an original painting / drawing or a print. Yes, your print could be a very high quality reproduction, but it's not the same thing.

Or, think about a simple diagonal line drawn on a piece of paper, and the same simple line drawn in MS Paint on your PC - if you zoom in far enough on the digital version and see the pixels, it'll not look like a diagonal line, it'll look like a set of stairs. The hand drawn line will still look like a line when magnified. A slide guitar lick will be the same - it's a slide on vinyl, it's ultimately a coded set of downwards steps in digital.

However, for reasons of practicality and having lost all my vinyl a few years ago for reasons too convoluted and dull to go into, I'm now an exclusively digital consumer. Damn.

This seems like a good thread to ask....

I have aquired a MASSIVE collection of 90s hip hop and 80s pop on vinyl but have no way to play it.
Can anyone suggest a sub £350 hifi for me and where I can get one?
At present I only have an Ipod docking station.

klunky, you lucky boy. what you inherited?

What do kids skin up on these days? Try rolling a good joint on a iPod, no chance.

One of my mates is a DJ and wanted to clear out his old stuff that he doesnt play out.
He has given it to me for free. The hiphop stuff is so vast I cant even start to list it. The pop stuff is is only a couple of boxes of 7" but the hip hop has to be in the region of 500 to 700 records with a mix of albums and singles. Its got some more current stuff too but its mainly 80s and 90s.

Nothing to play it on though...

Klunky try Richer Sounds.
http://www.richersounds.com/product/turntables/project/essential/proj-essential-blk
http://www.richersounds.com/product/amplifiers-receivers/onkyo/a9155/onky-a9155-blk
And plenty of speakers avaliable for around £100. Worth asking to listen to different speakers so you get something you like. You'll also need to get some speaker cable and possibly some speaker stands.

"I love the idea that you can't do a proper listening experience unless it's vinyl. Lol that's such crap. "

Are you old enough to have used VHS videos?

If so, it might help to explain things to you.

This thread is about digital or vinyl. You are coming from a slightly different direction... which is MP3 or vinyl. MP3 is quite low quality digital.

Do you know the bitrate of the MP3s that you usually listen to?

Do you usually listen to music with very cheap headphones that came with your MP3 player, or perhaps PC speakers?

These factors might all go towards explaining why you have little understanding of audio quality.

If I had a substantial enough vinyl collection and a deck like the one stilltortoise linked to...

[img] [/img]

...then it'd be vinyl all day and night long.

I have hundreds of CD's and therefore I have a CD player, which to my ears outperforms any comparable record spinner at the price, and still always buy CD's and always will as long as they are being manufactured and sold. Just can't beat that tactile sensory perception IMO.

Digital downloads, to me at least, it feels like I don't actually own the music, if you know what I mean.

is that one ofthose stupid things where you have to take it apart to change the speed?
impractical, anal, and again, nothing to do with good music.

digital for convenience

vinyl for experience

too much vinyl to purchase it all on digital (about 9 feet of shelf space), plus some of my stuff is only available on vinyl even now.

I'm 43.

[b]edited to add:[/b]

[url= http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7036/6952477169_128c7a6842.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7036/6952477169_128c7a6842.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickw3216/6952477169/ ]1987, what the ****'s going on![/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/nickw3216/ ]nick3216[/url], on Flickr

a deck like the one still tortoise linked to...

you would probably want a better arm though, or a modified version of the rega, like one of these:

[img] [/img]

http://www.audiomods.co.uk/completearms.html

Totally disagree that decent reproduction has nothing to do with good music. Clearly the two aren't mutually exclusive. For me the medium is less important than having a decent hi-fi, and having a decent hi-fi is less important than having a decent music collection. It's still nice though, and does add to my enjoyment of the music.

As I said convenience for me everytime, but I thought this was interesting.

Been reading this thread with interest, as someone who knows a fair bit about the subject I can categorically say this thread is worse than a rigid Vs FS thread, or a what tyres for thread in terms of subjectivity. You are all (with possible exception of one or two people) ignoring the science behind the whole situation.

Vinyl is a compressionless format, hence the reason it's still loved by audiophiles. In pure sound quality terms, there is nothing commercially available that can touch vinyl with a pristine copy of a well produced track, on a mega expensive turntable playing through top end Hifi amp and speakers (or Studio reference monitors). The sound will have depth and clarity that can easily get lost with many digital formats.

