CD's sounds cold and clinical, not realistic. A good, quality vinyl can make it feel like the performer is in the room with you.

I think there's also a bit of a nostalgia factor, even for those of us not actually old enough to be nostalgic for records.

Not to mention, vinyl, when taken proper care of, can last decades. I own 40 year old LP's that are in great shape, but anything in my CD collection over two years old is worn out.

I got a record player for my birthday last year (AT-PL120 for you fellow audiophiles ) and I started buying vinyl and never looked back. I grew up with it, but I really feel like a lot of genres of music SOUND BETTER on vinyl. I firmly believe that soul, jazz, some country, and especially classical music actually sound better on vinyl because of the lack of compression ratios and the presence of greater dynamics.

I especially noticed this when listening to classical music. The lows were so quiet, and the louder passages sounded like the orchestra was in the room with you, it was incredible.

Plus, CDs are merely digital approximations of what is contained on a vinyl record. I'd much rather look at the Mona Lisa itself than someone's copy of the same painting, especially if I have the option.

peter430044 said:

LOL CD's are not more "realistic". Vinyl is warmer, and you can FEEL the music on vinyl. You value vinyl because you can easily scratch it, which you don't wanna do, you store it carefully, not by throwing it in the back of your car on the way to work. The crackle, the pop. CDs have quite a few infractions and limitations as a media form.

I just went to the weka sto and was MAD they didnt have LadyGaGa on wax...it was SOLD OUT..they were like "we have the cd upstairs.." I said, "ok..." I will wait it out until they do have it.

I'm a vinyl addict too, for the same reasons others have mentioned. I've kept all my vinyl from the old days, and now I've been adding to my vinyl collection monthly.

It's funny... I spent all that time and $$ replacing albums I had on vinyl with CDs, and now I'm going back and getting many of my favorite CDs on vinyl. The sound really is superior, and the visual aspect of it, as well as something else... it just feels more real and substantial. I adore vinyl.

the sound is better.more full

Digital sound might be more technically accurate than analog sound, if you look at the waveforms and frequencies.

But analog is closer to the way our brains are used to hearing recorded music.

Some of the frequencies DO get compressed in the vinyl mastering. So there is some change to the original tape source. But in the case of vinyl, the compressed sound feels more natural to the human ear. It's made the frequencies around the mid-range more glued-together, so it has punch to it. And the bass frequencies sound nice when compressed like that, it feels rounder.

I think it needs to be said too, that the people who used to run pressing plants and mastering labs had a keen ear for musicality and tone that just isn't there today. Those people knew things about the physical properties of soundwaves, and how to get a good sound from the source, onto the tape, and then pressed onto vinyl. There were relatively few people doing for it for a living, and the ones that did all had engineering degrees.

Seemingly that knowledge has been lost in the last 40 years, as younger generations of sound engineers spent all their time learning new machines and now, new software. So you have studios with a million dollars of the latest equipment, and you still end up with a shittier sound than you would have if someone like Wally Heider was recording you with a couple of mics into a three-track tape machine made in 1960. Heider spent a lot of time thinking about WHERE to put the mics and how to move things around until it sounded right. He didn't need 24 tracks to get a good balance.

I mostly listen to CDs and mp3s today, but not because it sounds better. It's because the convenience is worth the tradeoff. Anyone with a pair of ears can tell you a clean album on a good system is going to sound better, more real, than a CD on the same system.

DVD and Blu-Ray can be made to sound amazing but I'm not about to re-buy my whole collection at $25 a disc. But if I could get high-density downloads, that sounded as good or better than vinyl, maybe I'd be convinced to give up LPs. But we're not there yet. And anyway, I still like records, just because I like 'em.

bobzilla77 said:

Right on!

I bought the Glitter album on vinyl yesterday for $5 (cant beat that) and....a whole new experience....some of the soudns sound like they are travelling seperatley in the mix...especially when an effect goes from channel to channel...it sounds like it is right next to you on vinyl...it sounds kind of plain and ordinaty..basic on disc. The drums on and "Want You" sound live as if i was sitting with Jimmy and Terry in the making process.

However there is some recordings like the Temptations greatest Hits from 1969 that just sounds scrunched and off like a mp3 converted at 90-120khz. 12" are a whole other story....WHOLE different story as said previously
[Edited 6/16/09 6:19am]

In many cases, it's a placebo effect.

Most CDs released in the 1980s and 1990s do sound like shit, but in many cases this was due to inferior mastering technology at that time.

tricky2 said: