The Quality of Vinyls (2 Viewers)

[Chris.]

Are vinyls way better quality then normals music cds? Is it worth the extra money to get the better quality or is there not much of a difference?

 

[runtlocks]

The key to this question is the difference between a digital and an
analog recording. Natural sound is by definition analog.
When a CD recording is created, this analog is sound is digitized. To
do this, they take a lot of snapshots of the analog sound. For a CD
recording they take 44,100 snapshots in a minute. These snapshots are
then converted to digital information with a certain precision. For a
CD recording this precision is 16 bits which means that every one of
the 44,100 snapshots needs to be converted into one of the 65,536
(2^16) possible values.

You can probably see where I am going: by definition a digital
recording doesn't include all the sound information. You could
visualize a CD recording as a really large chest with a lot of
drawers. Because the number of snapshots that are taken are not
infinite (the maximum is 44,100 per minute), the process of taking
snapshots results in the loss of information. Information is further
lost because each of these snapshots must be made to fit in one of the
65,536 drawers of the chest.

A record player which plays LP’s is strictly analog. A vinyl record
has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's
waveform. The record player than transforms this groove to an analogue
sound signal which can be fed into an amplifier.
In this process, no information can be lost. No snapshots need to be
taken and the sound doesn't need be converted to one of the possible
65,536 values. There basically is an infinite number of 'snapshots'
and 'possible values'. Therefore vinyl recording sound richer than CD
recordings (as long as you have a decent vinyl record player).

Be aware that recent DVD Audio players and Super Audio CD players come
closer to vinyl recordings as they have a much larger number of
possible snapshots in one minute (up to 192,000) and because these
snapshots can be converted to a larger number of possible values (up
to 16,777,216 possible values, or 24 bit).

I have a growing collection of vinyl, though most of the time I'd buy albums from the 70's backwards on vinyl, because that's how they were made and supposed to be listened to as. Vinyl's are harder to track down, obviously, but they aren't necessarily cheaper than CD's. Used vinyl stores are all over the city and can offer you an album for $5 or so. New vinyl is usually around $25-$35.

Vinyl's are harder to maintain, they are more fragile than CD's and purchasing a solid turntable can be tedious, given their price range. I'd say spend no less than $350 for a turntable, buying a bad turntable with a shitty cartridge and needle can in turn damage your vinyl.

Are you audiophilic? When downloading music from the internet, if you do, do you worry about bitrate, or collecting FLAC and lossless formats? If not, then I'd say you should be fine with your current CD collection.

 

[Chris.]

i looked around and buying a decent vinyl player is too much $ for me right now. I would buy vinyls if i had a good vinyl player....i heard stadium arcadium on vinyl and its completely better then the cd form.

 

[runtlocks]

Well I'd say if you enjoy the CD, and have trouble discerning between an MP3 encoded at 192kbps and the CD quality, just forget about vinyl, saves you the money

 

[runtlocks]

Picked up my Rega P1 today, set me back $600.

It's marvellous

 

[Chris.]

can you give me your old one for free

 

[Ptr-Projekt]

vinyls = much better
i love my technics turntable <3

 

[runtlocks]

can you give me your old one for free

It's an antique. That, and it's pretty much duffed. Something wrong with the power output.

vinyls = much better
i love my technics turntable <3

What kind of records do you collect, and where do you get them from?

 

[Ptr-Projekt]

i collect hardtrance and hardstyle records. get em from onestop deejay in city or www.cuepoint.de or www.recess.nl

 

[AsyLum]

Are you audiophilic?

I think in the end it comes down to this question, the difference is purely psycho-acoustical in that we can't really 'hear' the difference, but rather the lost information is 'perceived' in our heads (think of it as the brain filling in the dots) and depending on how well trained your ear is (or how stuffed your hearing is) it might/might not make a difference.

That being said, if you had a shiznit system, it'd be fairly hard, even with trained ears, to pick out the difference in a blind test.

 

[ricometa]

Vinyl will always be alive in the musik scene, the quality is so much better
even the little cracks make it sooo good =)

Vinyl will never DIE

 

[Not-That-Bright]

The audio quality is not better on vinyl at all. To test it put a cd with the sound effect pops etc of a record against a real vinyl - You won't be able to tell the difference.

 

[ricometa]

The audio quality is not better on vinyl at all. To test it put a cd with the sound effect pops etc of a record against a real vinyl - You won't be able to tell the difference.

that is not true, vinyl has better quality rhan cds.
if you have the right amps and speakers u can tell em apart

 

[Not-That-Bright]

that is not true, vinyl has better quality rhan cds.
if you have the right amps and speakers u can tell em apart

No you can't, you're wrong.

Read this thread: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=50848

 

[ricometa]

No you can't, you're wrong.

Read this thread: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=50848

meh cant b screwd to read all that, but VINYL FTW !!

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Honestly if you can't tell them apart it's nothing but the alure of being 'different' or something that makes you appreciate them more (perhaps a bit of nostalgia?)