Why CDs May Acutally Sound Better Than Vinyl

[shoodBworkin]

http://www.laweekly.com/music/why-cds-m ... yl-5352162

[88keys]

I purchased my first CD player in around 1983....almost coinciding with the release of the 12th self titled Genesis album. I already had the vinyl of it and loved the record so much, I bought the CD.
I had quite a good stereo system with a pair of rather large Sound Dynamics speakers in our apartment. Listening to music, entire albums right thru from beginning to end is what we did back then.
From that first moment when I played that Genesis album on CD, it was a complete revelation. From that moment on there was no going back. I systematically started to replace every LP I has in my collection.
My listening experience was untainted by any knowledge of sample rates, bit depth, etc...I had zero engineering knowledge at that time. It was just the pure pleasure of listening.

Bob Clearmountain....."I'd just listen and go: 'Jesus, after all that work, that's all I get?' It was sort of a percentage of what we did in the studio," he says. "All that work and trying to make everything sound so good, and the vinyl just wasn't as good."
and Bob Ludwig's, "But when he heard the final LP that was released, he was stunned. "All the low, extreme low bass that I knew was there, was chopped right off."

If you go back to some of those earlier releases on CD, the dynamics were still preserved. If you import Toto's "The Seventh One" into your DAW, you'll notice that the entire CD is well below 0dbFS ! But, it is VERY dynamic.

Excessive limiting, EQ'ing, sub-bass that was completely impossible on vinyl came later. Why ? Because you could ! There were no more limitations.

Because of this, some CD releases that came later started to really suffer imho. Not classical releases ! But, pop/rock/new country etc.... Some were quite literally un listenable. I ended up throwing out more than one CD. Some really good music that was squashed into the "candy bar" waveform that we all know so well now.

Good read. It's always good to reaffirm that when my music sounds like shit it isn't because of the medium !

[88keys]

These pics are pretty cool

[shoodBworkin]

Wow. Awesome!

[themichaelscott]

The title did it's job on this article. I never new anyone thought CD's were a step back in sound quality.

As a kid I got to grow up listening to my parents music on vinyl. I still own a record player but really only listen to older stuff on it. I love to dig through bins at used record stores in search of classics, but when my wife bought me Sublime and Dr. Dre records I never was able to get into them.

I think vinyl will always be around to some degree, but I don't think CD's stand a chance. All of my CD's are in a box in the closet and only come out when I want to find something obscure or from the local scene I grew up in.

Michael

[eric88]

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[mojobone]

The title did it's job on this article. I never knew anyone thought CD's were a step back in sound quality.

The fake media are obsessed with the 'vinyl resurgence' which is really just a bunch of hipsters re-discovering the experience of owning and caring for vinyl; it's not about sound quality at all. The sound matters, of course, but it's just a completely different way of interacting with music that's more tactile and involving. I think an element that a lot of folks gloss over is that vinyl demands active listening; you gotta listen past clicks, pops, scratches, tape hiss, surface noise, platter rumble, and if a truck goes by, the needle picks that up, too. I theenk all that draws folks into a closer relationship with our music; at least I hope so. For some, it's a just a status item with a fairly large piece of artwork included, a T-shirt you can listen to, only you don't, cuz you have an iPhone for that.

In terms of accurately reproducing music, a CD wins hands down and global physical sales are holding pretty steady.

[Len911]

Who the artist is and what system they are played on is probably more important than the medium, unless 8-track is one of those mediums,lol! I never knew anyone who had a record player, cassette deck, 8-track player in the same system that bought a record and also a cassette or 8-track. 8-track was terrible, the songs would fade down right in the middle of a song, click and then fade up where they left off, it's a wonder they sold any at all.

Vinyl also started out on the old tube and solid state transistor analog with large wooden cabinets, then to tube and solid state amps, while basically when cassettes came out many amps were transitioning to microchip. The first cd's were remarkable because they were clean, not a lot of noise and hiss, but the a/d, d/a converters weren't all that great then. When I was growing up, the difference was about having separate quality components versus a cheap all-in-one crap system. I would say the vinyl aficionados also probably have hi-fi gear they listen on. Vinyl is also more restrictive of how you mix and master, which maybe a good thing for listeners!

Another difference between digital and analog is dust, dirt, and wearing out. Analog will continue on,lol, and get more pops and crackles, and noises, but digital is either readable or it's not. No wow and flutter, no magnetized heads. I guess you can scratch a cd and cause it to skip.

A cd player with really good d/a converters, a really good transistor amp, and really good speakers, I take any day over a vinyl disk.

[davekropf]

Lol. None of this matters if all of our tracks end up being squashed through satellite/streaming feeds (Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music, DirecTV, etc.!

I teach my students all the time that you have to mix and master to the largest audience and if you're writing production tracks that are going to end up on TV, then you need to anticipate that it's going to be compressed to high-heaven by the time it makes air.

[DesireInspires]

CDs are cool, but I only listen to CDs in my car. All other music is through my phone or computer.