vinyl or cd's what is better?

[Afn]

When I listen to music that was mp3'ed from vinyl I noticed that the music has more base and bass. A richer sound. I have noticed this on several recordings.

What do you think is better CD or Vinyl?

[SanDiegoKid]

Vinyl.

For sure.

[Miniver]

Vinyl...........

[.:sp00ky:.]

alot of bands still release their stuff on vinyl its just abit hard to find these days although i have a great shop near me that orders stuff if you ask em nicely mmmm i think they sound about the same but the problem is vinyls get scratched very easly and sound quality always goes down after time.

[mfgbypooter]

Vinyl for anything that was originally recorded on analog equipment; for digital recordings it doesn't matter.

[Psilaxs]

8 track...

[The Hunter]

8 track...

LOL, I agree, as they are a real timesaver, as I always like to listen to 2 songs at once.
:fire :fire :fire :fire

[SanDiegoKid]

I actually prefer wax tubes.

I just installed a Wax Tube-R drive.

[Arch Stanton]

Here's a little helpful info I found on web regarding Vinyl, CD, and DVD sound quality.

The answer lies in the difference between analog and digital recordings. A vinyl record is an analog recording, and CDs and DVDs are digital recordings. Take a look at the graph below. Original sound is analog by definition. A digital recording takes snapshots of the analog signal at a certain rate (for CDs it is 44,100 times per second) and measures each snapshot with a certain accuracy (for CDs it is 16-bit, which means the value must be one of 65,536 possible values).

This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps. Some sounds that have very quick transitions, such as a drum beat or a trumpet's tone, will be distorted because they change too quickly for the sample rate.

In your home stereo the CD or DVD player takes this digital recording and converts it to an analog signal, which is fed to your amplifier. The amplifier then raises the voltage of the signal to a level powerful enough to drive your speaker.
A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost. The output of a record player is analog. It can be fed directly to your amplifier with no conversion.

This means that the waveforms from a vinyl recording can be much more accurate, and that can be heard in the richness of the sound. But there is a downside, any specks of dust or damage to the disc can be heard as noise or static. During quiet spots in songs this noise may be heard over the music. Digital recordings don't degrade over time, and if the digital recording contains silence, then there will be no noise.

From the graph below you can see that CD quality audio does not do a very good job of replicating the original signal. The main ways to improve the quality of a digital recording are to increase the sampling rate and to increase the accuracy of the sampling.

The recording industry has a new standard for DVD audio discs that will greatly improve the sound quality. The table below lists the sampling rate and the accuracy for CD recordings, and the maximum sampling rate and accuracy for DVD recordings. DVDs can hold 74 minutes of music at their highest quality level. CDs can also hold 74 minutes of music. By lowering either the sampling rate or the accuracy, DVDs can hold more music. For instance a DVD can hold almost 7 hours of CD quality audio.
DVD audio discs and players are rare right now, but they will become more common, and the difference in sound quality should be noticeable. To take advantage of higher quality DVD audio discs, however, you will need a DVD player with a 192kHz/24-bit digital to analog converter. Most DVD players only have a 96kHz/24-bit digital to analog converter. So if you are planning to take full advantage of DVD audio be sure to look for a 192kHz/24-bit DAC.

Sampling Rate (CD Audio) 44.1 kHz (DVD Audio ) 192 kHz
Samples per second (CD Audio) 44,100 (DVD Audio ) 192,000
Sampling Accuracy (CD Audio) 16-bit (DVD Audio )_24-bit
Number of Possible Output Levels (CD Audio) 65,536 (DVD Audio) 16,777,216

[projectmayhem325]

If you can get your hands on one of these http://www.elpj.com/ then there is ino question, vinyl wins every day of the week. However, you're going to feel shortchanged on your $5000 record player if you don't have a stereo to back it up. So we're talking another $20,000 to feel the music the way it "was meant to be heard." Unfortunately, they don't play any of the Quadrophonic discs put out in the 70's, though what does anymore?

For my money, SACD is the best thing option. There are about 3000 discs out for it these days and the two channel recordings are stunning. Multichannel is even more impressive. When I heard Nine Inch Nail's "The Downward Spiral;" I went nuts. It all has to do with the 1 bit DAC and the 2.8 GHz sampling frequency. If you're looking for a new system, Sony's DVD Dream Systems are an affordable option for the average consumer. http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=DAVFR9&DCMP=CJ_DF&HQS=HA_DAVFR9

[infringer]

I'd hate to be the oppising force but in all reality I think that CD's sound better... Might just be the old record players that I listened to or what have yah...

But lets face it if they did a record now adays it be better sound quality then the records of old... With all the extra sound equipment that they have it makes a big differnce as to the sound equipment of old that they have in the studios though it has its downfalls of making shitty singers sound good then you go to see em live and they suck but oh well most of the live show is about the entertainment factor and the show that the band puts on.

-infringer-

[Afn]

My two cents, I think analog has it's place. The compact disc is better for some music, and lousy for some. Digital has improved master/source recordings. The higher definition formats, 24 and 36 bit will improve the quality, but digital, digital compression and digital formats are a great advance in the history of recorded experience and recorded music.


With digital you loose the warm sound of the music. With wavelet compression you might be able to sample a analog recording to get more of the original, but the two technologies are different and ease of use is "better" versus quality.

Compressed music is better than the cd, the cd is better than records, but the exact opposite can be said for all three formats, and all of the zillions of other dead media formats that are a part of early media history and relegated to the dead media web page.

link: http://www.capnasty.org/taf/issue4/dmlist.htm

[Mels_Smileys45]

I had a zillion albums ( I sold them all like a idiot!) and I can tell you I thought Cd's were god sent when they came out. No more hissing and popping because I couldnt buy a 500 dollar record player, plus I tended to be rough on them as a youth. My shit was from Sears and it sounded like it came from Sears. When Cds were taking over I bought A really nice one, cheap, that I used for a few years. The warm sound of Vinyl is still nice only for old times sake. Maybe you just had to live through that shit to know how great Cds are and milk crates of albums take up a hella lot of space. It was fun trying to be Grand master Flash but my records didn't like it. 8 tracks sucked king kong balls. Having a song change track right in the middle was shitty. They didn't sound too bad from what I remember but I never had but a handfull of those and that was shit like the Popeye soundtrack.

[lordfoul]

Vinyl for anything that was originally recorded on analog equipment; for digital recordings it doesn't matter.

Exactly it has to do with the intended feel of the music when it was recorded.

[mfgbypooter]

I remember my first record player as a kid. It had a needle on it like a nail and the sound came out of the side of the head on the armature. It played 78's and 45's.

Here is the best one to have.

[the great one]

To me, personally cd's sound better.

[notbob]

Exactly it has to do with the intended feel of the music when it was recorded.

nah

feelings have nothing to do with it

it's all about limitations of the source

a cd can be a million times better than an lp, but if you have analog masters to start with, you are just squandering the possibilities of the medium

analog is like mp3, digital is uncompressed

a digital recording can catch a much wider swath of the spectrum than a crappy chunk of vinyl or rust stuck on cellophane ever could

[lordfoul]

But the artists and sound engineers of the day knew the limitations of the vinyl medium and took steps to make the recordings sound there best on vinyl (at least later on in the development of vinyl recordings) the acetate versions seem to just be happy it recorded

[ferrarimodena360]

so who is deaf here?

[mfgbypooter]

What?

.

[uselesscrap]

Analog still sounds better than digital as a rule. Most jazz or classical brats would concur to that statement. Beta sound recording still comes in #1 imho.

[mfgbypooter]

Huh?


.

[MikeHunt]

usually vinyl...BUT some vinyl was/is poorly recorded as are some CD's ..so it depends on a lot of factors. It's not just a case of one or the other.

[scottbaio]

I've got a reel to reel - it's da bomb...

[infringer]

lol @ mfgbypooter

Gotta love them flintstones record players lmao!

-infringer-