Music forums often get quite heated about which is “better”, vinyl or CD? Put to one side the “which is better, chocolate or vanilla?” argument, which is about personal preference, not “betterness”. Some people claim CD sounds ”clinical” or vinyl sounds “warm”. And to them, with their system, I am sure it does. But nothing should sound “warm” or “cold”. The temperature analogy is a hifi artifact, usually a symptom of the music system being unable to properly render bass and treble. The only thing it should sound like is what was being played during recording, or at least what the engineer recorded.
There are two important variables - the quality of the original recording and mastering, – “the source” - and the ability of the Hi Fi to faithfully retrieve and replay what is captured in the source. With vinyl, you influence the first by finding the best quality pressing. With CD, you more or less have got what you got. The second you have much more control over, and expense. However on a cautionary note – good hi fi wont make a bad recording sound better. Counter-intuitively, improved equipment can sometimes sound worse, hear clearly how bad a bad recording is. On the other hand it will often breathe new life into your rmusic collection, which is a heck of a payback.
The Source
There is a loss of musical information in the transfer from the original musical performance onto various digital storage media – CD or download-quality MP3. Simple illustration, as they say, not to scale:
Does it matter? To some people, not at all. Its all just music to them.
Surely CD sampling 44,100 times a second is enough? Well, it’s a big number, certainly, but how would you know it’s the right number? It is often the very smallest bits that make the sound “life-like” – the attack and decay of a note, not the note itself. The number 44,100 was chosen in order to fit the length of music onto the CD medium, not because it provides the best resolution of the sound image.
To other listeners, it makes all the difference in the world, particularly when the instruments in the music are acoustic, as in most jazz. It’s only moving air, but capturing moving air and reproducing it faithfully requires good hi-fi. Otherwise, you end up with the lady on the right anyway. And it’s still the Mona Lisa, isn’t it? No. What you have lost is the very smallest detail – the brushstrokes - that are the difference between the experience of a real painting and a print.
Once you get to the point of good source faithfully reproduced, you can move up to the next level – the music, rhythm, timing, emotion, more easy to follow, freshness. It’s a good experience.
However you will have to struggle with a number of issues, such as storage volume. Research has never been done on this, but I would bet money it would prove that marital difficulties ensue when a record collection exceeds 3,000.
Then there are clicks pops and scratches, because original owners of your records in the Fifties will have played them on a vinyl-destroying machine, known as a record player: Eight to ten grams tracking weight arm, the autochanger, and a stylus that was never changed.
Realistically, you need to equip yourself for the best of both worlds…
Dear LJC,
There are many reasons for me to be in love with old vinyl. The analog vs. digital issue is not one of them. In your illustration above, the difference between Gioconda I and Gioconda II is “not to scale”, as you readily admit. In fact, it is wildly out of proportion.
If someone ripped one of your favourite Blue Note records in WAV format (perhaps even in MP3 format), I am jolly sure you would never be able to tell the difference. Depending on the playback system, it would probably be difficult to eliminate differences caused by different input levels and EQ settings, but these things have nothing to do with the analog vs. digital issue. Moreover, if you didn’t know which is which before the blindfold test, any such differences wouldn’t provide any cue to you.
There are good and bad CD editions, and there are good and bad vinyl records. But the analog vs. digital issue AS SUCH doesn’t bother me at all.
I have all my thousand -odd CDs ripped into FLAC streamed through the same amplification system as vinyl, the only difference is the source. In more than a few cases I have the “same ” recording in both formats. I can tell CD apart, instantly, with my eyes shut. The difference is very significant.
Among my thousand CDs there are no more than handful where the CD does a better job presenting the music than original vinyl on my system. It happens but not very often. That said, most of the few modern vinyl records I have,where I happen to have them both, the vinyl edition is to my ear significantly inferior to the CD.
I have a few theories about why, which may or may not be right, but theory is just that, a theory. The experience is quite clear, even if the reasons why are not.
Dear LJC, what do you mean by saying you “have the same recording in both formats”? If I compared a Columbia Six-Eye “Kind Of Blue” to the Legacy CD, of course I could tell the difference straight away. I am not talking about LP versus CD editions. What I mean is: Did you ever convert your own (!) vinyl to digital and compare the two versions under similar conditions? I strongly doubt that the digital transfer would be as instantly recognizable as Gioconda II is. No way.
I misunderstood, you are referring to the difference between vinyl ripped down to the same file format as CD and MP3. for comparison. Sounds an interesting test though I don’t have the means of doing it, and quite possibly I wouldn’t be able to tell. People tell me there is a difference in quality between rips at 160kbps and 320kbps, likewise between these high definition SACDs and ordinary CDs, or between high definition downloads and ordinary MP3. I have no personal experience but I assume someone thinks these differences in sampling rate are significant.
The original point was that vinyl is infinitely resolvable – there is always more information in there in the groove if you can get it out- and that a digitally sampled medium has thrown out that information because the sample is “good enough” for most listening purposes. The Madonna is only a metaphor for this process.
See what I mean? I think it would be interesting to even play a number of your 160kbps rips through your high-end amp and ask people whether they can hear the difference. (Would be fun to play LP rips all the time and no vinyl… no, I would never dare to do that to my friends.) My point is: Some people seem to think of “digital” as if it had a particular kind of flavour. It hasn’t as long as you get enough resolution.
I do, however, appreciate your point that vinyl is infinitely resolvable. I rather like the idea, although I think it is a philosophical question rather than a practical one.
Oh, I would like to add: I am still talking about the differences between
a) the vinyl, and
b) the digital rip of that same vinyl.
I claim: You can’t tell the difference.