However... Vinyl is a PITA (I know, I've got probably 2000 records or more taking up tonnes of space in my Dad's garage), it is fragile, it gets damaged easily, it's bulky, it weighs a lot, and whilst it does usually come with some very pretty album sleeve that makes the ownership experience a lot nicer, it has too many detractors for most consumers these days.

Now the issue with "digital" music is a little less clear cut. To most people these days, "digital" means 128kbps MP3 files, listened to on an mp3 player, or a cheap home stereo setup. Forgetting the convenience factor for a second, one of the plus points of MP3's for most people is the fact that as it is a digital file, it isn't fallible to any analogue noise distortion (such as tape hiss or clicks and pops on a worn vinyl). Now combine that with the equipment most people use to listen to their chosen media being of such low quality you wouldn't be able to discern between any musical sources when played through the same speakers, and you have the situation for most people where MP3's inherent negative points (significant drop in quality Vs an original recording, heavy amounts of compression etc.) aren't an issue. Over a £20 set of computer speakers, I'd defy almost anyone to tell the difference between a vinyl record, a CD or an MP3 being played through them, I'd certainly struggle!

Obviously, once you move onto better equipment, the differences become apparent straight away... The best way to describe an MP3 is an "approximation" of the original recording, as even at 320kbps the MP3 loses a lot of information in the pursuit of file size reduction. You are at best listening to something that sounds very much like the original, but not quite as good quality, a bit like when you photocopy something. It is to all intents and purposes, good enough for most people most of the time, but it's not an original.

Moving away from digital meaning MP3's for a moment, as not forgetting that CD's are indeed digital, as are many other audio formats. I'm still a great lover of the CD myself, as despite it not being as convenient as MP3's, it does offer many benefits in terms of audio quality, the fact it's still something you can own physically, and the fact that these days they're pretty cheap to buy. I firmly believe that despite the format being almost 30 years old now, if it was invented today, many people would be going crazy about it as it offers such (relatively) great performance, without being as large and impractical as vinyl. As a DJ, I can't bring myself to move over to DJing on my laptop at all cos I still love CD's, and in particular here for me as someone with a very visual memory, the album art makes a big difference still when you're sifting through your music collection in a DJ booth trying to find a particular track.

CD's aren't without their faults obviously, and they're not totally compressionless so their sound will never be quite as rich and warm as a well recorded vinyl is, but it's a lot better than MP3's are.

Now... The biggest issue we face today when it comes to music formats making an impact on the way we listen to things is something called the "loudness war".

The people who produce popular music these days have succumbed to the loudness war, as when you are listening to music on cheap equipment, "louder" usually gets mistaken for "better". So if you're Simon Cowell, and you want your latest piece of manufactured tripe to sound better on the radio (broadcast at a max of 96kbps usually!) than the competition, you get your studio engineers to make the final mix as loud as possible, with as little dynamics as possible. This makes for terrible quality recordings for anyone wanting to listen to a good quality recording (vinyl or CD) on a decent Hifi system. Basically, the likes of Cowell and co are making music to sound good on MP3 players, and that is it!

OK, you often (if you still buy a CD) get the full length version of any tracks, which will usually be much less heavily compressed and more dynamic, but most people only listen to music that has no dynamics to speak of, and is just very loud! It is IMO an unspeakable crime, and is responsible for the way people buy music these days. I was lucky enough the other week to meet the Editors of Sound On Sound Magazine, and had a Q&A session with them. When I asked about the whole loudness war thing, predictably their view on it was not favourable...

Anyway... In short... If you've got the equipment, and the space to listen to it, and the well produced and recorded music on a pristine condition vinyl record, vinyl will always return the best results sonically. If you've not got that, CD comes a close second place in terms of delivering the quality, but of course for most people MP3's win out because of the significant convenience they bring, and the fact on most people's speakers/stereos/MP3 players you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between sources anyway.

FWIW, much as I hate what MP3's have done to the music we buy, mostly the music I listen to is on MP3 these days as it's just so much more convenient! Good music is good music, whatever the format it is played on, but good music can sound great if it's on the right format, in the right environment with the right equipment... 😳

(This was the short "non techy" version of my answer by the way!) 😉

seosamh77

That's interesting you post that video, a couple of months ago I had to write an essay on the differences in quality between various different digital formats, and their frequency responses, and used a similar spectrum analyser to do so.

The human ear can't hear anything above 20KHz, and due to [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem ]Nyquists Theorem[/url] we need to sample at twice the rate of the highest frequency we want to hear or greater, which dictated the 44.1KHz frequency that CD's are recorded at.

For an extreme example where getting away with a massive reduction in sample rate still works ok, look at a common household telephone. They generally sample at a max of 4KHz, cos most human voices don't produce any frequencies above 2Khz...

CD for me or these days CD ripped losslessly to FLAC and played through a little media streamer which gets really close to my Cyrus CD player and beats it hands down on convenience.

I have a Linn LP12 and lots of vinyl which can get close to CD but there's always the clicking in quiet passages and the getting up to swap sides every 15-20 mins and I find digital bass deeper and cleaner than analogue.

I play compressed files on my phone but no way would I pay for compressed music

In pure sound quality terms, there is nothing commercially available that can touch vinyl with a pristine copy of a well produced track, on a mega expensive turntable playing through top end Hifi amp and speakers (or Studio reference monitors).

I've listened to the same music (Radiohead King of Limbs) on family car priced sources and couldn't say which was better. The design engineer I was with at the time felt the comparison was pointless, since the mastering process was different for both formats 😆

Mboy, thank you for putting up a far better post than the one I had intended to write. One thing about vinyl, though; while it's not in itself a compressed format, the stereo master tape used to cut the metal stampers is nearly always EQ'd, the dynamic range effectively reduced or compressed to avoid a number of problems like high frequencies causing 'ringing' and making the cutting head on the mastering lathe overheat, and also to try to avoid large transients running into the adjacent groove causing jumping.
12" singles never had this problem, so they always sound better. Quality of the stereo master makes a big difference; I have vinyl like [i]Love Over Gold[/i] or [i]Hearts And Bones[/i], where, if you look on the run-out groove there's the word 'Masterdisc', usually mastered by [i]the[/i] Master, Bob Ludwig. I have others, where it says Masterdisc on one side, but Stirling or something else on the other. That means that the metalwork had been damaged, and someone in the UK, like Stirling Sound have been sent a copy of the safety master to cut new metal. Already the sound is compromised, EQ'd to start with, then a copy tape of a copy tape used to produce the vinyl. This is largely why early CD's sounded poor, they were mastered from studio stereo masters EQ'd for vinyl, instead of a new stereo master EQ'd for the greater dynamic range of CD.
FWIW, I now tend to listen to music either on my iPod Classic through Shure SE215, UE TripleFi 10 Studio or M-Electronics M6P canalphones, and the music is ripped at 320Kb. At home I listen using the same files played from my Mac Mini through my Yamaha A/V amp via fibre optic TOSLink. I'm perfectly happy with what I'm hearing, and I do listen to albums from beginning to end, often letting the music segue from one album to the next by a particular artist. On the pod it's always on shuffle, my perfect personal radio station;12000 tracks randomly played is always causing surprises.
I would recommend to everyone here the book [i‘Perfecting Sound Forever. The Story Of Recorded Music[/i], by Greg Milner, a brilliant, and very informative book.
BTW, most of what I've written was picked from this book, and [i]Hi-Fi News and Record Reviews[/i], back when I used to sell HiFi, and Ken Kessler's editorials about recording quality have stuck with me ever since.

You are all (with possible exception of one or two people) ignoring the science behind the whole situation.

The question was "which do you prefer?" not "which is better?" - just saying.

The design engineer I was with the time felt the comparison was pointless, since the mastering process was different for both formats

Fair point, all things being equal though and the mastering processes being the same... CD is still capable of stunning results after all, it is still subject to the limitations of a 16bit/44.1KHz format though. You have to be more than a slight bit anal (as you'll know) to be able to appreciate anything beyond that level of quality, and maybe some certain music styles lend themselves better to higher quality recordings than others, but certainly I have in the past when producing my own music, listened to a 24bit/48KHz digital recording (the highest quality I can achieve on my software), and then listened to the same recording but recorded at 16bit/44.1KHz. The difference was absolutely miniscule, but as you might expect upping the bit depth from 16 to 24, volume changes were very slightly smoother throughout the recording. Nothing like the difference going from 8bit to 16bit of course, but you could just tell a very slight improvement.

And as vinyl isn't subject to bit depth, or frequency response, vinyl ultimately will win out, given the right recording, equipment and environment...

So there Mr "I make Hifi's for a living me" Penny... 😉 hehehe 😛

DezB - Linn LP12's you have to take the turntable off, fit another gear, and replace turntable before it goes at the correct speed for 33/45rpm. Some of the newer one's or as an upgrade you can get little PS boxes which cost a lot to do it for you.

Don't know what that deck pictured was, look similar to some Michell products I used to look through the window of a hi-fi shop in York back in the 80's.